#dark bucky

except when you begin to ask him about the next steps on the project you assume you’re going to be working on, he tells you to relax. to sit and enjoy the beverage he’s given you.

he leans up against the front of his desk, crossing one of his legs over the other as he stands. he pushes his flesh hand into his pants pocket as his vibranium hand cradles his glass close to his chest. 

the weight of his gaze makes you feel wired, like your skin is crawling. 

“so,” he begins, staring down into his glass, “no boyfriend at home waiting for you?” 

the suddenness of his inquisition takes you aback for a moment, alongside the fact that it is incredibly inappropriate of him to be asking such a thing.  

“are you allowed to ask me that?” you joke, laughing anxiously as you do. you’re seated in one of the two plush chairs in front of his desk, your own legs crossed over one another as you sip your beverage. you want to look away from him, away from the way his slicked-back hair never falls out of place even as he moves. it’s gorgeous. 

“just being friendly,” he assures you, returning his gaze to yours and sipping his beverage without breaking eye contact. 

“Mr. Barnes–” you begin, but he interjects quickly. 

“Bucky.” 

his tone is forceful, as though he isn’t just requesting for you to call him by the nickname. his gaze is pointed directly at you as he says it, the intensity of his eyes only emphasizing the importance of you listening to his command. of following his order. 

you shake your head and your jaw falters, lips upturning into an apprehensive smile as he says it. you don’t dare look away. 

you shift in your seat, pulling at the hem of your skirt as he glares you down. 

“Bucky,” you repeat back to him. 

he nods. “good.” 

you blink. this is weird. you aren’t working, and the way he’s acting is out of character for the man you’ve gotten used to working for. 

“you didn’t answer my question,” he says, devoid of the demanding tone his voice held previously. 

you’ve always liked Bucky. he’s a good boss and a good man. he treats you well and pays even better; it helps that he’s one of the most beautiful men you’ve ever laid your eyes on. 

except something is off here. 

this isn’t like the Bucky you’ve come to know. 

“do I have to?” you ask, trying to maintain your upbeat and calm demeanor. acting as though the question was rhetorical should open the door to changing the subject, right? 

“yes, you do,” he affirms without hesitating. 

you swallow and take another sip of your drink before looking back up at him. 

“no. no boyfriend, why?” 

you try to stay calm, act like yourself. act like he isn’t trying to read your thoughts by looking into your eyes. 

he’s enhanced, can he actually do that? 

“do you like your job here?” he asks, looking around the office. “it’s a decent place to work, wouldn’t you say so?” 

you blink once. twice. you take a deep breath. 

“yes, I do. I really like working here,” you say, shifting in your seat and setting the glass on the floor next to the leg of the chair. “am I in trouble? are you letting me go?”

“no, no. of course not,” he clarifies, shaking his head no and setting down his own glass on the desk behind him. you watch as he crosses his arms in front of him. “you do good work for me. and you listen when I tell you what you’re supposed to do.”

your brow furrows in confusion. that seems like an odd thing to say to an employee. 

but of course, all of this has felt… off. 

it comes to be your turn to speak, the natural flow of conversation. he looks at you expectantly as you struggle to come up with a response and draw a blank. 

“do you wish to keep your job here?” he asks of you when you fail to respond. 

your whole body freezes. you’re stuck in place, held there by his heavy gaze as he watches for your reaction. what is this? what’s happening here? 

his entire face remains neutral, giving you no insight into what he’s feeling or what he’s thinking. his tone sounds like any normal question. 

but it can’t be. 

until his face cracks, until a smile breaks out on his face and he looks down at his feet with a chuckle. “you okay?” he asks you as he returns his eyes to meet yours. “your heart is racing like I’m about to fire you.” 

“are you?” you ask, unable to return the smile. you’re too confused, too concerned with trying to figure out what’s going on. 

“no. I don’t want to fire you,” he says, sounding as though he’s trying to reassure you. as though those words don’t hold much deeper meaning within the context of this conversation and how he’s acting right now. 

“I’m just wondering what it is that you’re willing to do to keep this job.” 

your voice is lost once more. your whole body is stuck, the itchiness of the chair no longer a thought in your head as you focus on the heavy weight inside your chest. it’s as though the force of gravity has somehow doubled, and you’re helpless against it, a force of nature not to be reckoned with. 

you can’t move. you can’t breathe. 

you hear him take a deep breath and sit down in the chair directly next to yours, each one tilted ever so slightly in the direction of its neighbor. his knee brushes yours as he sits, and then–

his vibranium hand comes to rest on your thigh. 

this can’t be happening. 

you’ve always liked him from afar, of course you have. admiring his beauty, picturing what he’d be like in bed, all of it coursed through your head on a regular basis. you couldn’t help it. 

but this isn’t right. 

“I’ve seen how you look at me, sweetheart.”

every dream you’ve ever imagined with him, of having this with him, suddenly sours. your mouth goes dry and your stomach broils with nausea as your leg burns under the cool touch of metal on your skin. 

“look at me,” he suddenly growls at you, his intonation rising in an aggressive manner unlike you’ve ever heard from him before. you obey, your eyes wildly darting up to his as they begin to grow warm.

“you said you really like working here, and I asked if you wished to keep your job here,” he repeats. his grip on your thigh never adjusts, never relents. he’s holding you down with nothing but a simple touch and a few words. 

trying to remove yourself from his grip feels like the wrong answer. 

you could move. you could say no. 

but this is Bucky Barnes, the former Winter Soldier. 

you never thought of him like that, as the man of his past, until now. with the way his eyes go grey as he looks at you… 

this modern version of him is capable of doing everything the old version was capable of and more. 

he asked if you wish to keep your job. 

it feels like he’s asking if you wish to keep your life.

“I do,” you pipe up, voice low and squeaky as it cracks. 

he takes another deep breath and settles into his chair further, as though a decision has been made. as though you’ve solidified your future as his assistant, solidified your future on this planet. 

you’re scared. you’re more scared than you’ve ever been, and all you can do is exactly as he says. 

“you listen when I tell you what you’re supposed to do,” plays out in your head on repeat. the threat sounded worse when he said it, but now?

you know for fact that this is about to happen. 

the fantasy you’d had of him holding your hips, slowly pushing into you, your first, all while praising you for taking him so well? 

the way you’d dreamt of him telling you he’ll make it so good for you, ensure you he’d be gentle, and make sure you weren’t in any pain?

the childlike dream you had of him wanting to make it perfect for you, complete with candlelight and flower petals and soft music playing in the background?

all those dreams are incinerated in less than a second with the way he looks at you, not with tenderness and love, but ownership and lust. your imagination took you to a lot of places with your boss. 

you never pictured it would be like this. 

you’re scared shitless. 

“are you going to do your job and do as I tell you?” he asks, monotone as he questions you. 

you know what he’s actually asking. 

every part of you is conflicted. you’ve always wanted him, but having him like this? like you’re not allowed to say no, or tell him you’re not ready? 

how the hell do you escape this?

you don’t.

the realization makes your stomach churn once more. you’re trapped, stuck in a situation that you don’t have any power to escape from. you have to do what he says, or else. 

“yes,” you whisper, your throat dry and your voice clearly reflecting your hesitance.

he doesn’t care. 

“stand up,” he orders you, removing his hand from your thigh and allowing you the space to do so. 

you pause. he doesn’t push, doesn’t reprimand you for not immediately obeying.

no, he wants you to think this through. to be fully aware of the choice you’re making. to think it through and make the choice anyway.

when you finally do, your feet are shaky. his vibranium hand comes to yours at your side as you stand from the chair, holding you gently, as though he’s doing it out of the goodness of his heart. as though he’s simply a comforting presence beside you, aiding you in your struggle to push yourself upright. 

with his grip on your hand, he draws you closer to him, guiding you to where he wants you: standing right in front of him. he maintains his grip on your hand for a short few moments as he looks you up and down, clearly deep in thought. 

your whole body shivers when his hands come to rest on your hips over your clothes. you want to close your eyes and hide from this, from what’s happening to you right now. except you know that doing so would likely only serve to piss him off. 

“you nervous, sweetheart?” he suddenly laughs, like a tease between friends. 

he knows what he’s doing, carefully and slowly tormenting you with each word he speaks. trying to confuse you with the consistent switch-up of his demeanor. 

before you can respond, he continues, “don’t be. I’ll take good care of you.” 

those words should be your salvation, should help to ease your anxiety in any variation of this situation. in your fantasies, you’d even imagined him saying it while petting your hair and kissing your brow. 

how fucking stupid you feel now. 

“please don’t make me do this,” you whisper, regrettably closing your eyes and shaking your head. your mouth spoke before you could stop yourself, and now you’re even more scared because of it. you’re concerned that he’s going to punish you somehow for it, hurt you for it. 

why couldn’t you just shut up, go along with whatever he wanted, do as he said? 

he can kill you without trying, and now you’ve just given him a reason to. 

you’re fucked, you think, until you hear him chuckle again. you listen, your body shaking, as he laughs at your plea for him to spare you. 

“come on, sit down, sweetie,” he encourages, still laughing. 

you gulp. 

it could be worse, you tell yourself as you let him move you into a straddling position on his lap. he could have–

his vibranium hand comes to your jaw then, digging into your cheeks so deep it causes you to cry out in pain. you force your eyes to open before he can reprimand you for letting them close.

“don’t you ever question me ever again, you hear me?” he grits, his tone biting. the pain in your face stings and burns all at once, and it’s all you can do to bite down on your lip and not scream out again. 

his eyes are black and narrowed at you unlike you’ve ever seen them. 

if you thought you were scared before, that was nothing compared to now. he can inflict insurmountable pain on you without even trying, and that’s exactly what he’s doing: reminding you. that he’s the one in control, and your life is in his hands. 

the only way you come out of this alive is by obeying. 

“yes, I’m sorry,” you do your best to whisper, holding back your cries. your eyes begin to tear up with each passing second he holds you there, deliberately hurting you to teach you a lesson. 

the second he finally lets go of your jaw is a relief, your whole body relaxing as the worst of the pain eases. 

“crying?” he whispers, his soft persona revealing itself once more. he brings a flesh thumb to wipe your tears from your face as they fall. “don’t worry. I’ll really make you cry, if that’s what you want.” 

your mind screams no, no, no, when he says that to you. you don’t want him to hurt you any more than he already has. if he thinks that was nothing, just a taste of what he could do to you, then what does worse look like?

you don’t say a single word in response, instead focusing on catching your breath and composing yourself. 

you realize, then, that your knees are spread over his thighs and you’re sitting just above where he’s clearly hard underneath the fabric of his pants. your hands must have twisted themselves in the fabric of his shirt when he grabbed you. 

you look at him, at the pretty face that stares back at you as your mind whirs, deliberating how this is about to go. 

“yeah, I can do that,” he says softly like he’s going out of his way for you. like he’s doing something nice for you, simply a good samaritan who seeks to help you out. 

you want to scream for anyone in the building to come help you, or to beg him to show you mercy. to not do this, whatever it is he’s about to do to you. 

your tears only fall harder as you keep your mouth closed, letting him remove you from his lap and standing the both of you from the chair. his hands hold your waist tightly, and he towers over you, staring down at your teary face.  

your eyes find his again. 

the look on his face is pitiful, like you’re something sorry and pathetic under his gaze. 

you feel idiotic for thinking he was different from every other man on the planet. for thinking he was better, that he would actually care about you. 

he is different. 

he’s so much worse. 

he walks you backwards, and you trip over your heels as they catch on the fabric of his carpet underfoot. he doesn’t care, too focused on what he’s doing that he just keeps walking, his grip on you strong enough that it keeps you from falling flat onto your ass. 

once your lower back hits the edge of his desk, he quickly spins you around until you’re facing towards it. you barely have enough time to brace your hands on the surface before he’s shoving you down, your chest meeting the wood below. you do your best to grit your teeth and keep from whining as he holds you there, unable to move an inch. you turn your head to the side as you try to look behind you to see what he’s doing.

you can’t do anything but watch as he begins to unzip your skirt and pulls it away from the curve of your body where you’re bent over the desk, proceeding to then shove your shirt upwards and out of the way of his view of your ass. 

you’re well and truly panicking now. you think you know what he’s about to do, but you can’t be sure–he’s unpredictable, and your mind is all over the place as you scramble for answers in your head. 

once again, you question yourself about how you can get out of this. 

amongst the frenzy of thoughts within your mind, you speak up, one last-ditch attempt to sway him. 

“I’m a virgin, Bucky, please,” you whimper, still watching him as best you can from your position on the desk. 

he stops moving entirely, and you breathe a sigh of relief. it’s going to work. 

“you serious?” he asks in disbelief, but still not yet letting you go. 

“yes, please–”

without warning, his flesh hand comes down on your ass, hard, and you cry out into the room due to the searing pain. 

“that just means you’re going to cry so much prettier for me,” he says, tone still feigning pity. you can barely hear it with the blood rushing in your ears. “that’s what you wanted, right? for me to make you cry?” 

“no, please, no,” you whine out. 

that was a mistake. 

his hand comes down on you again, even harder this time, if at all possible. the sting is worse than you ever could have imagined it would be; you’re once again in tears, screaming as he continues to lay one smack after another on your backside, up and down your thighs, all while you’re forced to just lay there and take it. 

when he eventually stops, your cries are all that’s left, the sound of his hand colliding with your skin no longer veiling the sound of your sniffles and the sobs that wrack through your body. 

exactly what he wanted. 

“come here,” he whispers, gently pulling you away from the desk, to your feet, and turning your body so you’re face to face with him. you’re a mess of snot and tears all over, but you don’t dare make to wipe your face for fear of his cruel response to your disobedience. 

“you look so pretty like this, sweetheart,” he tells you, bringing both of his hands to shrug your hair behind your shoulders, giving him a clearer view of your heated face. his eyes roam over the sight of you in front of him as you continue to struggle to calm your sobs and catch your breath. 

he speaks again after a few moments of just observing you as such. “you know what you say when I tell you to do something?” 

you sniffle once more before responding, your voice hoarse, “yes, Mr. Barnes.” 

he tuts and corrects you. “I told you to call me Bucky, sweetheart.” 

you nod without hesitating this time, repeating back to him, “yes, Bucky.” 

your voice isn’t your own, what with how you can’t believe that you’re speaking to him in this manner, in this situation. he’s reduced you to a drooling mess with a firm hand, by dangling your job and your life in front of your hands. 

your only option is yes.

you flinch when he leans in and presses a gentle kiss to your forehead. “good girl,” he says, ignoring the way you recoil as he comes closer. 

you should let it go, focus more on what’s next rather than what’s already happened. is he mad at you and simply pretending not to be? is he going to hit you again? is this exactly what he wants, for you to cower in fear every time he approaches you, an open declaration of your submission to him? 

how the hell have you even ended up in this situation?

you trusted him. imagined a life with him, one where he cherished you and did everything in his power to protect you. 

“I want you to do something for me,” he says, trailing his fingers down the side of your face, down your jaw where it’s still sore from his earlier treatment. “I want you to go sit in my chair, behind my desk. can you do that, sweetie?” 

the words are automatic, a fear response that you’re sure he’s going to drill into your head. 

“yes, Bucky.”

he hums in approval and watches as your feet take you around the desk and to his chair. you hiss as you sit down, your entire rear sore and the irritation of your skin aggravated at the contact. 

you glance up at him apprehensively, waiting for whatever it is he plans on doing next. 

next. 

you have no clue how long he’s going to keep you here, doing whatever he pleases with your body, no matter how it makes you feel. you doubt you could even drive yourself home in this state. worse even, you know he’s nowhere near done with you yet. will you be expected to come to work tomorrow? is he going to let you keep your job, even after promising that this is how you save it? 

he could still kill you after all this is said and done, if he wanted to. if he worried you wouldn’t keep your mouth shut. 

everything he promised, as long as you did what he said, could have been a lie to force you into doing what he wanted. all of it can be so easily taken away if he changes his mind just because he feels like it.

you begin to wonder, did he ever actually promise you that you’d be safe after all this? that your job would be safe, anything?

or did you take his words out of context, twist them in your mind to try and make yourself feel better about what’s happening? 

is any of this even real? 

he steps around the desk after a few moments, leaning over you as you sit in the chair and bracing his vibranium hand on the armrest. his face is so close to yours; before all this, being this close to him would’ve made you feel giddy, excited. 

now, you just feel terrified at the proximity. 

you get distracted and avert your gaze downwards when his flesh fingers find their way between your bare thighs, pressed together where you’re seated. 

“spread your legs for me, doll,” he whispers, his own gaze falling to where his hand touches your skin. 

it takes you a moment to adjust, uncomfortable and pained as everything below your waist just hurts. 

“that’s it,” he mumbles, reaching his fingers to the hem of your underwear. you expect him to ask you to lift your hips, to adjust your positioning once more so he can remove them. 

you’re stunned as he simply rips them from your skin, and you let out a small gasp of shock at the motion. 

he chuckles again, and your face heats. he’s laughing at you, isn’t he? 

your face is still itchy and uncomfortable from your crying, and your eyes are once again threatening tears. you’re humiliated, debasing yourself just because he says so. 

he’s laughing at you because you’re laughable, because you deserve it. 

his fingers reach between your thighs, now parted for him, and his eyes glance back up to your face to watch your reaction as he dips them to where you’re wettest. 

“yeah, look at you,” he taunts. “you’re all soaked for me. you like getting spanked, don’t you?”

you don’t know if it’s worse to agree, to scream out no, or stay quiet altogether. 

you elect to keep your mouth shut. 

he begins stroking you more deliberately, watching the way you hold your breath to withhold yourself from giving him a reaction. 

except he’s going to pull it from you, one way or another. 

he’s impatient, and without warning, he quickly begins to press two fingers up inside you. his hands are far bigger than your own, and the stretch is too much too quickly. 

“Bucky,” you whine out, a few more tears falling. the way he’s touching you hurts, making you take it rather than giving it freely as you used to imagine he would. your hands instinctively reach to grip his forearm between your bodies, holding on tightly. 

“you mean it when you said you were a virgin?” he asks, smirking to himself. 

“yes,” you whimper, sharply inhaling as he presses his fingers further inside when you speak. he leans in closer, his lips brushing up against your ear as he asks his next question. 

“you think you’re gonna bleed real pretty all over my cock?” 

you’re helpless to the way you moan out when he asks you that, the way you involuntarily clench around his fingers as they’re buried inside you. your fingers dig further into the flesh of his arm where you hold onto him. 

“that’s what I think, too,” he mumbles, pressing a kiss to the side of your head before pulling back entirely. he stands up straight in front of you and removes his hand from between your legs, out of your grasp. 

once again, he takes a moment to simply observe you, a wreck. at his mercy. 

vibranium fingers tangle in your hair, pulling your head backwards as his other hand comes to your mouth. 

“clean up your mess,” he says, pressing his two wet fingers into your mouth, forcing you to taste yourself on his skin. 

you diligently suck his fingers clean, trying your best to follow his orders so you can avoid whatever other painful ideas he has in his sick mind. 

“what do you say when I tell you to do something?” he questions of you for the second time tonight. you begin to pull away from him to respond, but his hand in your hair tightens to hold you in place. “no. just like this.” 

you blink your tears back and try to respond, “yes, Bucky,” with his fingers still in your mouth. 

“what was that? I didn’t hear you,” he taunts you, feigning complete obliviousness. 

you shut your eyes in your embarrassment and do it again, the words once again lost as he muffles your ability to speak. 

“with your eyes open this time,” he instructs, still smirking. 

if you thought you were humiliated before, you’re well and truly stripped of all your dignity now. 

you think he’s finally pleased with you when he laughs after your third attempt at speaking, once again inevitably failing at doing so. 

just another humiliation to reduce you to nothing at his will.

when he relieves you of your misery and withdraws his fingers from between your lips, you take a few deep breaths and force yourself to refrain from letting your tears fall. 

“bend over the desk,” he tells you, not bothering to give you a moment to compose yourself. 

on shaky legs, you push yourself up from the chair, reaching for the edge of the desk to steady yourself. you turn towards it, bending over and bracing your hands on the surface of it in order to hold yourself up. 

you feel his hips press into your ass as he steps up behind you. you already know that he’s observing you, analyzing every inch of your body beneath him. you’re a prisoner to the way he just watches you. 

each of his hands find your wrists where you’ve placed all your weight on them to steady yourself. he yanks your arms out from under you, making you fall forward, and your body crashes against the desk. the motion is so quick it startles you, and you let out a high-pitched yelp when your chest collides with the keyboard underneath you.

“that’s better,” he says, stacking your forearms on top of one another behind your back. you don’t dare move them when his hands release you, both of them coming to grab at the flesh of your ass. 

except it hurts, and you’re sure your entire rear is going to be bruised for at least a week with the shape of his fingers imprinted on your skin. you wince as he roughly grabs at your skin, making you relive the pain he’d inflicted on you earlier. 

you feel the weight of his body press against yours as he leans over you, drawing your hair out of the way with his flesh hand and turning your chin in his direction to speak to you. 

“did you imagine it like this?” he whispers into your ear. 

you immediately let out a sob, shutting your eyes and berating yourself for ever thinking that this man was the one worthy of being your first and your only.

“I’m sure you did. I mean, having a crush on your boss? this seems like the kind of thing you’d imagine, letting me use you in my office.” 

you grit your teeth and growl in anger. you can’t say anything, so you don’t. you’ll never admit anything to him. not now, not like this. 

until he makes you, one way or another.

you shiver again at the prospect. 

his hand falls from your jaw only to slap the back of your thigh once more, and just as before, you can’t stop yourself from screaming out. 

“yes, Bucky!” you cry, tears falling freely. 

he seems pleased with your response as he stands up straight behind you, pushing the back of your head downwads until your forehead touches the wood surface top of the desk below. 

“yeah, of course you want it like this. always the fuckin’ innocent ones,” he says, more so to himself than to you. 

you hate the way he kicks your feet apart, spreading your legs to give him full access to absolutely ruin you. 

you silently sob even harder when you hear his fingers unbuckling his belt, unzipping his pants behind you. 

if he was a better man, maybe he’d stand here and take his time to open you up for him, show just a little bit of mercy to make this easier for you. he’d use his fingers to stretch you out to prevent you from feeling some of the sheer pain he’s about to inflict on you. 

he isn’t a better man. 

besides, what’s the point if you’re not screaming and crying for him? 

as he steps forward and notches himself against your entrance, your panic well and truly sets in. you can’t see anything, and you’re not going to dare move your head to try and look back at him. you can already tell he’s massive, and he’s most definitely going to split you in half. 

he places his vibranium hand on your lower back and his other comes to your hip, holding you firmly in place where he wants you. holding you tightly so you can’t get away from this, from him. 

he’s barely pressing in before you start begging again. 

“Bucky, please don’t do this,” you cry. “I’ll stay quiet, I won’t tell anyone, please. just let me go, please…” 

your tears fall softly onto the desk as your entire body shakes in fear. he stills his motions just long enough to listen to your pleading. 

“I know you won’t tell anyone,” he affirms, tone mocking, pitying you once more. “I have no doubt that you’ll keep your pretty little mouth shut.” 

and then he’s pushing in roughly, quickly, holding you down so you just have to take it. 

if anyone else was still in the building, they’d hear the way you scream out in pain. the way your voice reaches the top of your lungs until you can’t breathe anymore, the way you beg Bucky to stop what he’s doing. to let you go, to stop hurting you. 

no one else can hear you except him. no one is coming to save you from this torture. 

“fuck, you’re so tight, virgin,” he hisses, using the word against you like it’s an insult. you feel it bite at you, stabbing you in the chest that he’s taking this from you without any concern for you. 

he doesn’t take any time at all pressing himself fully inside you, his hips flush against yours, pinning you to the desk. 

he withdraws, and he pauses for half a second to speak: 

“told you you’d bleed real pretty.” 

and then he shoves in again, once again making you lose control of your voice. 

the way he begins fucking you is ruthless. every thrust feels like another punishment, another cruel reminder that your body is his to do with as he pleases. you plead with him relentlessly, your voice crying out “please” and “Bucky” over and over again.

every word you speak falls on deaf ears, the man behind you far too concerned with taking what he wants to spare you even a moment of his attention. 

isn’t this him giving you his attention? what with the way he touches you, uses you? 

isn’t this the equivalent of everything you’d always wanted: his attention? 

you’re paralyzed under him, berating yourself repeatedly for ever dreaming of this moment. for thinking it would be pleasant, enjoyable, memorable.

this will most certainly be memorable. just not in a way you ever fathomed possible.

when he begins to falter behind you, his movements becoming erratic and uncoordinated, you’re reminded of a harsh truth that’s only just now crashing down on you.

“Bucky, I’m not safe. please, you have to pull out,” you beg of him. 

you know he hears you. you know he’s not so stupid as to ignore what you’re telling him, that there’s bigger things in play here than just the fact that he’s fucking you against your will.

you know he knows better than this. 

“don’t care,” he grits, and you whine in shock as you feel him bury himself to the hilt inside you once last time, accompanied by a warmth settling in your stomach. 

he didn’t. 

no, he can’t do this to you.

it’s not enough for him to weaponize everything he has against you, for him to physically force you into giving him what he wants? it’s not enough for him to repeatedly hurt you and make you cry for his own sick satisfaction? 

his hands reach for you, dragging your torso up and away from the desk until you’re leaning back against him. 

“should keep you here like this until it sticks,” he threatens, and you wince again. he’s still so deep inside you, pressing up against spots you didn’t know existed. 

he looks over your shoulder to see your tear-stained face, to admire the way he’s utterly wrecked you. 

of course that’s not enough for him. 

he finally pulls out of your wet and abused hole, and your whole body goes slack in his grip. he turns you until you’re facing him and he lays you back down on the desk, the keyboard far more painful under your back than it was under your chest. 

he pushes your legs up towards your torso until your knees are level with your face, taking your hands in his and making you hold your legs in place. spread and in position for whatever cruel treatment he’s about to give you now. 

your eyes fall shut as you just lay there and await whatever abuse comes next. 

“smile for the camera, sweetie,” he tells you, and your eyes shoot open immediately, just in time to watch him take the picture of you on his desk, face red and gross, his release spilling out from between your thighs. 

there’s proof of this now. real evidence that this moment happened, that he defiled you like this. 

you might puke. 

he slaps your cunt, dripping and on display, just hard enough to make you squirm. 

“what do you say?” he mocks, hovering over you and looking into your eyes. 

you want to cry again. 

“say, ‘thank you, Bucky.’” 

you’re so exhausted and in so much pain, the idea of doing so feels like yet another slap. another slight to your ego, clawing away at whatever dignity you think you have left. 

with every ounce of strength you have left in your body, you force yourself to say it. give him what he wants and pray he’ll go easy on you. 

“good girl. I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow, okay? we’ve got a lot of work to do before the hearing next week.” 

and he walks away, leaving you alone and dripping on his desk.

you still have your job, and you still have your life. 

except you’ll never escape him now. he owns you, and you know he’ll do whatever he has to in order to silence and keep you. 

maybe death would’ve been a more merciful fate. 

~~~

"you really don't have to, buck," your dad tells mr. barnes over the phone. "it's no trouble at all. i can get her some cab fare." a pause. "are you sure? alright, if it's not too much trouble."

that's how you find yourself alone with bucky barnes for the first time in a long time.

"thanks for still picking me up, mr. barnes." you say, placing your backpack in the backseat as you slide into the passenger seat that he has open for you.

he gives you a stern look, one that has your heart fluttering. "what did i say about calling me mr. barnes?"

"that it makes you feel old," you respond with heat flooding your cheeks. "sorry, bucky."

a smile stretches across his handsome face, lips surrounded by his neatly trimmed scruff. "that's more like it. now hop in."

the route home is familiar. it's unfortunate that you live so far away from campus but you find the drive home somewhat relaxing after a long day.

"want some water?" bucky grabs a bottle and hands it over to you.

"oh, thank you." the bottle untwists a little too easily but you don't find it in you to question it. not when you tip the mouth back against your lips, not when you let the cool water slide down your throat.

you only, finally question it when you're blinking bleary-eyed. the view in front of you is still a little blurry and you try to blink a few more times in the hopes that it clears your vision. however, the unfamiliar dirt path in front of you is the least of your concerns. it's more so the unfamiliar touch on your body.

on your naked breasts.

yelping, your hands fly up to slap the hand away from you. you whip around to the side, alarmingly awake now, to find bucky smiling at you. "guess i didn't put enough in there."

"b-bucky? what's going on? where are we?" your heart rate is skyrocketing to an alarming pace as your eyes dart around the deserted road outside. "why am i—" your words choke out in your throat as your arms wrap around yourself. "why am i naked?"

"oh come on, kid. i come get you when becca's not around and you're dressed in this tiny little skirt and a tight blouse. quit pretending like you're not dressing like every old man's wet dream."

"i'm n-not. this is just— it's a normal outfit."

bucky laughs again. all the warmth is gone. it sounds bitter, disbelief laced into the rhythm of his breath. "i see the way you look at me you know. when you think becca's not looking. biting your lip like you want a taste of me."

"i don't!" you immediately protest, panic clawing at your chest. "please, bucky, i won't say anything. just take me home. please."

"'course you won't say anything. why would you? you got nothin' to say, right?"

your heart sinks to your stomach. "what do you want from me?"

bucky reaches over, strong fingers prying your limbs away from you. his hand gropes your tit again, giving it a good squeeze and your nipple a pinch until you wince. you hate how you feel it between your legs, liquid heat pooling in your panties.

but he doesn't need to know that. he doesn't need to know that you're both terrified and aroused, every nerve inside of you lighting up a million watts as he continues to grab your breast like it belongs to him.

"i couldn't do this with becca around, you know. been thinking about feeling up these tits for a long time. especially in the summer when you've practically got them spilling out."

"bucky—"

"so fucking sweet. always knew they'd feel so good, knew they'd fit so perfectly in my hand."

"please just take me home," you whisper.

"don't think so. i think i'm going to take my time with you."

"and if my dad finds out?" it's a different tactic. he can't make you do anything you don't want to do, not if you tell your dad. and he certainly can't just kill you and make you disappear, it would be too suspicious.

bucky smirks. a little too confidently for your liking. "your dad's not going to find out."

"i'll tell him."

"no, you won't."

your heartbeat falters again. "why not?"

"because then you don't want me showing him this, do you?"

he turns his phone around. it's text messages. between you and bucky. texts you never sent. attached to that text message is a picture. you with your shirt unbuttoned, tits out of your bra, legs spread, skirts bunched up to your waist to give a peek of your panties.

it's the exact thing you're wearing today.

it's a picture made to look like you're sending nudes to your best friend's father.

nausea twists your insides at the sight of it. you immediately lunge for it but bucky moves faster. "ah-ah, you don't want me showing this to your dad, do you? his perfect little girl sending pictures of her tits to a man more than twice her age?"

"please. i never sent those!"

"who would believe you, sweetheart?"

he's not wrong. bucky's an upright man. a good citizen. he came back from the war, lost a limb and still powered through. now he has a metal prosthetic arm and he works for one of the best law firms in town. he has the entire town eating out of his hands.

and you — you're just the kid next door who everyone knows has been starry-eyed for him for as long as anyone can remember.

it's then that you realize— "you put something in the water."

"just a little bit. didn't think you'd wake up so soon, but i think i'll enjoy this more seeing you awake."

"you're sick."

"you like it."

your chest squeezes, face paling.

"you think i don't see you pressing your legs together? like you're hiding how wet you are down there? sweetheart, i can fucking smell you. always leaking when you're around me. pussy's drooling, begging for me to touch it."

"i'm— it's not," you deny weakly.

bucky reaches over and cups you between your legs, swift and unexpected. you squeal and try to push him away but he's much stronger than you. his index finger rubs at the damp spot in your cotton panties, thick fabric soaking through with how much you want this.

"panties are drenched," he comments easily. "so wet i could probably rip the fabric if i just pushed a little bit." as he says this, he digs his fingers into your clothed slit. a shudder wracks through you as your thighs close in around his hand. "keep your legs open, sweetheart."

a whimper rises in your throat. "bucky, please."

"come on," he coos, "keep those pretty legs open for me. didn't you wear a skirt today to make it easier for me to touch you? weren't you expecting me to put my hand on your thigh and finger you while i drive? we can do that from now on."

"how—" the half-question slips out before you can think it through, your desire clouding your judgment. your teeth sink into your bottom lip but bucky's caught it.

his lips tip up in a smirk. "put some of what i gave you into becca's water before she goes into the car. i'll have you in the front seat, play with this pretty pussy while my daughter — your best friend — is drugged up in the backseat. none the wiser to my fingers sliding inside this wet cunt."

the thought drags a moan from your chest. "n-no, that would be wrong."

"but you'd like it, wouldn't you? c'mere." bucky cups your jaw and slants his lips over yours. he tastes like mint and earth. his cologne invades your senses and you can't tell if it's the drugs still partially in your system or your actual libido climbing that's making you groan into his lips.

he drinks in every needy sound that leaves your mouth, chasing them down with his tongue that laves against yours.

"so fucking sweet," bucky growls, "i always knew you'd be the perfect slut for me. you don't want any of those college boys. you wanted an old man touching you between these pretty legs. you wanted a perverted old man groping your perfect young tits, didn't you?"

"b-buck, please."

"you ever imagine your dad touching you like this?"

your body jolts with his words, the thought sending electricity straight through your core.

"ah, fuck, you're such a whore," bucky groans, "even better than i imagined. never thought you'd be a slut for your dad too but i can share, sweetheart. i'll let him have a taste of you too if that's what you want."

"no. no, i don't want that."

bucky ignores you. "in the meantime, you can call me dad instead. imagine i'm your real one. touching my daughter like this."

an expletive forms on your tongue, before a question that you're almost too scared to ask falls from your lips. "do you think about touching becca like this?"

bucky hisses from between his teeth. "fuck. all the time. i think about the two of you together. imagine you two have touched each other before, experimented what it's like to be with another girl. i imagine the two of you on your knees, worshipping my cock. making out around the tip until i'm cumming all over your faces."

he's not wrong. you've kissed becca before. you've touched each other before. in fact, you've done it in her bedroom when her dad's just down the hall.

"we'll get her used to this, baby. don't worry. i'll even let your dad have a taste of my little girl, as long as he lets me keep fucking his."

you moan as bucky finally slides his fingers beneath your panties, pushing a finger into your tight little hole. he grunts when he feels you clamp down around him, vice grip around his fingers like you're begging for him to keep you plugged up.

"come on. you can call me dad, baby. call me dad while i finger your pretty pussy, hm?"

a shake of your head is all you can manage through the tightness in your chest. it's all so wrong. you shouldn't be doing this. you shouldn't even be thinking about all the ill things bucky has planned.

but you can't help the groan that climbs up your throat when bucky drags his fingers in. and out. in and out again. the friction is mind-numbing, you almost forget who you're with. where you are. what he's done to you.

"baby, i need you to use your words for me. tell me what you want me to do."

"bucky," you whine.

"stop acting out. be a good girl for me."

you hesitate for a fraction too long and bucky's slowing down his movements. painfully so. another plea sits on the tip of your tongue but bucky shakes his head.

"not until you ask dad exactly what you want."

your cunt squeezes around his fingers. he feels it.

swallowing your embarrassment, you shift your gaze away from him as you say, "dad, please finger me."

"finger you where, baby?"

"m-my pussy."

bucky groans and deliberately begins his slow, long strokes again. "that's right, sweetheart. dad's got you. your real dad's probably picturing how fucking tight his daughter's cunt is too. he can try it soon. once i train this pussy to the shape of my cock, my fingers, my tongue. then he can try it."

his name rolls off your tongue again in a breathless whimper.

"take my cock out, honey. want you to stroke this old man's cock while i get you off. can you do that for me?"

you barely manage a nod through the noise in your mind as your quivering fingers reach over towards him. he slides a little lower to ease your access, allowing your delicate fingers to drag down the zipper of his slacks.

"that's right," bucky grunts, "just like that. reach in and take my cock out."

and you do and you feel the thick length that you can barely wrap your fingers around as you tug it free from his pants. his cock bounces against his belly with an angry red tip. pearls leak from the head and your tongue itches to have a taste.

bucky seems to notice and he smiles. "do you want to try it? want a taste of your best friend's dad's cock?"

"mmm, mr. barnes, please," you let slip.

"fuck, maybe i like the sound of that more than you calling me bucky. makes me feel like an older man who shouldn't be doing this with you. and you shouldn't be enjoying this as much as you are, especially not after i drugged you up and took your nudes."

you shouldn't. he's right. he's always right. but you can't help yourself — not when you're already this far gone.

bucky yanks his fingers out of your pussy and sticks them in his mouth, licking your juices clean from the digits. the sight is erotic, seeing how much you've soaked his fingers and how much he seems to enjoy the flavor of you.

"w-what are you going to do with them?" you ask warily, but with a thrum of anticipation in the air.

"your pictures?" bucky cocks an eyebrow and you slowly nod. his lips quirk up. "what do you think, baby? i'm gonna jerk off to them, every night. gonna cum all over my phone screen looking at those pretty tits. gonna make you send me more so i have more material when i'm all alone at home. well — alone with becca. but she doesn't need to know."

the mental image of bucky cumming all over his phone, your picture pulled up like he's painting your tits has you whimpering. he smiles as he slides his arm around your shoulders, dragging down to your waist before grabbing a handful of your ass, skirt lifted around his wrist.

"suck my cock, sweetheart. come on. i'll teach you how to make me feel good and we can keep doing this over and over again."

you lean closer and dip your head, curiosity getting the better of you as your tongue darts out to lick up that drop of precum on his tip. it's salty and a little bitter but you find yourself enjoying it when bucky rumbles out a delicious groan.

your head lowers as you take him into your mouth, your lips barely being able to stretch around his girth as you do so. the tip touches the back of your throat and you let out a little choke.

before you can bring yourself back up, bucky uses his free hand to push your head further until you're gagging around his length. your protests are garbled when bucky wraps his fingers in your hair and begins to move you up and down his length.

like a fleshlight. like his own personal toy to pleasure him.

you whine around his cock as bucky grouses delicious words that have you squeezing your legs again. "just like that, baby. fuck, your mouth pussy is perfect. so tight and wet and hot for me. more saliva, i want you drooling all over my cock like the slut you are. you like the taste of me? cleaned up just for you knowing i was gonna do this with you today. whether you wanted it or not, i was going to have you choking on my cock."

his hand on your ass slides down a little bit further until he's tugging your panties to the side and pushing his fingers back in. you moan around his cock, the vibrations making him twitch in your mouth.

"fuck. you're tight everywhere. don't even care if you're a virgin or not. you feel like one. i'm gonna have you dripping and bleeding all over my cock, sweetheart."

"please," you try to say but the words are buried around his cock.

bucky keeps pushing you up and down on his cock, letting him sink into your mouth over again until you are slobbering all over him. he begins to even rut his hips up as he does so, fucking up into your throat eagerly.

all the while, his fingers haven't left your cunt and continues to toy with your pussy lips, sliding his fingertips along your slick folds, rubbing your clit until you're squirming on his hand.

he's too good at this. you want to blame it on the drugs, on the fact that you're barely lucid, but you are. you're fully aware of what you're doing. of what you're enjoying. your pussy keeps pulsing around his fingers, picturing how much better it would feel for him to stretch you out.

"'m gonna cum, baby. need you to cum first. want you to make that seat all messy. i want to smell you in my car. when becca comes back to school, i want her to know that you've been dripping all over these seats like a fucking whore. she's gonna know how good her dad treats her best friend."

you continue gagging around his cock, tears leaking from your eyes as the pleasure coils tight inside your stomach. it's all too much. your chest constricts as you feel that desire peaking, your cunt squeezing one last time before you've got a second heartbeat around his fingers.

the fall from the high is delicious and dizzying. you moan as your pussy convulses through every second of your orgasm, wrapping around his digits before loosening again. a few seconds at a time.

you're spent as you ride out that high. not once in your life have you ever cum that hard and you do so with your best friend's dad's fingers buried in your pussy and your mouth wrapped around his cock.

bucky fists your hair and pulls you off him again. "open your mouth, baby. come on."

your brain can't seem to find a response so all you do is slacken your jaw, letting your mouth fall open for him.

"tongue out."

you do as you're told and bucky angles his hips in such a way that his cock shoots out cum directly onto your tongue. globs of white landing on your tongue. some of it sprays out onto your cheek, on your chin, even your tits.

"perfect girl," bucky utters over and over again. "so perfect for me."

your breath hitches as you close your mouth and swallow. bucky watches your throat move in sick fascination before his lips curl into a proud smile.

it's terrifying how quickly your heart melts at the sight. like you're pleased to have made him proud.

"now, what do you say?"

"thank you," you mutter shyly. bucky raises an eyebrow and your cheeks warm again. "thank you, dad."

"good girl. now, you’re gonna tell your mom that you wanted to stop by the library and that’s why we took so long. and we can do this all over again tomorrow."

a/n: there was this incessant itch in my brain to write this so i wrote it. i took far too much pleasure in writing it so i hope you like it too 💛 if you enjoyed this, please like/reblog/comment. kisses!

"Babydoll"

You smiled hearing your husband enter your shared bedroom as you got out of the shower, wrapping a fluffy towel around yourself before going to greet him. He sat at the edge of the bed with a knowing smirk, shamelessly eyeing you up and down like he always did, your cheeks heating up under his watchful stare. You loved how much he adored you. He strode over, humming at the scent of your body wash, his nose trailing up the column of your neck, pressing soft kisses to your skin, his hands wandering to the edge of your towel.

"Miss me, baby?" He pulled it off, letting it pool to the floor leaving you bare before him, picking you up and laying on on the mattress, you were so perfect, pliant, he could already smell your arousal, your nipples pebbled against the cold air begging for his warm mouth.

"moy kotenok" He purred, nipping at your earlobe, your brows knitting in confusion, he never spoke Russian to you, only his brother-

“James?” You squeak, your heart starting to beat rapidly, blood running cold. This wasn’t your husband. You tried to scramble away, cover yourself but he grabbed your wrists in his hand, pinning them above your head. You then noticed the dark ink that peekd beneath his shirt, his telltale silver chain slipping out and dangling above your face. Your husband only wore his wedding ring, you tried so hard, unable to move his heavy body off you.

"Bucky-Bucky get off, what are you doing-

"Taking what should be mine, kotenok, showing you what being loved by a real man is like" He crawled off you, thighs spread wide kneeling in front of you. "He doesn't know what you deserve printsessa"

He shoved your legs apart, holding them from squirming, your twitching pearl amusing him. "S'been long, hasn't it, you say you don't want me but that swollen button says otherwise, what if I-"

He spits onto your clit making you cry out, a rough calloused thumb coming down to flick it to his hearts content. Your body jolted at the sensation, it was wrong, so wrong, God it had been so fucking long...

No.

"Bucky st-stop" You hiccupped as he moved faster, he could see your slick dampening the sheets, his idiot brother didn't know what he was missing.

"Why would I do that, hm? Look at how your body responds to me, you want this. Gonna get you so pregnant, bunny” Bucky smirked, giving his thick bulge a squeeze, making a show of shamelessly palming his erection. “Y’wouldnt even know who the daddy is”

He doesn't waste a second pulling his cock out, grinning at the way your cunt welcomes him home despite your futile protests. You scratch at him between moans of pleasure, your legs wrapping around his tapered waist. He pounds into you with purpose, he wants his child in your belly, he couldn't wait to see his brother dote on you not knowing any better.

He got harder thinking about your breasts leaking with milk as you got bigger, milk to feed his baby, milk to feed him. He'd find a way.

"Gonna put my child in you printsessa, give you my baby, show you where a man puts his cum, you'll take it won't you bunny, such a good housewife"

"No-No you-you can't oh God!" Your body shudders as pleasure and guilt washes over you, clinging onto him for dear life as he fucks you through your orgasm.

"That's right, cum for me, he can't make you cum like I can, don't think I haven't heard you with him, look at you, just a slutty little mess, you smell of sex kitten"

He intends on making the biggest mess in your pussy, needing it to drip onto the sheets you sleep in. You'd stay wrapped up in his essence while it leaked out of you, his sperm exactly where it needed to be, right in your belly-

"Get ready kitten, get ready to take it, fuck-squeezing me so good, tell me you want it, I know you do, m'gonna cum so hard for you princess, just for you, all this-fuck-do you feel it, s'all for you, SHIITTT" He roared, pumping you with the stutter of his hips, the headboard slamming against the wall as he emptied himself, shamelessly moaning into your neck.

The worst part of it all was that you couldn't find a flaw. Not one significant enough to snap you back to reality, to make you start thinking critically about the peculiar situation you had thrown yourself headfirst into.

Bucky was perfect, just as this new reality was perfect too; it was a place you were slowly beginning to fit into seamlessly, like the missing piece of a puzzle needed to complete the picture, just as he himself had told you one of the many times you had left your old, sad, grey life behind to come back to him.

Because after the first time, you went back again.

And again.

And once more.

The more time you spent with him, the more you wanted.

Unfortunately, every night after you fell asleep, something absurd happened that you couldn't explain: you would drift off in his arms and wake up alone. Not because he had gotten out of bed, simply because, sometime during the night, something would happen and you would be thrown back into the real world, leaving the other world and the other Bucky behind.

When it happened the first time, you'd shed a few tears, convinced it had all been a dream born from your imagination. A way to cope with losing Bucky.

But that very same evening, the little door in the living room seemed to call to you, drawing you back through that tunnel a second time and making you realize that this was your reality now: you had the love of your life back again. Maybe God had decided to give you this gift. Maybe He regretted tearing him away from you in the first place, who knew. All you knew was that you were grateful.

Sometimes, though, you stopped to think about how. How was it possible? Why was it possible?

You had tried asking the other Bucky if he had any plausible explanation, because you had always been the kind of person to put logic before everything else, and this had no decent logic at all.

But he had never been able to give you an answer convincing enough to quiet your mind. Luckily, your mind wasn't the one in control here. It was your heart instead, a heart that had been through so much it no longer bothered asking questions. And having Bucky there was enough to feed it and silence your curiosity, your reason, every rational thought you should have been having.

A heart that had finally found its other half again after being forced to bury it not long before.

And in this world, there was no trace of Hydra, nor any of those damned missions he was so often sent on against his will. Here, there was no risk of him putting himself in danger to save people who meant absolutely nothing to him.

On the contrary, here there was every chance to finally have the peaceful life that had been stolen from you. There were his hoodies you loved so much and never thought you'd touch again after he'd been murdered. There was the chance to keep watching those stupid TV shows you had started together and never finished because someone had put a fucking bullet through his chest. There were all those plans you had been forced to abandon because someone had made you bury his cold body six feet underground.

So yes. Logic had no power here, nor any right.

And apparently the rule didn't apply only to you, but to the flowers you were trying to transplant as well. They were just simple sunflowers, so really, how hard could it possibly be to move a couple of sunflowers from a pot into the ground? It made no logical sense.

And yet, it was what you had been trying to do for days now, with absolutely no success, because the moment their roots touched the soil, when you came back later to finish the job and wanting to add some decorative touches, considering that garden desperately needed a little love, you would find them dead.

Their petals fallen or on the verge of falling, and the ones that remained were stiff and lifeless, the flower as dry and barren as the earth itself, despite all your efforts to water them properly and regularly. And yet, once upon a time, you had had a green thumb...

At that moment, you were kneeling in front of the skeletal stalk of a sunflower that the sun clearly wasn't going to make turn ever again, ripping up all the effort of the past few days. You had never been someone blessed with endless patience, but you had always been stubborn, so you would keep planting tall flowers until the soil finally decided to cooperate.

Beneath your knees was a cushion Bucky had brought you just earlier so you wouldn't be uncomfortable or get dirt all over your pants, because according to him, "his girl deserves nothing but comfort." He had also tied that apron around your waist for you - white with little pink hearts scattered all over it - and he had done it so gently it felt like he'd stroked your heart.

Every little thing he did felt like a caress, truth be told, and it had everything to do with the fact that once, those were the kinds of things you had taken for granted and that was a mistake you would never make again.

Still, the pout on your face was impossible to miss.

"Hey, baby." Bucky nearly made you jump out of your skin, since he had suddenly appeared behind you. You hadn't even heard him coming, though to be fair, that was nothing new.

You instinctively lifted your gaze to him, and as if it were the most natural thing in the world - because it was - your lips parted into a smile, just as his did. He had two glasses of what looked like lemonade in his hands, and he too was wearing an apron although his was a little more understated, military green and stained with dirt here and there.

"Hey yourself, sergeant." You replied, your nose scrunching slightly. "While you were gone, I pulled out the weeds from this side of the flowerbed, but there's still all that over there left." You vaguely pointed toward the area with one hand.

It was such a massive garden it was almost embarrassing. You had never realized how huge it was because, in the real world, you had never set foot outside that side of the house - especially since, given that the Pink Palace was an apartment building, that area had technically been communal space, and you had absolutely no desire to talk to the neighbors. Here, though, it was all yours, so naturally you had decided to decorate it a little.

There were fountains scattered here and there, and a path made of small stones laid one beside the other that gave shape to the whole place, leading to different corners of the garden. There wasn't much else, truthfully, but that could be fixed.

Was there an Ikea in this place?

Bucky's lips parted slightly and curved downward as he clenched his teeth together, handing you the lemonade. You didn't like that expression at all, it made you narrow your eyes at him accusingly.

"What?"

"Nothing." He said with feigned innocence. Now that he had one hand free, he reached it out to help you to your feet, and his eyes - well, his buttons - never met yours. Instead, he turned his head toward the direction you had pointed to, and you watched him try with all his might to suppress a smile.

"James." You raised your brows, tilting your head until you were directly in his line of sight. "You made that face, and now you're very clearly taking the piss out of me. If you don't tell me why in the next ten seconds, you're the one ending up in those flowerbeds dressed like a sunflower."

"I like it when you threaten me." He caught his lower lip between his teeth, leaning closer in a teasing way.

You pressed a finger to his chest, and those traitorous lips of yours came dangerously close to curling upward. "That wasn't a threat, it was a warning. Do I need to start counting to three?" You said in mock menace. "Because trust me, there's no escape for you once I start counting to three."

"Honestly, it's nothing. I was just thinking how cute you look trying to bring a little life into this place." There was sincerity in his voice, even if that idiot smirk of his never disappeared. "I like that you care. And I love seeing that you're happy here with me."

"Mh." Your shoulders dropped, and you took a small sip of lemonade before nodding softly. "I just wish I understood why they keep dying." The pout returned. "Maybe these flowers are... I don't know, allergic to the sun?"

Bucky opened his mouth, ready to immediately argue back, but instead he found himself chuckling first - and that sound, so genuine and so familiar, nearly made your knees give out. God, how much you had missed it.

"Baby, you're talking about sunflowers. They're not allergic to the sun, it's just..." He cut himself off, and that earlier expression flashed across his face for a split second before vanishing behind a cleared throat.

"You did it again!" You gave his arm a light smack.

"I didn't do anything!"

"Yes, you did!"

He let out a quiet huff, scratching at the bridge of his nose. "Promise you won't get mad."

"Oh my - what did you do?"

"It's just... the reason is the soil." He confessed, a little sheepishly. "Sunflowers shouldn't be planted in soil this heavy, because the roots suffocate and they die. Unfortunately, that's the kind of ground we have here, and we'd have to replace all of it if you want them to survive... well, we'd have to... y'know, replace the whole lot."

"Oh." You frowned, staring at the graveyard of flowers. Mystery solved. "Why are you only telling me now?"

"Because..." He lifted one shoulder, trying to convince himself the reason behind what he had done didn't really matter. "Because you love sunflowers and because... well, you were so happy planting them, and they kept you busy. I thought that... y'know, it was a way to keep you coming back, and that... it sounds stupid, I know, but I thought keeping you occupied with something to do would stop you from getting tired of this place. In this other world, there's almost nothing except us, and it can get boring after a while, so-"

"Bucky." You cut him off when you saw the panic beginning to creep not only into his voice, but across his face as well. That was why you set the lemonade down on the nearest stone wall and took his beautiful face in your hands. "You are what brings me back here every day. I don't care about the flowers, or whether we're alone in the universe. I want you. I need you, and I wouldn't let you go again for anything in the world, you idiot."

"I need you too." He said softly, as if it were a confession meant for your ears alone. "More than you realize, and that scares me. I know all of this is surreal, and that you're struggling to fully accept that life gave us a second chance... and I'm afraid that one day you won't... that you might change your mind."

"Why would you think that?"

Had you given him a reason to? You had bombarded him with questions over the past few days, sure, but that was the most natural thing any human being could do after ending up in a situation like this, wasn't it? Was it possible he had thought you didn't want him anymore? Your heart clenched painfully at the thought alone.

"Because you're here, but at the same time it's like... like you're waiting for the bill to come due at any moment. And sometimes I'm afraid you'll decide not to come back before that happens." He said gently, and you let your hands slide down until they rested against his chest.

"It's just that... why me?" Your eyes searched for his, but for obvious reasons, they didn't find them - sometimes you forgot. Which was why you looked away instead. "Why was I given the chance at a second chance, and not someone else?"

"Why not you?" He countered. Bucky reached up, brushing his knuckles against your cheek. "You were the one who found me, not anyone else, for starters. This world is... as strange as it is beautiful, you know? It changed itself to make room for you, to make sure you could have everything you want most in the world. There's no need to fight something that was given to you."

The thing was, nothing is given for free. Not by the universe, or by God, or by whatever creature had created that paradise.

"And what's the price?" Yuo finally asked, the question you had circled around for days and days.

At that, he licked his lower lip, his features flickering with something unreadable... hesitation, maybe. As if he were weighing whether or not to tell you, whether or not you were ready to hear it. Or whether he was ready to say it.

You felt your heart twist in on itself and leap into your throat, so sharply that you had to take a step back, waiting for him to speak, to tell you there simply was no price to pay so you could feel better and bury this anxiety and dread that had been haunting you.

"It's..." He hesitated, rubbing the back of his neck the way he always did when he was nervous. "It's nothing compared to how we'd live. Come inside with me, doll. I'll show you."

The voice of your conscience, the one you had tried to silence for days, made itself heard again with a loud 'I told you so' that echoed through every corner of your mind as, your hand in his, you followed him through that damned garden until you reached the house.

You couldn't say you were surprised, because you had lived long enough to grow out of the phase of 'sometimes things just happen' - they happen, sure, and then they come back demanding payment with interest. But deep down, you had expected it, and consciously or not, you had prepared yourself for it. Which was why you also couldn't say you hadn't considered nearly every possibility and come to the conclusion that whatever the price was, if it meant having him with the guarantee that you would never lose him again, then it was worth the risk.

Because the thought that the price might be steep was awful, but the thought of going back to a life where Bucky was six feet underground, decomposing and feeding worms, was even worse.

How do you move on from grief like that? From losing the person you were building a life with, a family with. The person with whom you had been your most vulnerable, with whom you had shared moments that would stay with you forever. How do you survive the absence of someone who should never have had to leave in the first place?

Your answer was that you wouldn't. You wouldn't live that way, you didn't have the strength for it.

That was why, despite the heart pounding furiously in your chest, you still managed to give him a pitiful but sincere smile when you finally reached the living room and sat down on the couch, side by side.

Bucky seemed nervous or at least, that was the impression he gave off. He rubbed his palms against his thighs a couple of times, and in response, you found yourself unconsciously shifting slightly away from him. Just a little. Just because of that uneasy feeling settling in the pit of your stomach which was not strong enough to make you leave, but enough to make you wary.

"Before you immediately say no, I want you to promise me you'll at least think about it." He began, angling his body so he could look at you better. "It's not something horrible, it's just... well, it's the only thing you would have to do to stay here."

"You want my soul?"

You had seen enough horror movies, willingly or not, to know that was usually how it went.

But he shook his head, unable to stop a small smile from forming, like you had just said something both ridiculous and oddly endearing.

"No, sweetheart, it's not your soul that I want." He shook his head once more. "I'm not a monster. I'm Bucky. I'm your Bucky... it's just that here, there are choices that have to be made, you understand? Choices you're free to make or not. It all depends on you."

"Then what am I supposed to give you?"

"To me, nothing. I'm not the one who makes the rules here." He said it so calmly, and that was what fooled you - because you didn't notice the way his smile shifted into something else for the briefest flicker before disappearing just as quickly.

"Then what does this world want from me?" You corrected yourself.

He scratched his chin before leaning forward. The coffee table in front of the couch was made of fine wood, and it had tiny compartments - drawers, to be exact - from which he pulled out a small black box, also made of wood. It was low and elongated, octagonal in shape. Elegant.

Your eyes couldn't stay on it for long. They darted back and forth between the box and his face, your mind racing a hundred miles an hour, trying to figure out what was inside before he showed you just to brace yourself. You did that often.

When he finally opened it, your first reaction was to frown in confusion at the sight of two black buttons, a spool of matching thread... and a needle. You were about to ask if the price for staying there was fixing some loose buttons on a coat or something, until the pieces finally clicked into place.

Those buttons weren't for clothes.

They were for your eyes.

It was horrifying enough just to think that, if you said yes, someone would take that cold, slender needle, press a little button against one eye and then the other, and begin stitching your skin. The thread would pierce your eyelid over and over again, every single pass agonizingly slow. And you could barely handle a stupid mosquito bite, for God's sake.

Your eyes already burned just imagining it. You could almost feel the sting beneath your eyelids, the maddening itch of punctured skin, the relentless irritation that would drive you insane because there'd be no way to scratch it. You thought about how you'd never be able to blink again, your eyelids pinned in place beneath those stitches, trapped exactly where they'd been sewn. Wide open. Completely motionless.

You would never be able to see properly again. Ever.

The lemonade you had drunk earlier lurched violently in your stomach, rushing back up your throat as a gag forced itself out of you. Shaking your head, you shot to your feet almost immediately.

"This is fucking insane."

"I know." He said softly, not even trying to argue with you. Slowly, he stood as well, reaching you before you could start pacing the room in anxious circles, and you were about to. He knew you too well.

"You can't ask me to sew my eyes shut!" You nearly snapped. "That's insane! What kind of fucked-up rule is that? Why would you want to put those things on me - he would have never asked me to do something like that."

And yet, despite your anger, despite how cold and jarring this revelation was, despite how macabre and how utterly absurd it was to even think about stitching buttons onto your eyes for the rest of your life... it never even crossed your mind to say no. You didn't step back either when he took those last few steps and closed the distance between you.

He wasn't smiling anymore. If anything, he looked just as unhappy about it as you were.

"I know it's insane." He repeated. "And if there were another way, believe me, my love, I wouldn't have even suggested it. But it's the only option if you want to stay here with me, sweetheart. The only one." His voice stayed low as he took your face in his hands. "It's not that bad. You get used to it after a while."

"My Bucky would have never asked me to do this." You found yourself saying again, maybe just to try, one more useless time, to convince yourself to run. But even then, it wasn't enough.

"He wouldn't have had a reason to." He replied, brushing your cheek with his thumb. "Where you come from, there are no rules like this. Here... unfortunately, there are. I know it's a lot to ask, and I won't push you if... if you want to leave me here. I won't stop you if you decide to go back to your old life, where I don't exist anymore and where you'll have to grow old on your own."

"I don't want to leave." You whispered. You only noticed the unexpected tear slipping down your cheek when Bucky wiped it away.

"Then don't."

Then don't. 

You'd spent the rest of the day with him, trying to lock that entire conversation away in a sealed box in your mind - sewing two buttons onto your eyes was... has it already been said that it's something only a mad person would do? What was the point of it, anyway? Why couldn't it be something less painful?

And yet, this world was worth it.

Fuck, if it wasn't worth it just to be with him. Until a few days ago, you would've rather stared at flowers from beneath the soil than live through another second of agony and now that all you'd been asked to do was sit down and let someone sew those buttons onto you, you'd almost lost your mind?

You couldn't let an opportunity like this slip through your fingers. And you wouldn't. It was just that, at the same time, you still hadn't told him yes.

Every moment you spent with him, though, made you want to say yes a thousand times over and then a thousand more. Sometimes you wondered if he really was Bucky or not, which was perfectly normal. But every time, you'd feel almost guilty, because to every question you asked, he had the right answer, just like during that little interrogation you had put him through when you'd first come through that tiny door.

Sometimes he was the one to start talking, bringing up memories you had - imagine that - even forgotten.

So what were two stupid buttons on your face, really? He seemed to wear them just fine, even if you didn't like them. You could deal with it too.

And besides, Bucky really did seem like the same man as always, not just because he remembered every anniversary, every event, every meaningful moment you'd shared, but because his habits and his little brattish tendencies - because yes, James Buchanan Barnes was as stubborn as a mule - hadn't changed one bit.

And as much as you had missed his stupid little bullshit, now that you had him back...

"Barnes!" You snapped, standing in the entryway of the house now covered in muddy footprints... his footprints. As if taking his shoes off before coming inside would kill him. "Perfect world my ass. How many times have I told you not to walk in with dirty shoes? Next time I'll make you clean it with your tongue!"

"Sorry, baby!" His voice called back from the kitchen.

"Idiot." You muttered under your breath when, to top it all off, you noticed he had actually taken his shoes off... but had left them right in the middle of the room.

You had to summon every ounce of patience you had left not to lose it and throw them straight into the trash. It was a close call.

Instead, you grabbed them absentmindedly and went to place them outside, right beside the front door.

Outside on the porch, you set his shoes neatly beside yours, brushing the dried dirt off your hands when something at the edge of your vision caught your attention. A shadow, faint and quick, darting along the edge of the garden.

You had to narrow your eyes to realize it was just a cat - outside it was pitch dark, and there was a deathly silence that, somehow, didn't give you goosebumps simply because you and Bucky were the only ones around, maybe even in this entire other world. You'd gotten used to that quiet almost immediately, but now there was a small intruder.

Now there was a cat. What the hell was a cat doing there?

When the small creature, clearly just as curious about you as you were about it, stepped closer, you began to notice the details.

Its fur was black, short but matted in several places. Its eyes were huge, far bigger than normal, honestly, and its snout stretched forward, giving its head an almost pointed shape. One ear had clearly been bitten off, a chunk missing from it.

Your confusion only deepened when you realized you knew that cat. It was the same one from the real world, the one you occasionally saw wandering around outside, the one you had wanted to introduce to Alpine - Alpine.

Who wasn't even here. Who had never wanted to go through that tunnel with you. Every time you'd tried to bring her along, she'd started meowing and thrashing so much that you'd always been forced to let go. You'd dropped it, figuring maybe she'd been scared since she was a bit of a coward, after all, but now... what the hell was this cat doing here? How had it gotten here? Was it possible it had slipped into your house while you were gone most of the day and crawled through the tunnel?

Cats were curious, after all. Just like you had been.

"Hey there." You said softly, taking a step toward it, hoping it wouldn't get spooked and run off. "We know each other, you and I. Are you hungry?" You reached out a hand to pet it, but froze.

"No."

At the sound of that completely unfamiliar voice, your brows furrowed, and you had to admit it startled you. First you were told there wasn't a single living soul around, and now not only had a cat appeared out of nowhere, but someone had just spoken?

You glanced around, trying to spot someone, anyone, but came up empty.

"Down here." The voice said again, flat and deadpan.

But down there was that damn cat, tilting its head to the side when your eyes met again. You, unlike how relaxed it looked, felt like you were about to have a heart attack.

"Hi." It said again.

"You-" You blinked, half tempted to pinch yourself in case this was some kind of dream. It wasn't. "Did you just talk?"

It ignored your question. "You have nice eyes. Are you sure you want to cover them with buttons? Hard to see how rotten things are that way."

"What the-" You found yourself at a loss for words. Never in your life had you expected to ask a cat something and get a verbal reply. "You can talk."

The cat flicked its tail lazily, and you could've sworn it even huffed under its breath. "And you don't listen. She benefits from that."

"She? Who is she?" Even if what it had said was probably important, your question came out weightless simply because you still couldn't wrap your head around the fact that a cat was talking. Had you taken something without realizing it?

"You know who." The cat replied. "You seem like a smart girl, so get out before she traps you in her web. Don't say I didn't warn you."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Open your eyes, sunflower. Wide and aware." That was all it said before flattening its ears and disappearing in the direction it had come from, but not before adding one last thing. "And tell Alpine I see the way she looks at me."

Your jaw practically hit the floor as you watched the cat vanish into the darkness, leaving you standing there, completely dumbfounded. You stared at the empty space where it had been, your mind spinning. How the hell had your life taken this turn? A talking cat? Cryptic warnings? What was next, Slender Man? God's sake. 

You stepped back inside the house, your gaze distant as you shut the door behind you, the cat and the entire conversation still replaying in your mind.

"The weirdest thing just happened, Buck." You said when you found him in the kitchen, busy making dinner. You were about to say more, that was until your eyes met his. Well, his buttons, technically. "Never mind."

Bucky, standing by the counter with a dish towel slung over his shoulder, raised an eyebrow.

"You okay, my love?" He asked, a soft chuckle coloring his voice.

"Yeah... I think - I think I'm just tired." You replied, walking over to him.

The moment you reached him, you wrapped your arms around his torso and let your aching head rest against his chest.

Bucky, for his part, didn't hesitate to pull you into his embrace, gently resting his chin atop your head.

For a moment, neither of you spoke.

You wanted to. You wanted answers about what the cat had said. Was there a 'she' in this place? Maybe there was someone dangerous in this world that Bucky hadn't told you about. Then again... why were you letting the words of a cat get to you? It sounded ridiculous just thinking about it.

"I've been trying everything to convince Alpine to come over here." You said instead, your voice muffled against his chest. "But she won't listen to me."

The change in his body language was immediate. His arms stiffened ever so slightly, and you felt the pause in his breathing before he answered. "Leave her where she is."

You frowned, pulling back just enough to look up at him wigh confusion written all over your face.

His tone had been quiet, yes, but stiff as hell, and it caught you completely off guard.

"Leave her there? Why the hell would I do that?" You asked, your brows knitting together. "It's Alpine. Our Alpine. What's wrong with bringing her here?"

Bucky's lips curled into a thin smile, one that never quite reached the stitched buttons where his eyes should have been. "I don't like cats." He said simply. But the expression on his face was doing a poor job of hiding the disgust underneath. As if the mere thought of cats repulsed him. "Besides, if she doesn't want to come, you can't exactly force her, can you?"

None of what he was saying made any sense to you.

"What? Since when don't you like cats?"

His hand came up to cup your cheek, the gentle gesture instantly disarming you, even as his words made your stomach twist.

"Do we really need a cat?" He replied, answering your question with another one. "We're perfectly fine here, just the two of us. Cats have a nasty habit of ruining things."

Ruining things? Did he mean the furniture?

"But-"

You never got the chance to argue. He pressed a soft kiss to your forehead, then another to the tip of your nose before finally capturing your lips. He lingered there until he felt you kiss him back, until your guard finally slipped.

That was the effect he had on you, unfortunately.

And before you even realized he'd pulled away, he was already gone, muttering something about taking a shower.

You stood there for who knew how long, staring at the doorway, hoping he'd come back with a grin and tell you he was just fucking with you. He didn't. Your hand unconsciously tightened around the corner of the kitchen counter as a thought clouded your mind: there was something wrong with him.

Then again... technically, he wasn't your Bucky, right? He was just another version of him. And people weren't obligated to like cats, were they?

How many red flags were you ignoring just for the sake of staying inside this tiny, happy bubble?

Could anyone really blame you, though? It wasn't as if the real world made any more sense, even Wanda had been doing increasingly strange things with her magic lately, so why couldn't you just... let go? Why couldn't you simply accept that maybe this was your second chance?

Your eyes drifted to the pile of clothes near the doorway: that was gonna be your distraction from the mess in your head, you decided. Gardening with him earlier had been calming, but your clothes had the evidence of your afternoon on them - smudges of dirt, streaks of green from the grass. His apron was folded on top of the pile, wrinkled and stained. 

With a deep breath, you made your way toward the basement door after gathering the clothes into your arms. It creaked as you pushed it open, revealing a small staircase that disappeared into the dark space below. You truthfully hesitated for a moment and your grip tightened on the clothes; something about the basement - about basements in general - always managed to make you uneasy, though you couldn't explain why. Maybe you watched too many horror movies? Probably.

You had never actually set foot in that basement in the real world.

The closest you'd ever gotten was seeing the unsettling photograph of a little boy with tears in his eyes, probably left there by whoever had lived in the house before you. You'd also seen the state the wallpaper and the staircase were in: cracked, peeling, worn down by time.

Here, though, it was different.

The picture of the little boy was no longer gray and lifeless. It was bursting with color, and the child was smiling. The wallpaper and the stairs were immaculate, untouched by time, without so much as a crack in the plaster or a warped wooden step.

And yet, the farther down you descended, the prickling at the back of your neck refused to fade.

But why?

Even the laundry room was spotless. The washing machine and dryer looked brand new, not a speck of dust anywhere to be found. Rows upon rows of steel shelves were crammed with every kind of detergent imaginable, enough to make you feel like you'd wandered into the cleaning aisle of a supermarket.

So why were you still standing frozen in the doorway, as though stepping inside would somehow seal your fate?

You let out a slow breath and mentally told yourself to quit being an idiot before forcing yourself to walk in.

There was nothing calm about it, though.

It was more of a fuck it, now or never kind of decision, and you practically hurled the clothes into the washing machine as if there were a goddamn bounty on your head. You wanted out of there as fast as humanly possible, so the second the washing machine rumbled to life, you silently muttered a thank fucking God.

Great. You were done. Time to get the hell out before the imaginary monster that apparently haunted every basement in existence decided to grab you by the ankles.

You really did turn toward the door leading back to the stairs, fully intending to sprint up them as fast as possible, but then something caught your eye. It wasn't something frightening, not really, if anything it was completely ordinary.

Yet, for reasons you couldn't explain, it made you stop and look twice.

On the lowest shelf to your right, something yellow was sticking out of a cardboard box. A bright, almost plasticky shade of yellow.

And despite every hair on your body standing on end, since absolutely nothing about this place was giving you good vibes, your curiosity got the better of you once again. You knew that if you didn't check, you would spend the rest of the night obsessing over it until you drove yourself insane.

And there wasn't a chance in hell, not on this earth or any other, that you'd ever willingly come back down here by yourself. So, half-expecting some kind of jumpscare, you grabbed the box and dragged it out just enough to pry it open.

It was just a raincoat.

You knelt down and ran your hands over the fabric: it was filthy, clearly well-worn and never washed, with brownish stains scattered across it here and there.

But the thing that stole the breath from your lungs, the thing you noticed only after pulling it completely free from the box, was that it was made for a child.

You hadn't seen a single child since you'd arrived here, and there was absolutely no way in hell it had ever belonged to Bucky. So whose was it?

That wasn't the only thing inside the box, though, no. Just as you were about to close it again, you noticed there was also a doll and normally, dolls belonged to children. That wasn't what unsettled you.

What unsettled you was that you'd seen one similar to that one before.

This one had blue hair and it was dressed in the exact same yellow raincoat you were holding in your hands. And its eyes had been sewn shut with buttons.

"Honey?" You heard Bucky call from upstairs. "Where are you?"

Panic hit you all at once and you shoved everything back into the box as fast and carelessly as you could before bolting toward the stairs, your heart suddenly lodged somewhere in your throat. Even without a mirror, you were certain every trace of color had drained from your face.

"What were you doing down there?" He asked, his brows furrowing as you nearly crashed into him on your way back upstairs.

"The... laundry?" It was the truth but it came out sounding like a question. More like an excuse than an answer. You even had to wipe your sweat-soaked palms against your pants.

"Oh." His expression softened almost immediately. "Well, thank you. But let me take care of that next time, okay? I don't want you lifting a finger more than you have to. Besides, it's not exactly the nicest place down there. It's cramped. I would really hate for you to get hurt."

"No... right. Of course." Your arms folded protectively around yourself. "I-I'll tell you next time."

He stood perfectly still, staring at you for exactly seven seconds, and you knew for a fact because you'd counted them in your head. He didn't blink, he didn't even seem to breathe. It was almost as if something inside him had... reset? It was hard to explain, he was as stiff as a board.

Then he smiled, all of a sudden. "Good." He took a step toward you. "Are you sure you're okay? Every time I leave you alone for five minutes, I come back to find you acting like you've just stumbled across a crime scene. And yeah, I've noticed."

"No, yeah. I know. I'm fine." You nodded a little too quickly. "I'm fine. I told you. I'm just tired and... I'm okay."

"Alright." He sighed, slipping an arm around your shoulders. "I just don't like seeing you like this. You don't have to worry about anything anymore, and I hope you know that. This place belongs to you. It's here for your happiness. A place where you can finally rest. Forever."

You offered him a weak smile, and he seemed satisfied enough to let the subject drop.

But you felt two seconds away from throwing up.

. . .

Only a couple of hours later, the two of you found yourselves sitting together on the couch.

Truth be told, you were anything but relaxed.

Your legs were tucked beneath you, practically curled into yourself. One arm was folded across your stomach while the fingers of your other hand hovered at your lips, where you were absently chewing at your nails.

Bucky, on the other hand, looked like he was seconds away from falling asleep.

He sat right beside you, completely absorbed in a movie you hadn't understood a single thing about, his hand giving your thigh the occasional absentminded squeeze.

Lately, staying awake this late wasn't like you. Most nights, you loved falling asleep in his arms, even if it meant waking up in the real world afterward. But tonight... tonight, you had no intention of falling asleep. And you definitely had no intention of ending up in his arms.

It was an awful thing to think, you knew that. But the image of that raincoat kept flashing behind your eyes, refusing to leave you alone.

You didn't want to think badly of him. You didn't want to think badly of this second chance you'd been given. Wouldn't it be ungrateful to start asking questions? To go looking for answers? You just were supposed to be grateful to be here with him, everything else should've been easy to ignore.

Except you couldn't ignore everything else.

The cat had warned you to be careful. You'd been told that, if you wanted to stay here forever, you'd have to sew buttons over your eyes. And now there was that raincoat - not to mention the doll.

Really, how many "coincidences" could pile up in the span of just a few days?

And a little girl had gone missing from the Pink Palace. No one would ever imagine there was some hidden world lurking inside their own house, would they? Maybe she'd found this mysterious "she" the cat had warned you about. But then why the hell had that damned raincoat been sitting in his basement? 

"Alright. That's enough." His voice suddenly cut through your thoughts. He turned toward you, tightening his hand around your thigh as though trying to reassure you. "You've barely said a word all evening. What's wrong?"

Your gaze dropped to the hand resting on your knee, his fingers were so gentle and so familiar that for a moment, you almost didn't say anything at all. You almost told him he needed to stop worrying over nothing.

But you'd never been very good at keeping your mouth shut for long.

"I found a box in the basement." You began, swallowing hard without turning to look at him. "There was a doll inside... and a child's raincoat. Who did those things belong to?"

Your eyes remained fixed on the television because there was no point pretending otherwise: you were afraid of how he'd react.

He didn't answer right away, however. He let the silence linger, but from the way his hand tightened around your thigh - although not enough to hurt you, but no longer with the same tenderness - you had the unmistakable feeling you'd just pressed the wrong piano key.

As though you'd interrupted the melody of 'everything is fine' he had been playing for you all this time, keeping you from ever hearing your own doubts.

"Do you love me?"

You blinked, caught off guard. "W-what?"

"Do you love me? It's a simple question." He repeated, finally turning his head to meet your gaze. The smile was gone now, replaced by something completely different you couldn't yet decipher. "Because I've been wondering, sweets. You keep questioning me, questioning this." His right hand gave your leg another squeeze, harder this time. "So tell me. Do you love me?"

"I- of course I do." You said quickly, your voice trembling. "You know I do."

"Then why can't you just trust me?" His tone was soft but charged at the same time, as if he was trying to control himself. "Why do you keep asking questions? Doubting me? Doubting us?"

"I'm not doubting you, Bucky." Maybe you were. A little. A little more than a little. "That's not what I was doing." 

His grip on you loosened slightly, but it wasn't the kind of relief you were hoping for. Instead, Bucky leaned back against the couch, his head tilting to one side as his hand fell to his own leg. His fingers began tapping against it. 

"Mmh, mh, mh." He murmured, shaking his head like he was holding back laughter even though he was anything but amused. 

You instinctively shifted a little further away from him, your back now pressing into the armrest of the couch. The distance was small, but it didn't go unnoticed. His sharp black button gaze flicked toward you and the tapping stopped instantly. 

"Years." He said suddenly, his voice flat but somehow seething underneath. "I've been waiting patiently for years, sweets, and you can't even sew your eyes for the man you claim to love? It's a tiny little thing."

Your breath hitched, heart skipping at the accusation, at the hint of venom in his words. "A tiny little thing? Do you have an idea of what you're saying? Of what you're asking?" 

"What kind of love is that?" He continued, ignoring you, his voice rising slightly, cutting through your attempt to interject and make him find the light of reason. "You sit here, you say the words, but you don't mean them, do you? I wonder if it was the same back in your world, too. You told him you loved him, but you never showed it."

"This - this isn't fair, Bucky, why did you even bring this up? I was just-" 

"Fair?" He barked a humorless laugh, leaning forward now, his elbows on his knees. "Do you think this was fair for me? Sitting here for years, waiting for you, for this? Giving you everything you ever wanted when you can't even give me this one tiny thing?"

Your hands clenched into fists at your sides, your jaw tightening as you fought the wave of emotions rising in your chest. "I asked you one question." You said firmly, trying to keep a steady voice despite the tension in the air. "A stupid little question, and now you're standing here, making me out to be the problem? Because I want to know what's going on?"

He tilted his head at you, his fingers still tapping against his leg, the muffled sound grating on your nerves now. "It's not about the question, my precious little bug." He said, sounding as if he was blatantly mocking you. "It's about the pattern. You're always asking, always doubting, even when you're silent. I can hear your thoughts. You're not happy unless you're tearing everything apart to see what's underneath. And that bothers me to no end because I hate curious little things. You remind me of a cat."

"I told you I'm not doubting anything." You said again, slitting further away from him. "I just wanted to understand and you're here acting like I've done something wrong for that. Do you even hear yourself right now? All worked up for a simple question - I just wanted an answer."

"Well, what's the saying?" His grin got wider. "Curiosity killed the cat. You should learn how to mind your business."

You crossed your arms, posture stiff but rooted, unwilling to back down. "So that's it? You're just going to dodge my question with some half assed riddle? Maybe I wasn't in the wrong for asking."

His grin faltered then, just slightly, and his head tipped forward. He stared at you, the light of the tv catching the shiny, smooth black of his buttons. "You want to know about the raincoat so badly?" He said slowly, it sounded like growl. "Fine. Let's talk about it."

You stayed silent even if your heart was pounding in your chest, but you forced your face to remain steady - which was a hard task to accomplish, considering he was starting to be unsettling. 

"It was hers." He said, his voice suddenly measured. "Coraline's. Oh, a sweet little thing, so full of hope and sadness... just like you."

Your brow furrowed, confusion breaking through the tension. "Who's Coraline?"

He leaned back now, letting out a long sigh. "She was the last one to walk through that little door." He said. "Her parents gave up looking for her after barely two months, then moved. I'm thankful they did, because just a couple of years later and you arrived."

"The missing kid." Your stomach twisted, and that nauseous feeling from earlier came back ten times stronger. "You... you took her."

"Of course I did. I usually only take children, they're... better. Easier to control, easier to fool." He let out a sharp laugh. "Did you really think this world existed exclusively for you? It has different shapes, and you surely were not the first to stumble across it. Hopefully not the last."

"You're not Bucky. You're not another version of him." You said - deep down, you had always felt it. It was too good to be true. "God, I'm such an idiot."

"Don't be so hard on yourself, bug."

You swallowed hard the knot that had settled in your throat. "But then... then what sort of thing are you?"

He didn't answer immediately, just watched you with a strange calmness, his fingers tapping rhythmically against his thigh - again and again. "I'm what you've always needed." He said softly, his voice almost tender. 

Your stomach churned, but you didn't back away, didn't falter. "That's just bullshit, not an answer. I needed Bucky."

"And I gave it to you, didn't I?" He countered. "You walked through that door willingly, all of them did. The kids, I mean." He clarified. "Did you think it opened for just anyone? It opened because you were starving for what I could give you. And I gave it freely, to you and the kids. I gave you him, and I can still give it to you for as long as you want. But you're too stubborn for your own good, aren't you?"

"I can be when you just said that a kid - that a bunch of kids, disappeared because of you. What do you take in return? You create this illusion and for what?"

"Many reasons." He tilted his head, studying you like you were just an insect pinned to a board. "And I want nothing you weren't already willing to give." He said, his voice light, almost flippant. "You wanted to die, I wanted your soul."

"Let's not exaggerate." You said sharply, though your voice wavered just enough to betray the panic simmering beneath the anger.

He raised an eyebrow. 

"Okay, fine!" You bit out. "But it doesn't mean I wanted to be trapped by some... thing wearing my Bucky's face, for fuck's sake!"

"And yet." He said evenly, his voice infuriatingly calm. "You're still sitting here."

You pushed yourself up from the couch in one swift motion at his words. "I'm leaving."

He let out a soft snort, leaning back against the couch like he had all the time in the world. "You can't." He said simply, as he gestured lazily around the room. "Once you walked through that little door, you became mine. Think of this..." He added, his hand sweeping in a slow arc. "... as a spiderweb. You're my insect, and I'm your predator."

You felt like dying a little at the analogy, but still, you refused to give him the satisfaction of showing your unease.

"So sit, run, scream, do whatever you think will make you feel better." He continued, his tone so calm it was maddening. "But it won't matter. You can't get out of here, bug. Not unless I let you... and I won't."

Your fists clenched at your sides once again, nails digging into your palms to keep yourself grounded. "You're sick."

"No." He said, his lips curling into a smile that no longer belonged to anything human. It was too wide for the size of his face, and too full of malice. "No, I'm just starving." He tilted his head, his gaze crawling over you like you were a feast laid out just for him. "And I'm going to sew those buttons onto your pretty little eyes, tie your soul to me, and I'm going to do it all wearing this face. Poetic, don't you think?" He leaned forward slightly, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "I usually take my true form when I feast, you know? It's what scares the little ones most. But you? I like you better like this. It's going to be so good."

"Then why didn't you just do it already? If this is your plan, why wait? Why let me stay here for days?"

"Because..." He said with an exaggerated sigh, like he was explaining something painfully simple to a stupid child. "when you've spent years waiting for your next meal, you get... lonely. Bored, even. It's called savoring. You were just so delightful to watch - so ready to believe, so desperate to be loved. I wanted to stretch it out." His grin widened, revealing teeth that didn't look human anymore. "But now? Now, I'm tired of waiting and I'm tired of your questions."

Needless to say, those words gave you the strength to run, even after he'd told you it would be pointless. Unfortunately for him you weren't just curious, you were stubborn, too. And to top of it all, he had scared the living shit out of you.

What kind of monster kidnaps children? Because whether they had wandered into this world willingly or not, kidnapping was exactly what it was. He stole their souls by convincing them he could fill the emptiness they'd carried with them from the real world.

It was exactly what he'd tried to do to you, and you'd fallen for it completely. The worst part was that maybe if he'd lied to you, if he'd made something up instead of answering your question with the truth, you would've let him sew those buttons over your eyes. The only real difference between you and those children was that, in a moment of obvious weakness, he'd chosen to tell you the truth instead.

And the reason was probably because he already knew there was no way out. After all, you realized almost immediately that he wasn't even bothering to chase you.

Even so, you kept running. You bolted out of that house and deep into the woods so fast that everything around you stopped looking like actual shapes. The thick trees became little more than obstacles flashing past your vision, and for one absurd moment you felt like Snow White fleeing for her life through the forest.

The more pessimistic part of you, however, wasn't convinced you'd be getting a fairy-tale ending.

Once you were finally certain you'd put enough distance between yourself and the house, you gradually slowed your pace without ever truly stopping. You hadn't the faintest idea what lay beyond the forest or whether there even was an end to it. It was dark, and an unnatural silence swallowed everything around you until hope itself began slipping through your fingers. Forests were supposed to be alive with sounds, unsettling or not, but here there was absolutely nothing except the crunch of dead leaves beneath your feet.

"Fuck." You gasped, nearly collapsing against the hollow trunk of a dead tree.

That was when you were proven wrong, because suddenly you did hear something: the faint rustling of leaves coming from a nearby bush.

Your eyes flew open in genuine terror, convinced it was the Other Bucky. Maybe he had complete control over this world. Maybe he could simply appear wherever he pleased. Without thinking, even though your lungs were burning for air and you were fairly certain you were on the verge of a heart attack, you almost broke into another sprint.

Almost.

Because a voice stopped you.

"Hello again, sunflower." It sounded vaguely familiar, one you'd heard before. "Out for a midnight run?"

Your gaze snapped toward the source of the sound, and never in your life had you been happier to see a goddamn talking cat. It sat a short distance away from you, the very picture of tranquility. 

"You've got to be fucking kidding me." You breathed, letting out a pathetic noise somewhere between a groan and a whimper as you clutched your chest before your heart burst clean out of it. "I thought it was him."

"Ah. So you were running away." The cat observed calmly. "I take it she's finally shown you her true colors. Good heavens... and you're still in one piece?"

"Not for long if he wants to eat me!" You snapped. "You could've warned me to stay the hell away from him instead of saying something vague and disappearing."

"Oh, he won't eat you. Not exactly." The cat corrected lazily, blinking once. "He'll drain your soul if he manages to sew buttons over your eyes, that much is true. And for the record, you wouldn't have believed me anyway. Why would you trust a cat over the illusion of the life you've always wanted?"

"It would've been nice if you'd at least fucking tried."

"I have tried. Dozens of times. No one ever listened." His tail flicked idly behind him. "Sometimes people need to see before they'll believe."

"What the fuck is going on?" You finally asked, utterly exhausted, letting your arms fall limply at your sides. "Why me? Why... what the hell is that thing? And why does it look like him? I got the impression that... that it can change shape, but how the hell did it know anything about my life?"

"She's a Beldam." The cat replied. "A witch who feeds on children's souls. The sadder and lonelier they are, the fuller her stomach becomes. I don't know why she made an exception for you, you seem a little old for her usual taste, and I had no idea she intended to take you until I saw the doll made in your likeness. Thankfully, you had the good sense to leave it outside the house."

"Jesus fucking Christ." You dragged a hand across your forehead, partly to wipe away the sweat, though mostly because a splitting headache was beginning to settle in.

"You know," The cat continued, stretching before lazily sharpening his claws against a nearby stone. "for years I believed she watched her prey through the button eyes of the dolls she sends them." He paused thoughtfully. "But I suppose I was wrong, seeing as you never brought yours inside. Now I'm almost convinced the doll is nothing more than... a sign, let's call it that. A little message announcing she's ready for another victim." His yellow eyes lifted to meet yours. "It's the house that's watching you."

"What a load of bullshit."

Those were the words that left your mouth, though you couldn't have explained why you insisted on pretending not to believe him when the absurdity of it all was standing right in front of your own eyes.

"Call it whatever you'd like, sunflower." The cat said with a shrug. "It won't change the fact that she has eyes and ears everywhere."

"You're really not making me feel any better."

"I'm not here to make you feel better." He looked at you without the slightest hint of sympathy. "I'm here to make you open your eyes. Believe me or don't, I'm on your side. I dislike her just as much as she dislikes me, and she's always trying to drive me out of this world." His whiskers twitched in what almost resembled amusement. "Shame for her. Cats are... special."

"Well, thanks for the concern." You muttered. "But what the hell am I supposed to do now? How do I get out of here?"

The cat licked one paw before answering. "You don't. You're kind of screwed." He spoke so matter-of-factly it almost sounded casual. "Or rather, you'd have to go back through that little door to return to our world. The problem is she won't let you. She's exceptionally good at weaving illusions, and trust me... when she wants something, she can wait forever."

"I still have the key." You instinctively touched the pocket where it rested, realizing only now that, for reasons you'd never stopped to question, you'd kept it with you this whole time. "Maybe I can convince her that... I don't know... that I've given up. Wait until she goes to sleep or something-"

"She doesn't sleep. She doesn't eat, drink, or do any of those tiny little things you humans insist on doing." The cat cut you off. "She makes you think she does. Sometimes she'll even make you believe you've fooled her." His expression darkened almost imperceptibly. "She did the same thing with Coraline."

"The little girl who was here before me."

"She told you about her?" The cat asked, sounding genuinely surprised.

"I found a yellow raincoat down in the basement. When I asked him - her about it..." You swallowed. "she practically short-circuited."

"I think you make her absolutely ravenous. The more tempting the meal sitting in front of her, the harder it is to resist. Losing her composure is something she rarely does, and believe me..." He let out a weary sigh. "I've seen just about everything there is to see." His gaze drifted somewhere beyond you. "I tried to help Coraline the same way I tried to help every child who came before her, but as you've probably guessed..."

He left the sentence unfinished, he didn't have to say the rest. You already knew.

"Why does she have to sew buttons over my eyes, though?"

"It binds your soul to hers." The cat replied, flicking his ears back. "Think of it as... a straw. You're the drink inside the glass. A glass filled to the brim with grief and melancholy." His whiskers twitched faintly. "To her, you'd be the equivalent of a chocolate milkshake." A milkshake, really? "She's the closest thing to a demon I've ever seen."

"Then how do you know all this?" You could understand him learning things after spending years watching the fake Bucky, and whoever she was before him, but for fuck's sake... "You're just a cat!"

"Am I?" His blue eyes narrowed ever so slightly.

"Aren't you?" You mirrored the expression instinctively.

"Of course I am, you silly girl." He looked almost offended. "Just look at me. What do I resemble to you, an ostrich?"

"Then why the hell can you talk?"

The little feline bastard simply resumed washing his paws as though the question wasn't worth acknowledging.

"Fine, fine. Keep your secrets." You threw your hands up in surrender. "But then explain how do you keep coming into this world if she hates your guts? And don't you dare tell me it's because cats are special, or I'll yank you by the tail."

He paused halfway through licking one paw, one sharp claw resting just beneath his mouth before calmly resuming his grooming.

"A magician never reveals his tricks." He said smoothly.

"Then reveal just one of them and tell me how the hell I'm supposed to stay alive." You insisted.

"I already told you. Unless you make it back through that little door, there isn't any way for you to-" Every muscle in his body went rigid so suddenly that, without meaning to, yours did too. Slowly, his head lifted toward the sky - not toward anything in particular, but as though he were listening to something you couldn't hear. "...Something's watching us." He murmured. His voice had lost every trace of its usual amusement. "And it's listening."

"Well," You said after a beat. "it's been a pleasure. I'm going to get back to running for my life."

"Your sarcasm would be far more entertaining if you weren't so obviously scared shitless." The cat replied dryly. Since when did cats have this sort of vocabulary? Then, after another brief pause, his ears flicked. "But stay where you are. Whatever it is..." He said quietly. "it isn't the Beldam."

"Then who-"

"Oh, for the love of God, you stupid c-" A woman's voice, thankfully one you recognized, cut you off before you could finish your sentence. She sounded absolutely livid, but you smiled anyway. "Finally! I found you!" She shouted. "Do you have any idea how long it's taken me? Days! Days! I swear to God, I don't know how you managed to end up in a catastrophe this fucking spectacular in less than a week, you absolute idiot!"

"Wanda!" The word burst out of you before you could stop it. You sounded so genuinely relieved that it almost didn't matter that the witch would probably slit your throat the second she'd put her hands on you. 

Right now, it felt as though Jesus Christ Himself had climbed down from wherever the hell He lived just to perform one very personal miracle.

"Get that smile off your face. I'm pissed!" Wanda snapped, every syllable dripping with frustration. "God, I'd love nothing more than to smack you upside the head for the rest of my life, but unfortunately I have to save your ass first! Care to explain how the hell you ended up in the clutches of a Beldam? Those bitches are so rare they're practically folklore among witches nowadays."

"Well..." You glanced awkwardly around the forest, trying to pinpoint where her voice was actually coming from. Nothing. No Wanda. Just trees. "I guess I'm full of surprises." You scratched the back of your neck. "But... where exactly are you yelling at me from? Are you in my head? Am I hallucinating?"

"No. Doesn't matter if you can't see me, I can see you." Wanda huffed impatiently. "Listen carefully. You need to go back to the other Bucky."

"Great joke." 

"Shut up! I know it's dangerous. I know it hurts because..." She hesitated for only a fraction of a second. "because she has his face. But you have to trust me."

"Wanda, I'd walk through fire for you, but you can forget about that!" You blurted out, staring into the empty forest in disbelief. "Can't you call her? She's your coworker, technically, isn't she? Tell her we're friends! I mean, you're both witches, aren't you? Isn't there some kind of magical sisterhood or whatever?"

"It's called a coven, dumbass." Wanda corrected flatly. "And I don't belong to one. I don't need one."

You could practically picture her pinching the bridge of her nose. "Try?" 

"No, she's pure evil. Now stop talking and listen, because we don't have all damn day."

"Fuck it, fine!"

"She already knows I'm trying to get you out of there. If I stay connected to the world she's created for much longer, there's a chance she'll seal the portal, and that cannot happen, understand? If I lose my connection to that tunnel, who knows how long it'll take me to find you again." Her voice became sharper. "So here's what you're going to do. You're going back inside that house, and you're going to keep her distracted while I reopen the little door you used to get there. But be careful, she'll try to manipulate you into staying. And much as I do believe you weren't born yesterday..." Wanda sighed heavily. "...I know exactly what kind of effect Bucky has on you. So do not give in."

The cat, who had been weaving lazily around your legs with all the enthusiasm of someone spectating a particularly mediocre play, suddenly let out something that sounded suspiciously like a snort.

Or at least as close to a snort as a cat could manage.

"Brilliant plan." He drawled. "Send the human straight back into the spider's nest. What could possibly go wrong?"

"...Who - who said that?" Wanda asked.

"The cat." You answered without missing a beat. "Didn't you just say you could see me?"

"I can see you, yes! I can't see whatever's standing around you." Wanda sounded thoroughly exasperated. "Now stop screwing around. Who was that? If someone else is there, maybe I can pull them out too."

"I told you, it was the cat!" You groaned. "But forget about him for a second and focus on me, please. Fine, I'll go back into the house if I absolutely have to." You rubbed a hand over your face. "And then what? What exactly am I supposed to say to her? Kiss her on the forehead and politely ask if she'd mind waiting five minutes before eating my soul? Wanda, I'm terrible at stalling! I'm an anxious person! I can barely hold a normal conversation with Natasha when she's in a bad mood-"

"Breathe before you give yourself a stroke." The cat interrupted lazily.

"You shut up."

"Are you seriously arguing with an ani-" Wanda stopped herself with an audible sigh. "Listen. I need five minutes. That's it. Five minutes and I'll have the passage open again. You're the most hopelessly talkative person I've ever met, so I'm sure you'll think of something. Got it?" Her tone left no room for argument. "And the second you see that door open, you throw yourself through it. No hesitation. No second-guessing. Now stop whining."

"You're going to have my death on your conscience." You muttered, finally giving up. 

"You've got a skull thicker than a mule's." Wanda shot back. "I'd better go. I'll see you soon."

"I give you ten seconds before you completely lose your nerve and bolt." The cat looked at you, once Wanda's voice vanished. "And I'm being generous."

"No wonder you're a stray." You hissed, shooting the feline a glare as you turned toward the house once more. "Irritating as hell."

"Ouch." The cat replied with theatrical offense. 

You scoffed and started making your way back toward the house far more slowly than you would've liked. After only a few steps, however, you glanced back over your shoulder.

"...You're not coming?"

"I'm not suicidal."

"A dog would've come with me." Your lips curled into a pout. "Just saying."

"Naturally. They're hardly renowned for their sense of self-preservation." The cat replied with a dismissive flick of his tail. "Lie down with dogs, and you'll wake up with fleas, my dear."

You bit back a long string of insults. Picking a fight with a cat wasn't exactly at the top of your list of priorities, so with a stiff shake of your head, you turned on your heel and continued toward the house.

Looking back on it, you’re not quite sure how he got you to overcome this phobia. You loved him, of course you loved him, but, honestly, loving someone had never cured you before, so why was this time different? Your mother told you it’s just that this time it was true love, but you didn’t really buy that. In any case, it only took two years of dating before you were walking down the aisle—the shortest relationship you had ever had was now to last for the rest of your life. And it wasn’t long before something changed.

You’ve always heard marriage is difficult, but these… difficulties, made it feel hard to live. You knew Bucky was a soldier, and so sometimes that made him paranoid, but he means well. Sometimes he just doesn’t know his own strength, that fighting instinct that’s kept him alive kicks in, it’s not like he can just turn off decades of trauma. And it wasn’t that you were scared, not really of him, anyway, but rather that you were stuck. He didn’t like when you went out and if you did anyway you’d end up so horribly bruised you wouldn’t go out again in shame, and when you tried to bring it up, it sort of fell on deaf ears. Even sometimes the supposedly loving things felt like entrapment. Bucky is large, and so it took a while to get used to having sex with him when you were underneath; the first few times you were really panicked, but he didn’t seem to notice, and with him moaning in your ear over and over about how well you were doing for him, how good you were making him feel, you were hesitant to bring it up, especially because it’s not really something in his control.

But him wrapping his hand around your neck he can control, but it doesn’t seem like he does, and you’ve brought it up with him a few times, but he’ll only ever stop for a couple of days before going right back to it. When you’d clutch his wrist with both your hands and desperately tug at his arm, he’d only grunt and lean down to whisper about how tight you were squeezing him and how good it felt. Even when you would cry, he just wouldn’t notice, too lost in it. But one time… one time you thought he heard you sob and ask for him to slow down, and you swear you caught the corner of his lip quirk up in a smirk, but his next harsh thrust had you throwing your head back and squeezing your eyes shut as you cried out for mercy.

So, yeah, however he got you to agree to all this, you have no idea, but you know it’s over now.

Bucky hardly greets you when he comes home anymore, so you don’t feel bad about springing this on him when he’s shrugging off his leather jacket.

“I want a divorce.”

“And why’s that, darlin’?” Even without the twitch of his lip, his tone dripping with faux concern is hardly covering his barely-constrained mirth.

“You know why,” you seethe, practically baring your teeth at him. “Don’t be difficult.”

“But, sugar, I like being difficult.” He pouts and steps towards you, holding his hands out to your waist, but you dodge his grip.

“Oh, I know you do, but for once don’t make this a whole thing. Just sign the papers when I send them over.”

Bucky leans a muscular arm on the kitchen counter and glares down at you. When he speaks again, his voice has dropped an octave. “How about I sign ’em once I get a good, solid reason.”

You roll your eyes and steel your jaw.

“You know what you did.”

“I know,” he answers, simply, stepping up to you again with amusement dancing in his eyes. “I just want to hear the words come out of your pretty mouth.”

“You’re sick,” you hiss, voice dripping with venom. He only shrugs, prompting you to go on, “Are you proud of this? Of what you’ve done?”

“What are you referring to, sweetheart?”

“You hurt me.”

“I did?” he questions with raised eyebrows, and if you didn’t know any better, you’d think the bewilderment in his voice was sincere. “When?”

While you know there are many examples you can refer to, you both know exactly what you’re thinking of: Sunday night.

You scoff. “I’m not entertaining this,” and turn to leave the room.

“Why not? We’re having fun…” He takes a step towards you and wraps a hand around your wrist. You easily pry it out of his grasp and look up at him with wide eyes as he looks down at you with a smirk. You hate it when he does this, when he holds back. You both know damn well if he wants to hold onto you, there’s nothing you can do to escape his grasp, so the fact you were able to pull free without struggle means he’s starting again.

In the beginning, you thought it was your fault for pushing and pushing until he snapped—and, to be fair, that’s what he told you, too, but you quickly realised the outcome was always going to be the same, whether you directly obeyed or not, and that he was only playing with his food, and riling you up gave him an excuse to pounce; even if it is actually his fault for provoking you, you technically took the first swing, and he loves that loophole. And you’ve told him over and over (as if he doesn’t know) that it’ll never be a fair fight, that even if you lost your cool and shoved him, was his use of a metal hand to leave ugly purple and yellow welts on your body really justified when his worst injuries would only be scratches?

That’s partially why you never told anyone, because Bucky would say you started it, and, technically, he’d be right—you started the physical ‘fight’ at least (they’re never really fights—it’s you striking him and him leaving you bruised and bloody on the living room floor.)

“Stop it.”

“I’m your husband, baby.”

“Not anymore.”

He purses his lips and his eyebrows drop to really bring together this fake puppy dog sympathetic pout. “I’m not signing anything, sweet girl, and possession is nine tenths of the law. I consider you…” he brings his metal hand up to gently run the back of cold, vibranium fingers down your cheek, “... my property.”

“Ugh, you’re disgusting!” you physically gag as you hit his hand away (always a mistake: he likes to be gentle with his left hand because he knows it boosts your confidence in your strength for a bit, and your retaliation hurts you much more than it hurts him, leaving light blue bruises on the back of your delicate knuckles.) “Your property? At least try to make it seem like you’re not—”

“Like I’m not what? Abusing you?”

Your body goes stiff as a corpse and your heart stops beating for what you swear could have been several seconds as his question hangs in the air. Your slightly agape mouth runs dry and you struggle to start up your lungs again as he watches you expectantly, his dark eyebrows raised in challenge.

When you can finally get yourself to talk again, you’re nearly breathless, like all the wind has been knocked out of you. “Don’t— don’t say that word.”

“What? Abuse?”

“Yes!” you yell, your hands moving to your head to tangle your fingers in your locks. You take a deep breath and try again, more calm this time, but you can’t hide the shakiness from your voice. “Just… don’t say that word.”

“Why not? You know that’s what this is. You know that’s what I am.”

No. He’s lying. It’s not a good marriage, but you’re just as responsible for its volatility as he is: you yell at him, you’ve thrown things at him, you’ve even threatened him with a knife once, so this can’t be abusive, because that would mean there’s a power imbalance, and that would mean you’re trapped.

“Just don’t say that word,” you try again, unable to articulate how you feel. And you know he would make you feel ridiculous for it, too, if you tried to say you’ve been bad to him in ways he doesn’t deserve. He’d laugh in your face.

And like he’s read your mind, a cruel laugh reaches your ears, causing a chill to run down your spine. “Did you actually believe me when I said it was ‘mutual’? As if that even makes sense? God, you’re so fucking stupid!” He can hardly speak through his laughter, the booming noise vibrating off the walls of the house and beating against your eardrums at the same fast pace as your heart and the blood rushing through your veins. “Women like you make it so easy, you don’t even want to believe it yourself. You’ve really never hurt me—you’ve given me a little bit of a run for my money from time to time, I’ll admit it, but it doesn’t come close, especially considering I ra—”

“STOP IT!” you screech, hot, angry tears streaming down your face. You rip your hands free of your hair and ball them into fists at your sides, your chest rising and falling so rapidly you can hardly get your body to otherwise move, all energy being exerted to your lungs to keep you breathing and talking. “How could you ever speak to me like that?”

“Tell you the truth? Come on, this isn’t anything you haven’t known, you’ve just been lying to yourself for God knows how long. And the best part is, there’s nothing either one of us can do about it.”

✪

Thank you for reading! Likes, comments and reblogs are unbelieveably appreciated.

Read more here: Bucky Barnes Masterlist

If you liked this, try Winter.

Louisiana, 2013:

A crack of thunder from the storm outside woke you like a loud alarm clock sending you straight up in bed. Your chest heaved as you looked around in the darkness as if you could see through it. With a bolt of lightning, your room illuminated from your window and the large figure that stood in your room made your heart race. The brief light had gone and you could no longer see what you prayed your imagination was concocting. “Hello?”

“You sleep peacefully,” a voice made of iron spoke back and you quickly snapped out of whatever dream-like haze you were still in.

“W-What are you doing in my house?”

Your voice sounded so weak and pathetic as you called out to the mysterious figure standing at the edge of your bed, you wish you were imagining things.

“I must take shelter.”

The more he spoke the coarse sharpness of the man's words felt like a bucket of ice water being dumped on you. It wasn’t a dream or even a nightmare, there was a giant of a man standing in your bedroom. Another flash of lightning through your window illuminated the soaking wet man with an expression as cold as the midnight air.

“Take anything you want, please god, just don’t hurt me.” You begged retreating to the furthest corner of the bed with your loose sheets balled up in your fists. This couldn’t be happening, not to you, not now.

“The weather, it is vengeful outside, your home was the easiest to get into. I lost the target but I cannot be taken back until the weather clears.”

The way he spoke was so foreign, but not in a language barrier. His words were so broken and fried like he hadn’t had a reason to speak in a long time.

“It’s a hurricane,” you mumbled, shaking like a leaf with your heart pounding like a drum in your chest. “Everyone had to evacuate.”

“Then why are you here?” He quizzed.

“I didn’t have anywhere else to go,” you cleared your throat. “I figured I’d board up the windows and stay until it blew over.” You aren’t sure why you were explaining yourself to him when all you could think about right now is that you should’ve left with everyone else rather than be where you are. With a strange man dressed in tactical gear talking about losing his target broke into your home in the middle of the night with no neighbors nearby to hear you scream.

He only gave a soft grunt to reply. “My transit cannot arrive in these conditions, your house was the first I saw that wasn’t too barricaded I could get inside. You did not board your windows or doors as well as you claim.”

“Please don’t hurt me,” you begged, a stray tear rolling down your cheek. “You can take anything you want.”

“I said I needed shelter, I do not like repeating myself.” He scoffed. “Are you unable to hear? Why can you not listen?”

“I’m sorry,” you breathed heavily. “You don’t need to repeat it. I just want to make this easy for both of us and where no one has to get hurt.” But you both knew you couldn’t protect yourself from him.

He chuckled maniacally. “Oh, is that so? You offend me. Do you think you can overpower me? And how exactly would you do that?”

“I’m fast.” You tried to defend yourself, your eyes darting between him and your open bedroom door.

“Is that so?” His tongue grazed across his bottom lip. “Why don’t I give you a head start?” He stepped out of your line of path to the door.

“What?” You whimpered.

“You heard me,” his voice hardened like his stance. “I told you I will not repeat myself for your disrespect. I’m giving you a chance to get away; this is not an opportunity I give often.”

You stirred in bed, unsure of what to do.

“One…Two…I suggest you run, rabbit.”

Your feet hit the floor with a clap of thunder. You slept only in a shirt and underwear, not exactly running clothes, let alone one you could escape in this weather. You bolted through your home, your mind rushing a thousand miles a minute, trying to come up with a plan, anything to survive.

“Little rabbit,” his heavy boots stomped slowly from your bedroom. “I’m going to get you, and I’m going to enjoy it.”

You got to your front door, still barricaded from the inside, you couldn’t get out, not quick enough at least. You didn’t know what window he came in, you didn’t exactly have the time to search either.

Spinning back around you ran into the kitchen, the humidity the storm was creating slickened every surface. You scrambled through your drawers for a knife, cursing yourself for never owning enough silverware.

“That is it?” A scoff huffed from the archway into the kitchen. You whipped back around holding a knife in his direction. “Couldn’t find a way out?”

“Stay back!” You yelled with false confidence. “I’ll use it!”

The man laughed, mumbling something in a language you couldn’t understand. “And what are you going to do with that, little rabbit?” He crept closer to you as you were backed against the kitchen sink.

The underlying growl of his breathing was close enough that you could feel it against your skin, like a panther ready to catch its prey.

He grabbed the knife from you by the blade with no hint of pain and snapped it in half from the handle before tossing it across the floor. You gasped at the inhuman display of strength and clutched your arms over your chest as if it would do anything to protect you but it only accentuated your breasts through your shirt. When you watched his eyes follow your figure you quickly repositioned yourself to hide.

Towering over you with his massive build he grabbed your arms and pried them from you, exposing you to him, your oversized shirt being the only thing covering you.

“Pretty little rabbit,” he grunted, the water still dripping wet off of him now getting on you.

You stayed frozen in pure terror as he ducked down and dragged his nose along your neck.

“I can smell how scared you are.” His deep voice vibrated against your skin. “Do I scare you, little rabbit?”

“Y-Yes,” you whimpered, your eyes staying anchored to the corner of the wall away from him as you tried to pretend you didn’t see him smelling you like you were his next meal.

“Poor thing,” he grinned with condescension before inhaling your hair. He surprised you when he let go of your hands, only to pull something from his tactical belt, but he stood hips pressed against you with no way for you to move.

“Please, don’t!” You gasped as the glint of the metal of his switchblade caught the faint light created by the roaring storm outside. He taunted it in front of your face, close enough for your shaky breath to fog the blade.

He then grabbed your hand and wrapped it around the handle of the knife, leaving it in your hand. “My knife is better; try again.”

You furrowed your brow in confusion. Was he so confident that even with a real weapon you couldn’t do anything or did he just have a death wish?

You could only stay frozen with his knife in your hand pointed at his chiseled face where he positioned you. “Try to get away. Do your worst, little rabbit.”

Uncomfortably you could only stare at him not understand what his game was and notice how truly beautiful the man was. “I won’t win.”

“I know,” his tongue brushed across his bottom lip as he stared at you like a starving wolf. “But I want to see you struggle, want to watch you play, little rabbit.”

You quickly swung the knife aiming it at his jugular. But he confiscated your hands even faster, restraining them in his and twisting them with superhuman strength, forcing you to spin and bend to his will and push you down to the kitchen counter knocking the knife down with it.

“That is better, little one.” He praised proudly filling you with an embarrassing sense of accomplishment. “You might be able to fight off an intruder, an average male perhaps. But that is not me, you will never stand a chance. I am not only a man, my blood pumps with power in ways you cannot imagine.”

“Please, don’t do this.” You begged, realizing the predicament of your position. Restrained, bent over, your shirt riding up leaving your panty clad pelvis on display in front of a violent man who had been looking at you as if you were his next meal. “I won’t say anything. I’ll be good.”

“Oh, you’ll be good you say?” He retorted, grabbing the knife beside you where it dropped. “I will be the judge of your word then, little rabbit.”

As you began to wreathe in protest he swiftly threw you back over his muscular shoulder like you weighed nothing. You struggled in his grasp as he walked back to your bedroom on the other side of the house, his knife between his teeth.

With his muddy boots, he kicked your bedroom door open wider, leaving a trail throughout the home. Throwing you onto the bed, you slightly bounced against the springed mattress. You scrambled to try to scamper away but he knew your play before you did and straddled your hips. Despite having the knife in his mouth, with his bare hands he ripped your shirt in half, ignoring the yelp from you. He wrapped the shredded fabric around your wrists and then to the headboard. You wanted to fight back more but he’d already proved so many times how you could never overpower him, you could never get away.

After properly tying your wrists to the headboard he stepped off of the bed to look down at his prize lying before him. His jaw clenched tighter around the knife as he admired your body and the way your breasts rose with your heavy breathing.

His gloved hand groped your chest before he traced his fingers down your sternum watching your skin erupt in goosebumps in his trail. When leading to your hips he pulled your underwear off you now leaving you completely bare to him. With your torn balled up underwear in his hand, he held them to his nose and inhaled deeply. You cringed at the primal act as if he was trying to memorize your scent like a bloodhound before dropping your underwear to the floor.

You wiggled below his towering gaze as if your struggle would somehow free you from your confines but you only excited him further.

His stiff hands spread your thighs apart sternly but not violently, it was as if you were a delicate test subject. He inspected you like an artifact, his eyes so drawn in you’d think he was hypnotized.

He pulled his knife out of his mouth, the handle wet with his saliva, and held it tightly by the blade guiding the handle of it between your legs. “No!” You protested, scared of what the evil man had planned.

“You do not order me, little rabbit.” He ricocheted your attempt, yet his eyes never left.

If there was one thing he knew it was to hunt. In his hunt, he watched and waited for his mission, but never missed the world that lived on around him. More often than not when he’d stake out on a building's rooftop peering through the windows of the one across he’d see the lives of others blissfully unaware of him. He’d seen the act of sex many many times and he’d watched so infatuated with the desperate yet devoted act of affection and touch he didn’t believe he would ever receive, he didn’t deserve to be a recipient anyway.

The way a man could draw a woman to tears and pleas in ways he wasn’t aware was capable of doing. Whenever he did it it was because they were about to die at his hand, but when he saw it done with pleasure and ecstasy he was filled with impatient envy.

He always noted the way they would react to the specific types of movements from their lover. Different decades, different people, and yet their reactions would be universal whenever the man’s fingers would enter her or his head would live between her thighs and devour her whole. He paid attention to the alternating styles between pairs. Sometimes soft and loving, others fast and rough, from behind, the woman on top with her head thrown back in a moan, or her lips around his cock, it didn’t matter how but all he could dream about was being the one. He wanted to feel a human touch he thought he’d never live as if he was incapable of being desired like that.

And he had entered your home, prepared to kill anyone who resided but came across you sleeping so peacefully despite the apocalyptic weather raging outside. And he thought of all the times he’d seen lovers devout themselves to each other in the sheets of a bed. And how he thought even unaware of his presence, gently asleep, you looked so beautiful he wanted to touch you the way he’d seen others do over and over again. He wanted to try every single way he’d ever seen before with you. Some more than others; he didn’t want the emotionless fuck from behind. He wanted to look at you, see you beg for him, and this time not just for your life.

Breathing heavily he dragged the handle of the same knife you tried to kill him with between your legs. You jolted as the rounded edge of the handle slid between your lips, glistening with your arousal. He played every interaction in his head the way he’d do late at night when his cock grew hard and he could only alleviate the pain by fucking his hand and imagining himself to do if he ever got the chance to do so himself to a pretty woman who kissed him deeply.

All the ways he’d seen women in pleasure even without a partner. Using fake phallas shaped items to fuck themselves as if there was a partner there until they cried out and released in the way he recognized for himself.

Gripping the blade tightly digging into his palm and guarding you from pain he began to slide his tool inside of you, watching you tense up. He didn’t care about the sharp slicing against his hand when all he could focus on was how you tried to mask your pleasure induced cries from him and the sound of how wet you were. “My little rabbit,” he bellowed with need. “You take my knife so well, the way your body reacts even if you try to pretend it doesn’t. I know I am making you feel good. I want to watch you finish, I want to watch you cry for me.”

You shook your head faintly trying to deny what he could tell was building up inside of you. He paid attention to your heart rate, counting the fast beats and making sure you weren’t going to go into cardiac arrest. “I do not know why you deny yourself. Show me you will behave, that you can be good like you claim. I do not plan on stopping until I get what I want from you, be a good girl for me, and let your body take control. There’s nothing in that brain of yours anyway.”

Your hips met with the thrust of his knife as your half lidded eyes met his with your lips parted in a moan. As you poured into his eyes like a siren he swore to whatever higher power may exist that he wasn’t going to stop. He didn’t care if you begged and begged and fought him, he wasn’t going to stop until he couldn’t draw anything else from either of you. “Cry out for me, little rabbit.”

Your eyes squeezed shut as a whine similar to a symphonic masterpiece rang from you and a gush of arousal flooded his hand the way the streets were flooded outside.

Once your body grew rigid at the thrusts of his knife he pulled the weapon out of you and admired the sticky release left in its wake. He brought the handle to your mouth. “Clean my knife.”

You shuddered once more this time with fear as your lips parted just enough to slide the slicked handle in your pretty mouth. Your lips latched around it the way he’d seen women do on a cock and he hoped this storm would last for much longer so he’d get the chance to feel your warm wet mouth on him until he filled your mouth with his cum.

When he felt satisfied by your work he pulled it from your lips before switching it back closed to tuck back into his tactical belt. Your dazed eyes followed his every move, unsure of what his next plan was. This time he shocked you as he began to completely undress himself. He’d only seen men also bare with women and although he worried about you seeing his arm he didn’t want to do this wrong when he fantasized about it for so long.

Insecurity coursed through him as your eyes roamed over every inch of him, surprise coming across your face at the reveal of his arm but you didn’t say anything. He was glad you didn’t think he looked like the monster he actually was deep inside.

He moved onto the bed, positioning himself to kneel between your damp thighs. You started to reel back in from your orgasm as you realized what he was beginning to do as he guided his cock to your cunt. He slid his tip through your lips, over the spot at the top that made you whimper earlier only to drive the noise from you again.

If he kept it up he would cum just from sliding his cock through your slit but he didn’t want to waste his first load on that. He needed it to be buried deep inside your womb.

“Wait,” you struggled against your restraints as his throbbing tip teased your entrance. “You need to wear a condom, please!”

He only shook his head, he didn’t understand, but it was irrelevant when there was nothing in the world that would separate him from being inside of you bare.

His vibranium hand cradled under your thigh before hoisting it over his shoulder. He tried to ignore the way you flinched at the feel of the metal even if you didn’t say anything it still made him feel like a creature. He admired the way your body spread below him in the positions he forced you into. Before your still orgasm shocked brain could comprehend he thrust himself fully inside of you.

The moan that left him was one that could be described as unholy, unhuman, the way a creature would relish in joy when finally getting to feel the little human he’d been chasing after. You were the little rabbit he had been chasing and he was going to enjoy every second of ruining you.

“No, it’s too big, it hurts!” You plead, trying to pull away from him but he silenced you with a deep thrust that forced all of him inside of you, stretching you just for him.

“Shh,” he hushed. “Take it like you are meant to, little rabbit. Your body needs me, I can feel it inside of you.”

Leaning down to your face, stretching your leg uncomfortably with it, his lips ghosted over yours, confused and frustrated. He didn’t want to kiss you poorly, kissing was always introduced in every encounter he watched, and he assumed that intimacy was just as important as the act itself.

Like matching puzzle pieces his body fit perfectly into yours as he was pressed entirely onto you, his towering frame consumed you as he dragged his hips slowly inside of you. Your whimpers grew more desperate and uncontrollable with the slow dragging movement. He tried to keep from fucking into you fast, he wanted you to feel good. You looked too beautiful like this to try to deny you anything but as much pleasure as he could create. It was the first time someone had a reaction to him that wasn’t pure terror and he never thought he’d crave the feeling of someone pressed to him with the goal of happiness in sight.

“Kiss me,” he whispered, your noses brushing against each other. You hesitantly nodded before taking his lips into yours. Like much of his social intelligence, he pretended to know more than he did by copying others. He mimicked the way your soft mouth moved against his, the intoxicating feeling of your tongue brushing against his bottom lip. For a moment he thought he had died and gone to heaven, but there was no way a killer like him would go anywhere but the depths of hell. The peace you were creating for him felt nothing like he’d known at least not for some time. Like it was a distant memory he couldn’t recall.

He reached to your wrists bound to the headboard and yanked the piece tying them to the post free. He moved your stiff arms behind his neck, forcing you into a further embrace. He wanted to feel every inch of you until there was nothing left.

Every moan he drew from you separating your lips from each other for a brief moment felt more and more beautiful. He tried to convince himself he must’ve been imagining you latching onto him, pulling him closer. Your legs now wrapped around his waist, pushing your hips up to meet his, your tied wrists pulling his neck down to stay connected to you, the way you were squeezing his cock so tight.

“F-Faster, please.” You whispered, shame dissipating with each thrust inside of you, unable to hide what he was making you feel.

Wordlessly only with a confirming grunt, he thrusted into you at a new speed that he no longer had to restrain himself from.

He wouldn’t dare do anything to interrupt your song of climax, needing to hear every note he played from you. He kissed down to your neck, his teeth hungrily nipping at the skin like a wolf going for a kill. “Oh my god…” you called out with a strained voice as you gripped tighter around him and he thought he was going to die right then and there but there was truly no death he’d rather want than to be inside of you.

The sensation of feeling your release between where the two of you met, was a favorite recent discovery of his in comparison to the way he came.

Cursing something in Russian he followed shortly behind your orgasm, buried deep inside of you against your womb he flooded you with his own.

He road out his brain-numbing high, his thrusts slowing to a halt. He couldn’t bring himself to separate from you, he wasn’t sure it was possible. He belonged pressed against you, inside of you, filling your womb, his lips against yours, any way possible it didn’t matter how, just as long as he was touching you.

A chill ran over his heart as you removed your arms from around his neck and your legs unraveled from him silently urging him off of you. He looked back over your blissfully exhausted expression and pressed a tender kiss to the center of your forehead before pulling out of you.

He looked over your shaking body, fascinated with the reactions he created from you, he wanted to do it over and over again in as many ways as possible.

It was an automatic response to tend to you, as if you were his pet he needed to take care of because you were too helpless to do it properly for yourself. A bathroom en-suite door remained cracked open on the other side of the room. He retrieved a cloth he ran under the faucet water he made sure wasn’t too cold for comfort.

You had given him the greatest thing anyone ever had, or anyone ever could, he wanted to dote on you and praise you for it. He wanted to protect his little rabbit with his life.

Returning to you, alarms went off inside of him as he watched you cry. “What is wrong?” He looked over you, scared he might’ve hurt you too badly that he would never forgive himself for it.

“I’m a bad person,” you confessed and he only looked at you with a furrowed brow as he began to clean you with the cloth. “I shouldn’t have…I shouldn’t have liked that, I’m a bad person, what’s wrong with me-“

“Enough,” he interrupted your anxious ramblings. If you thought you were a bad person for your reactions he didn’t want you to ever know half the things he’s done as a trained assassin. “I am not a normal man.” He reiterated. “I wanted you to feel good, I knew how to do so even through your hesitancy.” He was just winging it. “I asked you to let yourself go, and as you said yourself, you are a good girl and you keep your word and obey orders.”

The soldier stroked along your cheek trying to mimic comfort. He did not want you to feel guilt for something as beautiful as what the two of you did. “You are nothing but pure to me, little rabbit. You made me feel something I didn’t know I would ever deserve to feel. And for that, you are a good person, you are honest. If you must blame someone blame me, because you’ve done nothing wrong, I do not believe you are capable of doing so if you tried.”

Another tear left your eye, this time in appreciation and not sadness, with a gentle nod.

“I must go, little rabbit.” He sighed wanting anything but to leave you. Dread filled your face and he wanted to slit his own throat for being the reason you would look at him in such a way. “I can’t have them know you saw me… I could not live if they were to hurt you…”

You swallowed your tears and nodded once more as you watched him redress. He hoped you didn’t notice him sneaking the panties he’d taken off of you into one of his pockets.

After he dressed you cleared your throat and held out your tied wrists in his direction. He tried to hide his grin, replaying everything he had just done to you trying to commit it to memory enough he’d remember it even through the next round in the chair.

Pulling the notorious switchblade from his belt he cut your wrists free from the makeshift confines of the fabric that was once your shirt.

“Thank you,” you whispered and he wanted to applaud you once more for your manner. You were the good girl you promised him.

He clicked his knife back shut before setting it on your nightstand. Although he would only ever be able to keep you in his memories he wanted to give you something. A sick feeling came across his stomach thinking of you forgetting him.

“As much as I am grateful you stayed home,” he began. “If the weather becomes like this again and they order you to leave, you leave. Do not wait it out like you said, you leave with everyone else and you get to safety, nature will not show mercy the way I did. Do you promise?”

“I promise,” your voice delicate at the feeling of disappointment and discipline.

“Plus, you are not good at barricading yourself as you claim to be.”

He committed the sight of a faint laugh leaving your lips, it being the most beautiful thing will ever hear.

“Be good little rabbit.”

///

A/n: this could very easily have a part two but it would be present day and not dark!bucky so idk if Yall would fw that but i also feel like it would be similar to my Bride Of Soldat fic that I accidentally abandoned. Also why this is the second fic I’ve written about being trapped in extreme weather (the first being Blizzard w Dark!Steve).

“Behaving,” you murmur, and you’re smiling when you say it because you want the warning, the pinch, the promise. Your fingers are laced at the back of your neck like you’re in cuffs, elbows lifted, bare skin offered to the press of bodies pushing and swaying around you.

“Mm.” He hums. His vibranium hand finds your hip, not gentle; his flesh one slips into the ends of your hair. The crowd swallows you both, strangers and sweat and the shiver of cold air falling from the AC unit above like rain. You tipped two tequila sodas down your throat and pretended not to see the way he watched you from the bar—how you laughed too loud at nothing, how you let a stranger’s hands sit on your waist for one song too long. A game. A dare. The line you draw just to watch him step over it.

“Where are you?” he asks, like a courtesy he already knows the answer to.

“Green,” you say, and you stand up a little taller in it. “Sir.”

That does it. He breathes out through his nose, small and sharp, and then he takes your wrists in his metal hand and brings them down and forward, guides you through the press of bodies, cutting between dancers like a knife splits fabric. You go because you always do, because it feels like being caught, because you want to; the bouncer rubber-stamped everyone hours ago and the floor is sticky underfoot and the DJ is splicing something filthy into something fun and you are laughing, breathless, until he isn’t laughing and then you aren’t either.

The corner is dark—one of those bad-lit hollows where a stack of out-of-service speakers lives like furniture. A column throws a triangle of shadow across a low banquette. The strobes don’t reach. There’s a puddle of color leaking in from the dance floor, just enough to make everything look like it’s underwater.

Bucky turns, backs into the corner, and sits. He spreads his knees. Denim pulls tight over his thighs, black tee riding up enough for a slice of stomach. The metal arm rests along the back of the bench like a bar; his flesh hand pats his right thigh.

“Up,” he says.

“What lesson is this?” you ask, soft, because the game is half the heat. You curl a finger in his collar and feel him swallow.

“The one where you learn,” he says, and the corner of his mouth twitches, “what happens when you show off what’s mine.”

“My what, Bucky?”

He smiles then, but it’s not kind. “Your everything.”

You climb. One knee on the bench, then the other, dress sliding up your thigh, the hem bunched in his fist as he drags you into place. He doesn’t bother to hide the way he looks at you; he never does. He looks like a man about to eat, about to pray. He settles you on his right thigh with practised hands, angles your hips, aligns you over the hard muscle of his quadriceps. Your core hits heat. The seam of his jeans seats between your lips, right where you need it. Your hands come up to his shoulders and he tsks, catches your wrists and lays them flat against the wall over his head, palms slick on concrete.

“Hold, sweetheart,” he says, and when you arch against the wall, testing, the metal hand closes around your wrists like a cuff. “I didn’t say let go.”

Your mouth opens. Nothing comes out.

He rocks his leg once, just a twitch, and lightning arcs out along your nerves. The club pours itself around you; a woman shrieks laughter near the bar; someone drops a bottle and it shatters like ice; the bass shudders the wall you’re pressed to.

“Feel where I want you?” he asks, voice a thread under the noise.

“Yes.”

“Show me.” He holds your gaze. “Ride.”

You move.

It’s a slow drag at first, tentative, finding the angle—forward, down, back—notching the seam against your clit, letting the rough weave scrape exactly where your body sings. You make a soft sound you can’t help, and his eyes get darker like you’ve fed him something.

“That’s it,” he says. “Take what you need.”

You grind down harder. The denim bites and your dress is a useless suggestion around your waist and heat licks up your spine. Bucky anchors you with one hand caging your wrists and the other a heavy press at the small of your back. Every time you start to speed up, chasing the rhythm your body craves, he tightens his fingers and slows you back down, forcing you to roll instead of rut. Deliberate. Mean.

“Please,” you say, and you hate the way it breaks.

“Already?” He tips his head, mock-pitying. “You were so brave out there. Smiling at strangers. Could’ve sworn you didn’t need me at all.”

“I need you,” you breathe. It tastes like confessing on a church floor. “I always need you.”

“I know,” he says, and then—kindness, reward—he lifts his thigh under you and you slide with a sticky, obscene glide that pulls an involuntary plea out of your mouth.

He presses his mouth to your ear. “You don’t get to come until I say,” he tells you, conversational, like he’s enumerating rules you’ve already broken. “You understand me?”

“Yes.”

“What did I say?”

“I don’t—” you gasp as he flexes his quad, “—I don’t get to come until you say.”

“There’s my girl.”

The dance floor is close enough that you could stretch an arm out and touch it. Close enough that a guy with glitter smeared across his collarbone stumbles by and catches your eye with a grin before he’s gone. Close enough that the music owns the air in your lungs and the lighting cuts Bucky into moving pieces—brow, cheekbone, mouth, throat, the glint down his left arm that screams you’re playing with bright sharp things, sweetheart, be careful.

He doesn’t want careful.

He wants you wide open and obedient.

“Faster,” he says, and you do, rolling your hips with more pressure, more greed, the seam torquing against your clit until your mouth falls open. The bench bites your knees. His hand at your back slides to your jaw and then your throat, fingers splayed wide, not squeezing—just a promise waiting. “Look at me,” he says, and you do, because you know better than to look away when he sounds like that. “That’s it. Show me your face while you make a mess on my jeans.”

You can feel yourself—slick, eager, the damp smear his thigh drags as you work yourself harder. He watches every second and gives you nothing but the bulk of his leg, the restraint at your wrists, the wordless hit of ownership in his eyes. You want his mouth and his fingers and the weight of him; you want his belt loose and his zipper down; you want to sit on him, sink down slow, take him so deep you forget your own name. He knows all of it because he taught you how.

“Bucky,” you whisper, a warning you can’t quite shape.

He smiles again, lazy and devastating. “Not yet,” he says.

He makes you stop on the edge three times. Each denial is a hook in your belly, a hard yank away from light; you shake with it, sweat running down your spine, thighs burning. The third time you whine in frustration and he laughs, pleased, thumb brushing the racing pulse in your throat.

“What?” he asks, faux-innocent. “You thought you’d get to show off and get my kindness? That how you thought this worked?”

“You’re not kind,” you say, and it’s a compliment, not a complaint.

He hums agreement, mouth soft with fondness that makes you want to cry. “You do look pretty when you beg, though.” He drags his thigh forward and your hips follow helplessly. “Use me.”

You do—because he told you to, because you crave the way he tells you what to do, because the sound you make when you follow orders is as much his as your body is. You rock faster, your slick catching at the denim, the friction a glorious ache that makes your vision spark. He tips his head, considers, then slides his flesh hand between your body and his to press two fingers against you, through the thin cotton of your panties, cruelly light. Your whole body jerks like he’s cracked something open inside you.

“Wet,” he mutters, reverent. “Fuck, you’re soaking me.”

“Yours,” you breathe, because it makes him gentler sometimes. Not now. Now his eyes flare and the fingers circling your clit go a shade harder, a millimeter faster.

“You are.” He sounds calm. He’s not. You can feel the tension in him, the coiled want, the heat rolling off his skin like summer. “Say it.”

“I’m yours.”

“Say who you’re doing this for.”

“You,” you gasp. “You, you, you—”

“Eyes on me.” His thumb lifts to your jaw again, a reminder, and you obey, pupils blown, mouth open. “Hold.”

He pulls his fingers away. You could cry with it. He pats your cheek twice—good girl, brave pet—and then he shifts his leg beneath you, notching his quad higher so the seam aligns like a blade exactly where you want it. He holds your wrists tighter. He leans in until his nose skims your cheekbone and his breath hits your ear.

“When I say, you let go,” he says. “Not before. Not after. If you disobey me I’ll put you on your knees in the middle of this floor and make you apologize to every single person who hears you choke on my cock. Do you understand?”

It goes through you like a spark and you clench around nothing, dizzy with it.

“Yes sir,” you say, and it’s a broken prayer.

He nods. Approval. Permission to fly.

“Ride,” he says again, and this time he lets you.

You grind down like you’re starving. You are. You fuck yourself on his thigh and the world narrows to a single point of friction, to the hot rasp of fabric on skin, to the solid immovable muscle under you and the iron grip of his fingers and his voice in your ear. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t need to. He makes you do the work of it and you would pay for this; you would scream for this; you are breathless and shaking and so close your mouth has forgotten how to form words.

“Please,” you hear yourself say, wrecked. “Please, Bucky, please, I’m—”

He tightens his hand at your throat, a little. Enough to pull your focus like a leash. The room tilts and the music falls a few inches away and your pulse becomes the bassline.

“Now,” he says.

You fall.

It hits like a breakage, like the bottom dropping out of an elevator; your body bows and you clamp down hard around nothing and everything at once. Heat rips up through you and you’re coming, hard and helpless, soaking through thin cotton and onto his jeans, riding his thigh in messy, frantic bursts while he holds you exactly where he wants you. You hear yourself—loud, too loud—your cry torn right out of your throat, and you can’t stop it, can’t even think to want to, because he told you to and your body obeys and the sound rolls out into the crowd like a flare.

Heads turn.

A handful of people look; one woman laughs, delighted; someone wolf-whistles; someone else claps twice, like they saw a trick performed to completion. You don’t see any of them. All you see is the way Bucky’s eyes go heavy and dark with possession and something like awe.

“That’s my girl,” he says, low and ruined, pride roughing his voice. “Good. Good. That’s it.” He lets the pressure at your throat melt away and cups the back of your head, pulling you into his chest while the aftershocks fuck you to pieces. “You let go on my say-so, didn’t you? You did so well for me.”

You shake against him. You can’t stop moving. The oversensitivity is a bright ache but you ride it, twitching, gasping, whining into his collar because you can’t bite the sounds back and he doesn’t want you to.

When it starts to crest down from impossible to unbearable, he eases you. His fingers go slow on your hip. The press at your back turns to a stroke. He breathes you down like he’s landing an airplane—steady, steady, easy—and the world comes back into shape around you: laughter, glass, a hundred conversations. You sag. He holds.

“Up,” he says after a moment, softer. You try. Your knees don’t work. He chuckles, smug. “I said up, not alone.” He shifts his metal hand from your wrists and you feel the air rush back into your shoulders. He holds you by the waist and lifts, half-standing himself, setting you on the bench beside him. You sink. Your dress slides down your thighs and his hand goes under the hem, palm wide and warm on your knee, grounding you.

“You okay?” he asks. It’s the voice he uses in the quiet after, the one that belongs to nobody else.

“Yeah,” you say, and you tip forward and press your forehead to his jaw. “s good.”

“Good.” He kisses your temple, quick, like he can’t help it. Then, just to be an asshole, he drags two fingers over the wet patch he can see on his jeans and lifts them to his mouth. He tastes you, lazy, his eyes on yours the whole time. You make a sound you don’t have a name for.

“Bucky—”

“Mm?”

“That was—” You break off, searching for a word that isn’t ruinous or perfect or yours. You end up with, “Mean.”

He grins. “You love me mean.”

“I do.”

“Then let me keep teaching you.” He stands, rolls his shoulders back, resets himself inside his jeans with a casual adjust that makes you bite your lip. He looks like a study in restraint, like the throttle is open inside him and he’s still walking. “Think we owe the nice people a drink for the show?”

“Or a curtain,” you say, dry, and he laughs, head tipping back.

He scans the room, reading it the way he reads a battlefield: exits, sightlines, how the crowd moves. Then his gaze cuts back to you, and your stomach flips because you know that look. It’s the one that means he’s not done and you don’t get to be done either.

He holds out his hand.

You take it.

He leads you across the edge of the dance floor, skirting the throbbing center, body a constant barrier at your back. People move; they always do. His presence cleaves a path like a ship. He steers you past the line for the bathroom, past the smoking door, to a short private hall marked employees only that’s half-open, the lock obviously broken a century ago.

“Bucky,” you hiss, thrilled. “We can’t—”

“We can,” he says, and the authority in it makes your knees go soft. “And we will, unless you want to stop. Do you want to stop?”

You swallow. Your heart is trying to beat its way out through your throat. “No.”

“Color.”

“Green.”

He nods, satisfied. “Good girl.”

The hallway is dim and narrow and smells faintly of bleach. The door to the back stoop is propped with a brick; a box of spare napkins sits half-crushed under a Sanitation Schedule sign. He lifts you before your brain catches up, palms under your thighs, and you yelp, hands flying to his shoulders automatically. He pins you to the wall next to the door, hips crowding you, and the first drag of his jeans against your sensitive body makes you squirm and gasp. He shushes you, amused, then slips his hand under your dress again, fingers sliding under the edge of your panties to find you with indecent precision.

“Christ,” he says, almost to himself. “Still dripping.”

“Your fault,” you say, breathless. He strokes you once, slow, a slick slide that makes your eyes cross.

“I’ll take the blame.” He presses his thumb to your clit and your hips jump. “Think you learned?”

“Yes.”

“What did we learn?”

“That I don’t get to come until you say,” you whisper. “That I’m yours. That I—” He adds a second finger and you lose the sentence, clenching down with a desperate sound that earns you a soft ah, sweetheart against your mouth. “That I’m yours in public too.”

“Everywhere,” he says, and then he kisses you, deep and filthy and possessive, tongue licking into you like he plans to steal every air molecule you don’t need. You kiss back like drowning, arms wrapped tight around his shoulders, fingers in his hair. He crooks his fingers inside you and finds a new lever in your spine and your head hits the wall with a soft thump. The door to the hallway bangs once as someone pushes it and then thinks better, the sliver of brighter light slicing across Bucky’s cheekbone and then gone.

He pulls back, breath ragged, and it strikes you, the way it always does, that the man who just made you come so hard you saw stars is also the man who lifts you with one arm like you weigh nothing, who checks your color like he’s reading a gauge, who knows exactly how mean to be. You reach up and cup his face and he leans into your palm for one heartbeat like a benediction.

“I’m going to make you come again,” he says, practical. “Quietly this time.”

“That seems unlikely.”

He grins, teeth. “You’ll try for me.”

You do try. You chew your lip and bury your face in his shoulder and muffle your sounds in his neck as he works you with his hand, slow and ruthless, thumb drawing slick circles over your clit. He doesn’t rush. He doesn’t need to. He says your name in your ear like a sin and the world telescopes down to the hot pressure building under his hand, to the wet push-pull of his fingers inside you, to the way he says good every time you shudder and clamp down around him. The bass finds you even here, a distant thump that keeps time with your heartbeat.

“Now,” he murmurs, and you come again, softer but no less deep, your body bowing in his grip. He rides you through it, hand firm at your hip to keep you from sliding down the wall, lips at your temple, your cheek, the corner of your mouth, kissing you like reward.

When you sag, he lowers you with care until your feet find the floor. Your legs shake. He steadies you and then, without ceremony, turns on the faucet over the mop sink and wets a wad of napkins, wringing them out. He crouches, knuckles dusting your knee as he looks up your body, checking. You nod. He cleans you gently, efficient and tender, the cracked-tile kind of romance he’s best at. He strips your panties off with a slide and a soft, triumphant sound, stuffs them into his back pocket like evidence.

“Bucky,” you protest weakly.

“Souvenir,” he says, unapologetic. “You’ll get them back if you’re good. In the car.” He stands, tucks a stray hair behind your ear, palms your cheek. “Water?”

“Yes,” you say, and then, because you’re you and he loves you for it, “Kiss first.”

He does. It’s sweet, now. He presses his forehead to yours, that quiet that only exists in the eye of the storm you made together. You breathe him in, let your system come down.

“Ready to face your public?” he asks after a beat, amused.

“Absolutely not,” you say, but your smile gives you away. “If anyone looks at me—”

“They can look.” His mouth quirks. “They can know. That’s part of it, isn’t it?”

It is. The dark corner of the club, the hush in the hallway, the way your body waits to obey until he says now. The fact that if anyone paid attention, if anyone cared to know, they’d see the truth of you written in the shine on his jeans and the wobble in your step and the smudged lip gloss on his mouth. You are his favorite secret and his favorite spectacle and tonight, both things at once.

“Come on,” he says, and tugs your dress down like a gentleman. He smooths the hem. He kisses the corner of your mouth. “I owe you that drink.”

“You owe me two,” you say, attempting dignity and failing because your knees choose that moment to betray you again and you catch his arm with a graceless little grab.

“I’ll buy you three.” He opens the door with his shoulder. The noise swallows you whole. The lights are laughing. He leans into your ear, voice velvet. “And then I’m going to take you home and fuck you slow for being so good for me, and later I’m going to fuck you mean for making me show the whole city who you belong to, and you’re going to thank me for both.”

You shiver. “Yes, sir.”

“Good girl,” he says, and when you step back into the pulsing heat and the bright, the room looks different because you are, and his hand on the small of your back says mine, mine, mine in a language everyone can read.

At the bar, the bartender gives Bucky a knowing look and you bury your face in his shoulder, laughing at yourself. He orders water for you without asking and whiskey for himself, slides the glass into your hand, watches you drain it, then immediately orders another. A woman two stools down raises her drink toward you and winks; Bucky’s mouth twitches, half a threat, half a smile. You take your second water like penance and let your legs recover.

He leans on the bar, forearms tight, ink at his wrist peeking. He looks at you the way men look at finish lines and home and the first good day after a bad winter. He looks wrecked and satisfied and still hungry.

“What did we learn?” he asks again, quieter now, private.

You lick your lips. You hold his gaze; you hold yourself in it.

“That I’m yours,” you say. “That I don’t get to come until you say. That I love you mean, and you love me safe.”

He exhales, a sound like relief. “Yeah,” he says softly. “That’ll do.”

The DJ flips the track. The floor erupts. Somewhere a laugh breaks into a squeal. Somewhere a glass hits tile and shatters like stars. You stand next to your man with water in your hand and your heart in your throat, and when he hooks his fingers in your belt loop and drags you close, you go like you were born to.

“Dance with me,” he says, and it’s not a request.