#heldfic

Right now, the last one is the only thing you can think about.

The shitty safe house mattress creaked beneath you, springs protesting with every little shift of your hips. The only light in the room came from the crack under the door and the neon sign outside the grimy window, painting everything in dull red.

Bucky was on his knees at the edge of the bed, shoulders and arms looking even bigger in the thin slats of light, dark hair mussed, stubble rough against the inside of your thighs. His hands were wrapped around your hips, dragging you back to his mouth every time you tried to wriggle away, muscles in his forearms flexing under your grip.

“Bucky—” you gasped, voice already ragged, “I– I can’t—”

“You can,” he rasped, lips slick, breath hot where it fanned over your swollen clit. “You always do, doll. Give me one more.”

You’d already come twice on his tongue, thighs trembling, knees nearly giving out despite the fact that you were lying down. He’d pulled orgasm after orgasm out of you like he was born to do it, unrelenting, hungry.

He always got like this after a mission. After a narrow escape, after adrenaline still burned in his veins and he needed something—someone—to ground him.

You.

His girl.

Even if neither of you ever said it out loud.

He flattened his tongue and dragged it from your entrance up to your clit, slow and obscene, like he had all the time in the damn world and no one was hunting you. Your fingers tangled in his hair, tugging hard when he wrapped his lips around your clit and sucked.

“F–fuck, Bucky,” you cried, back arching, your heels digging into his broad back. “Oh my god.”

He groaned against you, like the sound of you coming apart was his favorite thing he’d ever heard, like tasting you was better than breathing. He slid his metal hand up, cool fingers pressing on your lower belly.

“Feel that?” he murmured, eyes flickering up to meet yours, pupils blown wide and wild. “Feel how deep I was inside you earlier? You’re still so full of me, doll. So fuckin’ perfect.”

Heat coiled again in your gut, sharp and sudden. “You’re insane.”

He smirked, all cocky edges and soft eyes. “For you? Yeah. Open for me.”

He didn’t wait for more than the slightest parting of your thighs, dipping two fingers into you, the slide easy from how wet you were. You whimpered at the stretch, at the way he curled them just right, brushing that spot inside that made your vision go white.

“Bucky,” you choked, “please, I—”

He shushed you gently, like you weren’t shaking, like he wasn’t fucking you on his fingers with his mouth still latched around your clit.

“Let go, sweetheart. Give it to me,” he muttered, voice rough. “You’re safe. I’ve got you. I’m not lettin’ anything touch you but me.”

His words hit something deep and tender, something that had nothing to do with the way his tongue flicked against you and everything to do with the way he’d thrown himself between you and bullets earlier like your life meant more than his.

You broke, again, with a strangled cry, his name ripped from your throat. Your body seized, inner walls clamping down around his fingers, the pleasure sharp and overwhelming. He groaned low, like he could feel every flutter, like your orgasm flooded his own veins.

“Good girl,” he breathed against you as you rode it out, hips jerking helplessly. “That’s it. That’s my good girl.”

He didn’t stop until you were whimpering, the overstimulation making your legs twitch. Only then did he press a soft, almost reverent kiss to your clit and pull back, resting his forehead against your thigh, chest heaving.

You stared down at him, flushed and wrecked, hair sticking to your damp forehead.

“You’re a menace,” you panted.

He grinned up at you, stupidly handsome even with your slick on his chin. “And you love me for it.”

The words hung in the air between you, heavier than gunfire.

You swallowed, heart thudding, fingers still tangled in his hair. “We should sleep. We move at sunrise.”

He watched you for a long moment, like he wanted to call the words back, or say them again, louder. Instead, he climbed up the bed, hauling you into his chest, wrapping himself around you like a shield.

“Yeah,” he muttered into your hair. “Sunrise.”

He didn’t say anything else, didn’t push. You didn’t ask.

That was how it always was.

On the run, you were everything to each other. In the quiet, afterward, you were…whatever this was. Undefined. Tension and tenderness and sex that could bring you to your knees.

You fell asleep to the heavy beat of his heart under your ear and the steady rise and fall of his chest, pretending you didn’t know exactly what you wanted it to be.

Getting pardoned, getting cleared, getting brought in from the cold—it all happened faster than you’d expected.

One week, you and Bucky were sharing shitty safe houses and stolen showers; the next, you were back at the compound, official, legal, with actual beds and an actual roof that wasn’t leaking over your heads.

You’d thought maybe the shift back to normalcy would change things.

It didn’t.

Not really.

You still found yourself in his bed more nights than not, his big body caging you in, his lips tracing your spine while he drifted off. You still had quick, breathless hookups in empty training rooms, your back pressed to the cool mirrors while he bit down on your shoulder to muffle his groans.

But in the daylight, in front of the team, nothing was ever said.

You were “The Package Deal” in mission briefings, “Conveniently Together” in the kitchen when you both reached for the same mug. Nat would raise an eyebrow at the hickey peeking out from your collar; Sam would smirk when Bucky unconsciously reached for you in crowded hallways. Steve had given Bucky a look once—soft, knowing, like he could see straight through both of you.

No one said anything.

Neither did you.

If you didn’t say it out loud, it couldn’t be taken away. That was the unspoken truce you and Bucky seemed to cling to.

Which was why, when the new recruit started hitting on you, it caught you completely off guard.

You’d only met him a couple days ago. Fresh out of SHIELD training, all bright eyes and too-big ego, eager to impress. He was cute, in that boyish, cocky way—brown hair, quick smile, shoulders broad enough to fill out his tac vest. Nothing compared to the walking wall of muscle that was Bucky Barnes, but still.

You were in the common room, curled up on one of the couches with a tablet, scrolling through mission reports. Bucky was on the opposite couch, long legs stretched out, socked feet on the coffee table, flipping through channels with half his attention, the other half—if the way his gaze kept flickering over to you was any indication—firmly on you.

You felt him watching and ignored it, biting back a smile.

“Hey.”

You looked up at the voice.

The recruit—Alec, you remembered—was standing a few feet away, fidgeting with a protein shaker bottle. He flashed you a charming smile, the kind that probably worked on a lot of people.

“Mind if I sit?” he asked, gesturing to the empty spot beside you.

You glanced at Bucky quickly, something tight flickering in your chest when you saw his jaw clench. He didn’t say anything, didn’t even look directly at you, but the remote in his hand suddenly looked dangerously close to snapping in half.

You swallowed a laugh. “Sure,” you said, shifting your legs to give Alec room. “Go ahead.”

He plopped down, a little closer than strictly necessary, his thigh brushing yours. You shifted slightly, not really wanting to send the wrong message, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“I’ve been meaning to thank you,” he said, leaning in a bit, lowering his voice like he was letting you in on a secret. “For the training last week. You didn’t have to go that hard on the mats to make a point, you know.”

You smirked. “You kept dropping your guard. I thought you liked getting your ass handed to you.”

He laughed, cheeks faintly pink. “Not usually. But I’ll make an exception for you.”

Across the room, the TV flicked through three channels in rapid succession before landing on some nature documentary. Bucky still hadn’t turned fully toward you, but you could feel the icy weight of his attention now, focused and sharp.

“You’re, uh, you’re really good,” Alec went on. “In the field too. I saw your file. You were on the run with Barnes for almost a year, right? That’s pretty badass.”

You shrugged. “We got lucky. A lot.”

“Still,” he said, eyes trailing over your face, lingering on your mouth. “Luck or not, you’re impressive.”

You snorted lightly, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. Compliments weren’t exactly new. Bucky could talk you into blushing with a single sentence when he wanted to. But something about this felt…off. Not dangerous, exactly. Just unfamiliar.

“Thanks,” you said, polite, trying to angle your body subtly away. “You’re not bad yourself. For a rookie.”

He grinned, clearly taking that as flirting. “Maybe you could… show me a few more moves? Outside of the gym.” His voice dropped suggestively. “I learn better one-on-one.”

The remote in Bucky’s hand hit the table with a loud thunk.

Alec jolted slightly, glancing over. You followed his gaze.

Bucky was already on his feet, movements unhurried but radiating intensity. He crossed the space between the couches with that lethal, predatory grace, broad shoulders filling your vision as he stopped in front of you.

“Up,” he said, voice low and roughened at the edges, like he’d been grinding his teeth.

Your brows rose. “Excuse me?”

“Up,” he repeated, blue eyes locked on yours, something wild simmering under the surface. “We’re done here.”

“Uh—” Alec started, confused. “Sergeant Barnes, we were just—”

Bucky’s gaze slid to him, and you watched the poor guy shrink a little in his seat. “I know exactly what you were just,” Bucky said coolly. “And unless you’ve suddenly developed a death wish, you’re going to stop.”

Heat flared under your skin, irritation warring with arousal. “Bucky, what the hell?”

He looked back at you, jaw tight. “We are not doin’ this dance with some punk kid who doesn’t know when to keep his eyes to himself. Get up, sweetheart.”

The pet name, the gravel in his voice, the possessive edge—it all hit you at once. Your pulse kicked up, a fresh wave of heat rolling through you that had nothing to do with embarrassment.

Still, your pride bristled. “You don’t get to order me around just because someone talked to me,” you said, chin lifting. “You haven’t exactly—”

He leaned down, bringing his mouth close to your ear. “If you keep arguing with me, I’m gonna fuck you right here,” he murmured, voice barely audible, “and then everyone is gonna see what’s mine, not just hear it.”

Your breath stuttered, a sharp rush of arousal clenching low in your belly.

You shot Alec an apologetic half-smile as you stood. “We’ll, uh, talk later.”

He nodded, eyes wide, clearly not sure what the hell just happened.

Bucky’s metal hand settled at the small of your back, firm and unyielding as he steered you toward the hallway. His touch burned through your shirt, all that contained force and fury directed solely at getting you alone.

“This is insane,” you muttered as he practically marched you into the elevator.

“Says the woman who let me fuck her behind a collapsing barn while a Hydra team was five minutes out,” he shot back, hitting the button for your floor. “Now you’re worried about insane?”

You glared up at him, though it was weaker than you’d like. “You can’t just drag me off every time someone looks at me.”

He crowded you against the elevator wall, one hand braced above your head, the other curving around your hip, fingers digging in possessively. He was so close you could feel the heat of him, the solid wall of his chest against yours.

“He wasn’t just looking at you,” Bucky bit out. “He was fuckin’ undressing you with his eyes and asking you for one-on-one ‘lessons’ like he stood a chance.”

“You don’t know that’s what he meant,” you argued, even though, yeah, that was exactly what Alec had meant.

He raised a brow. “You believe that or you just feel like arguing because you like it when I get like this?”

The smirk that tugged at the corner of his mouth told you he already knew the answer.

Your cheeks heated. “You’re an ass.”

“Yeah,” he said softly, eyes raking over your face. “But I’m your ass.”

The elevator dinged, doors sliding open.

You didn’t get another word in before he scooped you up, throwing you over his shoulder like you weighed nothing. You squealed, smacking his back.

“Bucky!”

“Anyone looks,” he said, striding down the hall with infuriating confidence, “they’ll see you belong with me.”

Your heart tripped over itself at that word—belong—but before you could unpack it, he was shouldering into your room, kicking the door shut behind him with a solid thud.

He deposited you on the bed, and you bounced, breathless, hair mussed. You glared half-heartedly as he loomed over you.

“You’re being ridiculous,” you said, even as your thighs pressed together.

He stared down at you, chest heaving, hands flexing at his sides. “You think I don’t see the way people look at you?” he demanded. “Like they’re trying to figure out how fast they can get in your pants?”

“Like how you looked at me?” you shot back. “When we were on the run?”

His jaw clenched. “I never hid how much I wanted you.”

“No,” you said quietly. “You just never called it anything.”

That made him falter. Just for a second. Just long enough for you to see the flicker of guilt and fear beneath the anger.

He swallowed, throat working. “You wanna call it something?” he asked roughly. “Because I can fuckin’ do that.”

Your breath caught. “Bucky—”

“You’re mine,” he said, voice dropping, blue eyes blazing. “You’ve been mine since the first night you let me touch you, since the first time you let me put my tongue between your thighs and make you scream. I’ve been obsessed with you since long before that idiot recruit knew your name.”

Heat flooded you, sharp and dizzying. “You can’t just say that because you’re jealous,” you whispered, though your body was already arching toward him.

“This isn’t about jealousy,” he growled. “This is about the fact that I nearly lost you a hundred times and I’m not riskin’ someone else thinking they get a shot with you because I was too chickenshit to open my mouth.”

He reached for you suddenly, dragging you down the bed until your ass was at the edge, your legs dangling over the side. You gasped as he roughly tugged your leggings and panties down in one smooth motion, the cool air of the room hitting your already damp skin.

“Bucky—”

“Shut up,” he muttered, dropping to his knees.

Your protest died on your tongue when he shoved your thighs apart, his broad shoulders wedging them open. He stared at you like a starving man presented with a feast, chest rising and falling quickly.

“Christ,” he breathed. “Look at this. Look at what that kid thought he had a chance at.”

You squirmed. “He wasn’t—”

“You’re drenched,” Bucky cut in, running two fingers through your slick, spreading it, watching the way you clenched around nothing. “Been like this since before I grabbed you off that couch?”

You glared weakly. “Maybe.”

He huffed a dark laugh. “Knew it.” He dragged his fingers up, circling your clit once, teasing, then pulling his hand back, making you whine. “I want you loud,” he said. “You hear me?”

Your heart stuttered. “What?”

“I want this whole compound to know exactly what I do to you,” he said, voice low and intent. “You’re gonna scream my name so fuckin’ loud there won’t be a single person here left wondering who you belong to.”

Your pussy clenched hard at that, arousal flooding you so fast you felt lightheaded. “Bucky—”

He didn’t give you a chance to argue.

He leaned in and devoured you.

There was nothing gentle about it. No slow build, no testing the waters. He latched onto your clit and sucked, hard, tongue flicking rapid and ruthless against the sensitive bundle of nerves.

You shouted, the sound punching out of you before you could catch it, echoing off the walls.

“That’s it,” he groaned against you, the vibrations making you jolt. “That’s my girl.”

His hands gripped your hips, dragging you closer, practically bending you in half so your knees were thrown over his broad shoulders. Your fingers flew to his hair, tugging tight, trying to anchor yourself to something as lava-hot pleasure shot through you.

“Fuck, Bucky, oh my—” you gasped, back bowing off the bed.

He hummed, switching tactics, laving broad, slow strokes up and down your slit before circling your clit again, teasing, relentless. Then he slid two fingers into you without warning, the stretch making you gasp, the fullness immediate and overwhelming as he set a bruising pace.

“So tight,” he muttered, pulling back just enough for you to see his slick, swollen mouth. “Always so fuckin’ tight for me.”

You couldn’t think. Could barely breathe. His fingers curled, finding that spot inside you effortlessly, stroking it again and again while his mouth worked your clit. Sparks danced behind your eyes.

“Bucky, please,” you choked out. “I—I’m gonna—”

“Good,” he growled. “Give it to me, sweetheart. Let them all hear how good I take care of you.”

It hit you like a freight train. Your orgasm crashed over you, intense and all-consuming, ripping a hoarse scream from your throat. Your thighs trembled violently around his head, your entire body tensing, then shuddering as pleasure tore through you.

Bucky groaned, fingers and tongue unrelenting, milking every last aftershock from you. The sound you made then was almost a sob, half-pleasure, half-overwhelmed.

“Too much,” you whimpered, hips jerking away.

“Uh-uh,” he said, pulling his fingers out only to replace them with his tongue, thrusting into you, his nose bumping your overstimulated clit. “You can do another one for me.”

You almost sobbed. “Bucky—”

He pulled back just enough to look up at you, chin and lips shining, eyes dark and wild. “You safe?”

You nodded, breath hitching. “Y-yeah.”

“Color?” he pressed, thumb stroking soothing circles into the inside of your thigh even as his gaze burned into you.

“Green,” you whispered, shivering. “So fucking green.”

His lips curved in a wicked smile. “That’s my brave girl.”

Then he was on you again, mouth greedy, tongue working you with single-minded determination. He slid his metal hand up, palm pressing against your lower belly, adding a delicious pressure from the inside and out as he fucked you with his mouth.

You didn’t stand a chance.

You came again in seconds, clenching around his tongue, a loud, broken sound spilling from you. This time, you heard it echo, heard how it carried in the quiet of the hallway outside your room.

Bucky groaned like the sound alone could get him off, like your pleasure was his oxygen. He didn’t even pause, licking you through it, letting you ride his face, his nose nudging your clit just enough to send little aftershocks zipping up your spine.

“I c-can’t,” you babbled, tears pricking at the corners of your eyes from the intensity. “Bucky, I can’t—”

“You’re okay,” he murmured, voice rough, pulling back slightly to kiss the inside of your thigh. “You’re doin’ so good for me. One more with my cock inside you, yeah? Then I’ll let you rest.”

Your walls clenched hard at the promise, another hot wave of arousal chasing away the edge of overstimulation. You nodded shakily. “Yeah. Okay.”

He stood, towering over you, hastily stripping off his shirt, his joggers, everything, until he was gloriously, completely naked.

You swallowed. No matter how many times you saw him, the sight of him still punched the breath out of your lungs. Broad chest, scars scattered over tan skin, metal arm gleaming, thighs thick and powerful.

And his cock—hard, flushed, thick, the head already leaking, veiny shaft heavy against his stomach.

You licked your lips unconsciously. His eyes darkened.

“Open your mouth,” he said roughly.

Your thighs were still trembling, your pussy throbbing and sensitive, but you obeyed, lips parting, tongue poking out slightly.

He stroked himself once, twice, then guided the head to your tongue, smearing pre-cum across it. You moaned at the taste, at the weight of him.

“Fuck,” he rasped, head tipping back for a second. “You’re gonna be the death of me.”

He pulled back and then lined himself up at your entrance, one hand on your hip, the other braced by your head. He paused, eyes locking on yours.

“You tell me to stop, I stop,” he said firmly. “You tell me to slow down, I slow down. You hear me?”

Warmth spread through your chest, cutting through the dizzy haze of lust. “I hear you.”

“You still green?” he asked, gaze searching.

You nodded, reaching up to cradle his cheek. “Green, Bucky. Want you.”

Something in his expression crumpled, softened, like you’d just given him something precious. He swallowed hard, then pushed forward, sinking into you in one long, slow thrust.

You both groaned.

You stretched around him, the burn sweet and intense, your body remembering him, welcoming him. He was big, always a bit of a stretch, and tonight you could feel every inch even more acutely with how sensitive you already were.

“Shit,” he gritted out, jaw clenched, eyes squeezed shut for a moment as he bottomed out. “You’re—fuck, you’re so tight. Always so fuckin’ tight.”

He stayed there, buried to the hilt, letting you adjust, his thumb brushing soothingly over your hip. Your hands slid up his chest, feeling the rapid thud of his heart under your palm.

“Move,” you breathed, bucking your hips slightly. “Please, Bucky. I need—”

Whatever restraint he had left snapped.

He pulled almost all the way out and slammed back in, the force of it making the bed frame creak loudly against the wall. You cried out, the sound high and desperate, your fingers digging into his shoulders.

“That’s it,” he groaned, setting a brutal rhythm, hips snapping against yours with punishing force. “Let ‘em hear you, baby. Let ‘em hear who’s makin’ you feel this good.”

The headboard thumped repeatedly against the wall, a steady, obscene beat. Your moans mixed with the wet slap of skin on skin, the symphony of it all loud enough that there was no way anyone in the hall—maybe even nearby rooms—could miss it.

You should’ve been mortified.

Instead, you felt your orgasm building again, fast and sharp.

“Bucky, oh my god,” you gasped, nails scratching down his back. “You’re—fuck—you’re so deep, I—”

“You were gonna let that kid touch you with his soft little hands,” Bucky snarled, angling his hips just right so every thrust slammed into that sweet spot inside you. “When this is what you get? When this is how I fuck you?”

You shook your head frantically, words tumbling out broken and breathless. “N-no, never, Bucky, I wouldn’t, I—ah—only want you, only you—”

He groaned like your words physically hit him, pace stuttering for a second before he slammed into you harder. “Say it again.”

“I only want you,” you cried, tears leaking from the corners of your eyes from sheer sensation. “Only you, Bucky. Only you can make me feel like this.”

He dropped his head to your neck, biting down gently, then soothing the sting with his tongue. “You’re mine,” he panted against your skin. “You know that, right? My girl. My sweet fuckin’ girl.”

The possessiveness, the filthy praise, the way his big body caged you in—it all braided together, tipping you right over the edge. Your orgasm hit like lightning, splitting you open, your whole body going taut as a strangled scream ripped out of you.

He groaned, voice wrecked. “That’s it, baby. That’s it. Scream for me. Let ‘em all know who’s got you fallin’ apart.”

You clamped down around him so hard he swore, thrusts growing erratic. He shoved his flesh hand under your lower back, lifting your hips, driving into you deeper, impossibly deeper, chasing his own release while prolonging yours, sending aftershocks tearing through you until you were sobbing, mind blank.

You vaguely registered the sound of voices in the hallway, muted exclamations, someone laughing in disbelief. It only made the heat in your veins burn hotter.

“Bucky,” you whimpered, overstimulated, your body twitching with every thrust. “It’s too much, I—”

He slowed, just slightly, forehead pressing to yours, sweat dripping from his temples. “Almost there,” he rasped. “You can take it. You always take me so good.”

His thumb found your clit, circling it in tight, relentless little strokes that made you see stars, your body torn between pleasure and overload. A hysterical sound bubbled out of you.

“You’re a menace,” you choked, repeating your words from the safe house without meaning to.

He laughed, low and breathless, thumb never faltering. “And you fuckin’ love me for it.”

Maybe it was the words. Maybe it was the way he said them—love me—like it was a fact, like it had always been a fact.

Either way, they pushed you into yet another orgasm, this one more of a messy, shuddering collapse than an explosion. You shook under him, crying out weakly, your nails digging crescents into his skin.

“Jesus,” he groaned, voice strangled. “You’re gonna milk me fuckin’ dry, doll.”

He buried himself deep one last time, hips grinding against yours as he finally let go, a guttural moan ripping out of him as he spilled inside you. You felt it—hot and thick, filling you, his cock twitching as he rode out his release, his body trembling.

He stayed there, breathing hard, caging you beneath him, his weight heavy but comforting.

For a long moment, there was only the sound of your ragged breaths and the fading echo of your combined noises in the quiet room.

Then, faintly, through the door, you heard Sam’s voice, muffled but unmistakable.

“Yo, is someone getting murdered or having the time of their life?”

You slapped a hand over your face, mortified, your entire body flushing hot. “I hate you,” you muttered into your palm.

Bucky barked out a laugh, chest shaking against yours. He carefully rolled to the side, keeping himself inside you for the moment, not ready to pull away from the warmth of your body.

“No, you don’t,” he said, voice softening, hand coming up to brush sweaty hair from your forehead. “You love me.”

Your heart stumbled.

You stared up at him, searching his face. There was no teasing in his eyes now, no smugness. Just raw, unguarded honesty.

“You don’t get to say that after you almost broke my bed frame,” you tried weakly, but even to your own ears, it sounded thin.

He smiled, small and earnest, thumb tracing your cheekbone. “I’m sayin’ it because it’s true. I love you,” he said simply. “I’ve been in love with you for a long fuckin’ time, doll. I can’t pretend like I’m just your angry, overprotective hookup anymore.”

Your throat went tight. “You can’t just say that because some recruit—”

“This has nothin’ to do with him,” Bucky cut in, shaking his head. “This is about me bein’ done hidin’ how I feel. I almost lost you too many damned times out there. I’m not wastin’ another second pretendin’ like you’re anything less than the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Tears stung your eyes for a whole different reason now. “Bucky…”

He swallowed, nerves flickering across his features. “You don’t have to say it back,” he added quickly. “I know I sprung this on you and I’m not exactly smooth, but—”

“I love you too, you idiot,” you blurted, laughing a little through the tears. “Of course I love you. Did you really think I was on the run with you for a year, letting you nearly break my spine in every shitty motel across three continents, and I didn’t love you?”

His face crumpled, relief crashing over him so hard it was almost visible. “You do?”

You nodded, cupping his face. “Yeah. I do.”

He kissed you then, slow and deep and sweet, nothing like the frantic, possessive heat from earlier. It was soft, reverent, his lips moving against yours like he was memorizing the shape of this moment.

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

“So,” you murmured, a shaky smile curling your lips. “You gonna introduce yourself as my boyfriend now? Or just keep dragging me off every time someone looks at me?”

“Oh, I’m definitely still dragging you off,” he said, smirking. “But yeah. Boyfriend works. Your boyfriend, who is absolutely not letting that recruit within ten feet of you ever again.”

You snorted. “He’s probably traumatized for life already.”

“Good,” Bucky said, pressing a kiss to your nose. “Saves me the trouble.”

You both showered—together, because apparently Bucky had decided that any excuse to put his hands on you was valid—and eventually, after a lot of lazy kisses and halfhearted protests about being “too wrecked to move,” you let him coax you back into some semblance of clothing.

Your legs were still a little shaky as you made your way back toward the common room, Bucky’s arm slung securely around your shoulders, his fingers tracing idle patterns on your upper arm. You leaned into him, too content to pretend you didn’t want to be right there.

As soon as you stepped into the common area, conversation dipped, then surged, a wave of poorly concealed amusement and curiosity hitting you from all sides.

Sam was sprawled on the couch, a bowl of popcorn in his lap, Nat perched on the armrest beside him. Wanda was at the table with Vision, a mug of tea halfway to her lips, lips twitching. Steve stood by the counter, arms crossed, trying—and failing—not to smile.

Alec was there too, leaning against the far wall, face nearly as red as his training shirt.

You resisted the urge to turn around and walk right back out.

Sam whistled low. “Well, well, well. Look who survived.”

You rolled your eyes, cheeks burning. “Oh my god.”

“Gotta ask,” Sam said, eyes dancing with mischief. “Everything okay? Because from out here it sounded like a bear was mauling you.”

Wanda snorted into her tea. Nat bit her lip, clearly fighting a smile. Alec choked on air.

Your mouth opened, ready to come up with some mortified, half-baked excuse, but Bucky beat you to it.

“I couldn’t stand everyone not knowing how obsessed and in love with her I am,” he said easily, like he was commenting on the weather.

Silence.

Then chaos.

Sam choked on a kernel of popcorn. “What?”

Nat’s eyes widened, then narrowed in delighted satisfaction. “Knew it.”

Wanda beamed, looking genuinely pleased. “Finally.”

Steve just shook his head, smiling softly. “Took you long enough, pal.”

Alec made a strangled sound, his face going from red to downright crimson. He looked anywhere but at you, suddenly fascinated by a spot on the ceiling.

You glanced up at Bucky, heart hammering, a grin tugging at your lips despite your embarrassment.

He looked smug as hell, not even trying to hide it. He tightened his arm around you, tugging you closer, pressing a kiss to the side of your head like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Any other questions?” he asked the room at large.

Sam stared at you both for a long moment, then threw his hands up. “Nope. I’m good. Just… maybe soundproof the walls next time, Barnes. Some of us would like to sleep without hearing a live-action porno.”

Nat chuckled. “Speak for yourself.”

You groaned, burying your face in Bucky’s chest. “I’m never leaving my room again.”

He laughed, low and warm, his hand stroking your back. “Yeah, you are,” he murmured into your hair. “Can’t show off my girl if she hides.”

Your heart melted into a puddle at your feet.

You tipped your head back to look up at him, catching the softness in his eyes, the way he looked at you like you’d hung the damn moon.

“Your girl?” you repeated, unable to keep the smile out of your voice.

“Yeah,” he said, loud enough for everyone to hear, not a single hint of hesitation. “My girl.”

You threaded your fingers through his, squeezing.

“My boy,” you murmured back, so only he could hear, “is a menace.”

He grinned, leaning down to brush his lips against yours in a quick, sweet kiss that still made your toes curl.

“And you,” he said, eyes sparkling, “love me for it.”

You did.

God help you, you really, really did.

And, according to the little green icon at the top, available.

You stare at the screen far longer than necessary, thumb hovering over the “Request Booking” button like it might shock you.

This is insane.

Except your mother’s text from this morning still sits unread in your notifications, taunting you.

Can’t wait to see you both next weekend! Your cousins are already gushing about finally meeting your boyfriend. Love you ❤️

Your imaginary boyfriend. The one you created out of thin air last Thanksgiving to stop the constant, suffocating questions about your love life. The lie snowballed—one offhand comment about seeing someone turned into a full-blown committed relationship by Christmas in your mother’s retelling.

And now, there’s a family reunion. A whole weekend at the lakeside cabin. With your relationship as one of the main attractions, apparently.

You exhale, thumb finally tapping the button.

Screw it.

You fill out the details: dates, location, expectations. “Play the role of significant other at family event. Minimal PDA. Must be convincing. Possessive is fine, but nothing over the top.”

You hesitate, then add one more line in the special notes: “Please be gentle with my grandmother. She’s nosy, not mean.”

You press send.

The app pings back a confirmation.

Booking request sent to: James “Bucky” Barnes.

You lock your phone, toss it onto the couch like it’s burning, and bury your face in your hands.

What are you doing?

He arrives ten minutes early.

The knock at your apartment door is firm, confident. You’re in the middle of re-tying your shoelaces for the third time, nerves chewing at your fingers. For a second, you consider pretending you’re not home.

Then another knock. “Hey, it’s Bucky,” a deep voice calls through the door, smooth and warm and real. “From the app. I promise I’m not a serial killer. I brought coffee as a peace offering.”

You inhale, straighten, and open the door.

The photo did not do him justice.

He’s taller in person, broader, the dark Henley replaced by a black t-shirt stretched over a chest that looks like it was custom-built by a sadistic personal trainer. A worn leather jacket hangs open, and his hair is pulled back again, a little messy. His eyes catch yours—blue, definitely blue—and his mouth tilts in that same smirk. There are two cups cradled in his hands.

“Hi,” you manage.

“Hi,” he echoes, voice softening as he looks at you. His gaze drops, quickly, taking in your jeans, the sweatshirt you debated changing out of three times, the nervous twist of your fingers. “You must be…” He catches himself, smile widening. “My girlfriend for the weekend.”

The words punch air out of your lungs.

“Yeah,” you say, stepping aside so he can enter. “Come in.”

He toes off his boots at the door without you asking, places the coffees on the counter, and looks around your living room like he’s cataloguing details.

“I grabbed a latte,” he says, tapping the cup with the caramel-colored lid. “And a black coffee. You strike me as a latte person, but I didn’t want to assume.”

“You can… read latte energy off someone?” you tease, grateful for the distraction.

“Comes with the job.” He shrugs, unbothered. “I can usually also tell who’s about to cancel at the last minute and convince themselves they don’t need help.” He looks straight at you. “Did I get that one right, too?”

Heat creeps up your neck. “I thought about it,” you admit.

He nods, like he respects the honesty. “But you didn’t. Which tells me this matters.” He leans a hip against the counter, folding his arms. “So. Why don’t you tell me what I’m walking into, sweetheart?”

The term of endearment slips out so easily it throws you for a moment. Not syrupy, not fake. It snaps something tight in your belly.

You wrap your hands around the latte, letting the warmth seep into your fingers. “It’s my family’s annual reunion,” you say. “We rent this cabin on the lake. Barbecues, board games, endless questions about what we’re doing with our lives.” You pause. “I told them I was seeing someone. Then I told them it was serious. And, um. Introduced you last Christmas. In theory.”

He considers that. “What’s my backstory?”

“I, uh…” You blink. “I… didn’t… make one?”

His mouth curves. “We’ll fix that on the drive.” He pushes away from the counter, standing close enough that you catch the spice of his cologne. “What do you need from me this weekend?” His tone is professional, but his focus is all on you. It feels like being pinned without being touched.

“Convincing,” you say. “Just enough affection that my mother believes I’m happy. My cousins are competitive—they’ll probably try to corner you, but… just be nice to them. And my grandmother will ask when you’re going to propose, so… maybe don’t have a heart attack.”

“Got it,” he murmurs. “Be your perfect boyfriend. Deflect proposal questions. Charm the nosy relatives.” His gaze dips to your mouth for a fraction of a second. “Any limits I should be aware of? PDA-wise?”

Your brain short-circuits. “Um. Holding hands is fine. Hugging. Maybe a kiss on the cheek. Nothing too—”

“Nothing too much,” he finishes for you, nodding. “We’ll start there.” He reaches out, gentle, fingers brushing your wrist. “I take this seriously. That sound okay?”

You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding. “Yeah. Okay.”

“Then let’s get going,” he says, that easy smile returning. “I wanna meet the people who raised the woman I’m crazy about.”

You almost choke on your latte.

He winks.

Apparently, he’s not going to make this easy.

The drive is two hours.

By the time you pull up to the cabin, you know that “James” prefers Bucky, that he was in the military before this job, that he has a cat named Alpine who, in his words, “judges everyone, myself included,” and that he takes his work more seriously than you expected.

“You understand I’m going to act like your boyfriend,” he had said, eyes on the road, one hand loose on the steering wheel, the other resting on his thigh. “That means looking at you like I’m crazy about you. Remembering how you take your coffee, your favorite movies, the story about how we met. Touch comes with that. If anything makes you uncomfortable, you say so. Out loud.”

You nodded. “Okay.”

“You’re not a burden for needing boundaries,” he’d added, harder, like it was important you heard it. “You tell me, I respect it.”

It made something unclench in your chest.

Now, as the cabin comes into view, two stories of dark wood and big windows, smoke curling from the chimney, your stomach swoops.

Cars litter the driveway, familiar shapes and colors. Your cousin’s sleek sedan, your uncle’s battered pick-up. The noise of your family drifts on the cold air: laughter, someone shouting about the grill, the unmistakable shriek of one of your nieces.

“You ready?” Bucky asks quietly, putting the car in park.

“Not even remotely,” you say honestly.

His mouth twitches. He reaches over, taps two fingers under your chin, gently guiding your gaze to him. “Hey,” he murmurs. “Just you and me right now. Deep breath.”

You inhale. The air smells like pine and his cologne. You exhale slower.

“There you go,” he says. “Now. One more thing before we go in.”

You brace.

He leans in, close enough that his breath brushes your cheek. “I’m going to touch you,” he says, voice dropping. “I’m gonna hold your hand, put my arm around you. I might call you baby, sweetheart, whatever feels natural. I’m going to act like every person in that house has been warned not to hurt you. Because that’s what a good boyfriend does. Okay?”

Possessive. The word from your notes flits through your mind.

“Okay,” you whisper.

He smiles then, slow and genuine, as if he’s satisfied with your answer. His hand finds yours between the seats, fingers weaving through. His palm is warm, calloused. “Then let’s go knock ’em dead.”

Your mother spots you first, because of course she does.

“Oh!” she squeals from the porch, dish towel in hand. “There they are! There’s my baby!”

Bucky’s hand squeezes yours once. “You mind?” he murmurs against your hair.

“Mind what—”

He disengages his fingers only to slide his arm around your shoulders, pulling you in against his side as you climb the porch steps. At your mother’s excited wave, he lets out a soft, delighted laugh, like this is the best part of his week.

“There’s my future mother-in-law,” he says, extending his free hand to her. “Hi, Mrs.—”

She cuts him off with a hug, because she’s never met a boundary she didn’t steamroll right over. “Call me Linda,” she scolds, then leans back to look at him, hands on his biceps. “Goodness, you are handsome.”

He actually blushes, a faint pink dusting his cheeks. “Thank you, ma’am,” he says. “I’d say I clean up nice, but honestly, she makes me look good.” His arm tightens around you just a fraction.

Your mother beams. “Oh, I like you,” she declares. “Come in, come in. Everyone’s dying to meet you.”

The chaos swallows you.

A dozen faces turn your way as you step inside. Names blur together—cousins, aunts, uncles, their kids—but Bucky navigates it like a pro. He repeats names back, shakes hands, takes each teasing comment about “finally showing up” with a good-natured grin.

When your cousin Mark, ever the asshole, claps him on the shoulder and jokes, “So what’s wrong with you that you’re with our disaster over here?” his smile doesn’t falter.

“Nothing wrong with her,” Bucky says lightly, but there’s an edge beneath it, a hint of steel. His hand on your hip tightens. “She’s the best decision I ever made.”

The room quiets, just a heartbeat.

Heat floods your face. Mark raises his hands in mock surrender. “Okay, okay, damn. Didn’t realize you were whipped, man.”

“Proudly,” Bucky replies, tone cool.

He doesn’t glare. He doesn’t need to. The way he stands, the subtle shift of his shoulders, the way his thumb rubs slow circles at your waist—every line of his body says mine without a word.

Your pulse stutters.

He’s good at this, you think, a little dazed. Maybe too good.

It keeps happening.

You find your grandmother in the living room, ensconced in her favorite armchair with a blanket over her knees, the TV murmuring an old black-and-white movie. Her eyes light up when she sees you.

“There she is,” Grandma coos. “And this must be the mystery man.” Her gaze rakes over Bucky, assessing. “Hmm. He’ll do.”

Bucky chuckles, stepping forward. “It’s an honor, ma’am,” he says, taking her frail hand in both of his. He’s so gentle it makes your throat tight. “I’ve heard you make the best apple pie in the world.”

“Flattery,” she declares, patting his knuckles. “We like him.” Her eyes sharpen. “So. When are you gonna put a ring on her finger, James?”

You open your mouth, panic flaring, but Bucky is faster.

“Well, that depends, doesn’t it?” he says smoothly, glancing down at you with a soft smile. The tenderness in his eyes makes your stomach flip. “I want her forever, but I’m not gonna rush her. As long as she knows I’m not going anywhere, I’m happy.”

Something in your chest aches.

Grandma harrumphs. “Smart boy,” she says. “Don’t let her go. She’s special.”

“Believe me,” Bucky says, eyes never leaving yours. “I know.”

You have to look away.

Later, in the kitchen, one of your little nieces barrels into your legs, babbling about how Uncle Mark dropped the chips in the lake. You scoop her onto your hip, laughing, and Bucky watches you with an expression that makes your breath catch.

Soft. Open. Like he’s seeing something he hadn’t expected.

“You’re good with kids,” he says, voice low enough that only you hear it.

You shrug, bouncing your niece. “I grew up in this chaos. It’s second nature.”

He steps closer, brushing a stray crumb from your shoulder with a little frown, like the idea of something messy touching you irritates him personally. “You’d be an amazing mom,” he says.

The words hit you square in the sternum.

You swallow. “What about you?” The question slips out before you can stop it. “You want kids?”

His gaze drops to your mouth, then lower, to the niece clinging to your shirt. When his eyes meet yours again, they’re darker. “With the right person?” he says quietly. “Yeah. I’d want everything.”

Your heart does something dangerous.

He’s pretending, you remind yourself fiercely. This is his job. None of this is real.

You repeat that to yourself when he takes your hand during dinner, thumb stroking over your knuckles under the table. When he leans in to murmur a joke only you can hear, his lips brushing your ear. When he wraps an arm around you on the couch during game night, tugging you into his side as your cousin’s fiancée eyes him with open admiration.

“Where did you find him?” she whispers later, when you’re alone in the bathroom, both of you washing your hands.

“You’d be surprised,” you say weakly.

In the mirror, your cheeks are flushed. There’s a mark on your neck from when he’d whispered something inappropriate about what he’d rather be doing with you than playing charades, teeth grazing your skin just barely. Your body had jolted, heat pooling low, and he’d pulled back with a tiny, satisfied smile when you smacked his chest.

He’s not just convincing your family.

He’s convincing you.

Night comes, bringing with it the inevitable question of sleeping arrangements.

Your mother corners you in the hallway, whisper-hissing like you’re still a teenager. “There’s only one guest room left,” she says. “The one upstairs. The kids have the bunk room, Mark’s on the pull-out, your aunt and uncle have the downstairs queen. You two are fine sharing, right?” Her eyes sparkle with mischief. “Don’t be shy on my account.”

“Mom,” you groan, scandalized.

She just pats your cheek and flits away, humming.

A moment later, Bucky appears at your side, towel slung over his shoulder, hair damp from a shower. “Everything okay?” he asks softly.

“Apparently we’re sharing a room,” you say, trying for casualness and failing spectacularly.

His brows lift. He studies your face for a long beat, searching for discomfort. “Okay with you?” he asks finally. “We can always pretend there was a plumbing emergency and I had to sleep in the car.”

The mental image of him stretched out in the backseat, broad frame cramped, makes your stomach twist. “No, it’s fine,” you say quickly. “It’s just one bed, but… it’s big. And we’re adults.” You’re rambling now. “I can stay on my side.”

He huffs a quiet laugh. “I’ll build a pillow wall,” he promises. “And I’ll keep my hands to myself. Unless you say otherwise.”

Your pulse flutters hard enough you’re surprised he can’t see it through your shirt. “Got it,” you say.

The guest room is cozy, all soft lamplight and mismatched quilts. The bed does look big—king-sized, at least—but somehow still not big enough when Bucky drops his duffel on the dresser and shrugs off his jacket.

He’s in a thin t-shirt and sweats now, the fabric clinging to the lines of his back, the slope of his shoulders. He rummages for something, then holds up an oversized t-shirt.

“Figured you’d want something more comfortable than jeans,” he says. “They’re not exactly sleepwear.”

You stare. “You… brought me clothes?”

“I don’t show up unprepared.” He shrugs, a little self-conscious. “Didn’t know if you’d want to bring your own pajamas with your family around. This way you don’t have to walk through the house in anything you’d be embarrassed by.” His mouth quirks. “Unless you like the thrill.”

Your face goes nuclear.

He chuckles, the sound low and fond. “Kidding. Mostly.” He offers you the shirt again. “You can wear it or not. Totally up to you.”

You take it, fingers brushing his. “Thank you,” you say softly.

The bathroom is tiny, steam fogging the mirror as you change. The t-shirt smells like laundry detergent and something undeniably him. It falls to mid-thigh, soft and worn, and you catch sight of yourself in the mirror—bare legs, his shirt, hair messy from the long day.

You look like someone’s girlfriend.

You look like his.

Your stomach flips, and you flick off the light.

He’s already in bed when you emerge, propped against the headboard, scrolling lazily through his phone. The sight of you freezes him. His gaze tracks from your bare knees up to the hem of the shirt, lingering on the sliver of skin at your thigh, then higher.

His throat bobs.

“That okay?” you ask, suddenly self-conscious.

He drags his eyes to your face. For a moment, whatever’s in his expression is too raw, too unfiltered. Then he exhales, slow.

“Yeah,” he says hoarsely. “Yeah, sweetheart. It’s… perfect.”

You slip under the covers on your side, careful not to brush him. The bed dips under his weight. He flips off the lamp, plunging the room into soft darkness.

For a while, there’s only the sounds of the house settling, the distant murmur of the TV downstairs, the muffled laughter of your relatives. You stare at the ceiling, hyper-aware of the man lying less than a foot away.

“This is weird, right?” you murmur finally.

“What, the fact that your grandma tried to bribe me with pie if I knock you up before Christmas?” he asks, amused.

You snort. “That’s just her. I meant this. Us. You’re very… convincing.”

He’s quiet for a moment. “That’s the job,” he says eventually.

“Do you ever—” You hesitate. “Do you ever get tired of pretending?”

His voice is closer than you expect when he answers, like he’s turned toward you. “Sometimes,” he admits. “Usually when it’s clear someone doesn’t want me. Not really. They want the idea of me. A prop for their story.” The mattress shifts as he moves, maybe running a hand through his hair. “This doesn’t feel like that.”

Your heart stutters. “No?”

“You didn’t book me to show off,” he says. “You booked me so your family would stop tearing you apart. So you could breathe for a weekend.” His sigh is a soft thing in the dark. “You’re not using me. You’re asking for help. Big difference.”

Silence stretches, warm and fragile.

“What about you?” he adds. “This weird for you?”

“Yeah,” you say honestly. “But not in a bad way.”

“Good weird?” he teases.

“Annoyingly good,” you grumble.

He chuckles, low. “I’ll take that.”

The pillow wall is forgotten. At some point, you roll onto your side, and his hand finds your waist under the blanket, fingers splaying there like it’s the most natural thing in the world. You should protest. Remind him of boundaries. You don’t.

Instead, you fall asleep to the steady rhythm of his breathing.

The second day is worse.

Worse, because it feels easier. Your body starts to anticipate him. His palm at the small of your back when you walk into a room. The way his fingers find yours under the table. The soft brush of his lips against your temple, your cheek, the corner of your mouth.

You tell yourself it’s just for show. That you’re playing your part, too, laughing at his jokes, leaning into his touch. But when your cousin’s ex-boyfriend, Luke, appears uninvited Saturday afternoon—because of course he does—something shifts.

You and Bucky are on the back deck when Luke walks up from the dock, all smug grin and cologne, a beer in his hand. He’s not technically family, but he’s been around long enough that everyone tolerates him.

“Hey,” Luke drawls. “Long time no see.” His eyes rake over you in a way that makes your skin crawl. “Didn’t know you’d be here this year.”

Bucky, standing at the railing beside you, goes very still.

“Luke,” you say, keeping your voice neutral. “Didn’t know you were invited.”

“I invite myself,” Luke says breezily. “So this is the infamous boyfriend, huh?” He looks Bucky up and down, dismissive. “Didn’t think you had it in you.”

“Luke,” you warn.

Bucky’s hand slides to your hip, anchoring you. His expression is mild, but there’s nothing friendly in his eyes. “You must be the ex everyone pretends not to see coming,” he says pleasantly.

Luke snorts. “Cute. So, what, you two met how? Dating app? Work? Or did she finally start paying someone to put up with her?”

The words slam into you, dredging up old insecurities he’d planted. You flinch before you can stop yourself.

Bucky notices. Of course he does.

His fingers tighten, pulling you slightly behind him. The move is subtle, but Luke’s eyes narrow.

“Careful,” Bucky says, voice quiet. The humor has drained from it, leaving something cold and sharp. “You’re in her family’s house, talking about her like that.”

Luke raises his hands. “Just joking, man. Relax.”

“You made her flinch,” Bucky says. “Nothing funny about that.” He takes a step forward. He doesn’t loom—he doesn’t need to. The set of his shoulders, the steady, unblinking stare… it’s a warning all on its own. “You got a problem with her, you take it somewhere else. She’s not your punchline anymore.”

Blood rushes in your ears.

Luke scoffs, but there’s an edge of unease now. “Whatever. Enjoy the perfect boyfriend act while it lasts,” he mutters, turning away.

Bucky’s hand leaves your hip only to climb higher, curling around your waist, pulling you flush against his side. Even after Luke disappears back around the corner of the house, he doesn’t let go.

“You okay?” he asks, turning to look at you. Up close, his eyes are blazing.

You swallow around the lump in your throat. “He’s always been an ass,” you say. “It’s nothing.”

He shakes his head. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Minimize it.” His thumb strokes your side. “If something hurts you, it’s not nothing. Not to me.”

Something in his tone makes your chest ache. “You really committed to this possessive boyfriend thing, huh?” you joke weakly.

His gaze drops to your mouth. When he looks back up, something has shifted behind his eyes. The air between you crackles.

“Maybe I’m not pretending as hard as I thought,” he says quietly.

Your breath stutters. “Bucky…”

He cups your jaw, fingers warm against your skin. “Can I kiss you?” he asks. On the surface, his voice is steady, but there’s a roughness to it. “For real. Not for them. For us.”

Your heart pounds. You glance toward the house—no one’s watching. The lake glitters beyond the deck, the afternoon sun soft and golden.

This is a bad idea.

“Yes,” you hear yourself say.

He doesn’t hesitate.

The first press of his mouth is careful, almost tentative, as if he’s giving you a chance to pull away. You don’t. You lean in.

He exhales against your lips, and then the kiss deepens, his hand tightening at your waist. His other slides into your hair, tilting your head to deepen the angle. It’s not gentle for long. There’s hunger there, banked but fierce, like he’s been holding back all weekend and finally, finally lets himself want.

You cling to him, fingers bunching in the fabric of his shirt. The world narrows to the heat of his mouth, the scrape of his teeth, the low sound he makes when you lick into him.

When you finally break apart, you’re both breathing hard.

“That felt…” you start, then trail off, at a loss.

“Real,” he finishes, forehead resting against yours.

You nod wordlessly.

He pulls back just enough to look at you, searching your face. “Tell me to stop,” he says, voice rough. “If this is too much, if you want to keep the line where it was—”

“I don’t,” you blurt.

His eyes darken. “You don’t.”

You shake your head. “I know this is complicated and probably impractical and we’re technically in a contract, but—” You swallow, forcing the words out. “I like you. You. Not the role. Not the performance. You.”

His breath leaves him in a soft, disbelieving laugh. “Jesus,” he murmurs. “You’re gonna kill me.”

“Is that a yes?” you press, heart pounding.

He cups your face, thumb brushing your cheek. “It’s a hell yes,” he says. “But we’re talking about this. For real. After this weekend, we sit down like adults and sort it out. No pretending. No app between us.” His mouth curves. “I’m selfish enough that I want you outside of this house, too.”

Your pulse stutters. “Okay.”

He dips in for another kiss, softer this time, then rests his chin on your head, holding you to his chest. For a moment, you just stand there, wrapped in him, the lake breeze cool against your flushed skin.

“Just so you know,” he murmurs into your hair, “if anyone else talks to you like that asshole did? I’m not going to be nearly as polite.”

You smile against his shirt. “You were kind of terrifying already.”

“Good.” His arm tightens. “They should be scared. You’re the best thing in this place.”

The rest of the weekend blurs.

There are no more exes to deal with, just the usual family chaos, softened now by the knowledge hanging between you and Bucky like a secret. Every touch feels charged. His hand at the small of your back. Your fingers playing with the hair at the nape of his neck. The way he says baby now, voice dropping, just for you.

Sunday morning, you wake with his arm banded around your waist, his chest pressed to your back, his breath warm against your neck. His fingers splay over your stomach, the metal of his dog tags cool where they’ve slipped out of his shirt.

“Morning,” he mumbles, voice gravelly with sleep.

If this is pretending, you don’t want to know what real feels like.

The drive back is quieter, but not awkward. His hand finds your thigh over the console, thumb drawing idle patterns on your jeans. You talk about nothing and everything—favorite breakfasts, your worst high school memories, how his cat got her name.

When he pulls up in front of your building, the afternoon sun slants warm through the windshield.

“Well,” you say, suddenly shy. “I guess this is where you drop me off and we give each other a professional five-star rating.”

He huffs a laugh, but his jaw flexes. “About that.” He turns in his seat to face you fully, one arm draped over the steering wheel. “We don’t have to decide anything right now. You’ve had a long weekend. But I meant what I said on the deck.”

Your chest tightens. “Me too.”

He nods, like he’d expected that but needed to hear it anyway. “Okay. Then this is what we’re gonna do.” He pauses, eyes searching yours. “I’m gonna give you my number. My real one. Not the app. You think about what you want. If you decide this was just a little reunion fantasy and you’d rather leave it there, you don’t call. I’ll respect that. No questions.” His mouth tugs into a crooked smile. “I’ll probably sulk about it, but I’ll respect it.”

“And if I call?” you ask, voice barely above a whisper.

His eyes darken. “Then I’m taking you on a real first date,” he says. “Flowers, dinner, the works.” He leans in, the corner of his mouth brushing yours. “And I stop pretending that I’m not crazy about you.”

Your heart feels too big for your ribcage. “You’re really leaving it up to me?”

“Yeah,” he says simply. “You hired me. I wanna make sure you’re the one hiring me again. As your boyfriend this time. Not as a service.”

You stare at him, overwhelmed by the gentleness of it. The way he hands you the power, no pressure, no manipulation.

“Okay,” you say finally, voice steady. “Give me your number.”

He grins, slipping his phone into your hand. “Put your name in, too. So I know it’s you when you call and not, like, my dentist.”

You laugh, fingers trembling slightly as you type your name and hit save. When you hand it back, his thumb brushes your knuckles.

“This isn’t a goodbye, you know,” he says. “Not if you don’t want it to be.”

You swallow. “It’s a… see you later?”

“Hopefully very soon,” he murmurs.

He leans in for one last kiss, slow and lingering, like he’s memorizing the shape of your mouth. When you finally pull back, your head spins.

You gather your bag, open the car door. The air outside feels different somehow, sharper, infused with possibility.

“Bucky?” you say, pausing.

“Yeah?” he replies, one hand on the steering wheel, the other resting on his thigh.

You smile, heart pounding. “Text me when you get home. So I know you’re safe.”

His answering smile is blinding. “Yes, ma’am,” he says. “Anything for my girl.”

The phrase sends a thrill through you. Your girl. Not for show. Not with anyone watching.

You step out of the car, close the door, and watch as he pulls away. He glances in the rearview mirror, lifts his hand in a little wave.

You stand on the sidewalk long after his taillights disappear, your phone heavy in your hand.

You could tuck this away. Let it become a wild story you tell friends over drinks—remember that time I hired a boyfriend for a weekend and accidentally fell for him?

Or you could open your messages, scroll to the new contact, and type three little words that feel like the beginning of something.

You tap the screen.

Hey, Bucky.

You hit send before you can overthink it.

The reply comes almost immediately.

Been waiting for that. When can I see you again, sweetheart?

Your cheeks ache from smiling. Fingers flying, you type back.

How do you feel about real dates?

His answer:

Been yours all weekend. Let’s make it official. 

You don’t understand why you know his name. Why you know that if you could reach out and touch him, the skin of his hand would be rough from work and the softness behind his eyes would be just for you.

But you’re eight. You just know this is important. You just know this is yours.

You spend that first night trailing behind him like a shadow. Watching him steal bread from a windowsill and give all of it to Steve. Watching him charm a girl behind the soda counter and then turn around and share the free candy with the skinny kid at his side. Watching him sit on a tenement rooftop and lean back on his elbows, staring at a sky full of city light and smoke, somewhere in Brooklyn.

You wake up smiling. Head full of his laugh. Heart full of the way he tipped his head back and told a joke you can’t quite remember.``

The next night, you dream of him again.

And again. And again.

At school, kids whisper in corners, swapping stories about their own soulmate dreams. The girl who sees a boy in Seoul practicing violin on a rooftop. The boy who watches his soulmate paint murals across brick walls in São Paulo. They talk about first kisses in borrowed bodies, about the way it feels when their soulmate looks into a mirror and for one breath you see their face and yours overlap like a promise.

You stay quiet.

You don’t tell them that your soulmate is older than you. That instead of fumbling through middle school with you, he’s out there in the world, already grown. You don’t tell them that every night you lay your head down, you wake up in the 1940s—the clothes, the cars, the ration lines, the war posters peeling on brick.

You don’t tell them that your soulmate signs a piece of paper and becomes a soldier.

You don’t tell them how, the night he ships out, you wake up in his skin.

It happens without warning. You go to sleep in your own bed—a little bigger, a little more lonely than it was when you were eight—and your eyes open into blinding sunlight. You’re on a train platform. Your hand—his hand—is gripping a duffel bag so tight your knuckles ache. Steve is talking, voice breaking, telling you to write. To come back.

You feel your own throat burn when you hear yourself say, “Don’t do anything stupid ‘til I get back.”

“How can I?” Steve shoots back. “You’re taking all the stupid with you.”

You laugh. Except it’s not really a laugh. It’s something torn, something afraid.

You wake up with tears on your face. The world is dark and quiet and the clock on your nightstand says 3:07 am. You press your shaking hands over your mouth and feel the echoes of his goodbye like a bruise.

It takes you three days to stop crying.

You tell yourself this is what soulmate dreams are. Messy. Overwhelming. Beautiful.

You cling to that word—beautiful—for as long as you can.

It carries you through boot camp, through the taste of dirt and the ache of muscles that are not your own. It carries you through Europe, through the first time you watch a body fall because you pulled the trigger.

It lasts right up until the night everything changes.

The night you watch him fall off the train, it feels like your own heart shatters inside your chest.

You wake up screaming. Your own bedroom walls. Your own hands, empty and reaching. Your mother bursts through the door and gathers you up, still half asleep, asking if it was another nightmare, sweetheart?

You can’t breathe.

“He fell,” you choke, words tearing out of you. “He fell, he fell—”

“Who?” she asks gently, like she doesn’t already know. Parents grew up with soulmate dreams too. They know the helpless, distant look that comes with them. The way kids wake up with tears that aren’t quite theirs.

“My soulmate.”

Something in her face folds. She holds you tighter.

“Sometimes,” she says softly, “the timing’s just… the timing’s cruel, baby. It doesn’t mean your story’s over. It just means…”

She trails off, because there’s no good ending to that sentence.

You don’t dream for three days. You can’t decide if that’s mercy or punishment.

On the fourth night, you open your eyes into a cold so vicious you can’t feel your fingers.

Water crushes you from all sides. It burns your lungs. Your body—the one that’s not yours—is thrashing, pulling, dragging itself toward a pinprick of light above while the weight of metal on your arm drags you down.

The scream rips your throat raw. Bubbles burst from your lips and vanish into the icy dark.

You don’t make it to the surface.

When you wake, you taste blood and river silt in the back of your throat. Your bed is soaked with sweat. Your nails have left crescent moons in your palms.

You don’t sleep again until your body gives you no choice.

The next dream isn’t better.

White light. A ceiling blinded by it. A ring of faces leaning over you, mouths moving in a language you can’t quite understand but immediately hate.

A bite of cold against skin as someone presses a scalpel to flesh.

You scream awake again.

Your mother starts taking you to therapists after that.

Most kids, the brochures say, dream of exams and awkward dates and milestones. Your charts fill up with words like recurrent nightmares and secondary trauma and dissociation.

None of it changes the fact that every time you close your eyes, you are dragged back into that room.

Back into that chair.

You learn the cadence of commands in Russian before you ever learn where on a map to put Moscow. Nine unpronounceable words barked like gunfire. Each one a hammer blow. Each one chipping away at a man who used to laugh on rooftops and steal bread for his sick friend.

You watch them strip him down to bones and obedience.

You watch them shock him, carve him, freeze him.

You watch them put a metal arm where flesh used to be.

You watch until the line between what’s his and what’s yours starts to blur around the edges.

You startle when people touch your left arm. You flinch when someone says the word soldier too loudly. You hold your breath when you hear Russian in movies and your heart slams against your ribs like it’s trying to claw free.

You learn how to build walls between your nights and your days, between the girl who smiles and nods and does her homework and the girl who wakes up hoarse from screaming words in a language she shouldn’t know.

You get very good at pretending.

You stay very, very quiet.

Because the first time you tried to explain this to someone—really explain, not just, “I have bad soulmate dreams”—they looked at you like you’d made it up for attention. Like it was impossible that one man could hold that much darkness.

Impossible or not, he lives inside your skull.

And for some reason, you’re still helplessly in love with him.

Your soulmate never dreams of you.

That’s how it’s supposed to work—two lives, two vantage points. Two people growing together in parallel, building a mosaic of each other’s days until, one day, you meet. You’ve lived each other’s memories. You’ve hurt when they hurt and laughed when they laughed. You fit.

Except.

He has never once looked into a mirror and seen your face.

You know because you’ve checked. Every time he’s near a reflective surface, you hold your breath, waiting. Wondering what you’ll look like in that cheap barracks mirror. In the gleam of a Hydra scalpel. In the shine of a shield’s vibranium curve when Captain America bursts into a lab and says his name like a miracle.

You never see your own eyes looking back.

And later—much, much later, when the Soldier with the metal arm stands on a sidewalk in a world full of color television and smartphones and watches Steve drive away—there is a terrible emptiness where your presence should be.

You know he doesn’t dream at all. Not really. Just orders. Missions. A voice in his head telling him to comply.

You lie awake sometimes, staring at the ceiling. Wondering what it was like for him in the 1940s, before you were even born. Before your existence meant he was supposed to have something soft to fall into, a second life to land in when the world got hard.

Did he think his soulmate had died? Did he think he didn’t have one at all?

Did Hydra take that away from him, too?

The questions feel like weights on your chest.

You grow up. You go to college. You study psychology because of course you do. Professors call you insightful. They praise your understanding of trauma. They don’t know you learned it half-asleep on a concrete cell floor.

You watch news footage of Washington, D.C. tearing itself apart—carriers falling out of the sky, smoke boiling up between monuments. You watch a flash of metal and a familiar face with hair that’s now long and wild and eyes that are empty in a way you’ve never seen in your dreams.

You frighten your roommate when you fall to your knees in front of the television and sob like someone stabbed you.

She thinks you’re crying about the city.

You’re crying because your soulmate just dragged Steve Rogers out of a river and collapsed beside him on the mud, and for the first time since that train, you feel something fragile and human slip through the cracks of his programming.

“Who the hell is Bucky?” he says, and you press your face into your hands and whisper, It’s you. It’s you, it’s you, it’s you.

Later, when footage leaks of him in Bucharest, of governments calling him a terrorist, you shake so hard you spill coffee all over yourself. Your hands don’t stop trembling all day.

By the time word spreads—half rumors, half official—that the Winter Soldier is dead, you’ve gotten very good at breathing around a permanent ache.

He’s not dead, you think stubbornly, even as your therapist gently suggests a new medication.

Because you still dream.

The locations change. The walls switch from damp concrete to smooth wood. The windows open onto African sun instead of Siberian ice.

But he’s alive. You can feel it every night when you close your eyes. You make coffee in a kitchen that smells like earth and greenery and peace while a man with long hair and a beard leans in a doorway and tries to relearn how to be a person.

You’re there when people call him White Wolf as a joke. You’re there when he wakes up screaming and claws at his arm like he wants to rip it off.

You see every tremor, every step forward, every stumble back.

You keep your silence like a promise.

Because there is a tiny, terrified part of you that believes if you ever try to step into his real, waking world—if you look him in the eyes and he doesn’t know you—the last piece of you still holding on will break.

You meet him on a Tuesday.

It’s almost insultingly mundane.

New York sky, too bright. Air full of car horns and overheated asphalt. Your shoes pinching a little because you wore the nicer pair for the interview. The building in front of you is an angular tower of glass and metal that the world knows on sight.

Avengers Tower.

They’d asked you to come in for a consult. Trauma specialist, they said. We have people who need help and don’t trust easy, one of the recruiters had told you over the phone. Your résumé is… unique.

You laughed. If only he knew.

The security check is thorough. The elevator ride is nauseatingly smooth. Your own reflection in the mirrored walls looks small and out of place between the polished chrome and the sleek lighting.

You’re smoothing your hands down your blazer when the doors slide open.

And he’s standing there.

Just standing there, in the hallway, like a dream you didn’t mean to interrupt.

He’s wearing a Henley that clings to shoulders you’ve only ever seen under body armor. His hair is shorter than it was in Wakanda, pulled back into a low knot, a few strands falling loose around his face. The stubble on his jaw is a shade darker than you remember from last night, when he shaved in a small bathroom, the mirror fogging up with steam.

His eyes are the exact same blue they’ve always been.

For a second, you forget how to breathe.

He blinks, clearly not expecting the elevator to open on a stranger. He shifts his weight like he’s considering retreating.

You know every micro-expression in that face.

You know what he looks like when he’s bracing for pain.

You know what he looks like when he’s trying not to hope.

“Uh,” he says finally. “You lost?”

The sound of his voice in the same space as you is… wrong. It vibrates in your ribs like a plucked wire.

You swallow. Realize your fingers are trembling. Clench them into fists.

“I—um. No.” You hold up the visitor badge dangling from your neck. “Here for an interview. Trauma team.”

His eyes flick down. Your name flashes in black letters against your chest, next to the Stark Industries logo.

Something in his gaze sharpens. Not hostile. Just... wary.

You’ve seen that look from behind his eyes. It’s different being on the receiving end.

“Right,” he says slowly. “Right. They mentioned they were bringing in someone new.”

You should leave. You should step out of the elevator, shake his hand, introduce yourself like you don’t already know the shape of his scars, the cadence of his nightmares, the way he curls his fingers when he’s trying not to reach for someone.

Instead you stand there, staring, while your heartbeat hammers in your ears.

He frowns. “Are you okay?”

The question snaps you back like a rubber band.

“I’m fine,” you lie, because what else is there to say? Hey, I’ve watched every second of your life for as long as I can remember, you look good in daylight?

You force your feet to move. You step onto the floor. The elevator closes behind you with a soft whoosh.

You’re close enough now to see the tiny pale lines at the corner of his mouth. The faint shadow of where a scar used to be along his jaw, before Wakanda’s healers smoothed it away.

“Name’s Bucky,” he offers, almost awkwardly, like he’s still getting used to saying it out loud.

I know.

You bite the words down before they can escape.

You offer your own name instead, and he repeats it—your name—in that careful, rough voice, like he’s trying it on his tongue.

You feel the sound all the way through your bones.

You get the job.

Of course you do. You’re good at it. You’ve spent half your life studying trauma and the other half drowning in it. You know how to listen. You know how to sit with silence without flinching away.

You don’t get assigned to Bucky.

You think that’s probably for the best. At least at first.

He’s… there, though. In the halls. In the kitchen at 3 am when you’re both pretending you don’t have insomnia. In the training rooms, working a heavy bag until his chest heaves and sweat darkens his shirt.

You get used to feeling his eyes on you, quick flickers, like he’s cataloguing your presence. You get used to swallowing a dozen confessions every time he looks your way.

You do not get used to the way your whole body hums when he stands too close.

It takes exactly three weeks for everything to crack.

You’re in your office. It’s late. You should have gone home hours ago, but you’re dictating notes for a session and staring blankly at your laptop screen when there’s a knock on the door.

Your heart knows who it is before your eyes do.

“Come in,” you call, somehow sounding normal.

The door opens. Bucky steps in, hovering just inside the threshold like he’s not sure if he’s welcome.

He’s in sweats and a threadbare t-shirt, hair damp from a shower. There’s a tension in his shoulders that sets off every alarm in your body.

You stand up automatically. “Is everything okay?”

He huffs a breath that’s not quite a laugh. “Define ‘okay.’”

You gesture toward the chairs. He doesn’t move.

“I know I’m not on your schedule,” he says. “I’m not… your patient. Or whatever. I just…”

He trails off. His jaw tightens. His metal fingers flex against his thigh, the plates catching the light.

“It’s okay,” you say softly. “You can sit. Or not. You can pace if you need to. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, Bucky.”

His eyes flick to yours. For a moment, something like trust flickers there.

He comes in. Closes the door.

And then he just stands there, breathing hard, like walking from the elevator to your office took more energy than a mission.

You wait.

“I’ve never had dreams,” he says abruptly.

You blink. Your grip tightens on the back of your chair.

He’s staring over your shoulder, somewhere past you, like if he looks at you this will be too much.

“Not the soulmate kind,” he clarifies. “Everybody else did. Back home. Before the war. They’d talk about seein’ their girl, or their guy, or just… faces. Names. Whole lives.”

You knew this. You’ve wondered about it your whole life. Hearing it in his voice feels like stepping off a ledge.

“I kept waitin’,” he continues, words rough. “Figured maybe it’d start late. Or maybe my soulmate was younger. Or maybe…” He swallows. “Maybe I just didn’t have one. Maybe they died. Maybe I did somethin’ wrong before I was even born.”

Your chest aches. “You didn’t,” you say, without thinking. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

His gaze snaps to you.

There’s a sharpness there. A warning. A plea.

“You don’t know that,” he says quietly.

I do, you think. I’ve seen you my whole life.

He takes a shaky breath. “Then the war happened. And the train.” His voice stutters on the word. You know the memory he’s stuck on. The rush of air. The scream. The impact. “And then… nothin’. No dreams at all. Just… missions.”

He says the word like it tastes like ash.

“I thought that was it,” he says. “That whatever chance I had at… that kinda thing… it was gone.”

He laughs again, brittle. “Then I get out. Hydra’s gone. I’m in Wakanda, learnin’ how to be a person again. And I start hearin’ about people seein’ my life in their sleep. ‘The Winter Soldier is my soulmate,’” he quotes, in a mocking falsetto that makes something in your stomach twist. “Jokes. Memes. Kids on the internet makin’ content.”

His mouth curls in disgust.

“It’s not funny,” he grits. “There’s nothing—there’s nothin’ funny about any of it. And I know most of it’s bullshit. But I keep thinkin’… if there is somebody out there who had to watch all that—” His breath hitches. “Every time they shut me down. Every time they woke me up. Every time I—”

He cuts himself off. You know the word he’s swallowing.

“Kill,” you say softly.

His jaw clenches. He nods once.

“If there is someone,” he whispers, “if I do have a soulmate… and they saw all that… I don’t know if I want to meet them. I don’t know if I deserve to.”

Your own hands are shaking now.

He looks at you, really looks, and you realize there are tears standing in his eyes. He blinks them away violently, like he doesn’t have the right.

“I came here because…” He trails off. His shoulders slump. “Because I thought maybe talkin’ about it, with someone who knows how this stuff works, would help. Except I feel worse. Because all I can picture is some kid who grew up with my nightmares. Some—some sweet person who maybe just wanted to see their soulmate’s first day of school and instead got strapped into my life like a horror movie they couldn’t turn off.”

His voice breaks.

“And I don’t know how to live with that.”

The silence that follows is thick and heavy and humming with something electric.

You could lie.

You could say something clinical. You could talk about vicarious trauma. About how whoever they are, they’re probably fine now. That it wasn’t his fault.

You could stay safely behind your professional distance.

Instead, you take a breath that feels like stepping off another ledge.

“Bucky,” you begin, gently. “Look at me for a second?”

He hesitates, then does.

You step around your desk. You sit in the chair opposite him so you’re on the same level, knees almost touching.

Your heart is beating so loud you’re sure he can hear it.

“You’re right,” you say softly. “It’s not funny. At all. And if your soulmate… if they saw what you went through… I’m not going to pretend it didn’t hurt them. It did. It… it does.”

His face crumples, just a little.

“But,” you continue, before he can drown in guilt, “they’re not that kid anymore.”

He swallows. “How would you know?”

“Because,” you say, and your voice shakes, “I’m not a kid anymore.”

The words hang there between you.

For a second, he doesn’t understand.

You watch the moment he does.

His pupils blow wide. His lips part, but no sound comes out. His metal hand curls slowly, fingers digging into his own thigh.

“I—” His throat works. “What?”

You force yourself to hold his gaze.

“I’ve… always had dreams,” you say. “About you. Since I was eight. Brooklyn. Steve. The war. The train.” Your eyes sting. “The water. The lab. The chair. The missions. Wakanda. Here.”

You see his breath stutter. See his jaw go slack. See denial and hope crash together behind his eyes like two waves colliding.

“No,” he whispers. “No, that’s— you can’t—”

“You just told me you came here because you were worried,” you say, gently but firmly. “Because you couldn’t stop thinking about what it must have been like for your soulmate. For me.”

The word lands between you like a thrown knife.

He flinches.

“I thought about telling you earlier,” you admit, voice shaking. “When I first got here. When I saw you in the hallway, it almost knocked me over. Like… like the world finally lined up the way it was supposed to. But I didn’t know if you’d want that. If you’d want me. Knowing everything I know. So I… I waited.”

“And you—you saw…” His voice breaks.

“Yes,” you whisper. “I saw.”

“All of it?”

You close your eyes, just for a second, and it’s all there behind your eyelids. Blood and ice and metal and a scream cut off mid-breath.

“Enough,” you say. “More than enough.”

His face twists. He jerks to his feet like he can’t bear being still. He paces once, twice, then presses his metal hand against the wall like he needs the anchor.

“I’m sorry,” he says hoarsely. “I’m so— God, doll, I’m so fuckin’ sorry.”

The nickname slips out before he can stop it. It rips through you like a live wire.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” you repeat, more fiercely this time.

He whirls on you. “I killed people.”

“You were tortured,” you shoot back. “You were brainwashed. They took your choices away. They took your— your dreams—”

He laughs, raw. “That too, huh?”

“And they tried to take your name,” you say. “Your face. Your heart. They tried to make you a weapon. But they didn’t win, Bucky. They didn’t.”

His eyes shine. “Then why do you wake up screamin’?”

The question knocks the breath out of you.

Because of course he’s thought it through. Of course he’s pictured it in more detail than you ever wanted him to.

You swallow. “Sometimes I do,” you admit. “Especially when I was younger. It was… a lot. To see that much pain and not be able to stop it. To watch someone you—” You break off, tongue thick.

“Someone you what?” he asks quietly.

You look up at him. At the man you’ve watched fall and break and get rebuilt over and over.

“Someone you love,” you say.

His breath hitches like you hit him.

“You don’t even know me,” he says, but it’s weak. Tattered.

You smile, shaky. “I know you better than anyone alive, James Buchanan Barnes.”

He flinches at the full name, but doesn’t correct you.

“I’ve seen you steal bread for a sick kid,” you say, voice gaining strength. “I’ve seen you dance in a Brooklyn club like you owned the whole damn room. I’ve watched you sign up to go to war and then get on that train even after you thought you lost your best friend because you couldn’t live with yourself if you didn’t try to stop what was happening.”

A tear slips down his cheek. He doesn’t wipe it away.

“I’ve watched you be hurt and broken and put back together more times than I can count,” you continue. “And every single time, there was this… this core of you that never went away. This stubborn, ridiculous goodness. This… this refusal to give up, even when giving up would have been easier.”

You take a breath. It comes out broken.

“Those dreams… they hurt. They still do, sometimes. But I never once wished for someone else.”

His face crumples.

“Not once?” he whispers.

“Not once,” you repeat.

He stands there, for a long moment, breathing like he just ran a marathon. Then, slowly, like he’s moving underwater, he comes back to the chair and sinks into it.

His metal hand is shaking.

You bite your lip. Then, very carefully, you reach out and lay your fingers on the back of his knuckles.

He goes absolutely still.

“You asked how to live with it,” you say softly. “With the fact that someone had to see what you went through.”

He swallows. Nods, just barely.

“You live with it by letting me choose,” you say. “By letting me tell you that I’m here on purpose. That I walked into this knowing exactly what you’ve carried, and I still… I still want to be the one who sits with you when the nightmares hit. I still want to be the one who makes you coffee in the morning and teases you about your bedhead and tells you when you’re being too hard on yourself.”

Your voice drops.

“If someone had to be in that room with you, I’m glad it was me.”

A sound tears out of him. Not quite a sob, not quite a laugh. Something in between and more broken than both.

“I don’t deserve you,” he chokes.

You squeeze his hand. “That’s not your call to make.”

He lets out a strangled noise that might be agreement. Might be surrender.

Very slowly, like he’s afraid you’ll vanish, he turns his hand under yours so your fingers fit between his, metal and flesh and skin. The plates are warm from his body heat. You can feel the faint whir of servos when he moves.

“You sure about this?” he asks, eyes searching yours. “Because once I start… I don’t know if I’ll be able to—”

“I’ve been sure since I watched you steal that bread,” you say, and a wet, disbelieving laugh escapes him.

“Okay,” he breathes. “Okay.”

You fall asleep beside him for the first time two weeks later.

It’s not planned. You’d met up in the common room after a late debrief, both too wired to sleep. One thing turned into another—movie, conversation, a shared blanket. At some point, his head tipped against the back of the couch and his breathing evened out.

You watched him for a long time. In your own bed, he’d always been half a world away. Here, his arm was draped along the back of the couch behind you, close enough to feel the heat radiating off him.

You dozed off listening to his heartbeat under your ear.

You wake up in your own bed.

Not the Tower couch. Not his room. Your room, where you fell asleep months ago with his whimpers echoing in your head.

Except the pillow smells like him and you’re warm all over, like someone tucked a blanket around your shoulders.

You blink blearily. Sit up.

And realize this is not your room.

It takes a second to piece together what you’re seeing. The walls are the wrong color. The window looks out over a city skyline instead of the tree outside your apartment. There are pictures on the dresser—Avengers in various stages of exhausted celebration. Sam grinning. Steve. Nat. A younger, thinner Tony.

Bucky, looking startled in every single one, like he can’t quite believe he’s allowed to be there.

You look down.

You’re in his bed.

He’s not beside you.

Your heart jackhammers in your chest. You swing your legs over the side, bare feet hitting cool floor—and then you freeze.

Because the light in the bathroom is on. And you can hear the shower.

Water. Steam. The faint silhouette of a man through frosted glass.

You back away instinctively, cheeks burning, and that’s when the wrongness hits you.

You don’t feel like a passenger.

You feel… solid.

You lift your hand. It’s your hand. Your skin, your faint scar on the knuckle.

But the air tastes like him. The room smells like him.

And something about the angle of your own vision is off, like you’re seeing yourself from a height you don’t have.

“Hey,” a familiar voice says behind you, slow and careful. “You okay?”

You spin.

Bucky is sitting up in the bed, hair mussed, eyes heavy with sleep. He’s shirtless. The sheets are pooled around his waist, baring the curve of his shoulder and the scars you could trace in the dark.

Except.

You look down again. Your hands. Your body.

You look back up.

“Holy shit,” you whisper.

He blinks. Then his eyes widen.

“Are you—” He scrubs a hand over his face. “Is this—god, please tell me this isn’t some fucked-up hallucination.”

“You’re… dreaming,” you say slowly. “About me.”

He stares at you.

Then he laughs, helpless and hoarse.

“I fell asleep on your couch,” he says. “I remember that much. You were… right there. Warm. Breathin’ against my chest.” His voice goes soft. “And then I… I opened my eyes and I was somewhere else. Here. But different. And I could feel things that weren’t mine. This…”

He gestures to you. To your body. To the way you’re standing in the center of his room, wearing his t-shirt, hair a mess from sleep.

“This is your place,” he says. “Or… a version of it. From before you moved in here.” His mouth quirks. “You sure have a lot of books, doll.”

You laugh, shocked and shaky. “You… saw my apartment?”

“Think I might still be seein’ it,” he replies. “Or I’m seein’ you seein’ me seein’ it. I don’t know, this soulmate physics stuff is above my pay grade.”

You step closer, slowly, like approaching a wild animal.

“You never dreamed before,” you say. “Not like this.”

He swallows. “Guess I finally caught up.”

You can see the moment it hits him, really hits him, what this means. His shoulders tremble. His eyes shine.

“For all those years, you… you watched my life,” he says. “And I never gave you anything back. Not a single night of peace. Not a single stupid moment of my day to balance out the bad.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” you begin, but he shakes his head, smiling through the tears.

“Maybe not,” he says. “But I still hated the idea of you bein’ alone in it. Of you carryin’ all that without ever gettin’ to hand me somethin’ to carry in return.”

He reaches out. His flesh hand hovers near your cheek, not quite touching.

“Let me have some of it now,” he whispers. “Let me see you. All of you. The good and the bad. Let me watch you cry over exams and spill coffee on yourself and dance in your kitchen when you think no one’s lookin’. Let me be the one who wakes up shakin’ because you had a rough day and I need to make it better.”

Your eyes burn.

“You don’t have to—”

“I want to,” he cuts in, fierce. “I’ve wanted to, since the day I realized you exist. Since the day I stepped into your office and saw how my nightmares had carved lines in your face.”

He steps closer. His hand finally lands on your cheek, calloused thumb brushing away a tear.

“Let me share it,” he says. “Please. I can’t go back and stop those men from hurtin’ me. I can’t take those images out of your head. But I can be there now. I can stand in front of whatever’s comin’ next.”

You sink into his touch.

“I don’t want you to keep punishin’ yourself for things you couldn’t control,” you whisper.

“Then don’t you do it either,” he says softly.

You let out a small, wet laugh. “Hypocrite,” you murmur.

“Yeah,” he says, smiling a little. “Guess I am.”

You look up at him. At the man who has haunted your nights and now, finally, stands in your days.

“Stay,” you say. “In my dreams. In yours. In the kitchen at 3 am. On the couch when we both pretend we’re really into whatever movie’s on.”

His smile deepens, eyes crinkling at the corners.

“Anywhere you’ll have me, doll,” he says. “I’m there.”

You step into his arms. He wraps himself around you like he’s been waiting his whole life to remember how.

You breathe him in. Warmth and soap and the faint metal tang that’s always hovered at the edge of your senses.

You tilt your head up.

He kisses you like you’re something holy.

It’s not like the secondhand kisses you watched him give girls in clubs. It’s not like the bruising, desperate collisions you felt through his body in Hydra missions. It’s slow. Reverent. His mouth soft against yours, his hand cupping the back of your head like he’s afraid you’ll disappear.

You kiss him back like you’ve been practicing in your sleep for years.

When you pull back, you’re both breathless.

“Think I’m gonna like this whole dream thing,” he murmurs, forehead resting against yours.

“Yeah?” you whisper.

“Yeah.” He huffs a quiet laugh. “Got a lot of time to make up for. A lot of nights to give back.”

You curl your fingers into the fabric of his shirt.

“I’ll be there,” you say. “Every time you close your eyes.”

He nods, like that’s a vow you just exchanged.

You wake up on the Tower couch with your head on his chest and his arms around you, holding on like the world might try to take you if he loosens his grip.

His shirt is damp where your tears have soaked through.

His eyelashes are wet, too.

“Morning,” he murmurs, eyes blinking open.

You smile up at him, throat tight.

“Morning,” you whisper. “Did you sleep okay?”

He looks at you like you hung the moon.

“I dreamed,” he says simply.

Your chest aches in the best way.

“Me too,” you say.

He kisses your forehead.

You think, for the first time in your life, that maybe nightmares can be outnumbered.

That maybe, together, you can rewrite the story.

Not by erasing what Hydra did. Not by pretending the chair and the lab and the missions never happened.

But by layering new images over the old ones. Shared breakfasts and late-night talks and soft touches and kisses that taste like hope. By letting him see you the way you’ve always seen him—flawed and hurting and still, somehow, unbelievably good.

By letting your dreams finally, truly, belong to both of you.

No way.

You rinse, wipe your mouth, and catch your reflection. There’s nothing different in the mirror. Same face. Same sleepy eyes. Same old t-shirt of Bucky’s hanging off your shoulders.

And yet.

Your heart starts to pound. You dig under the sink for the old box shoved behind cleaning supplies, hands trembling. You bought it months ago during a sale—“just in case,” you’d laughed, flushing, while Bucky wrapped his arms around you from behind in the pharmacy aisle and kissed your neck.

You hadn’t needed it then.

You do now.

You take the test. You set it on the counter. You sit down on the edge of the bathtub because your legs might give out otherwise.

Two minutes feels like a lifetime.

By the time you have to look, you’ve already imagined both outcomes—the rush of relief, the stab of disappointment, the confused blend of emotions that comes with either possibility.

Your breath whooshes out when you see it. One line. Then the second, faint at first, then darkening like it’s making up its mind.

Positive.

For a second, everything goes strangely quiet. The world narrows to the little plastic stick in your hand and the roar of your heartbeat in your ears.

“Oh,” you whisper to no one. “Oh.”

It’s unexpected. Not unwanted.

You feel the difference all the way down to your bones.

You don’t tell him right away.

Part of it is fear—irrational and heavy, the kind that curls in your chest and whispers what if he doesn’t want this? What if this is too much? What if this is the thing that finally proves he was right about himself and you were wrong?

But another part of it is selfish: you want to do this right. Not with a trembling hand in the bathroom, clutching plastic and stammering. Bucky deserves better than a startled, “So, um… surprise?” while he’s still half-asleep and reaching for his coffee.

So you wait.

You hide the test in the back of your underwear drawer, next to the box of photos you keep meaning to frame. You go to your check-up alone, heart in your throat as the nurse confirms it with a blood test and a kind, practiced smile.

“About six weeks,” she says. “Everything looks good so far.”

Six weeks.

You walk home slower than usual, hand resting absently on your still-flat stomach. There’s something there. Someone. A secret just under your heartbeat.

By the time Bucky gets home that night, you’ve decided.

You’re standing at the tiny kitchen table, trying to smooth out the wrinkles in the white onesie you bought on the way home. It says “hi, daddy” in soft black letters. Your hands shake as you lay it on his plate like it’s made of glass.

The door opens. You hear the familiar shuffle of boots, the soft clink of his key in the bowl, the low groan as he rolls his shoulders.

“Sweetheart?” he calls. “Smells good in here. Did you make—”

He stops when he rounds the corner and sees you at the table, sees the onesie, sees the way you’re twisting your fingers together.

For a heartbeat, neither of you speaks.

Then his eyes cut from the little piece of fabric to your face, back again. His jaw slackens.

“Doll,” he says slowly, voice gone rough. “Is that… is that what I think it is?”

Your eyes sting.

“I, um.” You swallow, forcing your voice to work. “The print shop messed it up. It was supposed to say ‘hi, Bucky,’ but they wrote ‘daddy’ instead. Weird, right?”

He stares at you.

You can’t hold the joke any longer. A laugh bubbles out, shaky and wet.

“I’m pregnant,” you say. “We’re… having a baby.”

The world tilts.

Bucky goes very, very still.

You’ve seen him in a lot of dangerous situations. You’ve watched him face down armies, mutants, gods. You’ve seen bullets ricochet off metal ribs and watched him come back from missions bruised and bloody and steady as ever.

You have never seen him look like this.

“Pregnant,” he repeats, like the word is foreign. His eyes drop to your stomach for half a second, like he expects to see proof there. “You… we… a baby?”

You nod, a quick jerky motion.

“I’m about six weeks. I was going to tell you sooner, but I wanted to make sure, and then I thought maybe something cute—” you gesture helplessly at the onesie “—and now I’m just… I’m sorry, I should’ve said it sooner, I just…”

The room is silent except for your own stupid, rambling babbling. Panic flares in your chest. Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe this is the part where he backs away. Where the warmth leaves his eyes and the old walls slam back into place.

“Bucky?” you whisper.

He looks up at you.

There’s something raw in his gaze, something cracked wide open. He crosses the space between you in two long strides and cups your face with both hands, rough palms gentle, metal thumb brushing the dampness under your eye that you didn’t even realize was there.

“You’re sure?” he asks. Voice barely above a whisper. “You’re okay? It’s… safe?”

You nod again, tears spilling over now.

“The doctor says everything looks good,” you manage. “I’m okay. We’re okay.”

His breath shudders out of him.

And then, slowly, like he’s stepping out onto thin ice, he drops his hand and lets it drift down, hovering over your stomach. He doesn’t touch—not yet, not fully—but he hovers, metal palm a few inches from the cotton of your shirt.

“Can I?” he asks. “Is it… alright if I…”

You grab his wrist and press his hand flat to your belly.

“Hi,” he murmurs, eyes locked on the place where his fingers splay across your skin. There’s a tremor in his voice. “I’m your, uh—”

He falters on the word. Swallows hard.

Your heart squeezes.

“Say it,” you whisper. “You can.”

His throat bobs. Slowly, his eyes lift to yours.

“I’m your dad,” he says, voice breaking on the last word. “Guess I… guess I’m your dad.”

You smile through your tears, because there’s already love there, you can see it, whether he recognizes it or not.

He pulls you into his arms then, holding you like you’re the most precious thing in the world, like you and the tiny new life between you are made of spun glass and starlight.

“I’m scared,” he admits, voice muffled against your hair. “But I’m so… I’m so happy, doll. I didn’t know I could be this happy.”

You bury your face in his chest, breathing him in. Underneath the fear, the nerves, the chaos, there’s something solid forming—something permanent.

You, him, and the little heartbeat you haven’t heard yet.

The next few weeks are a blur of appointments and nausea and cravings that make no sense at all—pickle juice at three in the morning, toast with peanut butter and sliced banana arranged just right. Bucky pretends not to judge, even as he dutifully pads into the kitchen in his sweatpants to make whatever your stomach insists it needs.

He’s hovering. You know he is. You wake up to water on your nightstand before you even realize you’re thirsty. There are post-its on the fridge with reminders to take your vitamins, to call the doctor if anything feels off.

He walks on the street side of the sidewalk when you go out, glancing at every passing car like it’s a potential threat.

And yet, beneath the careful, attentive routine, there’s a tension in him. A tightness in his shoulders. Some nights you wake to find him already awake, staring at the ceiling, jaw clenched.

“Can’t sleep?” you whisper in the dark, rolling over to press your forehead to his shoulder.

He doesn’t answer right away. You hear the tiny click in his metal hand as he flexes it.

“Just thinking,” he finally says.

“About?”

He hesitates, and in the silence, your mind fills in the blanks.

About you. About the baby. About all the ways this could go wrong.

You lift yourself onto your elbow, peering down at him.

“Talk to me, Buck.”

His eyes meet yours. They’re darker in the dim light, shadows pooling in the blue.

“I keep… seeing things,” he admits. “In my head. All the ways I’ve fucked up, all the… all the things I’ve done. And now there’s this little person coming and I just…” He swallows. “I don’t know if I can be what they deserve. What you deserve.”

Your chest aches.

“You are,” you say simply. “You already are.”

He huffs a humorless laugh.

“You don’t know that.”

“I do,” you insist. You lay your palm against his cheek, feeling the faint scrape of stubble. “You take care of me every single day, James. You’re kind. You’re patient. You try so damn hard, even when your brain is mean to you. You’re already a good husband. That’s half the job.”

He looks like he wants to believe you. Like he’s holding the idea in his hands and turning it over, testing its weight.

Instead of arguing, he leans in and presses a kiss to your palm.

“Go back to sleep, doll,” he murmurs. “Big day tomorrow.”

“Only if you come with me to the appointment,” you counter, even though you already know the answer.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” he says softly.

The first time you hear the heartbeat, Bucky almost stops breathing.

You’re lying on the exam table, shirt bunched under your bra, the cold gel damp on your belly. The ultrasound tech is chatting, explaining something about measurements while she moves the wand.

And then a sound bursts into the room—fast and steady and unreal. A rapid whoosh-whoosh-whoosh, like tiny drumbeats, like rain on a roof.

“There we go,” the tech says, beaming at the screen. “Strong heartbeat.”

Your eyes blur.

Bucky is standing beside you, his metal hand wrapped around your fingers. You feel his grip tighten abruptly, see his shoulders stiffen from the corner of your eye.

You squeeze his hand back, but he doesn’t respond. He’s locked on the grainy image on the screen. A little blob. A flickering point of light.

“That’s…” His voice cracks. He clears his throat, tries again. “That’s our kid?”

“That’s your baby,” the tech confirms warmly. “Do you want a picture?”

You nod, because you can’t speak around the lump in your throat. Bucky still hasn’t moved.

“Bucky?” you murmur.

He blinks, like he’s coming up for air.

“Sorry,” he mutters. “Just… wow.”

The tech leaves you with a few faint printouts. As soon as the door closes, Bucky sinks into the chair beside the table, elbows on his knees, the pictures clutched gingerly in his flesh hand.

He looks like he’s just been punched in the chest.

“Hey,” you say gently, reaching out.

“I heard it,” he says, staring at the image. “I heard their heart.”

You nod, smiling through tears. “Yeah.”

“I didn’t… I didn’t think I’d ever…” He trails off, shakes his head. “That’s… that’s my kid.”

You watch as something shifts in his expression. The fear is still there, but it’s tangled with awe now. With wonder.

“Can I keep one of these?” he asks, holding the photos like they might disintegrate.

“They’re all yours,” you say. “I can get more next time.”

He slips one carefully into his wallet that night, behind the old, frayed photo of himself and Steve in their uniforms. Two lives, side by side.

Past and future.

As your stomach grows, so does Bucky’s anxiety.

Some days, it’s quiet—just a persistent hum in the background, a wary eye on the world. He insists on driving you everywhere. He carries your bag. He scowls at anyone who bumps into you in crowded hallways.

Other days, it spills over.

Like the afternoon you find him in the nursery—formerly the spare room—standing in the middle of the half-painted walls, fists clenched at his sides.

You’d left him in there happily assembling the crib, humming under his breath to some old song on the radio. When you come back with lemonade and find the crib disassembled again, screws and boards scattered on the floor, your heart sinks.

“Hey,” you say carefully. “What happened in here, Picasso?”

He doesn’t answer. His shoulders are up around his ears, jaw tight.

“Bucky?”

He turns, and the look on his face makes your chest tighten. He’s not angry—not at you. He’s… lost. Panicked.

“I can’t even put a damn crib together,” he snaps, a bitter edge in his voice that you know is turned inward. “Stupid instructions, and my hand’s too big for the screws, and I keep… dropping everything. How the hell am I supposed to hold a baby when I can’t even hold a goddamn screwdriver?”

You set the lemonade down and cross the room, careful not to trip over the scattered pieces of future furniture. When you reach him, you take his metal hand in both of yours.

“You’re frustrated,” you say softly. “That’s okay. This is a lot.”

“It shouldn’t be this hard,” he mutters. “Normal guys can do this. Guys who haven’t…” He cuts himself off with a harsh breath. “They don’t have nightmares about snapping people in half with the same hands they’re supposed to use to hold their kids.”

There it is.

You step closer, until your bump presses against his abdomen. His eyes flick down, then back up.

“James,” you say, voice firm. “Look at me.”

He does. Barely.

“Do you think I would be a good dad?”

The question is so unexpected, so raw, that it knocks the air out of you.

“Do I…” you repeat, blinking. “Bucky Barnes, do you seriously have to ask me that?”

Something flickers in his eyes—hope, maybe, buried under years of self-loathing.

“I need to hear it,” he admits, voice rough. “Because all I can see right now is… is every way this could go wrong. Every bad thing I’ve ever done. Everything HYDRA made me be. And I look at you—” his voice cracks “—and I look at this kid we made, and I just… I don’t want to fuck them up. I don’t want to hurt them. I don’t want to be my father or… or the men who used me. I’m terrified that’s all that’s in me.”

Your heart breaks.

Slowly, deliberately, you lift his metal hand to your lips and press a kiss to the cool vibranium knuckles.

“Listen to me,” you say, eyes locked on his. “You are not the things they made you do. You are not the worst days of your life. You are the man who gets up every morning and makes sure there’s cold water by my side of the bed before I even wake up. You’re the one who remembers what foods make me nauseous and hides them so I don’t have to see them. You’re the man who stops missions to save cats stuck in alleyways and carries them half a mile because you can’t stand to see something scared and alone.”

He huffs, embarrassed. “That was one time.”

“It was three,” you correct. “And I fell in love with you a little more every single time.”

A reluctant smile tugs at his mouth.

“You are gentle,” you continue. “You are patient. You listen when I talk about stupid things like nursery themes and baby names and whether we should get a stroller with four wheels or three. You read those cheesy dad books and pretend you’re not reading them, even though you highlight things and fold the pages.”

He sputters. “I do not—”

“You do,” you insist. “You care, James. So much. You care enough to be scared. That’s what good dads do. They worry. They double-check. They try.”

You squeeze his hand.

“So yes,” you say firmly. “I think you’re going to be a good dad. I think you’re going to be the best dad. Our kid is going to grow up knowing they are loved, and safe, and wanted, because you’re going to show them every single day.”

His eyes glisten. He looks away, blinking hard.

“Even if I screw up?” he murmurs.

“You will,” you say honestly. “We both will. That’s part of it. But you’ll apologize, and you’ll listen, and you’ll keep trying. That’s what matters.”

Silence stretches between you, thick with emotion.

Then, slowly, he reaches up with his flesh hand and cups the back of your neck, pulling you in until your foreheads touch.

“I don’t deserve you,” he whispers.

“Maybe not,” you murmur with a small smile. “But you’ve got me anyway. And you’ve got them.” You slide his hand down, pressing both of yours over it where it rests on your belly. “We’re a package deal, Barnes.”

He huffs out a weak laugh, breath warm against your skin.

“Guess I better finish that crib,” he says.

“Guess you better,” you reply.

He does. It takes him twice as long as it should, and he swears under his breath the whole time, but when he’s done, he stands back and stares at it like it’s an impossible work of art.

Like it’s proof he can do this.

The third trimester is harder.

Your back hurts. Your ankles swell. Sleep becomes a distant memory. Bucky becomes even more of a mother hen, fussing over pillows and prenatal yoga videos and the exact angle of the fan in the bedroom.

One night, you wake to find the bed empty beside you.

The clock glows 4:37 a.m.

“Bucky?” you call, pushing yourself upright with a groan. “James?”

You find him in the living room, sitting on the couch in the dark, head in his hands. His shirt is damp with sweat. His breath comes too fast.

“Hey,” you say softly, shuffling over. “Nightmare?”

He flinches at the sound of your voice, then relaxes when he sees you.

“Sorry,” he rasps. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t,” you lie, lowering yourself carefully beside him. “Baby did. They’re practicing for the Olympics in there.”

He manages a weak smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.

“Wanna talk about it?” you ask.

He hesitates, then nods.

“I was holding them,” he says, voice barely audible. “Our baby. Smallest thing I’ve ever seen. And then everything went wrong. I—” His metal hand curls into a fist. “I dropped them. Or… or I crushed them. I couldn’t—my hands. I couldn’t control them. I woke up before…” He swallows hard. “Before I saw, but I knew. I knew what I’d done.”

Your stomach twists.

“It was a nightmare,” you say firmly. “Just a nightmare.”

“Felt real,” he mutters. “Too real. Doll, what if—”

“Stop.” You take his face in your hands again, forcing him to meet your gaze. “Bucky. You would rather cut your own arm off than hurt our baby.”

He flinches. “Don’t say that.”

“It’s true,” you insist. “You have never, not once, hurt me with that hand. Not when you’ve been asleep, or triggered, or startled. You always pull back. You always choose control. You think that won’t apply here?”

His eyes shine in the dim light from the window.

“I’m so scared of failing them,” he whispers. “Of failing you.”

“Then you already won’t,” you counter softly. “Because you care enough to be scared.”

You guide his hand—metal, cool, steady—to your stomach again. The baby kicks right under his palm, and something like wonder flashes across his face.

“See?” you say. “They trust you already.”

Bucky lets out a choked laugh.

“Little punk,” he mutters affectionately. “Keeping your old man up at night.”

“Now you know how I feel,” you reply dryly.

He shifts, easing you back so you’re reclining against his chest, his arms wrapping around you. One hand stays on your belly, feeling the occasional twitch and thump. The other rubs soothing circles on your arm.

“Can I talk to them for a bit?” he asks quietly.

“You don’t have to ask,” you say, tipping your head back against his shoulder. “They’re your kid too.”

He leans down, pressing his lips to the place just below your ribs.

“Hey, peanut,” he murmurs against your skin. “It’s your dad. Sorry I’m a mess. Your mom’s the brave one. I’ll catch up eventually.”

Your throat tightens.

“I’m gonna do my best,” he continues softly. “I swear it. Might not get everything right, but I’ll be there. I’ll catch you when you fall. I’ll hold you as gently as I can. I’ll… I’ll try to be everything I never had.”

You blink quickly, tears slipping hot and fast.

“And if I screw up,” he adds, voice wobbling, “I hope you’ll forgive me. I hope you’ll know I never meant to hurt you. That everything I do is because I love you. So much already, and you’re not even here yet, you little freeloader.”

You laugh wetly, brushing at your cheek.

The baby kicks again, harder this time, right under his mouth.

“See?” you whisper. “They hear you.”

“Yeah,” he breathes. “Guess they do.”

You’re not entirely surprised when your water breaks in the middle of the night. The contractions had started earlier in the evening, low and achy and intermittent. You’d timed them, watched them get closer together.

Bucky had paced.

“Are you sure this is it?” he’d asked for the fifth time, hovering in the doorway while you brushed your teeth.

“No, Bucky, maybe I just swallowed a basketball,” you’d deadpanned, wincing as another contraction washed over you. “Yes, this is it.”

He’d gone into mission mode then, calm and focused. Hospital bag by the door. Phone charged. Car keys in the bowl.

You, on the other hand, are less calm when your water actually breaks all over your side of the bed at two in the morning.

“Bucky,” you gasp, hand flying to your stomach. “James.”

He jerks awake, immediately alert.

“What? What’s wrong? You okay?”

“I just… my water…” You gesture helplessly at the damp sheets. Another contraction grips you, stronger this time, forcing a groan from your throat. “Oh, god. Okay. This is happening.”

His expression shifts—fear, excitement, determination all warring in his eyes.

“Okay,” he says, voice steady in a way that helps anchor you. “Okay, doll. We got this. I’ll grab the bag. We’ll call the doctor on the way.”

He moves around the room with practiced efficiency, but you see the tremor in his hands, the way his chest rises too fast.

In the car, he squeezes your hand at every red light, murmuring reassurances like a mantra.

“You’re doing so good,” he says. “So proud of you. Almost there.”

“Shut up,” you grit out as another contraction wrings you out from the inside. “If you say ‘almost there’ one more time, I’m gonna… I’m gonna un-make this baby.”

He laughs, high and a little wild, but he shuts up.

At the hospital, everything happens in a flurry—nurses, monitors, questions. They hook you up, check the dilation, mutter something about “progressing nicely” and “first babies.”

Then there’s waiting. And pain. And more waiting.

Bucky stays by your side through all of it.

He offers his hand, and you squeeze it so hard you’re certain you could bend vibranium. He doesn’t flinch. When the contractions get more intense, when the epidural only takes the edge off, when you feel like breaking in half, he murmurs in your ear.

“You’re not alone,” he whispers. “I’m right here. Breathe with me, doll. In, out. That’s it. You’re so strong, I’ve got you.”

At one point, during a particularly brutal contraction, you catch him watching you with a stricken expression.

“I’m sorry,” he blurts.

“For what?” you pant, sweat slicking your hair to your forehead.

“For doing this to you,” he says, guilty and earnest. “If I could take the pain, I would, I swear. I didn’t—”

“Bucky,” you snap, glaring through the haze. “Shut up. You did this with me. And I want this. Now hold my damn leg.”

He obeys, cheeks flushing, eyes shining suspiciously.

When the pushing starts, you lose track of time. The world shrinks to you, the nurse counting, the doctor encouraging, Bucky’s voice in your ear.

“You’re so close,” he says hoarsely. “I can see the head, doll. You’re doing amazing. Just one more. One more big push. You can do it.”

You want to tell him you hate him, that you’ll never forgive him for this, that this is all his fault—but then a fierce, primal noise tears out of you and suddenly the pressure changes, the contraction cresting and breaking.

And then.

A thin, sharp wail slices through the air.

For a heartbeat, you can’t breathe.

Then everything rushes back—the sounds, the lights, the nurse laughing, the doctor saying, “There we go. Happy birthday, little one.”

You collapse back against the bed, chest heaving, tears already spilling over your temples into your hair.

“Is—are they—?” you stammer, staring at the ceiling.

“They’re perfect,” the doctor says. “Do you want to see?”

You can’t even answer. You just nod frantically, sob choking out of you.

They place the baby on your chest, slick and warm and real in a way that nothing else ever has been. You stare down at the tiny, scrunched-up face, the shock of hair, the impossibly small fingers curling against your skin.

“Oh,” you sob. “Oh, hi. Hi, baby.”

“Hey there,” the nurse coos, drying the baby off, adjusting the blanket. “Mom and dad have been waiting for you.”

Dad.

You look up, searching for Bucky.

He’s standing a few feet away, frozen.

His eyes are huge, blue washed almost gray with emotion. His hands hang limp at his sides, fingers curled. He looks like he’s been rooted to the spot.

“Buck?” you say softly. “Come here.”

He swallows hard, throat working.

“I don’t… I’m scared to touch them,” he whispers, voice rough and broken. “What if—”

“James,” you cut in, a faint echo of all the times you’ve said his name when his mind spirals. “Come meet your baby.”

The nurse glances between you, then smiles.

“Do you want to cut the cord, Dad?” she asks gently.

His gaze snaps to her like he didn’t realize she meant him.

“Me?” he croaks.

“Well, you did half the work,” she says.

He lets out a strangled laugh that breaks into a sob halfway through.

“O-okay,” he says. “Yeah. Yeah, I’d like that.”

You watch as he steps closer, hands shaking. The nurse guides him through it—clamp here, cut there—and he obeys, jaw clenched, breath shallow.

Then she cleans the baby up a bit more and wraps them in a fresh blanket.

“Do you want to hold them?” she asks, voice soft.

His eyes flick to yours, wide and frightened. You see the question there, the same one he’s been asking all along: am I allowed? Am I safe?

“Yes,” you say, firm, before he can answer. “He wants to.”

The nurse transfers the tiny bundle into his arms, guiding his hands into position. Flesh hand cradling the head. Metal one supporting the body, gentle and sure.

The baby squawks, a tiny sound of protest, then settles.

For a moment, no one moves.

Bucky just stares.

“Hi,” he whispers, voice barely audible. “Hi, little one.”

You’ve seen Bucky in every state—bloodied, broken, laughing, enraged. You’ve seen him vulnerable in ways you wouldn’t wish on anyone.

You’ve never seen him like this.

It’s like something incandescent has cracked open inside him. His eyes shine, tears slipping free and tracking down his cheeks unchecked. His lips tremble.

“Look at you,” he breathes. “You’re… god, you’re so small. So perfect.”

The baby flails a little, making a soft noise that sounds almost offended. His mouth twitches into a wet, shaky smile.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” he murmurs. “It’s bright out here, huh? Lot of noise. But you’re okay. I got you. I promise, I got you.”

He holds them closer, metal hand cupped so carefully around their back that you can see the strain in his arm, the way every muscle is engaged to keep the support steady. He sways a little, instinctively.

“Doll,” he chokes out without taking his eyes off the baby. “Do you see them?”

You laugh weakly, wiping at your own tears.

“I do,” you whisper. “I see them, Buck. You did so good.”

He shakes his head minutely, gaze still glued to your child’s face.

“I’m… I’m in love,” he says, voice cracking wide open. “I thought I knew what love was. With you, I thought—I thought that was it. That was the limit. But this…” He sucks in a shuddering breath. “This is… I didn’t know there was more. I didn’t know I could feel this much.”

Your heart feels too big for your chest.

He looks at you then, finally tearing his gaze away from the baby for half a second. There’s a question in his eyes again, but it’s different now.

Am I doing it right?

You nod, a sob catching in your throat.

“You’re perfect,” you say. “You’re everything they need.”

He exhales, something loosening in his shoulders. He looks back down at the baby, who has gone quiet, eyes blinking slowly up at him like they’re trying to focus.

“Hey there,” he whispers. “It’s me. I’m your dad.”

The word doesn’t shake this time. It settles over the room like a blessing. Like a promise.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he admits in a soft rush. “But I’m gonna try my damnedest to figure it out. I’ll make mistakes, kiddo. Probably a lot. But I’m never gonna stop loving you. Not for a second. Not ever.”

He bends his head and presses the gentlest kiss you’ve ever seen to the baby’s forehead, flesh lips against soft, damp skin.

You see the moment it happens—the exact second the last of his doubt melts away, replaced by something fierce and bright and immovable.

A father’s love.

You watch the man who never thought he deserved a future hold his whole world in his arms.

And you know, with a certainty that settles deep in your bones, that you were right all along.

He’s going to be a good dad.

He already is.

A fox lay half-hidden beneath a fern, too still, eyes glazed as coins.

Near the creek, a rabbit slumped on its side, fur damp, throat a neat, cruel puncture. No tearing. No waste. Just… drained.

Vampire.

Again.

Your magic rose in your chest like a storm swelling behind your ribs, bright and angry. The vines at your ankles quivered, waking at the pull of your mood. A spray of tiny white blossoms opened along the path you hadn’t stepped on yet, as if the forest was holding its breath—waiting to see what you would do.

“Princess,” a voice said behind you, tight as a bowstring. “Please—”

You turned.

Lysa, one of the elder court’s spokesfairies, hovered a handspan off the ground, wings flickering with agitation. Around her, the others had gathered in a half-moon: fierce little points of light in the gloom, their glamour dimmed by worry.

“They’re going to blame us,” another snapped, a younger fairy with sharp cheekbones and sap-green hair. “They always blame us when humans die, when beasts go missing, when something dark moves through our woods like it owns them.”

“No human has died,” Lysa said, though her eyes darted away like the lie burned. “Not yet.”

“Not yet,” the green-haired fairy echoed, bitter.

You let your gaze sweep over them. Torn sleeves from last night’s skirmish with a thorn-wolf. A smear of ash across someone’s forehead. Everyone too tired, too bright-eyed, too on-edge.

The forest had always been yours in a way it wasn’t for anyone else. Not because of your title, not because of the delicate crown of woven ivy the court insisted you wear during council, but because nature listened to you the way it listened to no one. You didn’t command it like a soldier. You didn’t bargain like a merchant.

You understood.

And right now, it was screaming.

“He’s not just feeding,” you said softly.

They went still.

You crouched beside the rabbit, fingers hovering over its fur. A whisper of pollen and light slid from your palm. The rabbit’s chest rose once—just once—before it stilled again. Too late. You could coax a bud into bloom, could pull rain from a stubborn sky, could stitch bark back together after an axe bite, but you couldn’t pour a soul back into a body that had already gone cold.

Your throat tightened.

“He’s taking too much,” you finished, voice sharper. “And he’s doing it too close to the heartwood.”

“That castle has been there for centuries,” Lysa said. “Before any of us wore these wings. Before the court was even… named.”

“And in those centuries,” the green-haired fairy cut in, “something inside it has been starving.”

A murmur rippled through the crowd.

“We’ve tried warding the tree-line,” someone said, frantic. “We’ve tried binding circles. We tried sending animals away—”

“And he still found them,” Lysa whispered.

You could feel the forest’s answer like a bruise beneath your tongue: He hunts by scent. He hunts by thirst. He hunts because he can’t stop.

“Then we stop him,” you said.

“You mean you stop him,” the green-haired fairy said immediately, too quick, too bright with something like relief and resentment tangled together. “Because if you go—if you walk up there like you’re invincible—”

“—you might not come back,” Lysa finished, her voice breaking at the edges. “We’re not asking because we don’t care. We’re asking because we care too much.”

Your magic hummed, answering your emotion by curling ivy around your wrist like a bracelet, gentle as a hand.

“Send a battalion?” you asked. “He’ll pick you off. Send envoys?” you scoffed softly. “He’ll laugh. Keep doing nothing?” You gestured at the rabbit, the fox, the darkening stains in the grass. “The forest will die a slow death and we’ll pretend it’s not our fault.”

Silence.

Then, from the very back, a small voice—young, trembling—said, “He killed my doe.”

Your head snapped up.

A tiny fairy—barely more than a glow with wings—held her hands in fists like she was trying not to shake. Tears made her cheeks shine.

“She was my friend,” the child whispered.

Something in you went very calm.

When you stood, the air thickened around you, warm and fragrant, as if the forest itself was leaning in. The trees stirred, leaves whispering, branches angling toward you like an audience.

“I’m going,” you said.

Lysa’s jaw tightened. “If you go alone—”

“I won’t,” you said, though your eyes said I will if I have to.

A beat.

Then Lysa exhaled, resigned. “Take a guard. Take three. Let us—”

“No,” you said, gentler. “You stay. Keep the wards up. Keep the court from ripping itself apart while I’m gone.”

The green-haired fairy bristled. “So you can play hero and come back to a crown of flowers—”

You flicked your fingers.

A rosebush burst from the earth between you and her, blooming in a single heartbeat—white roses, sharp thorns, petals like fresh snow. Not an attack. A boundary.

Every fairy stilled.

You looked at her over the blossoms, your voice quiet enough that only she and the forest heard it. “This isn’t about glory.”

Her glare faltered.

“It’s about survival,” you finished. “For all of us.”

Then you turned toward the path that led up the hill.

Toward the castle.

Toward the darkness that had been drinking your forest dry.

The castle was the kind of thing nightmares built when they had too much time.

Black stone stacked into jagged spires, windows like slit eyes, ivy strangling the lower walls as if it had once tried to reclaim the place and failed. A gate arched open, not broken—inviting. The courtyard beyond held statues that were too smooth to be purely decorative, like they’d once been living things and someone had decided they looked better as stone.

Your wings stayed hidden under your glamour, pressed against your back like a secret. Your dress, spun from petal-silk, didn’t drag in the mud. Your bare feet left no prints. You carried no weapon.

You didn’t need one.

The moment you crossed the threshold, the air changed.

The forest’s scent—green, sweet, alive—thinned like mist burned away by sun. Here, everything smelled of cold iron and old smoke. And underneath it… something else. Hunger. Ancient and sharp.

Your magic crawled up your spine, restless.

You moved through the courtyard toward the massive doors.

They opened before you touched them.

No creak. No groan.

Just a smooth, deliberate swing.

As if the castle had been waiting.

Inside, the hall stretched long and dim, lit by candles that didn’t flicker. Shadows clung to the corners like they were afraid of the light. The floor was polished so perfectly your reflection stared back at you—a pale shape with eyes too bright and a mouth set in a line.

And at the end of the hall, beneath a staircase that split like ribs, a man leaned against a pillar as if this was a tavern and he was bored.

Bucky Barnes.

He looked like a story told to scare children—broad shoulders, dark clothes, hair falling into his eyes. But the real terror was the stillness. The kind that belonged to predators that didn’t need to hurry.

His eyes found you.

Blue—too blue in this dimness. Like ice with something molten trapped underneath.

“Fairy,” he drawled, voice low, amused. “Did the court finally decide to send a princess instead of a threat letter?”

Your jaw tightened. “You’ve been feeding in our woods.”

His mouth curved. Not quite a smile.

“Your woods,” he echoed, like the words tasted strange.

You took a step forward. The air reacted—dust lifting, candle flames bending toward you. A thin vine slipped out of a crack in the stone and curled around your ankle, protective.

“Those animals,” you said, keeping your voice level. “They’re not yours to take.”

Bucky’s gaze dipped—not to your ankle, not to the vine, but to your throat. Your pulse was steady, but you felt it anyway—the way his attention hooked into it like a blade.

“They’re not yours either,” he murmured.

“I don’t drain them,” you snapped. “I nurture them. I heal them. I—”

He pushed off the pillar.

The movement was fluid, almost lazy, and still your body tensed like prey.

He stopped several feet away, close enough that you could see the faint, silver sheen at the edges of his pupils—like moonlight caught under ice.

“Then heal this,” he said softly.

You blinked. “What?”

His hand lifted, palm up. For the first time, you noticed he wore a glove on one hand and nothing on the other—metal fingers catching the candlelight, too perfect, too wrong against the ancient stone.

He tugged the glove off his flesh hand with his teeth.

Then he turned that hand toward you.

There, across the inside of his wrist, was a burn mark—old and angry. Not from sunlight, but from something else. Magic, maybe. A rune. A brand.

It pulsed faintly, the way a dying ember pulses when wind hits it.

Your magic reacted immediately, tugging toward it like a moth toward flame.

“You’re marked,” you breathed.

His gaze didn’t leave your face. “Cursed,” he corrected. “Bound. Starved.”

“You’re a vampire,” you said. “You’re always hungry.”

The corner of his mouth lifted. “Not like this.”

The hall seemed to lean in around you, listening.

You steadied yourself. “Even if that’s true, it doesn’t give you the right to kill the forest.”

Bucky’s eyes darkened, and for a heartbeat, something feral flickered across his features—hunger, frustration, a flash of pain so raw it made your chest pinch.

“You think I like it?” he asked, voice suddenly hard. “You think I wake up and decide I’m going to bleed your woods dry because it’s fun?”

Your wings twitched beneath your glamour, anxious.

“I don’t care what you like,” you said, though the words didn’t come out as sharp as you wanted. “I care what you’re doing.”

He took another step. The candles didn’t flicker, but you felt the temperature drop.

“You came here to demand I stop,” he said, voice smooth again. “So what are you offering in return, princess?”

“I’m offering mercy,” you said, chin lifting.

His laugh was quiet, almost affectionate. “Mercy.”

You bristled. “You’ll leave the forest. You’ll hunt elsewhere. Or you’ll learn to feed without killing.”

His gaze flicked—briefly—to the vine at your ankle, then back to your face. “And if I can’t?”

“Then we end you,” you said.

The words hung in the air like a blade.

Bucky’s expression didn’t change, but something in his eyes sharpened.

“You think your court can?” he asked softly.

“Yes,” you lied, because you had to. Because if he smelled fear, you were done.

He tilted his head, studying you like you were a puzzle he already knew the answer to.

“No,” he murmured. “They sent you because they can’t. They sent you because you’re the only one with enough power to make a difference.”

Your throat tightened.

“And they sent you,” he continued, voice almost gentle, “because they’re willing to spend you to save themselves.”

Heat flared in your chest—anger, indignation. “You don’t know my people.”

“I know desperation,” he said simply. “I know what it does.”

Silence.

Your magic stirred, restless. Somewhere deep in the castle, a draft whispered through stone like a sigh.

You forced yourself to stay steady. “Stop feeding in the forest.”

Bucky’s gaze dropped again—not to your throat this time.

Lower.

To the place between your thighs where your body warmed at the sheer, infuriating closeness of him. Like your skin was betraying you, responding to predator proximity with something that wasn’t fear.

His nostrils flared.

You felt it the moment he smelled it: the faint sweetness of your arousal, floral and bright, bleeding into the cold air like spilled nectar.

His eyes went half-lidded.

“Oh,” he breathed, and there it was—the hunger, unmistakable. “That’s what you are.”

Your cheeks heated. “Excuse me?”

He took another step. Now he was close enough that you could see the faint fang tips when he spoke.

“Fairies,” he murmured, voice low, reverent in a way that made your stomach twist. “Nature’s heart. Magic in flesh.”

You swallowed. “Back up.”

His gaze lifted to your face, and something wicked curled in his expression.

“You can demand all you want,” he said. “But if you’re asking me to stop feeding, you’re asking me to starve.”

“You won’t starve,” you snapped, though your voice wavered. “You’ll hunt elsewhere—”

“I don’t want elsewhere,” he cut in, so fast it startled you. Then, quieter, like he’d revealed too much: “I can’t. Not with this.” He flexed his wrist, the mark pulsing. “It pulls me here. The forest. The heartwood. Your magic.”

Your stomach dropped.

It made a horrible kind of sense—the way the killings had gotten worse the closer they came to the heartwood. Like something was dragging him in.

“You’re tethered,” you whispered, horror and anger tangling. “To us.”

Bucky’s eyes didn’t soften. “And you walked into my house like you didn’t know.”

Your magic flared defensively. The vine at your ankle tightened, thorns rising.

“What do you want?” you asked, voice shaking with fury.

Bucky leaned in just slightly, enough that his breath brushed your cheek—cold and faintly metallic, like winter air.

“I’ll stop feeding on your animals,” he said.

Suspicion snapped through you. “Just like that?”

His lips curved. “Not for free.”

Of course.

You lifted your chin. “Name your price.”

His gaze dropped again, slow and deliberate, and your body responded with a traitorous pulse of warmth.

“I want you,” he said, voice like velvet dragged over steel.

The hall seemed to go very quiet.

Your wings trembled beneath your glamour.

“You want—” You choked on the words, anger rising fast to cover the sudden, sharp spark of something else. “You think you can bargain for my body?”

“I’m not bargaining for your body,” he corrected softly. “I’m bargaining for what’s inside it.”

Your breath caught.

Fairy magic wasn’t like other magic. It lived in blood and bone, yes—but more than that, it lived in pleasure. In the way life created life. In the way spring returned after winter. In the way flowers opened, shameless and bright.

And vampires… vampires fed on life.

Not just blood. Not just flesh.

Life.

You felt it then, the way his hunger pressed against your aura like fingers against a window, trying to get in.

Your voice came out thin. “You want to feed on me.”

Bucky’s eyes held yours, unblinking. “Yes.”

Fear flickered, quick and sharp.

And then—worse—curiosity.

Because the forest’s pulse beneath your feet eased, just slightly, like it recognized the shape of a solution.

You hated that.

“I’m not your meal,” you said, voice hard.

Bucky’s mouth twitched. “No.”

He leaned closer, just enough that you could smell him—cold stone, faint smoke, the iron tang of hunger.

“You’re my remedy,” he murmured. “And you know it.”

Your magic surged, vines snapping up from the cracks in the floor like living whips. They lashed out toward him, fast as thought.

Bucky moved.

Too fast.

One moment he was in front of you, the next he was behind you, a cold hand wrapping around your wrist—not crushing, but unyielding. The vines struck empty air, splintering against stone.

Your heart slammed.

“Let go,” you hissed.

His breath ghosted over your ear. “Tell your plants to stand down.”

“Don’t tell me what to do in my own forest,” you snapped, yanking.

He didn’t budge.

Instead, he pressed his mouth to the place just below your ear—barely a brush of lips, not a bite. A test.

Your entire body jolted.

It wasn’t fear that flooded you. It was heat, sudden and humiliating, pooling low in your belly like spilled honey.

Bucky exhaled, a sound like satisfaction.

“You smell like rain on warm earth,” he murmured. “Like flowers opening.”

“Stop,” you gasped, furious at the way your voice betrayed you.

He loosened his grip just slightly, enough that you could pull away if you truly wanted.

It was a choice.

Your magic noticed the difference. The vines stopped writhing. The thorns lowered.

You yanked your wrist free and spun to face him, breathing hard.

His eyes gleamed.

“You’re playing games,” you accused.

Bucky’s gaze flicked over you like he was cataloging every tremor, every flush, every tell. “No,” he said quietly. “I’m offering you a way to save what you came to protect.”

“You could just leave,” you said.

He shook his head. “I can’t.” Then, softer: “But I can stop killing for it.”

The sincerity in his voice hit you like a blow. Not because it was gentle—because it sounded like truth he’d hated for a long time.

You swallowed, trying to steady. “And what? You feed on me and everything’s fine?”

Bucky stepped closer, hands lifting slowly, palms open—like he was approaching a wild animal.

“You tell me,” he murmured. “Do you feel it? Your forest thinning, your heartwood fading? That’s because something is clogged. Something is trapped between life and death and it’s pulling everything into rot.”

Your stomach tightened. You had felt the rot—like a shadow under the roots, spreading.

He continued, voice low. “My curse tethers me to the heartwood. Your magic is tethered to it too. If we—if you let me feed the right way—your magic surges, cleans the rot, strengthens the forest. It’s… a circuit.”

Your breath shook.

It sounded like a spell.

Or a trap.

“You’re asking me to trust you,” you whispered.

Bucky’s gaze held yours, too intense. “I’m asking you to choose.”

He took another step, stopping so close you could feel the cold radiating from him.

“If you say no, I won’t touch you,” he said, and there was something almost brutal about the restraint in his voice. “I’ll leave the forest line. I’ll chain myself. I’ll starve. And your court can decide whether they want to watch their woods die anyway.”

You stared at him, chest rising and falling too fast.

“You’re cruel,” you whispered.

His mouth curved, but it wasn’t amused. “I’m honest.”

Silence stretched.

Somewhere far away, the forest sighed through the stone—wind slipping through cracks, carrying the faintest smell of pine like a plea.

You closed your eyes.

You thought of the rabbit. The fox. The child fairy whispering about her doe. You thought of the heartwood’s pulse stuttering beneath your feet.

You opened your eyes again.

“If I agree,” you said, voice tight, “you don’t bite me.”

Bucky’s gaze flicked to your throat, and for a heartbeat, his hunger flashed so sharp you thought he might shatter.

Then he nodded once, slow. “No biting.”

“And you don’t take anything from me without asking,” you continued, forcing the words out. “Not a kiss. Not a touch. Not—”

His eyes darkened, but his voice stayed steady. “Agreed.”

“And the moment I say stop,” you said, “you stop.”

Bucky’s jaw flexed. “Yes.”

You held his gaze, searching for deceit, for manipulation, for anything that said he was lying.

You found hunger. You found restraint. You found something like pain.

And… something like reverence.

You swallowed.

“Then,” you whispered, barely audible, “I’ll do it.”

Bucky went very still.

Like a predator hearing prey walk willingly into its jaws.

But when he moved, it wasn’t a lunge.

It was careful.

He lifted a hand and hovered it near your cheek without touching. His eyes asked the question his mouth didn’t.

You nodded once.

His palm cupped your cheek, cool against your warmth.

The contact sent a shiver down your spine so sharp you hated yourself for it.

“You’re sure?” he murmured.

Your throat bobbed. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”

A quiet huff of a laugh left him, but it died quickly as his gaze dropped to your lips.

“May I?” he asked.

It shouldn’t have mattered—should’ve been a formality, a line in a bargain.

But the question landed in your chest like a promise.

“Yes,” you whispered.

Bucky kissed you.

Slow at first. Testing. Like he expected you to bite him back.

Your magic surged at the contact, petals blooming in invisible spirals around you, the air suddenly rich with summer. The candles flared brighter, bending toward you like sunflowers.

Bucky made a low sound in his throat, something almost hungry, and deepened the kiss.

His hand slid from your cheek to your neck, thumb resting against your pulse; not pressing, not threatening, just… feeling.

As if he couldn’t help it.

Your fingers fisted in his shirt.

He was cold and hard and everywhere his mouth moved, your body followed like it wanted to be led.

You pulled back first, breath ragged, eyes bright with anger you could barely summon anymore. “Where?”

His gaze flicked over your face. “There’s a room,” he said, voice rough. “If you want—”

“I’m not doing this on a stone floor,” you snapped, then immediately hated the shaky breath that followed. “Lead the way.”

Bucky’s mouth curved, and this time it was something dangerously close to a smile.

He offered his hand.

You stared at it like it was a trap.

Then you took it anyway.

His fingers closed around yours, cold and steady, and he guided you up the stairs.

The room was warmer than the hall, lit by a fireplace that crackled softly. Velvet curtains hung heavy over tall windows, shutting out the night. The bed was massive, draped in dark linens like spilled ink.

You hovered near the threshold, suddenly aware of how fast your heart was beating. Of how the bargain had turned into something far more intimate than you’d expected.

Bucky let go of your hand.

He didn’t approach. Didn’t corner you. Just stood near the foot of the bed, watching you like he was waiting for you to decide he wasn’t worth the risk.

Your wings fluttered beneath your glamour, nervous.

“You can leave,” he said quietly.

You glared. “Stop saying that like you want me to.”

His eyes flickered. “I want you here,” he admitted, voice low. “But I’m not… I’m not taking.”

The honesty in it made your chest twist.

“You talk too much,” you muttered, stepping forward.

Bucky’s gaze followed you, sharp.

You stopped a few feet away, chin lifted. “Tell me what to do.”

His breath hitched.

Then, slowly, he shook his head. “No,” he murmured. “Tell me what you want.”

Heat crawled up your neck. Your pride flared, stubborn and bright.

“I want you to stop killing my animals,” you said.

Bucky’s mouth twitched. “That’s not what I meant.”

You narrowed your eyes.

He exhaled, then stepped closer—still careful, still giving you space.

“I want,” you said, voice rougher than you expected, “to know you’re not lying.”

Bucky’s gaze held yours. “How do I prove it?”

Your magic stirred, responding to your emotion by sending a tendril of ivy curling up the bedpost. A bloom opened—pale blue, delicate.

“You’re a vampire,” you said. “You’re supposed to be monstrous.”

Bucky’s eyes darkened. “I can be.”

Your breath caught.

“And you still asked,” you whispered, almost accusing. “You still—”

His voice dropped. “I wanted your yes.”

Silence.

Your body hummed with need now, unmistakable. Your arousal wasn’t just desire—it was magic, blooming and thickening in your veins like nectar.

The forest wanted this. It recognized the circuit he’d spoken of, the way life and hunger could meet and turn into something that healed instead of harmed.

You hated that your body agreed.

You stepped closer, until you were within reach.

Bucky didn’t move.

Not until you lifted your hand and pressed your palm to his chest.

He was solid beneath your touch, muscles tight, his heart… quiet. Not beating like yours, but there was something there, a faint pulse of magic under the skin.

His breath shuddered.

“Undress me,” you said, voice daring.

Bucky’s eyes flashed.

“May I?” he asked, still.

“Yes,” you snapped, then softened despite yourself, quieter: “Yes.”

His hands rose slowly, like he was afraid sudden movement would spook you. He touched the edge of your dress, fingers brushing petal-silk, and your magic flared in response—flowers blooming in the air, invisible but scented, filling the room with spring.

Bucky inhaled sharply, eyes closing for half a second like the scent hit him somewhere deep.

Then he slipped the dress from your shoulders.

The fabric slid down, pooling at your feet like shed petals. Cool air kissed your skin. Your glamour held your wings hidden, but you could feel them fluttering, agitated.

Bucky’s gaze traveled over you—slow, reverent, hungry—but he didn’t touch.

Not until you lifted your chin. “You’re staring.”

His mouth curved. “I’m trying not to lose my mind.”

“You’re already losing it,” you muttered.

Something broke in his expression—amusement, heat, a crack in the monster.

Then he stepped in close and kissed you again, deeper, his hands finally finding you—one on your waist, one sliding up your back, fingers splaying like he wanted to memorize you.

You gasped into his mouth.

His lips moved against yours like he was starving for more than blood.

When he pulled away, your breathing was ragged.

Bucky’s forehead rested against yours. “Tell me if I’m too much,” he murmured.

You swallowed, then forced your voice steady. “You’re not enough.”

His eyes snapped open, bright.

Your boldness made your magic surge. The ivy on the bedpost unfurled, leaves widening, blossoms opening.

Bucky’s hands tightened at your waist.

“You’re going to regret saying things like that,” he warned, voice rough.

“Try me,” you whispered.

Bucky made a low sound and lifted you.

He lifted you easily, like you weighed nothing, setting you on the bed as if you were something precious.

The mattress dipped under his weight as he followed, hovering over you without pressing down. His hair fell forward, dark against the firelight.

His eyes searched your face one more time. “Still yes?”

Your throat bobbed. “Yes.”

Bucky exhaled like relief and hunger had finally found the same breath.

Then he lowered his mouth to your skin.

He kissed your shoulder. Your collarbone. The center of your chest.

Each kiss was cool at first, then warmed as your body heated around him, your magic responding by spilling more scent into the air—lush and bright, like crushed flowers.

Bucky’s hands slid down your sides, thumbs brushing the undersides of your breasts, and you arched with a soft sound you didn’t mean to make.

His gaze flicked up, catching it.

“Pretty,” he murmured, like the word was torn out of him.

Your cheeks heated. “Don’t—”

“Don’t what?” he asked, voice low, mouth still against your skin.

Your pride flared. “Don’t act like you’re not enjoying this.”

Bucky’s laugh was a shaky exhale. “Princess,” he murmured, “I’m trying to survive it.”

His mouth moved lower, kissing your stomach, his hands spreading your thighs gently.

He paused, looking up at you like he was asking permission without words.

You swallowed, then nodded.

Bucky’s eyes darkened.

He pushed your thighs wider then slid down between them.

The first brush of his breath against you made you jolt.

“Oh,” you gasped, fingers clutching at the sheets.

Bucky’s hands settled on your hips, holding you steady like he was afraid you’d vanish.

“Tell me,” he murmured, voice muffled against your skin. “Do you want my mouth?”

You hated how quickly you answered.

“Yes,” you breathed. Then, louder, because your pride demanded it: “And don’t be gentle about it.”

Bucky’s breath hitched.

Then his tongue touched you.

Warm, broad, devastating.

You gasped, head falling back, wings fluttering hard beneath your glamour. The room seemed to brighten as your magic surged—flowers blooming in invisible spirals, ivy racing along the bedframe like it couldn’t help itself.

Bucky made a low sound against you, like a growl turned into worship.

He licked you slowly at first, tasting, learning. Every stroke pulled a fresh wave of heat through you, your magic building like spring floodwater behind a dam.

Your thighs trembled around his shoulders.

“Bucky,” you gasped, the name slipping out before you could stop it.

He looked up at you from between your legs, eyes dark and hungry, mouth shining.

“Yeah?” he murmured, and the sound vibrated against you, making you jerk.

You glared down at him, furious and breathless. “Don’t talk.”

His mouth curved.

Then he went back down on you like he took your command as a challenge.

He lapped harder, tongue pressing deep, then flicked against your clit with sharp precision that made you cry out. His hands tightened on your hips, keeping you open, keeping you steady as your body tried to squirm away from the intensity.

“Too much?” he asked, voice rough, but he didn’t stop—just slowed enough that the question mattered.

Your breath stuttered. “No,” you managed. “Don’t stop.”

Bucky’s eyes flashed.

He sucked gently—then harder—on your clit, and your whole body arched, magic surging so violently the ivy on the bedpost exploded into blossoms, petals drifting through the air like snow.

Outside the castle, far beyond the stone walls, the forest answered.

You felt it—a pulse through the roots, sudden and bright, like a heart remembering how to beat.

Bucky groaned against you, the sound nearly obscene.

“Fuck,” he rasped, like the taste of you was dragging him to the edge of something. “You’re—”

He cut himself off and buried his face again, eating you like he was starving and you were the only thing that could keep him alive.

You clutched at his hair, fingers tangling, tugging without thinking.

He didn’t flinch. If anything, he pressed closer.

“Good?” he murmured, voice hoarse.

“Yes,” you gasped. “Yes—oh—”

He slid two fingers inside you—slow, careful, watching your face like a hawk. You tensed, then melted as he curled them, finding the spot that made you choke on a cry.

Bucky’s mouth never stopped.

The room filled with the scent of wet petals and fresh earth. The fireplace flared, flames rising, and the candles on the dresser brightened as if your magic was pouring into everything that could hold light.

Bucky’s mark on his wrist began to glow.

You saw it when he lifted his hand briefly, the rune pulsing brighter with every sound you made.

It was feeding.

Not on your blood.

On your pleasure.

On the life blooming in you like a garden in spring.

Bucky’s eyes flicked up to meet yours, and something raw moved there—relief, hunger, awe.

“Feel that?” he rasped. “Your magic—”

“Shut up,” you whimpered, because you could barely think, let alone talk.

He huffed a laugh against your skin, then thrust his fingers deeper, curling them just right while his tongue worked you with ruthless devotion.

It hit you fast.

A wave building too high, too bright.

You tried to brace—tried to hold back, stubborn even here—but your body betrayed you, trembling under him, your magic surging in time with your heartbeat.

“Bucky,” you choked, voice breaking. “I’m—”

He hummed, approving. “Let it happen,” he murmured, and the words sounded like a spell.

You shattered.

Pleasure tore through you, sharp and white-hot, your back arching off the bed. Your magic exploded with it—flowers blooming so fast the air turned thick with scent, ivy racing along stone, leaves unfurling as if the castle itself couldn’t resist becoming alive.

And outside—

Outside, the forest pulsed.

Roots drank deep. Rot burned away in a bright, cleansing surge. The heartwood steadied, its stuttering rhythm smoothing into a strong, steady beat.

You felt it like an echo, like the land itself exhaling.

Bucky groaned against you, eyes squeezing shut, as if the surge hit him too.

When you finally came down, shaking, he slowed, easing his fingers out, mouth softening into gentler kisses that made your oversensitive body twitch.

He rested his cheek against your inner thigh for a moment, breathing hard.

Then—slowly—he looked up at you.

His eyes were brighter. Less hollow. Like something inside him had been fed properly for the first time in centuries.

“You okay?” he asked, voice rough.

You swallowed, heart still racing. “Don’t… don’t you dare act sweet now.”

His mouth curved, but there was no mockery in it. “I’m not acting,” he murmured.

He shifted up the bed, hovering over you again, his hand sliding to your cheek.

“Thank you,” he said, so quietly it startled you.

Your chest tightened, anger cracking into something complicated. “You’re welcome,” you muttered, then snapped, defensive: “This doesn’t mean you own me.”

Bucky’s thumb stroked your cheek. “I don’t want to own you.”

“Liar,” you whispered, because your pride demanded it.

Bucky’s eyes held yours. “I want to keep you,” he admitted, voice low. “But only if you want to stay.”

Your breath caught.

You stared at him, searching for the monster again.

You found him—hunger, darkness, predatory patience.

But you also found the restraint that had kept him from taking when he could have. The way he’d asked, every time. The way his hunger had turned into reverence instead of violence.

You hated how much that mattered.

Outside, the forest’s pulse steadied under your skin like a promise.

You swallowed. “If I stay,” you said carefully, “you stop hunting the animals.”

Bucky nodded immediately. “Yes.”

“And you don’t come near the heartwood unless I say you can.”

“Agreed.”

“And if you ever hurt my people—”

His eyes darkened. “I won’t.”

You narrowed your gaze. “That’s not an agreement.”

Bucky’s jaw flexed. Then, quietly: “If I ever hurt your people, you can kill me.”

The bluntness of it made your breath hitch.

You stared at him, heart thudding.

Then you scoffed, because you couldn’t let yourself be softened. “Dramatic.”

Bucky’s mouth twitched. “You’re the one who stormed into a vampire’s castle and threatened him with death.”

“Because you deserved it,” you shot back.

Bucky leaned down, pressing a kiss to your mouth—slow, sweet, startlingly tender.

“You’re trouble,” he murmured against your lips.

You glared. “You’re a parasite.”

His laugh was low. “And you’re my favorite meal.”

Heat flared in your cheeks. “Bucky—”

He kissed you again, deeper this time, hand sliding down your side, fingers brushing your thigh.

He pulled back, eyes heavy. “Can I?” he asked, voice rough.

Your pulse stuttered.

You could say no. You could leave. You could go back to the court and claim victory and never step foot in this castle again.

But the forest’s pulse—steady now—felt like it had wrapped itself around your spine and whispered this works.

And worse—your body wanted him.

You swallowed, voice quieter. “Yes.”

Bucky’s eyes flashed.

He shifted, lowering himself between your thighs again, but this time he didn’t rush. He kissed the inside of your knee first, then your thigh, then the place where your skin was still sensitive from what he’d done.

You shivered.

“You’re going to make a habit of this,” you muttered.

Bucky’s mouth brushed your skin. “I’m going to worship you,” he murmured, voice dark. “If you let me.”

Your magic flared in response, ivy curling along his arm like a caress.

“Just…” you breathed, already trembling. “Just don’t bite.”

Bucky lifted his head, eyes gleaming. “No biting,” he promised.

Then he went back to your slick heat, licking softly at first, coaxing you back open with patient, hungry devotion.

Your hands found his shoulders, fingers digging in.

Bucky hummed, pleased.

Outside the castle, the forest breathed again—greener, brighter, alive.

And somewhere far below the roots, the rot that had been spreading for so long finally began to retreat, chased away by a circuit of hunger and magic that shouldn’t have worked—

But did.

By dawn, you lay tangled in dark sheets, skin flushed, magic humming low and satisfied beneath your ribs.

Bucky lay beside you, one arm under your head, the other—metal—resting at your waist like a careful anchor. His face was turned toward you, eyes half-lidded, watching you like you were a sunrise he didn’t deserve.

You should’ve been gone. You should’ve been racing back to the court with proof, with victory, with a story sharp enough to cut down any fairy who doubted you.

Instead, you were here.

In a vampire’s bed.

With the forest’s pulse steady under your skin like a secret.

“You’re thinking too loud,” Bucky murmured, voice sleep-rough.

You glared at him. “I don’t think loud.”

His mouth twitched. “Sure.”

You shifted, sitting up slightly. The sheets slid down, and Bucky’s gaze tracked the movement with slow, hungry appreciation.

“Don’t start,” you warned.

Bucky lifted a brow. “Start what?”

“You know what,” you snapped, though you felt heat bloom again, traitorous.

Bucky reached up, fingers brushing your hip—light, questioning.

“May I?” he asked.

You rolled your eyes, but your magic curled around his wrist like a ribbon.

“Yes,” you muttered. “But if I go back to the court and they’re fighting—”

“They will be,” he said calmly.

You narrowed your eyes. “What?”

Bucky’s gaze held yours, and something dark and amused flickered there. “They sent their princess to negotiate with a vampire.”

Your mouth opened, then shut, because he wasn’t wrong.

You huffed. “I’m going to have to lie.”

Bucky’s thumb stroked your hip. “Or tell the truth.”

You glared. “Absolutely not.”

He laughed softly, then sobered, eyes sharpening. “You should bring them proof,” he said. “Not of… this.” His hand tightened briefly, then loosened, respectful. “But of the forest. That it’s healing.”

You hesitated, because that sounded like… partnership.

Like something that might last longer than a bargain.

“You’re going to keep your word,” you said, voice careful.

Bucky’s eyes didn’t waver. “Yes.”

“And you’re going to stop hunting in the woods,” you pressed.

“Yes.”

“And if the curse pulls you—”

Bucky’s jaw flexed. “Then you come here,” he murmured. “Or I come to you. And we do it the right way.”

Heat curled low in your belly again, immediate.

You hated him.

You hated your body.

You hated that the forest felt brighter already.

You swallowed, then looked away, because you refused to let him see the way your pride was cracking.

“I’m not staying,” you lied.

Bucky’s hand slid up your side, fingers splaying against your ribs like he was memorizing you again.

“Okay,” he said, too calm.

You snapped your gaze back. “Okay?”

Bucky’s mouth curved, knowing. “You’ll be back.”

Fury flared. “You’re arrogant.”

Bucky’s eyes gleamed. “I’m hungry,” he corrected, and his hand tightened just slightly like a promise. “And you, princess… you taste like the forest learning how to live again.”

Your breath hitched.

Then you shoved his shoulder—not hard, but enough to make him shift—and climbed out of bed, snatching your dress from the floor.

Bucky watched you, amused and hungry, like he had all the time in the world.

You threw the dress on, glamour snapping back into place like armor.

At the door, you paused.

Without looking back, you said, “If I hear about one more dead animal—”

“I’ll eat you instead,” Bucky called lazily.

You froze, cheeks heating.

Behind you, his laugh rumbled, warm and dangerous.

You stormed out of the room, wings trembling beneath your glamour, heart pounding with fury and something that felt suspiciously like anticipation.

And as you stepped back into the hall, the castle’s cold air met your skin—

But beyond the stone, beyond the black spires—

The forest pulsed, steady and strong.

Waiting for you to come back.

He looks up as the bell rings, eyes flicking up through his lashes, and that slow, lazy smile spreads across his face when he sees you.

“Hey, sugar,” he murmurs, pushing off the counter. His voice is a warm scrape, sliding right under your skin. “You’re early.”

“I got too nervous sitting at home,” you admit, cheeks already heating. “Figured I’d rather be nervous here.”

His laugh is quiet, fond. He meets you in the middle of the room, his hands sliding around your waist like he can’t help it, like they’re magnetized.

“C’mere,” he murmurs, stealing a soft kiss, then another, until your shoulders drop a little and the tight knot in your chest loosens. “Been thinkin’ about you all day.”

“You saw me this morning,” you mumble against his mouth, fingers curling in the front of his worn black tee. There’s a smudge of ink on the collar. There’s always ink on him somewhere.

“Yeah, and?” He nudges your nose with his. “Doesn’t exactly cure me of you.”

Your heart does that fluttery, stupid thing it always does when he says stuff like that. It’s still wild to you sometimes, that this man—tattoo artist, all black ink and metal and big hands—comes home and spoons you in bed and kisses your forehead like you’re the precious one.

“Is everyone gone?” you ask, glancing around. The front is empty, the neon sign in the window buzzing softly. The snow outside makes everything quiet.

“Closed up a little early.” His thumb rubs slow circles at the small of your back. “Told Steve I had a special client tonight.”

You bite your lip. “Special, huh?”

He leans down so his lips brush the shell of your ear. “My favorite girl, first tattoo? Yeah, that’s special.”

Heat rushes through you, an embarrassed thrill fizzing in your stomach. You’ve always been the sheltered one, the “good girl,” the one who didn’t drink in high school, who never snuck out, whose biggest rebellion was staying up late reading. Dating Bucky had been… a lot. In the best way.

He never pushes. With everything, especially the more intimate things, he’s always careful, always asking, always checking in. Which is exactly why you feel safe saying yes to something like this.

You clear your throat. “So, uh. Consultation… right?”

He grins, pulling back to look at you properly. “Right. C’mon, pretty girl. Let’s talk tattoos.”

He leads you back toward his station, the one you’ve watched him work at a hundred times—black leather chair, the adjustable stool for him, the little wheeled cart with his machines and inks and wipes. He’s wiped everything down already; fresh sheets of paper cover the armrest and the tray.

He sits on the stool and taps the padded chair. “Sit.”

You do, your heart starting to tap-dance in your chest.

“So,” he says, bracing his forearms on his thighs, blue eyes on your face. The overhead light catches on the metal of his dog tags, on the rings on his fingers. “We’ve talked about placement, yeah?”

Your cheeks burn. You can’t quite meet his eyes. “Y-yeah.”

He hums, like he wants you to say it out loud. That’s the thing with Bucky; he likes you to say things. Likes when you use your words.

You swallow. “I want it… um. Low.”

“How low?” He’s teasing, but his voice is soft.

“Like… ‘private’ low,” you say quickly, then groan and cover your face. “You know what I mean.”

He chuckles, reaching to gently tug your hands down. “I do know what you mean. I just like hearin’ you say it, sweetheart.” He tips his head. “You sure? It’s an intimate spot. Hurts a little more. And only me and you—or anyone you let see you naked—will ever know it’s there.”

You fidget with the hem of your sweater. “I trust you,” you say, and it comes out small but sure. You meet his eyes. “And I want my first one to be something that’s just for us.”

His expression goes molten, something fierce and tender all at once carving into his features. He lifts one ink-stained hand and cups your cheek, thumb brushing along your cheekbone.

“You’re killin’ me, doll,” he murmurs. “You know that?”

Butterflies explode in your stomach. You smile anyway. “Sorry?”

He shakes his head, smiling back. “Never be sorry about lettin’ me love you.” Then he leans back, more businesslike, though his eyes are still warm. “Okay. Design. I’ve got a couple ideas.”

He reaches to the counter and scoops up the sketchbook, flipping it open. You lean forward, and your breath catches when you see the page. Delicate little sprigs of mistletoe in different arrangements, some more detailed, some simplified.

“Mistletoe?” you ask, fingers brushing over one sketch.

He nods. “You said you wanted something seasonal. And you know me, I’m a sentimental sap.” He points to one drawing, slightly bigger than the others. A curved sprig of mistletoe, the leaves simple but elegant, three little clusters of berries, arranged in a gentle arc. “Thought about doing it like this, right above your clit. Like a little banner. So every time I kiss you there, it’s like I’m standin’ under it.”

You swallow hard. Your thighs press together instinctively.

“You—” Your voice squeaks. You try again. “You like it?”

He stares at you like you’ve said the dumbest thing he’s ever heard. “Sweetheart, I love it. The idea of my girl walkin’ around with a little secret Christmas invitation right where I like to spend my evenings?” His jaw clenches, his pupils blown just thinking about it. “It’s perfect.”

Your heart hammers at the words “my girl” and “my evenings” like you haven’t heard them a hundred times. But the idea of the tattoo hits you somewhere deep. Permanent. Intimate. A secret only he’ll know about.

You nod, fingers twisting together. “Okay. I… I want that one.”

He searches your face. “You’re sure?”

“Yeah.” You take a breath. “I’m sure, Buck.”

His grin is slow and pleased, pride and something darker glinting in his eyes. “That’s my brave girl.”

The praise makes your stomach flip. You look at the drawing again. “Will it… hurt a lot?”

He’s honest, like always. “It’s not, like, the worst spot I’ve ever done, but it’s sensitive. Lotta nerve endings.” His tone softens. “We go slow. I’ll talk you through it. You tell me if you need a break, or if you wanna stop, and we stop. Okay?”

You nod. His hand slides to your knee, squeezing gently.

“And,” he adds, voice dropping into something low and sinful, “I might have a few ways to… distract you from the sting.”

Your face feels like it’s on fire. Still, there’s a pull low in your belly at the promise in his tone. “Bucky…”

He smirks. “What? I’m serious. Pain management is a crucial part of my client care, baby.”

“Uh-huh,” you say, deadpan, but your pulse is racing.

He chuckles and stands, stretching to his full height, joints cracking. You watch the way his shirt pulls over his chest, the ink on his arms flexing—black and grey roses, a compass, a wolf, his own thighs thick in his black jeans. He moves around the station with easy competence, pulling on black nitrile gloves, laying out little ink caps, pouring in the dark green, a tiny bottle of white, prepping the stencil.

“Go ahead and take your pants off for me, sugar,” he says casually, like he’s asking you to take off your shoes. “Panties too. Leave your sweater on, I wanna keep you warm.”

Your breath stutters. You’ve been naked in front of him so many times, in so many positions, but somehow this feels different. He’s seen you in this room before, bent over his lap on that same chair, his hand warm on your ass. But there’s something about the clinical setup—gloves, machine, ink—that makes you suddenly shy.

He sees it, of course he does. His gaze softens.

“Hey,” he says gently. “You good?”

“Yeah,” you say quickly. Then, more honestly, “Just… nervous.”

He nods, steps closer, his gloved fingers curling under your chin. “We stop if you want. You know that, right? I don’t care if the stencil’s on, if I’ve done one line, if we’re halfway through. You say stop, we stop.”

You breathe out, some of the anxiety loosening. “I know.”

“Say it for me,” he coaxes. “Say you can stop anytime.”

“I can stop anytime,” you repeat softly.

“That’s right.” He kisses your forehead, the gesture so tender it makes your eyes burn. “Now, lemme see that perfect pussy I’m about to make even prettier.”

You snort, embarrassment and arousal tangling together, then push off the chair. Your hands shake a little as you unbutton your jeans and shimmy them down, stepping out. Your underwear follows, and then you’re climbing carefully back onto the chair, the leather cool under the backs of your thighs.

Bucky’s eyes darken as he takes you in. He doesn’t leer. He just looks—hungry and reverent all at once.

“Fuck,” he mutters under his breath. “How is it you get prettier every time I see you?”

You roll your eyes, but your heart is cartwheeling. “You see me every day.”

“Exactly.” His gaze dips, slow, along the line of your body, taking in the sweater bunched around your hips, the bare expanse of your tummy, the trimmed hair between your legs, the way your thighs press together. “Open up for me, doll.”

Heat floods you. You bite your lip and let your knees fall apart, baring yourself to him. The air feels cool and a little embarrassing on your slick skin, but his low, rough inhale makes something in you melt.

“There we go,” he croons, eyes flicking up to meet yours. “Good girl. That’s perfect.”

The praise makes your stomach swoop. Your nipples tighten under your sweater.

He adjusts the overhead light, then wheels his stool between your knees, so close you can feel the heat of his body. He’s all focus now, the same concentration you’ve watched him turn on a client’s arm or back. Only this time, it’s you.

He cleans the area gently, explaining each step like he always does for first-timers: the cool antiseptic wipe, the little bit of razor along your pubic mound to make sure the stencil will stick. You flush as the razor glides just above your clit, but his touch is clinical, practiced. Respectful.

“You okay, sweetheart?” he murmurs, tossing the razor away and cleaning the skin again.

“Yes,” you say, voice a little breathy. “Just… feels weird.”

“First time is always the weirdest.” He smiles, then reaches for the stencil. The thin paper is printed with the mistletoe design, shrunk to fit. “Gonna place this now. Need you to stay still for me, yeah?”

You grip the sides of the chair, nodding.

He leans in, the paper in his gloved fingers. You feel the press of it above your clit, the firm, careful pressure as he smooths it down, then pulls away. He dabs with a paper towel, then peels the backing off.

“Okay…” He sits back, eyes on his work, then hums, satisfied. “Take a look, sugar.”

He passes you a handheld mirror. Your hands tremble as you angle it between your legs.

The stencil sits perfectly above your clit, curved delicately along the soft mound. The little leaves and berries are crisp, the arc subtle but unmistakable. Your face goes hot at the sight of it; it’s obscene and beautiful and intimate all at once.

“So?” Bucky asks, watching you carefully. “You like it?”

“It’s…” You swallow. “It’s beautiful, Buck.”

His shoulders relax, like he’d been holding tension there. “Yeah?” His grin is quick and boyish. “That’s my girl.”

Your heart trips at the possessive little praise. “Yeah.”

“Okay.” He claps his gloved hands softly together. “Now the fun part.”

You laugh nervously. “Fun?”

He winks. “Depends on your definition, I guess.”

He sets up his machine, doing his usual spiel even though you already know it by heart from sitting in on his sessions: new needle, fresh ink, single-use caps. He pours the dark green and a little white for highlights, then adds a tiny cap of black for linework.

“Last check-in,” he says, eyes on yours. “Still want this, pretty? Still okay with the design, the placement, everything?”

You take a breath and feel the weight of the moment, the permanence of it… but also his steady presence, the way he’s never once made you feel silly or rushed.

“I still want it,” you say. “I want you to do it.”

His gaze softens. “Okay.”

He dips the needle in the ink, presses his foot to the pedal, and the machine buzzes to life—familiar, but completely different when you know it’s for you. Your stomach flutters.

“First line’s always the worst,” he says, raising his voice slightly over the buzz. “It’ll just feel like a scratch, okay? I’ll do a tiny bit, then pull back so you can tell me how it feels.”

You nod, bracing your hands on your thighs.

“Deep breath for me,” he coaxes. “In… and out…”

You breathe with him, in and out, and then his gloved hand is on your lower belly, gently stretching the skin above your clit. The touch is intimate and oddly comforting. His other hand brings the buzzing needle close.

“Here we go,” he murmurs. “You’re okay, baby. I’ve got you.”

The needle touches down.

It’s sharp, a concentrated sting that bursts outward in a hot prickle. You suck in a breath, every muscle tensing. It feels like a cat scratch dragged deliberately across your most sensitive skin.

“Okay,” he murmurs, doing a tiny line, then lifting the needle. The buzzing stops. “That’s it. How’s that feel?”

You blink, heart racing. “It… hurts. But not like… unbearable.”

He nods. “That’s what I figured. You’re doin’ so good, pretty. Proud of you already.” His thumb rubs a slow circle on your tummy. “We’ll do tiny sections, yeah? I’ll go, then I’ll give you a second to breathe, maybe distract you a little.” His mouth quirks. “Sound good?”

Your skin prickles with anticipation at the way he says distract. “O-okay.”

He smiles, presses the pedal again, and the buzzing fills the air. He leans in, focused, and starts another line. The sting is sharp but brief; he knows what he’s doing, his hand steady, his strokes sure. Still, your fingers curl against the leather, your body wanting to flinch.

“Breathe, doll,” he reminds you softly. “In… and out… There we go. That’s my good girl.”

The words wash over you, soothing the instinct to jerk away. You focus on his voice, on the warmth of his hand on your skin, and let the pain be something you move through instead of fight.

He does a few more small lines, then stops, wiping gently with a damp cloth. The wipe stings, but less than you expected.

“That’s the outline started,” he says, sitting back. “You okay?”

You nod, a little breathless. “Yeah. It’s just… a lot.”

“Sensitive spot,” he says. “You’re doin’ amazing.” Then his eyes flick down, and you watch his pupils dilate a little. “You wanna try one of my distractions?”

Your pulse jumps. “What kind of distraction?”

He smirks, sliding his stool even closer between your knees. “The kind only I get to give you.”

His gloved hands slide to your thighs, thumbs pressing into the soft flesh, and he leans in. The chair, the light, the machine—all of it falls away as his breath ghosts over your inner thigh, closer and closer to where you’re already throbbing from more than just the needle.

“Bucky,” you whisper, your voice half warning, half plea.

He glances up at you from under his lashes, expression all sinful affection. “What, baby? You don’t want me to kiss it better?”

Your face burns. “You can’t… we’re in the shop.”

“We’re closed,” he reminds you, like he’s commenting on the weather. “Doors are locked. Security cameras in here are already pointed up and off. I triple-checked.” He presses a tiny kiss to the inside of your thigh. “You trusted me with your first tattoo, sugar. You can trust me with this too.”

Your breath stutters, that vulnerability opening up in your chest again. He’s right. If there’s anyone you trust with… well, everything, it’s him.

“Okay,” you whisper.

His smile turns soft, almost relieved, like that was the answer he hoped for but never assumed. “Good girl,” he murmurs. “Lemme take care of you, yeah?”

He moves carefully, mindful of the fresh lines above your clit. He doesn’t go near the stencil; he keeps his mouth lower at first, pressing slow, open-mouthed kisses to the crease of your thigh, the soft flesh further down, letting you adjust to the intimacy in this new setting.

You’ve had his face between your legs more times than you can count. At home on the couch, half-off the bed, in the shower. Bucky Barnes is, by his own proud admission, a munch. He loves tasting you, loves coaxing sounds out of you with his tongue.

But something about him doing it here, in his shop, with your legs spread on the tattoo chair and gloves on his hands, makes everything feel brighter, sharper.

“You’re so wet, baby,” he groans softly, breath warm against your slick folds. “Fuck, you get off on pain a little, don’t you?”

You squeak, scandalized. “I do not—”

“Uh-huh,” he hums, sounding smug. One finger glides along your slit, carefully avoiding the fresh ink. Even through the glove, the touch makes you jolt. “All clenched up and drippin’ from a few little lines? You’re my brave girl and my needy girl, hm?”

Your embarrassment sparks into arousal. “Bucky…”

He lifts his head enough to look you in the eye. “Color?”

“Green,” you say immediately, the word drilling through the haze. It’s your little system; green for good, yellow for “slow down,” red for stop.

He nods once, satisfied. “Good girl.”

Then he finally leans in and licks one long, slow stripe from your entrance to just below the tattoo, careful not to disturb the stencil. Your head drops back with a breathy moan.

“Oh—oh my God—”

“There we go,” he croons, tongue flicking teasingly around your clit without directly touching it. “That’s my sweet girl. Y’like that, huh?”

“Y-yes,” you stammer, hands scrambling for purchase. You end up tangled in the hem of your sweater, fingers clutching it tight.

He chuckles, low and pleased, and settles in like a man with all the time in the world. His tongue is familiar, sure, tracing patterns against you that have you squirming in seconds. He alternates between long, slow licks that drag heat through your whole body and shorter, focused flicks that make your thighs quiver.

“You taste like Christmas came early,” he groans against you, voice reverent. “Sweetest thing I’ve ever had.”

You whine, hips jerking.

“Easy, baby,” he murmurs, one hand pinning your hips gently. “Gotta keep you steady, remember? Don’t want you messin’ up my artwork.”

The reminder that this is just a break in the tattoo process has your mind spinning. He’s eating you out as a pain distraction. Only Bucky.

He circles your clit slowly with the tip of his tongue, finally giving it the attention you crave. The sensation spears through you, overriding the dull ache of the fresh tattooed lines. Your breath comes in short, sharp gasps.

“Buck—oh—”

He hums, the vibration right where you’re most sensitive. “God, I love when you get loud for me,” he says between licks. “Little quiet thing everywhere else, and then I get you like this and you can’t shut up, huh?”

You moan, mortified and turned on in equal measure.

He pulls back just enough to speak clearly, eyes never leaving your face. “You like that? Like bein’ my pretty little mess in my chair?”

Your answer is a choked sound that might be his name.

He grins, wicked and fond. “Yeah, you do.”

He seals his lips around your clit, sucking gently, and your vision whites out at the edges. His tongue flicks against the swollen bundle of nerves, relentless but perfectly controlled. Every twist of his mouth is aimed at unraveling you.

“That’s it,” he murmurs, pulling back just enough to tease, then immediately going back in. “There we go. You’re doin’ so good. My good girl. My brave girl. Got you, sweetheart.”

The praise piles on top of the sensation, your nerves frayed from the earlier pain. It doesn’t take long before the familiar coil starts tightening low in your belly, heat building, your thighs twitching.

“Buck,” you gasp. “I—I’m close—”

He immediately eases off, softening his suction, switching to gentle, broad licks that cool rather than ignite.

You whine, high and desperate. “Bucky…”

He chuckles, breath hot. “Told you. Pain management. Edgin’ you a little will make your body flood with all those nice endorphins.” He presses a kiss to your inner thigh. “Plus, I just like seein’ how needy I can get you.”

“You’re evil,” you complain weakly, chest heaving.

He grins, not even bothering to deny it. “Green?”

You pout. “Green.”

“Atta girl.” He gives your clit one last soft lick, just enough to keep you simmering, then pulls back completely, wiping his mouth with the back of his wrist. He looks wrecked already, hair mussed, lips shiny, pupils blown. You clench around nothing at the sight.

“Okay.” He reaches for another wipe, disinfecting his gloves, mind clicking back to business without losing the heat in his eyes. “Let’s get a few more lines in while you’re floatin’ on all those happy chemicals, yeah?”

You blink at him. “You’re really gonna go back to tattooing right now?”

He smirks. “Baby, I could eat you out for hours. But we gotta finish the outline before I get too distracted to hold a needle steady.” He winks. “Don’t worry. I’m plannin’ on spendin’ a lot more time between your thighs after we’re done.”

The promise sends a fresh wave of heat through you. “Okay,” you breathe.

He settles back on his stool, presses the pedal, and the machine buzzes again. He studies his work, then leans in, hand spreading your lower belly like before. The needle touches your skin.

It hurts—but less. Or maybe your brain is too fuzzy from almost coming on his tongue to register it as sharply. The pain and the leftover pleasure tangle together into something hot and overwhelming.

“That’s it,” he murmurs. “You’re doin’ so well. Little more here…”

He works in small bursts, pausing often, talking you through every line. Whenever your breath gets too shallow or your thighs start to tremble for the wrong reason, he stops, rubs your tummy, kisses the inside of your knee.

“There we go,” he says every time. “That’s it, baby. You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

At one point, the sting flares a little too sharp and your hand shoots out, grabbing his wrist. He freezes instantly, the machine buzzing in his hand but not touching your skin.

“Stop?” he asks, voice low, eyes serious.

“J-just… give me a second,” you manage.

He lifts his foot, silencing the machine, and his free hand comes up to cover yours on his wrist.

“Breathe,” he says softly. “In… out… you’re okay, sweetheart. You’re safe.”

You focus on his voice, his steady presence, the warmth of his skin under the glove. The panic ebbs.

He strokes his thumb over your knuckles. “Color?”

You swallow. “Still green. Just… spike.”

He nods. “Thank you for tellin’ me. I’m almost done with the outline, okay? We can take a longer break after this part if you want.”

You nod, letting go of his wrist. “Okay. I trust you.”

His eyes flash at that. “Yeah?” His tongue darts out to wet his lips. “Say it again.”

“I trust you, Bucky.”

He exhales slowly, like the words hit him somewhere deep. “You have no idea what that does to me,” he mutters, almost to himself. Then he smiles at you, gentle again. “I’ll take care of you. Promise.”

He finishes the outline in a few more careful passes, each pause filled with praise and encouragement. By the time he sets the machine down, your whole lower body feels buzzy and overstimulated, but you’re buzzing with something like pride too.

“Outline’s done,” he announces, wiping gently. “You wanna see?”

You nod, and he passes you the mirror again. Your breath catches.

“It’s…” You trail off, at a loss.

“Say it,” he coaxes.

“It’s perfect,” you whisper. “You’re… you’re amazing, Bucky.”

His smile is a little crooked, a little shy despite the cockiness you know he’s capable of. “Yeah?” he says softly.

“Yeah.” You look at him. “Thank you.”

He clears his throat, looks away, like he’s a little overwhelmed. Then he rallies, smirk sliding back into place. “We’re not done yet, sugar. Gotta shade the leaves, add a little white to the berries. Make your mistletoe pop.”

You laugh weakly. “I don’t know if I can handle more needle right now.”

His expression goes considering. “We can break it up,” he says. “Do the color in stages. But if you wanna get it all done tonight, I can help you through it.” His gaze dips to your slick folds again, then back up. “You let me make you come, your body’ll relax. Makes pain easier to handle. Still your call.”

Your cheeks flame. “You’re… seriously suggesting I orgasm as, like, a medical intervention?”

He grins, unrepentant. “Baby, I’m always down for science.”

You huff out a laugh, but he’s not wrong, and your body is still hovering on the edge from earlier. The idea of him dragging you over the brink and then taking care of you through the rest of the tattoo makes something warm unfurl in your chest.

“Okay,” you say quietly. “I want to finish it tonight. And I… want you.”

His eyes darken, heat flaring. “Yeah?” He slides his hands up your thighs again. “You want my mouth?”

“Please,” you whisper, surprising yourself with how needy it sounds.

His groan is filthy. “God, I love you.”

The words land heavy and sweet, even though you’ve heard them a hundred times. Somehow they feel different here, with his gloves on and your legs spread and this permanent thing he’s giving you.

“I love you too,” you say back, breathless and sure.

His smile turns soft and bright. “Yeah?” His voice is rough around the edges. “Say it again.”

“I love you, Bucky.” Your throat tightens, emotion bubbling up alongside the arousal. “Thank you for… for doing this for me. For making it feel safe.”

His jaw clenches like he’s holding something back. “Always,” he rasps. “Always gonna make it safe for you, pretty girl.”

Then he leans in and, this time, there’s no teasing.

He licks into you like a man starving, mouth open and greedy. His tongue slides through your folds, savoring, mapping, pressing, his stubble scraping just enough to remind you he’s real. You gasp, your hands flying to his hair, fingers tangling in the dark strands.

He groans, the sound vibrating against you. “That’s it,” he murmurs, voice muffled. “Hold me there. Use me, baby. Take what you need.”

You whimper, hips stuttering. “Bucky—”

He sucks your clit into his mouth and you choke on your own breath.

He works you with single-minded focus, all of that artist’s attention turned toward the way your body responds. He learns and re-learns you every time he’s down here, cataloguing the way your breath hitches when he swirls his tongue just so, the way your thighs jump when he adds a little more pressure.

“There we go,” he coos when you let out a broken moan. “There she is. You like that, huh?”

“Yes,” you sob.

“Yeah, you do.” He flicks his tongue against your clit, relentless. “Look at you. My pretty girl takin’ it so good. All spread out for me in my chair.” He groans. “You’re so fuckin’ perfect.”

The filth and the praise wrap around each other, spiraling you higher. You tug on his hair helplessly, your hips rolling against his mouth. He just tightens his grip on your thighs, holding you steady while he devours you.

He pulls back just enough to talk, lips still brushing your clit with every word. “Gonna make you come so hard, you’re not gonna remember your own name, doll.”

“J-just—yours,” you whimper.

His breath stutters. “Fuck,” he growls, something rough and possessive threading through his tone. “That’s right. Only name you gotta remember.”

He sinks one thick finger into you, slow but sure, and the stretch makes your back arch. He pumps it carefully, mindful of keeping it away from the fresh ink, curling just right to brush that spot inside that makes your toes curl.

“Bucky, I—oh my God—”

“That’s it,” he pants. “Take it, baby. There we go. You’re doin’ so well. So fuckin’ tight around me. You gonna come on my tongue?”

“Y-yes,” you gasp, right on the edge.

His finger curls and his mouth closes around your clit again, sucking with just enough force to tip you over.

It hits like fireworks in a snowstorm, hot and bright and overwhelming. You cry out, the sound echoing off the shop walls, your thighs shaking around his head. Your hands clutch at his hair, your whole body bowing off the chair as wave after wave crashes through you.

He doesn’t let up, tongue working you through it, finger still moving gently inside you. His free hand strokes your hip, grounding you as you fall apart.

“That’s it, that’s it,” he murmurs, voice a soothing rumble under the roar in your ears. “There we go. That’s my girl. Look at you. So fuckin’ pretty when you come for me.”

You shudder, the pleasure melting into oversensitivity. “S-stop,” you gasp, breathless, tapping weakly at his shoulder.

He pulls back instantly, finger slipping free, his mouth moving to press soft kisses to your inner thigh, your hip, anywhere but the overstimulated bundle of nerves.

“Good?” he asks, chest heaving, lips swollen and shiny with you.

You can’t speak yet, so you just nod, tears pricking the corners of your eyes from the intensity.

His expression softens, the cocky edge easing into concern. “Hey,” he murmurs, sliding his hands up to your waist. “You okay, sweetheart?”

“Yeah,” you croak after a minute. “Just… wow.”

He laughs softly. “Yeah? Good wow?”

You manage a shaky laugh. “Very good wow.”

He leans up and kisses you, slow and deep, letting you taste yourself on his tongue. It’s filthy and intimate, and you sigh into it, letting the last of the tension drain from your body.

When he pulls back, his eyes are warm and fond again. “You still wanna finish?”

You blink. “The tattoo?”

“Yeah.” He brushes a strand of hair from your forehead. “We can stop here. Outline’s cute as hell on its own. I can always add color another day.”

You think about it. You’re relaxed and pliant now, your muscles loose instead of braced. The idea of leaving it half-done bothers you almost as much as the thought of more pain. But you also know you’ll be proud of yourself if you get through the whole thing.

“I… I wanna finish,” you say quietly. “If you think I can handle it.”

His smile is pure pride. “You can handle anything,” he says simply. “But we’re gonna go slow, okay? Soon as it’s too much, you say the word.”

“Okay,” you breathe.

He gives you a few more minutes to come down fully—getting you some water, letting you stretch your legs a bit, squeezing your hand every time your eyes meet. Then he’s back on his stool, machine in hand, focus sliding back into place.

“Last stretch, pretty,” he murmurs as the buzz starts up again. “We’re just doin’ soft shading in the leaves and a little highlight on the berries. You already survived the outline. This’ll be a breeze.”

You snort. “You say that now.”

He grins, then leans in, starting the shading. The sensation is different—less sharp, more of a concentrated scratching that fills in the spaces between the lines. It still hurts, especially when he gets closer to the center, but the edges of the pain are blurred by the endorphins and the leftover afterglow.

Every time you flinch, he murmurs to you.

“There we go…”

“Breathe for me, baby…”

“You’re doin’ so fuckin’ good…”

“You like that? My brave girl lettin’ me put my art on her most sensitive spot…”

It’s ridiculous how much the praise helps. You focus on the rhythm of his voice and the brush of his gloved fingers on your skin, and somehow the time stretches and collapses all at once.

At one point, he pauses to wipe away excess ink, and you feel the hot sting of tears at the corners of your eyes. He notices immediately, lifting his foot off the pedal, the machine going silent.

“Hey,” he says softly, leaning closer. “Talk to me. That pain, or just a lot?”

You sniff, embarrassed. “Just… a lot. I’m okay.”

His thumb traces your cheek, even though he’s still gloved, like he can’t not touch you. “You’re allowed to feel a lot, you know. This is your first tattoo and it’s not exactly on your ankle.” His smile is gentle. “You’re doin’ incredibly. I’m so proud of you.”

The sincerity in his voice makes your throat tighten. “How much more?”

“Like… ten minutes tops, I promise,” he says. “We’re doin’ a little white dot on each berry now. That hurts for a sec ‘cause it’s goin’ over what we already did, but then we’re done.”

You breathe in, then out. “Okay. I can do ten minutes.”

He nods once, like a general acknowledging a brave soldier. “That’s my girl.”

The last stretch is rough, the white highlights feeling like someone poking at an already irritated bruise. You grit your teeth a few times, hiss out breaths, your fingers digging into the chair. Every time, Bucky’s voice anchors you.

“You’re okay.”

“I’ve got you.”

“There we go…”

“You’re almost there, pretty. Just a little more for me…”

You hang onto his words like a lifeline, and then, at last, he lifts the needle and doesn’t put it back down.

“Okay,” he says, voice warm with quiet satisfaction. “You did it. We’re done, sugar.”

Your shoulders sag with relief. “R-really?”

“Really.” He kills the machine, sets it aside, and reaches for a fresh wipe, cleaning the area carefully. The sting is sharp, but you know it means you’re on the other side.

“Gimme one more minute,” he murmurs. “Then you can see.”

He pats the area dry, then applies a thin layer of ointment, his touch gentle. Finally, he peels off his gloves and tosses them away.

“Okay,” he says, reaching for the mirror. “Ready?”

Your stomach flips, but you nod. “Ready.”

He hands you the mirror and you angle it into place. This time, the breath you suck in is more of a gasp.

The mistletoe is fully formed now, dark green leaves shaded delicately so they look almost soft, tiny white highlights on the berries making them seem to glow. The curve of the sprig cradles your clit perfectly, like a little wreath framing your most sensitive spot.

Your skin is still red and a little swollen, but you can already tell it’s going to look incredible once it heals.

“Oh my God,” you whisper. “Bucky…”

He shifts his weight, suddenly a little nervous. “Good-oh my God, or bad-oh my God?”

You look up at him, eyes shining. “Good. It’s… it’s perfect.” Your voice wobbles. “I love it.”

His whole face relaxes, then lights up. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” You swallow. “Thank you.”

He exhales, like he’s been holding his breath for the last hour. “You’re welcome, sugar.” He reaches out, thumb brushing just above your knee. “You were amazing. Seriously. I know that spot hurts. You handled it like a fuckin’ champ.”

You blush, warmth spreading through you that has nothing to do with the tattoo. “Only because you… helped. A lot.”

His smile turns wicked. “Well, I aim to please.”

You roll your eyes, but you’re smiling too. “I can tell.”

He stands and stretches again, joints popping. You can’t help your eyes dropping to the front of his jeans. Sure enough, there’s a noticeable bulge, the denim strained.

Your cheeks heat. “You, uh… seem a little… uncomfortable.”

He snorts. “Baby, I’ve had my face between your thighs while you moaned my name in my shop for the last hour. I’m more than a little uncomfortable.”

You bite your lip, suddenly hyper-aware of how exposed you still are, your sweater bunched up, your pussy on display with the fresh ink. “We should… um. Put something over it, right? Bandage?”

“Yeah.” His voice goes a shade rougher. “We’ll bandage it up. Talk aftercare. Then I’m takin’ you home and absolutely ruin—” He cuts himself off with a cough. “Taking very good care of you.”

You snicker. “You were gonna say ruin me.”

He gives you a look. “You’re my girlfriend with a brand-new mistletoe tattoo above her clit. I’m only human.”

You flush, a shiver running through you at the word ruin.

He cleans and bandages the tattoo with practiced efficiency, explaining again what you’ll need to do over the next few days: keep it clean, gentle washes, no soaking, no scratching. No tight underwear for a bit. Definitely no sex on it until it’s healed.

You pout at that. “No sex?”

He chuckles, leaning in to kiss your forehead. “No friction directly on the tattoo,” he corrects. “We can still do plenty of things that don’t irritate it, sweetheart. I’m creative.”

You swallow. “I know.”

He helps you ease your underwear and jeans back on carefully, making sure the fabric doesn’t rub too much. The tenderness of the gesture claws at your chest in the best way.

Once you’re dressed, he helps you off the chair, steadying you when your legs wobble a little. You lean into him, the exhaustion and the high hitting you all at once.

“You okay?” he murmurs, arm snug around your waist.

“Yeah.” You smile up at him, a little loopy. “Just feel like I ran a marathon.”

He chuckles. “Told you, that spot’s no joke.” He brushes a kiss to your temple. “You did so good for me.”

The praise makes something warm and soft bloom in your chest. “You did good for me,” you counter. “Thank you for… all of it.”

He shrugs, but his ears are tinged pink. “You know I’d do anything for you, doll.”

“I know,” you say, and you do. Deep in your bones, you know it.

He finishes cleaning up the station quickly, then grabs your coat and scarf, bundling you up with gentle hands. The whole time, his gaze keeps dropping to your lower belly, something like awe in his eyes.

“What?” you ask, caught between self-conscious and curious.

He shakes his head, smiling softly. “Just… can’t believe you let me put my art there. That you trust me that much. It’s…” He trails off, clearing his throat. “It means a lot. That’s all.”

You step into his space, resting your hand over his chest where his heart thuds under ink and muscle. “Of course I trust you,” you say simply. “It’s my body. I wouldn’t let anyone else near it like that.”

His jaw flexes. “You’re gonna make me cry in my own shop,” he mutters.

You grin. “I’ve seen you cry watching Christmas movies.”

“Hey,” he protests weakly. “It’s not my fault those dogs reunite with their owners in the snow. That’s emotional terrorism.”

You giggle, some of the intensity lifting, and he smiles, relief in his eyes that you can still laugh after everything.

“C’mon, sugar,” he says, slinging an arm around your shoulders. “Let’s get you home. Get you fed, get you cozy.”

“And then?” you ask, voice small but hopeful.

His grin turns downright sinful. “And then I’m gonna get you naked, lay you out under our Christmas lights, and spend a very long time properly testin’ the new mistletoe.”

Heat floods you at the image. “You said no sex yet.”

“I said no friction on the tattoo.” He winks. “Lucky for you, I got a mouth and tongue perfectly capable of avoidin’ it and still wreckin’ you.”

Your knees almost buckle. “Your confidence is disgusting.”

He laughs, steering you toward the door. “Not confidence, sweetheart. Experience.”

The walk home is slow, the snow crunching under your boots, his gloved hand wrapped around yours. You lean into his side, the cold air biting your cheeks, the bandaged area above your clit throbbing dully.

By the time you reach your apartment, the chill has seeped into your bones, and the thought of being naked again seems ridiculous. But as soon as the door closes behind you, Bucky is in motion, flipping on the Christmas tree lights, tossing his keys in the bowl, and turning to you with that look in his eyes.

The one that says you’re the only thing he wants.

“Bathroom,” he orders gently. “Pee, wash your hands. Last thing we need is a UTI on top of a fresh tattoo.”

You gape at him. “Only you could make that sound vaguely hot.”

He shrugs, smirking. “Safety’s sexy.”

You roll your eyes but obey, your heart ridiculously full at the way he looks out for you even in the small things. When you come back out, he’s dimmed the lights, leaving only the glow of the tree and a couple of candles on the coffee table.

He’s shed his shirt, leaving him in low-slung jeans and his dog tags, the ink on his chest and arms stark in the soft light. Your mouth goes dry.

He holds out a hand to you. “C’mere, doll.”

You go, slipping your fingers into his. He pulls you into the living room, stopping by the couch. His hands slide under the hem of your sweater, pushing it up slowly.

“You okay?” he asks, voice low. “Not too sore? We can just cuddle if you’re not feelin’ up to more.”

You swallow, searching yourself. The tattoo throbs, but it’s not unbearable. The rest of your body is buzzing with anticipation.

“I’m okay,” you say. “I… I want more. Just… careful.”

His eyes soften. “We’ll be careful.” He leans down, kissing you slow and deep, his hands warm on your waist. “You say stop, we stop. Got it?”

“Got it,” you whisper against his lips.

He peels your sweater off, leaving you in your bra. The cool air pebbles your nipples and his gaze drops, heat flaring. He unhooks your bra with easy fingers, letting it fall away, and groans softly.

“Never gonna get over you,” he mutters, cupping your breasts with gentle hands. He thumbs your nipples, teasing them until you arch into his touch with a whimper.

“Buck…”

“There we go,” he murmurs. “You like that, huh?”

“Yes,” you breathe.

He kisses you again, then sinks to his knees in front of you, hands finding the waistband of your jeans.

“Lemme see her,” he says, voice reverent. “Wanna see my pretty mistletoe.”

You shiver, letting him undo your jeans. He eases them down carefully, mindful of the bandage, helping you step out. Your panties—soft cotton, nothing special—follow, and then you’re naked from the waist down under the soft blaze of the Christmas tree.

He sits back on his heels and just looks for a second.

“Christ,” he whispers. “You’re a fuckin’ masterpiece.”

Your face burns. “You did the tattoo, so…”

“Not the tattoo,” he says, eyes flicking up to yours. “Well, yeah, the tattoo too. But you, sweetheart. All of you.”

Your throat tightens. You look away, overwhelmed, and he seems to sense it, his hands coming up to rest lightly on your hips.

“Climb on the couch for me,” he says gently. “On your back. Pillows under your head. I’ll get a blanket for your legs so you don’t get cold.”

It feels oddly clinical and deeply intimate all at once, the way he positions you, making sure your lower back is supported, tucking a soft throw around your calves and feet. You feel cherished, not exposed.

He settles between your thighs again, this time without gloves, his hands warm on your skin.

“We’ll keep the bandage on,” he says, fingers skimming the edges of the medical tape. “I’ll stay clear of this area. That okay?”

You nod, heart racing. “Yeah.”

“Good.” He leans in, kissing the skin just below the bandaged tattoo. “Soon as it’s healed, I’m gonna worship this mark ‘til you can’t see straight. Gonna spend a whole day kissin’ every line I put on you.” His breath fans hot against you. “But for now…”

He trails lower, lips brushing that familiar path along your inner thigh. You’re already wet again, unbelievably, your body apparently having decided Bucky’s mouth is its favorite thing.

He nuzzles at your entrance, inhaling deeply. “Fuck,” he mutters. “You ever gonna stop bein’ the best thing I’ve ever tasted?”

You whine, hips twitching. “Please…”

“Please what?” he prompts, teasing even as he slides his tongue up through your folds.

“Please—eat me out,” you manage, mortified and turned on. “Bucky, please…”

He groans, like the plea hits him as hard as it hits you. “That’s my girl,” he says, and then he’s on you.

If before in the shop he was a mix of practical and indulgent, now he’s pure devotion. He devours you like he’s been starving for years, like this is his first and last meal.

His tongue plunges into you, fucking you slow and deep, then pulls out to circle your clit, drawing tight patterns that have your legs trembling. His hands hold your thighs open, thumbs stroking soothingly whenever you tense.

He alternates between torment and relief, pulling back to blow cool air on your slick heat, then diving in again, groaning like he’s the one getting fed.

“There we go,” he murmurs when you moan. “That’s it. You like that, huh, baby?”

“Yes,” you gasp. “God, yes…”

“You’re drippin’ all over my face, pretty girl,” he groans, voice wrecked. “You gonna make me come in my jeans just from listenin’ to you.”

You whimper, clenching around nothing. “You can take them off…”

He laughs breathlessly against your clit. “Trust me, I plan to. But right now I’m busy.”

He sucks your clit into his mouth and you keen, fingers grabbing for anything—pillows, the back of the couch, his hair. He doesn’t seem to mind; in fact, the rougher you tug, the more intense his tongue gets.

“Bucky, I—oh my God—”

“Yeah?” he pants between assaults. “You gonna come again for me? Gonna let me have it? Gimme another one, baby. I want it. Need it.”

You’re helpless under the onslaught, the pleasure building fast, aided by the lingering adrenaline and the warmth of the room and the way the Christmas lights paint him in red and gold and green.

You tumble over the edge with a broken cry, back arching, thighs clamping around his head. He groans and keeps going, milking every last tremor from you until you collapse back against the cushions, boneless and gasping.

“Color?” he asks after a moment, kissing your thigh.

“Green,” you say faintly. “Very, very green. Just… overwhelmed.”

He chuckles softly, climbing up over you, bracing himself on his forearms so he doesn’t press his weight onto your lower belly. His jeans are open now, you realize belatedly, his cock hard and thick against his stomach.

You swallow, eyes going wide. “Oh.”

He smirks, noticing where you’re looking. “Yeah,” he says dryly. “Been like that since you walked into the shop, if we’re bein’ honest.”

Your cheeks heat. “You didn’t—like—need to take care of yourself there, did you?”

He snorts. “Baby, I am not jacking off in my place of business. I do have some standards.”

You giggle, the sound a little dazed. “Even when your girlfriend is spread out and moaning in your chair?”

His eyes darken. “You sayin’ that to turn me on more? ‘Cause it’s workin’.”

You bite your lip, then reach down carefully between you, fingers wrapping around his length. He hisses, eyes fluttering.

“Easy,” he warns gently. “Don’t wanna jostle your tattoo.”

You nod, stroking him slowly, testing the weight and heat of him in your hand. You love him like this—vulnerable in a different way, all that cocky control stripped back to need.

“Want you inside me,” you whisper, emboldened by the way his breath stutters. “Can we… do it without…?”

He thinks for a second, always, always prioritizing your safety over his own desire. “If I keep my hips high and don’t grind into your pelvis,” he muses, half to himself, “we should be okay. You tell me if you feel any pull or pressure on the bandage and we stop. Deal?”

“Deal,” you say, already dizzy at the idea.

He kisses you, slow and deep and sweet. “Condom,” he murmurs against your lips.

You nod, letting go of him so he can reach for the little box in the drawer by the couch. He rolls a condom on with practiced ease, then shifts back between your thighs, one hand braced by your head, the other guiding himself to your entrance.

“You sure?” he asks one last time, voice rough. “We can just stop here. I’m more than happy just eatin’ you out all night.”

You flush, heart swelling at the offer. “I’m sure,” you say. “I want you.”

His eyes go soft and intense all at once. “Okay,” he murmurs. “Deep breath for me, pretty.”

You breathe in, and on the exhale, he pushes in.

The stretch is delicious, a sweet ache that has you gasping. He goes slow, inch by inch, watching your face the whole time, stopping whenever your breath catches. You feel every ridge, every vein, the heat of him filling you up.

“Fuck,” he groans when he’s finally seated fully, hips hovering above yours so there’s no pressure on your lower belly. “You’re so fuckin’ tight. Every time, baby. Every single time.”

You whimper, hands clutching at his shoulders. “You’re… big.”

He chuckles weakly. “You say the nicest things.”

He stays still for a moment, letting you adjust, kissing your jaw, your cheeks, your nose. “You good?” he murmurs.

“Yeah,” you breathe. “Move.”

He pulls out almost all the way, then thrusts back in, careful and controlled. The angle is different, his hips held higher, but he still finds a way to drag along that spot inside that makes you see stars.

“Jesus,” he groans. “You feel like fuckin’ heaven.”

You cling to him, your breasts pressed to his chest, the scrape of his dog tags against your skin grounding you. Every thrust is a jolt of pleasure, building steadily on top of everything else you’ve felt tonight.

“You like that?” he pants. “There we go. That’s it. Take me, sweetheart. You’re doin’ so good.”

“You feel so good,” you babble, overwhelmed. “So big, Buck—”

His eyes squeeze shut, the words clearly wrecking him. “Yeah?” he rasps. “You love havin’ me inside you?”

“Yes,” you gasp. “Love it, love you—”

He chokes out a curse. “Fuck, baby, don’t—” He swallows hard. “I’m not gonna last if you keep sayin’ shit like that.”

You giggle breathlessly, then moan as he bumps that sweet spot again. “Bucky—”

He shifts his angle, testing, until your gasp pitches higher. “There?” he asks, even though he clearly knows.

“Y-yes—”

“Good.” He starts a slow, deep rhythm, hitting that spot every time. “There we go. Let me give it to you. Let me take care of you. You’ve been so fuckin’ brave for me tonight.”

His words wash over you, every praise another thread tugging you closer to the edge. The room is a blur of soft light and heat and the sound of skin on skin, the faint scent of pine from the tree mixing with the sweat dampening your skin.

You feel your climax build, this one slower, deeper, born of the intimacy and the trust and the sheer amount of sensation you’ve let yourself feel today.

“Gonna come,” you gasp. “Buck, I—”

“Fuck yeah, you are,” he groans. “Give it to me, pretty girl. Come on my cock. Lemme feel you.”

His hips stutter, thrusts growing a little rougher despite his best efforts. You’re both right on the edge. His face is inches from yours, eyes blown, jaw clenched, and you realize with a dizzy rush that he’s holding back, keeping himself from slamming into you like he clearly wants to for the sake of your tattoo.

The thought—him restraining himself for you—tips you over.

You shatter around him with a strangled cry, your whole body tightening, then releasing in waves. Your nails bite into his shoulders, your legs clamping around his waist. He groans, a broken, desperate sound, and thrusts once, twice more before he’s following you over, spilling into the condom with a hoarse moan.

He collapses forward, catching himself just in time so he doesn’t crash into you, his forehead dropping to your shoulder. You’re both panting, bodies slick with sweat, hearts racing.

For a long moment, you just lie there—his weight warm and reassuring above you, his cock softening inside you, your fingers tracing idle patterns on his back.

“You okay?” he mumbles eventually, his mouth against your neck.

You nod, too wrung out to speak, and he snorts softly.

“Use your words, doll,” he teases gently.

“Okay,” you whisper, voice hoarse. “More than okay.”

He smiles against your skin, pressing a kiss to the hollow of your throat. “Good.”

He eases out of you carefully, making sure not to jostle your lower belly, and disappears briefly to dispose of the condom and grab a warm washcloth. He cleans you up with almost comical gentleness, wiping away the mess between your thighs, checking the bandage.

“Looks good,” he says, satisfied. “No blood, no shifting. My girl’s tough as nails.”

You smile sleepily. “Your girl?”

He freezes, then looks up, suddenly unsure. “Yeah. Unless… you don’t like when I say that.”

Your heart squeezes. “I love when you say that,” you say softly. “I like being your girl.”

Relief washes over his features, followed by a soft, adoring look that makes your chest ache. “Good,” he murmurs. “Because I don’t plan on shuttin’ up about it any time soon.”

He tosses the cloth aside and helps you into one of his soft tees, then coaxes you to lie down on the couch. He tucks a blanket around you, then climbs in behind you, pulling you back against his chest, his arm banding around your waist carefully above the tattoo.

You snuggle into him, listening to the steady beat of his heart, the quiet crackle of a candle wick, the distant hum of the world outside.

After a while, you murmur into the quiet, “Bucky?”

“Yeah, sugar?”

“When the tattoo heals…”

“Mm?”

“Are you really going to kiss every line you put on me?”

He chuckles, low and warm, his lips pressing to the back of your head. “Oh, sweetheart,” he says, voice thick with promise. “I’m gonna do a whole lot more than kiss.”

A shiver runs through you, and you smile in the dim light, fingers brushing your lower belly where the fresh ink throbs—a little ache that feels like a secret.

Your secret. His art. Your trust.

Under the soft glow of the Christmas tree, with your tattooed mistletoe hidden safely beneath layers of cotton and blankets and his arm, you close your eyes and let yourself drift, knowing that every time the sting flares over the next few days, you’ll remember the way his voice sounded when he said, That’s my brave girl.

And the way his mouth felt when he showed you exactly what mistletoe means.

A goat goes missing and the kids squeal like it’s a show. A fence flickers and the tour guide cracks a joke about “ancient predators and modern technology.” A staff member breaks their wrist on a service ladder and you patch them up in the clinic while they tell you, laughing too loudly, that they’re fine, totally fine, couldn’t happen on a better island.

You nod. You smile. You keep your voice soothing.

Because the other side of the island doesn’t smell like money.

It smells like bleach and electricity. Like wet concrete. Like the metallic bite of blood that never fully leaves your hands no matter how much you scrub.

The other side of the island doesn’t get brochures.

It gets classification stamps.

You’re not supposed to call it the other side. You’re not supposed to say the words classified wing out loud. Officially, it’s a “restricted research corridor,” a cluster of facilities “supporting veterinary excellence and specimen health.”

Unofficially, it’s the Red Zone.

And you are the medic stationed there.

Not because you’re naïve enough to think you can save the island, but because you’ve always been foolish enough to think you can save people.

Your badge doesn’t have your name on it. It has a number. Your access key doesn’t open the visitor center. It opens doors that don’t exist on any map.

Doors like the one in front of you now: matte black, no window, a single camera lens sunk into the wall like an unblinking eye.

The lock gives a quiet click when you press your thumb to it. The door swings inward with a hydraulic hush.

Inside, the corridor lights are too bright. White, clinical. Designed to make everything visible, even the things you’d rather not see.

You push your cart forward—trauma kit, suture pack, field dressings, IV fluids, portable defib—because you’ve learned the Red Zone doesn’t wait for you to be ready. The air is colder here, regulated. The hum of generators is a constant under everything, like the island’s heartbeat, steady and oblivious.

At the end of the hall stands Bucky Barnes.

He doesn’t lean. He doesn’t slouch. He doesn’t waste energy pretending to be casual.

He’s in black tactical gear that makes him look like a shadow that learned how to hold a gun. No park logo, no cheerful patch. His hair is pulled back, just long enough to brush his collar. The security badge on his vest has been stripped down to a bar code. Even his presence feels classified.

He watches you approach like he’s tracking the threat level of the air around you.

The first time you met him, you’d thought, stupidly, Oh. That’s what a weapon looks like when you let it walk around as a man.

The second time, you’d realized the worse truth:

He’s not pretending to be anything.

“Morning,” you say, because you refuse to let the island turn you into a whisper.

His eyes flick to your hands. To your cart. To the stethoscope looped at your neck. Then back to your face.

“Doc,” he answers, voice like gravel pressed into velvet. It’s not a nickname, not really. It’s a role. A classification.

Bucky is the head of internal security for this section, but “security” on the Red Zone side is a polite word. You know what he actually is. You’ve seen the way other staff go quiet when he walks past. You’ve heard the clipped radio codes. You’ve watched him escort men in military fatigues through doors you’re not allowed to look at.

There are rumors. There are always rumors. Some say he’s former special forces. Some say he’s the reason this wing hasn’t collapsed under its own sins. Some say he was sent here because he knows how to keep mouths shut.

The only rumor you trust is the one you can feel when he looks at you:

He’s been ordered to keep you quiet too.

“Any injuries overnight?” you ask, because you’ll keep doing your job even if it kills you.

“None you need to know about,” he says automatically.

You give him a look.

His jaw flexes, like he’s swallowing down an answer that tastes wrong. “One tech got clawed. Superficial. Bandaged it. Told him to come see you.”

“You bandaged it.”

“I know where to put gauze.”

“That’s not the same as knowing what infection looks like.” You move past him, cart wheels clicking softly. “Where is he?”

“In quarantine bay three.”

“Of course he is.”

Bucky falls into step beside you, silent as a threat. You can feel the weight of him, the constant readiness. It does something to your nerves, makes your skin too aware of itself. He’s always like this here—tight, contained, lethal.

On the tourist side, security wears khaki and smiles. Here, security wears darkness and doesn’t.

You glance up at him. “Did you sleep?”

His eyes don’t leave the corridor ahead. “Sleep’s a luxury.”

“You’re going to get someone killed if you run yourself into the ground.”

His mouth twitches, not quite a smile. “This place already got people killed.”

He isn’t wrong.

You pass a frosted glass window that looks into a lab. Inside, scientists in white coats move around a table with the reverence of priests. On a screen behind them is a rotating model of a creature’s skull. It’s wrong in a way you can’t articulate—too many ridges, too many teeth, eye sockets angled predatory and too forward.

You don’t stop walking.

The Red Zone teaches you to keep moving.

At quarantine bay three, the air smells like antiseptic and fear. The tech sits on a cot with his shirt torn at the shoulder, a bandage wrapped tight around his upper arm. His face is pale.

When he sees you, relief loosens his shoulders. When he sees Bucky behind you, it tightens again.

“Let me see,” you say gently.

He holds his arm out with a tremor. You peel back the bandage carefully. Three parallel gashes run along his bicep, shallow but angry. The skin around them is red.

“Did you clean this?” you ask.

“Yeah,” he says too fast. “Barnes—he—he poured something on it.”

“Alcohol,” Bucky says flatly.

You look up. “The drinking kind or the sterilizing kind?”

Bucky’s gaze meets yours. Something unreadable flickers there. “Sterilizing.”

You hum, not convinced. You start flushing the wounds properly. “What happened?”

The tech swallows. “We were moving the specimen to containment—project—” His eyes dart to Bucky.

“Don’t,” Bucky says, low.

The tech clamps his mouth shut.

You pause, saline dripping from your gloved fingers. “Bucky.”

He doesn’t flinch at his name, but something in him goes still, like a blade held in place.

“It’s okay,” you say quietly. “If it’s a biohazard risk, I need to know.”

His stare is hard. “You don’t.”

You hold his gaze anyway. “You can’t order bacteria not to spread.”

For a long moment, the only sound is the hum of the vents.

Then Bucky exhales through his nose, sharp. “Talons.”

“That narrows it down to half the nightmares in this place.”

“Not the park ones.”

You don’t let your face change. “I figured.”

You finish cleaning, apply antibiotic ointment, dress the wounds properly. “You’re on prophylactic antibiotics,” you tell the tech. “And you’re off shift. No exceptions.”

He nods so hard it’s almost desperate.

When you step back, Bucky’s hand clamps on the tech’s uninjured shoulder with a finality. “You heard her.”

The tech scrambles up like he’s been granted a pardon. He practically runs out.

As soon as he’s gone, you turn on Bucky. “You can’t keep doing this.”

“Doing what.”

“Keeping everyone in the dark,” you say. “They’re terrified. They’re hurt. They deserve to know what they’re dealing with.”

Bucky’s expression doesn’t soften. “They deserve to live.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“It is here.”

You step closer without meaning to. The air between you feels… charged. Like standing too close to a fence that could spark.

“I know you think you’re protecting us,” you say, keeping your voice low. “But you’re also protecting them. Whoever funded this. Whoever signed off on it. Whoever decided ‘failed genetic projects’ were a reasonable expense.”

His eyes sharpen. “Watch it.”

You lift your chin. “Or what?”

The question hangs there for a beat too llong.

Bucky’s gaze drags down your face, slow, assessing. You know he’s cataloguing the vulnerability: you’re in scrubs, you don’t have a weapon, your job is literally to bleed for other people. You can’t win a fight with him.

And yet, you’re the one who makes him pause.

His voice drops. “Or you become a problem.”

You should be scared of that.

Instead, something tight in your chest pulls into a dangerous kind of curiosity. “Am I a problem?”

The corner of his mouth twitches again, a shadow of something human. “You ask too many questions.”

“Someone has to.”

He looks at you for a long moment. The fluorescent light catches in his eyes, makes them look cold. But you’ve seen him in the infirmary at two in the morning, when he brought in a guard with a shattered knee and waited outside the door like a penitent. You’ve watched him hand you a protein bar when you forgot to eat. You’ve heard him murmur “thank you” so quietly you almost thought you imagined it.

You know he’s not just a weapon.

You also know he could choose to be.

The alarms start as a low pulse.

At first, you think it’s one of the routine drills. The Red Zone runs drills like religion. Everything here is contingency. Everything here is if.

But then the lights flicker once—just a stutter—and the hum of the generators dips like the island’s heart skipped.

Bucky’s head snaps up, attention cutting toward the ceiling speakers.

The pulse becomes a wail.

A voice crackles through the intercom, strained, too fast. “Containment breach—repeat, containment breach—Red Zone perimeter compromised—”

The next words come out garbled, swallowed by static and the sudden rise of screaming voices in the corridor.

You freeze for half a second, the way your body tries to decide whether this is real.

Bucky doesn’t.

He moves like the alarm is a starter pistol. His hand yanks a radio from his vest. “Barnes, report.”

The reply is chaos. “—fence down—project Cerberus out—God, it’s in—”

A wet crunch. A scream cut off.

Static.

Your mouth goes dry.

Bucky’s eyes flick to you, sharp. “Get your bag.”

“I have—”

“Not that.” He grabs your cart and shoves it toward the wall hard enough the wheels squeal. “Field kit. Now.”

You don’t argue. You’ve learned Bucky’s commands are born from a math you don’t have time to do.

You snatch your go-bag from the hook, fingers shaking only once you’ve got it slung over your shoulder. “What is Cerberus?”

Bucky’s jaw tightens. “Not a dinosaur.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s worse,” he says, and there’s something ugly in his voice, something like disgust.

The lights flicker again. This time, they don’t come back at full strength. The corridor dims into a strobing, sickly half-light.

Somewhere down the hall, metal shrieks. A door slams open.

Footsteps pound closer—running, frantic, too many.

A scientist bursts around the corner, lab coat torn, face smeared with blood that isn’t all his. He sees Bucky and you and lunges like he’s drowning.

“They’re out,” he gasps. “The prototypes—they—”

Behind him, something moves.

It’s fast—too fast for something that size. A shadow under the flashing emergency lights, a blur of muscle and slick skin. It hits the scientist from behind with a force that folds him like paper.

His scream doesn’t finish.

You stumble back, hand flying to your mouth.

Bucky is already in motion. He pulls you behind him with one brutal tug, his body a shield. His other hand brings his rifle up—where it came from, you don’t know, it’s like it just exists when he needs it.

The creature lifts its head.

For a second, the strobing light catches it fully.

It looks like something a child would draw if you asked them to make a dinosaur scarier.

Long, raptor-like, but the proportions are wrong—forelimbs too thick, joints angled in ways that suggest something else was stitched into the DNA. Its skin is dark and wet-looking, almost amphibious, with patches of scale that glitter oily. Its jaw splits wider than it should, rows of teeth layered like needles. And its eyes—

Its eyes catch the light and reflect back, pale and wrong, like a cat’s.

It turns its head slightly, tasting the air.

Then its gaze locks on you.

Your blood goes ice.

Bucky’s finger tightens on the trigger.

The rifle cracks—three sharp shots that echo down the hall. The creature jerks as rounds hit its shoulder, its flank, its neck.

It doesn’t go down.

It shrieks—a sound that isn’t just animal, that vibrates with something engineered and furious—and launches.

Bucky shoves you hard to the side.

The creature slams into him instead, claws scraping armor, teeth snapping inches from his face. He braces, boots skidding on the slick floor, and then he does something you’ve never seen a park guard do in your life.

He uses his body like a weapon.

He pivots, using the creature’s momentum, and drives it into the wall. Metal buckles. The creature thrashes, tail whipping, knocking a wall-mounted monitor loose. Sparks rain.

Bucky grunts, muscles corded, and jams the barrel of his rifle under the creature’s jaw. He fires point blank.

Blood sprays—hot and dark. The creature convulses.

Still, it tries to bite.

Bucky doesn’t hesitate. He drops the rifle, grabs a combat knife, and drives it up, under the jawline, into the soft tissue where bone meets nerve.

The creature shudders once, twice.

Then goes limp.

Silence crashes in after the struggle, broken only by the alarm’s relentless wail and the crackle of sparking wires.

You stand frozen, chest heaving.

Bucky wipes his blade on the creature’s hide like it disgusts him. He snatches his rifle back up and turns to you.

“Move,” he orders.

Your legs don’t cooperate immediately. Your brain is still stuck on the image of teeth. On the scientist’s scream cutting off. On the way that thing looked at you like you were prey.

Bucky’s hand clamps around your wrist—firm, not gentle, but grounding—and drags you forward.

“Bucky,” you manage, voice thin. “What the hell was that?”

He doesn’t slow. “A failure.”

“That doesn’t—”

He hauls you around a corner just as something slams into the wall behind you. The impact shudders through the floor.

Bucky shoves you into a recessed doorway. He leans out, rifle ready, scanning.

The corridor is chaos now—people screaming, running, some bleeding, some clutching radios that only spit static. A security guard stumbles past with a torn thigh, leaving a smear of blood.

You surge forward instinctively. “Hey—”

Bucky catches your shoulder, stops you. “You can’t help if you’re dead.”

“I’m a medic.”

“And I’m telling you he’s not leaving this corridor alive if you step out.” His voice is low, savage with certainty. “Stay.”

Something about the way he says it makes your skin prickle. Not just fear—something else. Something darkly magnetic.

Because he isn’t bluffing.

Bucky moves out into the hall like he owns it. Like chaos is just another environment he knows how to breathe in.

You hate that a part of you watches him and thinks, God.

He grabs the bleeding guard by the vest, drags him into the doorway with you. “Doc.”

You drop to your knees automatically. The guard’s thigh is shredded, muscle exposed. Bite marks. Not clean. Ragged.

You pull your kit open with shaking hands. “Tourniquet,” you snap.

Bucky’s hands are already there, pulling a strap from his gear. He cinches it high and tight with brutal efficiency.

The guard whimpers.

“Hold still,” Bucky says, not unkind, just absolute.

You pack the wound, press gauze hard until the bleeding slows. Your hands are slick with blood. Your heart is pounding so hard you can feel it in your throat.

“What bit you?” you ask the guard.

He sobs, eyes wide. “It—it was—like a raptor but—wrong.”

You glance up at Bucky.

His eyes are fixed down the corridor. “Told you.”

A new voice crackles over a radio nearby, clearer this time, panicked. “Barnes! We’ve got survivors at the substation—four, maybe five—can’t reach the helipad, perimeter fence is down—”

Bucky snatches his own radio. “Where’s the breach?”

“Red Zone enclosure six—then it spread—power grid’s unstable—God, Barnes, it’s a bloodbath—”

Bucky’s jaw clenches. “How many out?”

A pause. A swallow you can hear through the speaker. “We—don’t know.”

Bucky’s eyes flick to you. “We’re going.”

Your stomach drops. “We?”

He doesn’t even blink. “You’re the only medic on this side.”

“There are others—”

“Not anymore,” he says, and the flatness of it is worse than if he’d screamed.

You swallow hard, forcing your hands to keep working. The guard grips your wrist weakly, desperate.

“I need to get him to the clinic,” you say.

Bucky looks down at the guard, then back at you. “Can he walk?”

The guard shakes his head, tears spilling.

Bucky doesn’t hesitate. He crouches, grabs the guard under the arms, and hauls him up like he weighs nothing. “Then he rides.”

He throws the guard over his shoulder. The guard cries out.

“Sorry,” Bucky says, not sounding sorry at all. Then to you: “Stay on my six. Don’t lag. Don’t run ahead. If I say down, you go down.”

Your mouth feels full of cotton. “Bucky—”

He meets your gaze, and for a heartbeat the strobing red light makes him look like something out of a nightmare too—blood spattered across his jaw, eyes hard, posture coiled.

“You wanna live,” he says quietly, “you listen to me.”

It’s not a threat.

It’s a promise.

You nod once.

Bucky moves.

You follow.

The substation is a concrete blockhouse half-swallowed by jungle, fenced off from tourists by signage that says AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY in cheerful font, like that’s enough to keep curiosity away.

Today, the signs are pointless. The fence is bent. The gate hangs open.

Inside, the air smells like ozone and wet earth. The generator hum has a jagged edge to it, like it’s struggling. Somewhere deeper in the jungle, something roars—low, huge, too close.

Bucky dumps the injured guard onto a bench inside the substation and barks at a tech with a bleeding forehead, “Watch him.”

The tech nods frantically.

In the corner, four people huddle together: two scientists, a young intern with mascara streaked down her cheeks, and a security runner with his arm in a makeshift sling.

They look at Bucky like he’s either salvation or doom.

Then they see you.

Hope flares, fragile.

“Thank God,” one of the scientists whispers. “We thought—”

Bucky cuts him off. “We’re leaving.”

“Leaving where?” the intern chokes out. “The helipad’s—”

“Compromised,” Bucky says. “We go through service tunnel nine. It connects to the old water treatment route. That gets us to the east ridge. Extraction will meet there.”

The security runner’s face goes gray. “Tunnel nine goes through—”

Bucky’s eyes flash. “Yeah.”

The runner swallows. “The… other enclosures.”

The scientists exchange looks, terror sharpening. “We can’t go through the Red Zone,” one says. “That’s—those are—”

“Classified,” Bucky finishes for him, voice cold. “You should’ve thought about that before you took the funding.”

The scientist flinches like he’s been slapped.

You look between them, mind racing. “Bucky, tunnel nine—if it goes through the Red Zone—”

“It’s the only route not flooded with tourists and not on fire,” he says. “We take it or we die here.”

A distant crash shudders through the jungle—trees snapping. The sound is so big your bones vibrate with it.

The intern whimpers.

Bucky shoulders his rifle. “Move.”

No one argues after that.

You tighten your grip on your go-bag strap as you step out into the open.

The jungle is different when you’re not behind glass.

On the tourist tours, the forest is a backdrop. Controlled. Curated. But out here, it’s a wall of green that breathes. Humidity clings to your skin instantly. Bugs whine in your ears. The ground is slick mud and rotting leaves, eager to swallow your boots.

Bucky moves ahead, silent, scanning. His posture is predatory—head tilted slightly like he’s listening to frequencies you can’t hear. Every few steps, he lifts his hand to signal stop, go, crouch, like he’s choreographing survival.

You keep the group tight behind you. You check on the runner’s sling, on the intern’s breathing, on the scientist whose hands won’t stop shaking.

You tell yourself you can do this.

You tell yourself you’re trained.

Then you see the first body.

A guard lies half in the mud, throat torn out. His radio crackles weakly beside him, soaked. His eyes are open, staring at nothing.

The intern gasps, hand over her mouth.

One of the scientists makes a strangled sound.

You swallow bile.

Bucky doesn’t even slow. He steps over the body like he’s stepping over a log.

You want to hate him for that.

Instead, you understand.

If you stop, you die.

The service tunnel entrance is a concrete mouth in a hillside, framed by overgrown vines. The keypad beside it blinks, lights stuttering.

Bucky swears under his breath and yanks a tool from his belt. He pries the panel open with practiced speed, fingers moving like he’s done this a hundred times.

“Thought you said you didn’t know where to put gauze,” you mutter, trying to keep your voice from shaking.

His mouth twitches faintly. “I didn’t say I was just security.”

The keypad sparks once, then goes dark.

Bucky curses again, then slams his metal hand against the lock.

The metal door shudders.

Again.

The hinges groan.

With a final, brutal shove, the lock gives. The door swings inward.

The tunnel yawns dark and damp, a stale breath rolling out.

Bucky flicks on a flashlight attached to his rifle. The beam cuts through the darkness, catching on wet concrete and old signage that reads MAINTENANCE ACCESS — AUTHORIZED STAFF ONLY.

The intern whispers, “I don’t—like—”

Bucky turns his head slightly. “You wanna stay out here?”

Another roar rolls through the jungle—closer now. The sound is massive, like the island itself is angry.

The intern shakes her head violently.

“Then move,” Bucky says.

You go in.

The tunnel is colder, the air heavy with mildew. Water drips from the ceiling. Your flashlight beam trembles slightly, betraying your nerves.

Bucky takes point. You’re right behind him. The survivors trail in a line.

You walk for what feels like forever, the tunnel swallowing sound, making every footstep echo.

Then the wall signage changes.

The cheerful maintenance warnings vanish. In their place: black-and-white placards with red stamps.

RED ZONE—AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.BIOHAZARD.PROJECT ACCESS—CLASSIFIED.

Your skin prickles.

One of the scientists whispers, “This is—this is wrong.”

“You think?” you whisper back, more bitter than you mean to.

Bucky slows at a junction. Two paths: one marked WATER TREATMENT, the other marked simply RZ-9.

He pauses, listening.

In the silence, you hear it: a faint clicking sound, rapid, almost insect-like.

Bucky’s hand lifts—stop.

Everyone freezes.

The clicking grows louder.

Then, from somewhere in the darkness ahead, something scuttles across the tunnel ceiling.

Your flashlight catches a glimpse—pale flesh, too many limbs, a tail like a whip.

The intern makes a tiny, terrified noise.

The clicking stops.

A breath.

Then a sound like claws scraping concrete.

Bucky’s rifle swings up. “Down,” he snaps.

You drop instinctively. The others scramble.

Something drops from the ceiling.

It lands with a wet slap and a hiss.

Your light catches it fully and your brain stutters.

It’s small—dog-sized—but it’s wrong in a way that makes your stomach lurch. It has the sleek body of a raptor, but its limbs are longer, almost spider-like, jointed in too many places. Its head is narrow, eyes huge and glossy, mouth packed with needle teeth.

And on its back—your light glints off something metallic.

Harness.

Armor plating.

The scientist beside you whispers, horrified, “They put… gear on them.”

The creature’s head snaps toward the sound.

Bucky fires.

The shot booms in the tunnel, deafening. The creature jerks, but the armor plate deflects enough that it doesn’t drop. It shrieks and launches—

Not at Bucky.

At you.

Your breath stops.

Bucky moves faster than thought. He slams into it mid-leap, driving it into the wall. The creature thrashes, claws scrabbling, teeth snapping.

Bucky grabs its neck with his metal hand and twists.

You hear bone crack.

The creature goes limp.

Bucky throws it to the floor like trash.

The survivors stare, stunned.

You stare too, pulse pounding, because for a split second that thing was going to tear you open and Bucky didn’t even hesitate.

He didn’t even think.

He just… saved you.

You push up onto your knees, breathing hard. “Thank you.”

Bucky doesn’t look at you. “Keep moving.”

But his shoulder brushes yours as he steps past, just barely, and the contact feels like a promise you’re not ready to name.

Tunnel nine spits you out into a corridor that doesn’t belong to the park.

The walls are reinforced steel, stained with old scratches. The lighting is dim, red emergency strips that make everything look like it’s bleeding.

There are doors on either side, heavy, numbered with stenciled codes: RZ-6, RZ-7, RZ-8.

A smell hangs in the air—chemical, sour, like something rotting under bleach.

The intern starts crying silently.

You want to comfort her, but you don’t have time.

Bucky stops at a viewing window set into one of the doors. The glass is thick, layered, scratched from the inside.

He angles his flashlight through it.

You shouldn’t look.

You do anyway.

Inside, the enclosure is huge, lit dimly by UV lamps. The ground is torn up. Blood smears the concrete.

And in the corner, curled like a nightmare trying to make itself small, is something that looks like a raptor… until it lifts its head.

Its mouth opens.

Rows of teeth—too many—unfurl like a flower of knives.

A second set of jaws slides forward from inside the first.

The intern chokes on a sob.

The scientist whispers, “That’s—impossible.”

Bucky’s voice is a quiet blade. “It’s funded.”

You step back from the window, heart pounding. “Bucky… what are these.”

He doesn’t answer right away. His gaze stays on the enclosure, as if he’s watching for movement. “Military wanted assets,” he says finally. “Park wanted profit. Scientists wanted to play God.”

“And you?” you ask, too sharply. “What do you want?”

His eyes flick to you. In the red light, they look almost black.

“I want to keep people alive,” he says. “Even when they don’t deserve it.”

Something about that lands heavy in your chest.

You’re about to speak when a sound echoes down the corridor.

A deep, dragging thud.

Slow. Heavy.

Like something big moving with purpose.

Bucky’s body goes rigid. He lifts his hand—stop.

The survivors freeze behind you, trembling.

The thud grows louder.

Then you hear it: a wet, rasping breath, like something breathing through fluid.

Bucky’s flashlight beam steadies on the corridor ahead.

At the far end, where the hall widens into a junction, something steps into view.

At first, your brain tries to categorize it. T. rex. Big. Bipedal. Head heavy.

Then it tilts its skull and you see the details that don’t belong.

Its skin isn’t scaled like the park rex. It’s textured, almost armored, with patches of bony plating that catch the red light. Its forelimbs are longer than they should be, ending in claws that look built for gripping, not just tearing. Along its spine, ridges rise like blades.

And its eyes—

They aren’t animal.

They’re too aware.

It lowers its head, nostrils flaring.

Smelling.

Finding.

The security runner whispers, “Oh my God.”

The creature’s head snaps toward the sound.

It roars.

The sound slams into you like a physical force. The corridor vibrates. Dust sifts from the ceiling. The intern screams.

Bucky’s voice cuts through. “RUN.”

You run.

The corridor becomes a tunnel of panic, red light strobes, footsteps pounding. Your lungs burn instantly. The survivors stumble, sobbing, clinging to each other.

Behind you, the thuds accelerate.

Fast.

Too fast for something that big.

Bucky moves beside you, herding, shoving a scientist forward when he trips, grabbing the intern by the collar to keep her from falling.

“Left!” he barks at a junction.

You veer left without thinking, into a narrower hallway.

A door ahead reads RZ-9 — EMERGENCY EXIT.

Bucky slams his shoulder into it.

Locked.

He curses, then drives his metal hand into the control panel.

Sparks explode. The lock clicks.

He yanks the door open.

“IN!” he shouts.

You shove the survivors through into a stairwell. Concrete steps spiral down. The air is colder here, damp.

Bucky is last in. He slams the door shut, throws a heavy bar across it.

Then the impact hits.

The entire door buckles inward as the creature slams into it from the other side. The metal groans. The bar shudders.

The survivors scream.

Bucky braces his shoulder against the door, muscles straining.

“Down,” he snarls at you. “Get them down!”

You don’t argue. You herd the survivors down the stairs, heart hammering, hands gripping the rail slick with condensation.

Above, the door shrieks under assault.

Bucky’s boots thunder on the steps as he follows, still calm in a way that feels impossible.

“How long will that hold?” you gasp.

He doesn’t look back. “Not long.”

“Then what—”

He stops mid-stairwell, grabs a red metal box on the wall, rips it open.

Inside: emergency explosives.

Your blood turns to ice. “Bucky—”

“Keep moving,” he snaps.

He plants charges with swift efficiency, like this is familiar. Like he’s done this in places that weren’t supposed to exist on maps either.

The door above bends inward again with a horrific scream of metal.

Bucky slams the box shut, grabs your wrist, hauls you down the last stretch of stairs.

At the bottom, the stairwell opens into a service corridor that smells like old water and rust. Pipes run along the ceiling. A sign points toward WATER TREATMENT ROUTE.

You sprint.

Behind you, Bucky’s voice is sharp. “Go!”

Then he shoves you forward, turns, and runs back up a few steps.

You spin, panic slicing through you. “BUCKY!”

He doesn’t look at you. He just lifts a hand—move.

The door above finally gives with a scream. The creature’s roar floods the stairwell.

Bucky hits the trigger.

The explosion is deafening, a concussive blast that punches air into your lungs. The stairwell shakes violently. Dust and debris rain down.

The roar cuts off abruptly, smothered.

For a heartbeat, there’s silence.

Then Bucky comes flying down the stairs, coughing, soot streaking his face, eyes wild.

He grabs your arm and runs, dragging you with him.

You don’t realize you’re crying until your vision blurs.

The water treatment route is a labyrinth of pipes, open channels, and concrete walkways slick with algae. The sound of rushing water echoes off the walls, constant, masking smaller noises.

It should feel safer.

It doesn’t.

Because safety on this island is an illusion.

You push the survivors onto a catwalk, forcing them to keep moving. The intern is sobbing openly now, breaths hiccupping. One scientist has gone eerily quiet, eyes glassy.

The security runner staggers, pale.

You stop long enough to check him. His sling is soaked through.

“Let me see,” you say.

He flinches. “We can’t stop.”

“If you bleed out, you slow us down more.” You don’t soften the truth. The Red Zone doesn’t reward tenderness. “Sit.”

He sits, trembling. You unwrap the makeshift sling. The wound underneath is ugly—deep gouges, muscle torn.

Bucky crouches beside you, rifle still up, scanning the shadows.

“You have anything for pain?” the runner whispers.

You nod, digging in your kit. “This will sting.”

You clean the wound quickly, inject local anesthetic as best you can. Your hands are steady because you’ve trained them to be. Your heart is still racing, but your fingers don’t betray you.

Bucky watches you work, head tilted slightly. “You’re shaking,” he says softly.

You blink. “No, I’m not.”

He reaches out with his flesh hand—careful, controlled—and cups your elbow. His thumb presses lightly against your skin.

You realize then that the shaking isn’t in your hands.

It’s in your arm.

It’s in your body, adrenaline finally crashing into your muscles.

You swallow hard. “I’m fine.”

His eyes meet yours. The red emergency light from the corridor above is gone now, replaced by the dim industrial glow of the treatment plant. In this light, his face looks… human. Tired. Smeared with soot and blood.

“I’ve seen ‘fine,’” he murmurs. “This ain’t it.”

The intimacy of it—his touch, his attention—hits you like a shock. Your throat tightens.

You want to say something sharp to cover the softness. You want to say something stupid like don’t. Like you don’t get to look at me like that after what I just saw you do.

Instead, you whisper, “You’re hurt.”

His jaw flexes. “Doesn’t matter.”

“You told me I can’t help if I’m dead,” you say, voice trembling with something that isn’t just fear. “Same goes for you.”

For a moment, he looks like he might argue.

Then he glances down at his own arm.

There’s blood soaking through his sleeve.

Your stomach drops. “Bucky.”

“It’s not mine,” he says automatically.

You stare.

He sighs, exasperated, and peels back the sleeve.

A deep gash runs along his forearm—fresh, angry, bleeding slowly. You don’t know when it happened. You don’t know how you didn’t see it.

Because you were watching him like he was invincible.

You swallow hard and reach for gauze. “Sit.”

He hesitates.

You lift your eyes to him, steady. “That’s an order, Barnes.”

Something flickers in his expression—amusement, maybe, or respect.

He sits.

You clean the gash, your fingers gentle despite everything. The skin around it is warm. Real. You patch him with practiced care, wrap the bandage tight.

Bucky watches your hands the entire time, like he’s memorizing the way you touch him when you’re not afraid.

When you finish, you glance up—and realize how close his face is.

Close enough that you can see the faint line of scars near his jaw. Close enough that you can feel his breath.

Your pulse kicks.

His gaze drops to your mouth for half a second.

Something hot and dangerous curls in your belly—an awful thought, born in terror and adrenaline:

I should be scared of you too.

You should be.

Because you just watched him kill like it was breathing.

And yet… he’s letting you bandage him like you’re something precious.

You pull back sharply, clearing your throat. “We need to move.”

His eyes hold yours for a beat longer. Then he nods once, as if locking something away. “Yeah.”

You stand, turn to the survivors. “We’re going to the east ridge. Stay close. Don’t wander. If you hear anything, you don’t scream—you get down and you cover your head. Understood?”

They nod, terrified.

Bucky rises behind you like a shadow.

You move.

The east ridge is where the island drops away into cliffs, jagged rock cutting into violent sea. The wind is sharp up here, smelling of salt and storm. Gray clouds churn overhead, heavy with rain.

You emerge from the service access into open air and for a second your lungs feel like they might actually work again.

Then you see the state of the ridge.

The fence line is shredded. Metal posts bent like straw. A security jeep lies overturned, its windshield spiderwebbed with cracks.

Bodies.

Not many, but enough.

The intern sobs again, collapsing to her knees.

You swallow hard, forcing yourself to keep moving. You scan the ridge for the extraction point—an open pad marked with faded paint, a place where helicopters can land.

It’s empty.

Your heart drops.

Bucky raises his radio. “East ridge. We’re here.”

Static answers.

He tries again. “Extraction, respond.”

Nothing.

The wind howls.

The survivors look at him like he’s about to tell them they’re doomed.

Bucky’s jaw tightens. He lowers the radio slowly, eyes scanning the horizon.

Rain begins to fall, cold drops that slick your hair to your forehead.

You step closer. “Bucky—”

He turns to you, and something in his face is hard and grim and angry—not at you, but at the island, at the people who built this, at the fact that the math of survival is never fair.

“They’re not coming,” the scientist whispers, voice broken.

Bucky’s eyes narrow. “Not yet.”

A sound cuts through the wind.

Not a roar this time.

A clicking.

Rapid. Coordinated.

Your stomach twists.

Bucky’s head tilts slightly. He listens.

Then he swears, low. “Get down.”

You don’t hesitate. You shove the survivors behind the overturned jeep, dropping with them. Mud soaks your knees.

Bucky moves away from cover, stepping into the open like he’s offering himself up.

“Bucky!” you hiss, horrified.

He doesn’t look back. His rifle lifts, steady, aimed toward the treeline.

The clicking grows louder.

Then shapes move in the brush.

Not one.

Several.

You see them in flashes through rain and branches—sleek bodies, too-long limbs, reflective eyes. Smaller than the Cerberus thing, faster, coordinated.

Pack.

The intern makes a small, terrified sound.

One of the creatures snaps its head toward it.

Bucky fires.

A creature drops, twitching. Another darts forward, too fast. Bucky pivots, firing again, rounds cracking through the air.

The pack fans out, circling.

They’re smart.

Your breath comes in sharp gasps. Your hands dig into mud, useless, because you don’t have a gun. You have gauze and saline and stubbornness.

Bucky keeps firing, moving, never letting them flank him fully. His body is fluid, lethal. He looks like violence given purpose.

One creature lunges at his left.

He swings the rifle, strikes it mid-air. The stock cracks against its skull. It yelps and scrambles back.

Another lunges at his right, jaws snapping—

Bucky’s metal hand shoots out, catches it by the throat mid-leap.

He slams it into the ground hard enough mud splatters.

It thrashes, claws scraping his armor. He holds it down like it’s nothing, then drives his knife into its skull.

The pack hesitates.

In that hesitation, you see it: the way they look at him.

Not fear.

Recognition.

Like they know what he is.

Like he’s something engineered too.

A chill crawls up your spine.

The pack shifts again, clicking, searching for weakness.

One breaks from the group and darts toward the jeep—toward you.

Your body moves before your brain does. You snatch a metal tool from the mud near the jeep—some broken piece of fence—and swing as the creature lunges.

The metal bar connects with its snout. The impact jars your arms to the bone.

The creature shrieks, snapping at you again.

You stumble back, heart in your throat.

It lunges—

And Bucky is there.

He moves like a bullet, slamming into it, knocking it away from you. His hand grabs your collar, yanks you behind him, shielding you again.

His voice is a snarl. “I said down.”

“I was down,” you choke, shaking. “It came at us.”

His eyes flick over you quickly, assessing injuries. Rain streaks down his face. His gaze is fierce, almost furious, but not at you.

At the idea of you being hurt.

“Stay behind me,” he says, voice lower now, deadly calm.

You nod, breath hitching.

Bucky turns back to the pack.

“Come on,” he mutters, like he’s talking to monsters the way someone might talk to a storm. “Let’s do this.”

He advances.

The pack retreats a step, then surges together, a coordinated rush.

Bucky fires until the magazine clicks empty.

Then he throws the rifle aside and draws a second weapon—a pistol you didn’t see, because of course he has one. He fires again, precise.

Creatures drop, twitching.

But there are still too many.

One lunges. Bucky ducks. Another snaps at his shoulder; it catches fabric, tears. He grunts, twists, drives his elbow into its jaw.

The third lunges low—

You see it a heartbeat before it happens.

You shout, “Bucky!”

He pivots too late. The creature’s claws rake across his side, tearing.

Blood blooms dark against black gear.

Your stomach drops.

Bucky’s face doesn’t change. He grabs the creature with his metal hand and rips it away from him like tearing weeds. He throws it into the cliffside rocks. It hits with a sick crunch.

The pack falters again, clicking frantic now, uncertain.

Then a new sound cuts through everything.

Rotor blades.

A helicopter crests the ridge, lights cutting through rain.

Relief hits so hard your knees go weak.

The pack hears it too. They scatter into the trees, vanishing like nightmares fleeing dawn.

The helicopter lowers, wind whipping rain and mud.

A voice blasts through a loudspeaker. “MOVE TO EXTRACTION!”

You grab the intern, hauling her up. You pull the scientists to their feet, shove them toward the landing zone.

Bucky staggers slightly.

You see it and your chest tightens. “Bucky!”

He tries to wave you off. “Go.”

“No,” you snap, grabbing his arm. “You’re bleeding.”

His jaw clenches. “I can walk.”

“Then walk with me.”

For a second, his gaze locks on yours, intense enough to feel like a touch.

Then he nods once.

You half-drag him toward the helicopter, the wind roaring, rain stinging your face. The survivors scramble aboard.

A soldier reaches for you. “Move, now!”

You push Bucky forward. He climbs in, grimacing.

You start to climb after him—

Then something moves at the edge of the treeline.

A shape, bigger than the pack.

Watching.

Waiting.

Your blood turns cold again.

Bucky’s head snaps up, following your gaze.

For a heartbeat, you see something in his eyes—recognition, dread.

“Cerberus,” he breathes.

The creature doesn’t charge.

It just stands there, half-hidden by rain and leaves, eyes reflecting pale.

Like it’s memorizing you.

Bucky’s hand clamps around your wrist, yanking you into the helicopter. “Now.”

You stumble inside. The soldier slams the door.

The helicopter lifts, rising fast, wind screaming.

Through the window, you see the Red Zone recede—the shredded fence, the bent metal, the jungle swallowing secrets whole.

And you see Cerberus still watching, unmoving, as if it knows the island will never really let you leave.

Inside the helicopter, everything is loud and shaking and wet.

The survivors huddle together, sobbing, staring at their hands like they can’t believe they’re still attached. The intern keeps whispering “oh my God” like a prayer.

You drop to your knees beside Bucky.

He’s slumped against the wall, one hand braced on the floor, the other pressed to his side. Blood seeps between his fingers.

“Let me see,” you say, voice trembling.

“It’s fine,” he grits out.

“You don’t get to say that.” You pry his hand away gently.

The gash on his side is deep—claw marks, torn skin. Not fatal, but bad.

You grab gauze, press hard.

Bucky hisses, body tightening.

“Sorry,” you whisper automatically.

His eyes flick to you—sharp, then softer. “Don’t apologize for doing your job.”

“You’re bleeding because you did yours,” you shoot back, and your throat tightens unexpectedly. “Because you—because you keep—”

Because you keep putting yourself between me and teeth.

You swallow it down, focus on the wound.

You clean it as best you can in a shaking helicopter, stitch when you can, bandage tight.

Bucky watches you the entire time.

Not like before, in the corridor—cold, assessing.

Now, his gaze is something else.

Something heavy.

When you finish, you sit back on your heels, hands trembling. Blood streaks your gloves. Your stomach churns with delayed horror.

Bucky’s hand reaches out—slow, deliberate.

He touches your wrist, thumb brushing the pulse there like he’s checking that you’re real.

“You’re hurt?” he asks, voice low.

You blink, surprised. “No.”

His eyes narrow, like he doesn’t believe you. His gaze drags over you—your face, your arms, your knees, cataloguing. “You sure.”

“Yes,” you breathe.

His hand stays on your wrist anyway, warm and steady.

You look at him, really look, and the adrenaline crash makes your emotions feel sharp-edged and raw.

“You’re terrifying,” you whisper before you can stop yourself.

Bucky’s brow furrows slightly. “Yeah?”

You swallow. “The way you—out there—how you moved—how you—” Your voice breaks, not from fear, but from something too big to fit in your chest. “I watched you kill like it was nothing.”

His gaze doesn’t flinch. “It wasn’t nothing.”

“It looked like nothing.”

His jaw tightens. He looks past you, toward the helicopter door, toward the island fading behind storm clouds. “I was trained to make it look like nothing.”

A beat.

Then he looks back at you.

And in his eyes is the thing that undoes you—not violence, not coldness, but a kind of brutal honesty.

“I am scary,” he says quietly. “You should be careful around me.”

Your breath catches.

Because he’s giving you an out.

Because he’s warning you.

Because he’s letting you decide.

And all you can think is:

I should be scared of you too.

But you aren’t.

Not in the way you should be.

You shake your head slowly, rainwater dripping from your lashes. “You weren’t scary when you—” You swallow. “When you checked me. When you… looked at me like I mattered.”

Bucky’s hand tightens on your wrist, just slightly.

“You matter,” he says, like it’s a fact. Like it’s been a fact this whole time.

Your chest aches. “Why.”

His eyes flicker—something like pain, something like longing.

“Because you’re the only one in that place who still acts like people are people,” he says, voice rough. “Not assets. Not projects. Not… collateral.”

The helicopter shakes with turbulence. The intern sobs again. The world is loud.

But here, in this pocket of space, it’s just you and him and the steady press of his thumb against your pulse.

You whisper, “What happens now?”

His gaze holds yours. “Now we tell the truth.”

You almost laugh—soft, broken. “They’ll bury it.”

“Then we dig,” he says, and there’s something fierce and certain in him that isn’t just soldier. It’s survivor. It’s rebellion.

You stare at him, rain and blood and adrenaline mixing into something dizzying.

“Bucky,” you whisper, barely a sound.

His eyes drop to your mouth again. Slower this time. Not like a man scanning for threats.

Like a man who wants something and doesn’t know if he’s allowed.

He leans a fraction closer.

Not enough to kiss you.

Enough to make you feel the heat of him, the gravity.

“I’m not gentle,” he murmurs. “Not really.”

You swallow, heartbeat loud in your ears. “You were with me.”

His breath shudders out, almost a laugh, almost a curse. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “With you, I can be.”

The helicopter climbs into cloud cover, the island vanishing completely behind gray.

You don’t kiss him—not with survivors sobbing beside you, not with blood on your gloves, not with the taste of fear still sharp on your tongue.

But you let his hand stay on your wrist.

You let the promise sit there between you, unspoken and electric.

Because you can feel it, sure as the beat under his thumb:

Whatever was unleashed on that island didn’t just break containment.

It broke the world you thought you lived in.

And Bucky Barnes—terrifying, lethal, impossible—just chose you as the one thing he refuses to let it take.

Outside, thunder rolls.

Inside, his thumb keeps counting your pulse like it’s the only truth left.

And for the first time since the alarms started, you believe you might actually survive what comes next.

Not because the island let you go.

But because he did.

Seraphina—clever as a blade and twice as polished, the sort who can make a compliment sound like a promise.

Daphne—pretty and effortless, all dimples and flirtation, built for ballrooms like a swan is built for lakes.

Imogen—sharp-tongued, sharp-eyed, always the first to notice a weakness and the last to forgive one.

Cordelia—youngest, sweet-faced, eager, still soft enough to be shaped by the rest of them.

And then you.

Your father calls you “quiet” as though it is a virtue he might one day learn to tolerate. Your sisters call you “bookish” as though it is a disease. Your mother calls you nothing at all, most days, which is somehow worse—because it implies you are not a thing worth naming.

You’ve tried, in the ways a daughter tries.

You’ve worn the colors your mother prefers—pale pinks and creams that make you feel like a faded flower pressed between pages. You’ve practiced smiling until your cheeks ache. You’ve learned to curtsy without wobbling, to speak only when spoken to, to laugh on cue at jokes you do not find funny.

But there is no practice for being overlooked. No lesson for becoming small enough to stop disappointing the people who expect you to be someone else.

So you do the one thing you’ve always been able to do: you retreat to what does not ask you to perform.

You read.

In books, no one tells you that you are too much or not enough. No one sighs when you speak. No one looks past you to find the glittering thing behind.

Tonight, however, there will be no library to hide in.

Tonight, Arabella is hosting her first grand ball in London—her first as Viscountess Harrowgate, her first as the sister who has succeeded where your mother once feared daughters could fail. Her invitation came like a command sealed with lace: You will attend. All of you. The entire family. The ton must see us.

Your mother has clung to that final line like it is scripture.

“The ton must see us,” she repeats now, adjusting the line of your gloves with pinching fingers. “We must make an impression.”

“We always do,” Seraphina murmurs behind her fan, not quite hiding her smile.

“Precisely,” your mother says, and then her eyes flick to you like a draft sneaking under a door. “And you, my dear—please do try to look… pleasant.”

You swallow the first reply that rises in your throat. What does pleasant look like? Like Daphne? Like Arabella? Like someone worth watching?

Instead, you nod. Because you’ve learned that arguing only makes them look at you longer.

Imogen leans in as the maid pins a ribbon at your back. “Do not frighten away Arabella’s guests by talking about your dreadful poetry.”

“I don’t write poetry,” you say softly.

“You read it,” Imogen answers, as though that is equally offensive. “Which is nearly as bad.”

Cordelia, perched on the edge of the chaise like a bird too young to know the cage is real, tilts her head. “I like when she reads to me.”

Imogen’s gaze cuts. “That is because you are still a child.”

Cordelia’s mouth tightens. She looks down at her slippers.

Something in your chest twists—not dramatic, not sharp. Just a small ache you’ve learned to tuck away with the rest of the quiet hurts. You reach for Cordelia’s hand under the fold of your skirt, giving it a brief squeeze. She squeezes back, grateful, as though you’ve offered her a rescue rope.

Your mother misses the exchange entirely. “Remember,” she says, “you are not to wander. You are not to disappear into some corner like a—” She inhales, restrains herself, finishes with forced calm. “Like an unsociable girl.”

Seraphina’s eyes glint. “Like herself, Mama means.”

Daphne laughs, sweet and light.

Arabella, already dressed and luminous, pauses at the door. Her gaze lands on you. For a heartbeat, something softer lives there—under her pride, under her practiced hostess smile.

“Be kind,” she says to your sisters, quietly, but not quietly enough.

Imogen rolls her eyes. Seraphina’s smile turns sharper, but she says nothing. Your mother pretends she did not hear. Arabella hesitates, as if she might say something else—to you, perhaps—and then the moment passes. She is swept away by the crush of responsibility, the weight of her new title, the desperate need to appear perfect.

And you follow, as you always do.

The Harrowgate townhouse is a blaze of candlelight and expectation.

The entry hall smells of beeswax and perfume. Footmen take cloaks and names and secrets alike. The ballroom itself gleams—polished floors reflecting chandeliers like captured constellations. Everywhere there is silk and laughter and the soft shock of jewels catching light.

Your sisters bloom in it. Arabella floats through the room like she was born to move people where she wants them. Seraphina collects admirers as if it is sport. Daphne is surrounded before the first set ends, three gentlemen vying for her attention with the earnestness of men who have never been told no. Imogen stands near your mother, issuing judgments under her breath like a magistrate.

You stand where you are placed—near a pillar, close enough to be seen, far enough to be forgotten. Your mother’s hand presses briefly to your shoulder as she passes, a reminder that you are an accessory to her ambitions, not a person within them.

“Do not slouch,” she murmurs.

You straighten.

A waltz begins. Couples spin, skirts flaring like petals caught in wind. You watch the patterns because they are safe—numbers and music, steps and symmetry. It is easier to observe the world than to risk being noticed by it.

Your gaze drifts without meaning—past laughing mouths, past gloved hands, past the bright faces of girls who have practiced wanting what they are told to want.

And then you see him.

He is not bright.

He is not easy.

He stands at the far edge of the room near the shadowed archway that leads into the adjoining salon, as if the ballroom’s light is something he tolerates rather than enjoys. His hair is dark, brushed back with minimal care. His posture is too still—soldier-still, as though his body has learned to be ready even in peace.

The first thing people notice is his arm.

Even from here, you see the metallic gleam beneath the cuff of his sleeve when he shifts, the unnatural line where polished steel meets fabric. A murmur ripples through a nearby cluster of ladies; fans lift like shields. A gentleman leans in to whisper something that makes a woman’s eyes widen in fascinated horror.

The Duke of Barnes, someone says, and the name travels like a spark.

Duke.

War-torn.

Scarred.

A man made of stories the ton tells itself to feel thrillingly safe.

You should look away. It is what everyone else is doing—staring and then pretending not to, as though curiosity is indecent and empathy impossible.

But you don’t.

Not because you are brave, but because you know what it is to be watched like an oddity. You know what it is to be the thing people discuss behind fans and laughter.

As if he feels the weight of your attention, he turns his head.

His eyes find you across the room.

They are not the cold eyes of rumor. They are a blue-gray that holds storms and fatigue and something else—something older than the ballroom, older than polite society.

His gaze catches, and for one awful, breathless moment, you think you have done something wrong. That your staring has made you rude, that you are about to be exposed as the quiet girl who forgets the rules.

Then his expression shifts—not into a smile, not quite. Into recognition.

As if he has spotted another person standing at the edges, surviving rather than performing.

You look away first, because you always do. Because it is safer to become invisible.

But the heat of his gaze lingers like candle-warmth on your skin.

You last exactly twenty minutes before you need air.

It isn’t the crowd, not really. It’s the sense of being pressed into place—of existing as a piece on someone else’s board. You slip out when your mother is distracted by a conversation about dowries and Dorsetshire estates, and when your sisters are consumed by admirers.

The corridor outside the ballroom is cooler, dimmer. The noise becomes distant, as if you’ve stepped underwater. You move as quietly as you can, past a row of portraits in gilded frames—Harrowgate ancestors who look down at you with bored superiority.

A door stands slightly ajar at the end of the hall, light spilling from within. You recognize the room by its scent before you see it: paper, leather, dust warmed by lamps.

A library.

Your heart loosens, just a little, the way it does when you step into someplace that does not demand you shine.

You push the door open, slip inside, and close it softly behind you.

The room is lined with shelves, the kind that reach toward the ceiling like devotion. There are chairs by the fireplace, a writing desk, a scattering of volumes left open as if someone abandoned them mid-thought. A lamp glows on a side table, throwing warm light over a stack of books.

You move toward them as if drawn by gravity.

Your fingers brush a spine—Milton, then Rousseau, then a worn copy of Persuasion that makes your chest ache, though you are not sure why. You pick it up, almost reverently, flipping to a page at random.

“You’re hiding.”

The voice comes from behind you—low, roughened by disuse, as though he doesn’t speak often unless he must.

You freeze.

Slowly, you turn.

He stands near the doorway, half in shadow. The Duke of Barnes. Bucky Barnes, if the murmurs were accurate—though no one says “Bucky” in ballrooms. They say “Your Grace,” and they say it with a tremble.

He has removed his gloves. One hand is bare, strong, human. The other—metal, articulated in a way that is both beautiful and unsettling, fingers of steel catching lamplight.

He looks at you not like a creature to be studied, but like a person caught doing something familiar.

“I could say the same of you,” you manage, and it surprises you—how easily the words come.

His mouth tilts at one corner, nearly a smile. “I wasn’t subtle.”

“No,” you agree, and then you flush because it sounds like judgment.

He doesn’t seem offended. If anything, he looks… relieved. Like you have named the truth and spared him the performance of denying it.

“You shouldn’t be in here alone,” he says after a moment. “People talk.”

You glance at the book in your hand. “People talk no matter where I stand.”

He studies you as if the sentence has struck something in him. “That so?”

You shrug, a small movement. “My sisters are the sort people notice. I am… not.”

His gaze lowers briefly to the pages, then back to your face. “You came here for the books.”

“Yes.”

“And not,” he adds, almost cautiously, “because you were hoping to catch someone’s attention.”

The question is strange—almost too direct for polite society. But you realize he is not teasing. He is… checking. As if he has been hunted by expectations and wants to know whether you are another trap.

“No,” you say, honest. “I came because it is quiet.”

His shoulders drop a fraction, the tension easing. “Good.”

You blink. “Good?”

“Quiet’s… rare.” His eyes flick to the door, as though he expects it to burst open with laughter and judgment. “And I’ve had enough of rooms full of people pretending not to stare.”

The words are careful, controlled, but beneath them you hear exhaustion. Something in you softens in recognition. Not pity—pity is a kind of distance. This is something else. Understanding, perhaps.

You find yourself speaking before you can stop. “Does it hurt?”

His gaze snaps back to you, sharp.

You almost apologize immediately. You almost retreat into silence, mortified at your own boldness.

But he doesn’t lash out. He doesn’t sneer.

He looks down at his arm, the metal gleaming where the lamplight catches the joints. His fingers flex once, slow. “Sometimes,” he admits. “Not like it did at first. But… there are things a body remembers.”

You swallow. “I’m sorry.”

He lifts his eyes again. “Don’t be. You didn’t do it.”

It is a simple sentence, but it lands heavy. Like a door opening into a room you’ve never dared enter.

You shift the book in your hands. “You fought in the war,” you say, not a question.

He nods once. “And I came home less… whole than I left.”

There’s no self-pity in it. Just fact.

You gesture helplessly to the library around you. “They talk as if you are a monster.”

His expression hardens, just a little. “They talk as if I’m entertainment.”

Anger rises in you—a slow burn, unfamiliar. You are used to swallowing hurt, not holding it.

“It’s cruel,” you say, and your voice is firmer than you expect.

Something flickers across his face—surprise, and then something warmer, softer. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “It is.”

You look down at the book, at the lines of ink that have survived centuries because they mattered to someone. “I don’t think you’re a monster,” you say, and the honesty in it makes your throat tight. “I think you’re… tired.”

His breath catches, subtle enough that you might have missed it if you weren’t watching him the way you watch stories unfold.

“Tired,” he repeats, as though he is tasting the word. “No one’s called me that.”

“What do they call you?” you ask before you can stop yourself.

His jaw tightens. “Scarred. Ruined. Dangerous. Tragic.” A humorless exhale. “As if those are the only things a man can be.”

You meet his gaze, steady now because something in you refuses to flinch. “They’re wrong.”

His eyes hold yours for a long moment. The air between you feels charged—not with scandal, but with something strangely intimate: the shared relief of dropping masks.

“You got a name, Miss…?” he prompts gently.

You hesitate. Not because you don’t know it, but because names, in your family, feel like expectations. Labels people use to decide what you are worth.

But his voice is not demanding. It is offering.

You give it. Quietly.

He nods as though it matters. As though he will remember it when the room grows loud again.

“I’m James,” he says, and then, as if he knows how stiff it sounds, he adds, “Most call me Bucky, when they’re brave enough to forget I’m a duke.”

You almost smile. “Bucky.”

The sound of it feels like stepping off a polished floor onto grass. Real.

He watches your mouth when you say it, and something in his expression softens into something you’ve never been the object of before: interest without agenda.

“You like books,” he says, gesturing to the one in your hands.

“I like stories,” you correct quietly. “I like… the way they tell the truth without making you perform it.”

His gaze drops again to the book. “Read to me,” he says, then pauses as if he cannot believe he asked. “If you want. I mean. You don’t have to.”

You should be nervous. You should be thinking about propriety, about how your mother would faint if she found you alone in a library with a duke whose reputation has frightened half of Mayfair.

But the room is warm and quiet and safe in a way the ballroom isn’t, and his eyes look at you like you are not a disappointment.

So you sit.

You choose a chair by the lamp, hands trembling only slightly as you open the book. He takes the other chair—not too close, not too far, positioned like someone who has learned to give women space. His metal hand rests on the armrest, glinting. His human hand folds loosely over his knee.

You begin to read.

At first, your voice is soft. Then it steadies. Then it finds rhythm—words like familiar footsteps. You feel him listening, truly listening, in a way most people do not. His gaze stays on the pages, on your hands, on your face. He does not interrupt. He does not tease. He does not try to impress you with his own cleverness.

He simply lets you exist.

When you reach the end of a passage, you look up without thinking.

He is watching you as if you are the most interesting thing in the room.

“What?” you ask, flustered.

He blinks, as if caught. “You look… different in here.”

“Different?”

“Like you belong to yourself.” His voice is quiet, almost reverent, and something in your chest aches with the sweetness of it. “In there—” his eyes flick toward the ballroom “—you were trying to disappear.”

You swallow. “It’s easier.”

He leans forward slightly, the movement careful, controlled. “Don’t,” he says, and the word is so gentle it almost hurts. “Not for them.”

Your throat tightens. No one has ever told you not to vanish.

Before you can answer, the door opens.

Light spills in. Laughter. A familiar voice, bright and sharp.

“There you are,” Seraphina says, stepping into the library as if she owns it. Her gaze darts to you, then to the duke, and her smile changes—becoming polished, predatory. “Oh.”

Behind her, your mother appears, like a storm finally finding the house it means to break.

You stand so fast the book nearly slips from your hands. “Mama—”

Your mother’s eyes lock on Bucky’s arm first, and you watch the reflexive flicker of distaste cross her face before she smothers it with forced courtesy.

“Your Grace,” she says, dipping into a shallow curtsy that contains more calculation than respect. “I did not realize you would be… joining us in private.”

Bucky stands, too. Taller than you realized. Broader. His expression closes like a door.

“Lady Ashford,” he says evenly.

Seraphina fans herself, eyes gleaming. “How extraordinary. I didn’t know you were acquainted.”

You open your mouth, but your mother speaks over you. “My daughter has a habit of wandering,” she says lightly, as though you are a child who strays from the nursemaid. “I was just reminding her of proper conduct.”

Bucky’s gaze shifts to you, and in it you see a question: Are you alright?

You nod, barely.

Your mother continues, oblivious to anything but appearances. “Of course, Miss Ashford is not… accustomed to such company. She spends most of her days with books rather than people.”

The insult is wrapped in silk, but it is still an insult. Your cheeks burn.

Bucky’s metal fingers flex once, the soft click of joints in the quiet room.

“She reads well,” he says, voice calm. “Better than most I’ve heard.”

Seraphina’s eyes narrow, quickly masked by delight. “How charming. I didn’t realize Your Grace enjoyed being read to.”

Bucky’s gaze is flat. “I enjoy honesty,” he answers.

Imogen’s voice drifts from the doorway now—she must have followed. “And what honesty is there in a girl hiding in a library?”

Your mother’s eyes flash. “Imogen.”

Imogen shrugs, unrepentant. “It’s true. She cannot even survive one ball without fleeing.”

You want to disappear. You want the floor to open and swallow you whole.

But then Bucky looks at you again, and in that look is something steady—like a hand offered in the dark.

“She didn’t flee,” he says. His voice is still controlled, but there is iron beneath it. “She stepped away from the noise. There’s a difference.”

Your mother’s smile grows tighter. “A young lady’s duty is to be seen.”

Bucky’s gaze sharpens. “And a young lady is also a person.”

The room goes very still.

Your mother’s nostrils flare slightly, scandal barely held back. “Your Grace,” she says, warning threaded through the title, “I do not believe you understand—”

“I understand,” he interrupts quietly, and the quiet is worse than shouting. “I understand what it is to be treated as a thing rather than a human being.”

Your mother’s composure wavers for the first time. She recovers quickly, smoothing her skirts. “Come,” she says to you, voice clipped. “You will return to the ballroom.”

Your feet feel rooted.

Bucky’s gaze holds yours. He does not command you. He does not rescue you without permission.

But he stays.

So you take a breath you did not know you were capable of taking, and you nod at your mother.

“Of course,” you say, because it is not yet the moment to fight.

But as you pass Bucky, leaving the library, you feel something brush your hand.

Metal, cool and careful.

Not grasping. Not claiming.

Just… there.

A touch as light as a bookmark between pages.

Your breath catches.

His voice follows you, low enough that only you hear it. “Don’t disappear,” he murmurs. “Not entirely.”

You step back into the ballroom with your pulse racing like you’ve done something wildly improper—like you’ve done something dangerously brave.

After that night, the ton begins to talk in earnest.

They always talked about Bucky Barnes—about the tragedy of him, the horror and fascination, the rumors of how he lost his arm (a cannon, a blade, a French trap, a punishment). They talked about how he returned from war as if he carried winter in his bones.

But now, they talk about you too.

Because the Duke of Barnes calls.

He leaves his card at the Ashford residence the very next morning.

Your mother holds it between her fingers as if it might stain her. “This is highly irregular,” she says.

Seraphina’s eyes gleam. “It’s highly interesting.”

Daphne gasps, delighted. “A duke!”

Imogen sneers. “A scarred duke.”

Cordelia watches you quietly, worry and wonder tangled in her gaze.

Your father clears his throat, uncomfortable. “He is… wealthy.”

Your mother’s mouth tightens. “And damaged.”

Your stomach twists. “Mama—”

“I will not have you throw yourself at a man simply because he paid you a moment of attention,” she snaps, and the words hit harder than they should, because some part of you fears she is right. “You are not suited to the role of duchess. You would embarrass us.”

You go cold all over. “He wasn’t— I didn’t—”

Seraphina’s smile is syrupy. “Perhaps he only called because he enjoys being pitied.”

Bile rises in your throat. “I don’t pity him.”

Imogen tilts her head. “Then what do you feel?”

You don’t answer, because you cannot. Not without exposing yourself.

Not without admitting that one quiet hour in a library made you feel seen in a way you have been craving your whole life.

Your mother presses the calling card to the table as though pinning down an insect. “You will not be alone with him,” she declares. “You will not encourage him.”

“And if he asks to dance with you again?” Daphne asks, bright-eyed.

Your mother’s gaze flicks to Daphne, then Seraphina, calculating. “If he wishes to court an Ashford, he may court properly.”

Seraphina straightens, hopeful.

Your mother glances at you, and the disappointment sharpens. “But it will not be you.”

The room goes silent.

Your father does not contradict her.

Your sisters do not protest.

Only Cordelia looks stricken, like she has just witnessed a cruelty she cannot yet name.

You swallow the hurt until it tastes like blood. “Of course,” you whisper.

You excuse yourself before anyone can see you crack.

You take refuge where you always do—in a book.

But now, every page feels haunted by the memory of a voice at your side, listening. Of eyes watching you as if you mattered.

Days pass. Then another calling card arrives. Then another.

He does not stop.

Your mother refuses him twice before she can no longer do so without causing commentary, and commentary is the only thing she fears more than scandal.

So Bucky Barnes is invited for tea.

Your mother arranges the drawing room like a battlefield.

Daphne and Seraphina sit poised like flowers. Imogen sits like a judge. Cordelia hovers close to you, a quiet anchor. Your mother sits at the center, spine rigid, smile sharp.

You sit where you are told.

And then he enters.

In daylight, he looks even more out of place in your world—dark clothes, severe lines, a presence that fills the room without trying. His metal arm is covered by his coat sleeve, but you can see the shape of it beneath the fabric.

Your mother rises, all polite stiffness. “Your Grace.”

He bows, controlled. “Lady Ashford. Miss Ashford.” His gaze flicks over your sisters—and then finds you, and settles like something warm on your skin. “Miss Ashford,” he says again, softer, as if the second time is for you alone.

Your breath catches.

Tea is poured. Questions are asked—the kind meant to assess rather than understand.

“How is your estate?” your mother asks, as though she might find rot beneath the wealth.

“Managed,” Bucky answers, polite, clipped.

“And your health?” Seraphina asks, voice sugared. “You must have suffered terribly.”

His gaze is flat. “I recovered.”

Imogen’s eyes narrow. “Can you dance with that arm?”

The room freezes.

Your cheeks flame. “Imogen—”

Bucky’s metal fingers tap once against his teacup saucer, a soft clink. His expression doesn’t change. “I can,” he says simply.

Daphne leans forward, eager. “And do you plan to marry, Your Grace?”

Your mother sends her a warning look that says: Let him speak when spoken to, but the question is already out, and your sisters watch with hungry curiosity.

Bucky’s gaze drifts, slow, to you.

“I plan,” he says carefully, “to marry someone who doesn’t look at me like a spectacle.”

Seraphina’s smile falters.

Your mother’s eyes sharpen. “And where might you find such a woman?”

Bucky’s eyes do not leave you. “I’ve already met her.”

The air goes thin.

Your heart stutters. Surely he cannot mean— Surely—

Your mother laughs, brittle. “Your Grace, you scarcely know my daughters.”

“I know enough,” he replies, and there is quiet authority in it. “I know which one listens instead of performs. I know which one doesn’t flinch at my arm. I know which one reads like she’s speaking the truth.”

Your mother’s face tightens. “Miss Ashford is not—”

“Not what?” he cuts in softly, and it is the softness that makes it dangerous. “Not charming enough? Not loud enough? Not a proper ornament for your ambitions?”

Your mother’s mouth opens, shocked.

Cordelia’s hand finds yours under the cushion. She squeezes, hard.

You stare at Bucky, stunned. No man has ever spoken on your behalf. No one has ever put words to what you endure.

And yet terror coils in your stomach too, because his honesty could ruin you.

Your mother straightens, forcing control back into her spine. “Your Grace,” she says coldly, “you are not welcome to make sport of my family.”

“I’m not making sport,” he says. “I’m asking permission to court her.”

The word her lands like thunder.

Your sisters stare.

Seraphina’s cheeks flush with fury. Daphne looks bewildered. Imogen looks offended, as though he has insulted the entire concept of taste.

Your mother turns her gaze to you.

It is the same gaze that has weighed you and found you lacking all your life, but now it holds something new: fear. Fear that you might step out of your place.

“You will not,” she says quietly, as if she can command your choice by sheer will.

Bucky’s eyes are on you again, steady. He doesn’t beg. He doesn’t pressure.

He waits.

For the first time in your life, a room full of people is waiting to see what you will do.

Your throat tightens. Your pulse pounds.

You think of the library—of quiet, of warmth, of being spoken to like you are not a disappointment.

You think of your mother’s words: You would embarrass us.

And then you realize something terrifying.

Perhaps you are done trying not to.

You swallow. “I would like,” you say, voice shaking but real, “to be courted.”

Your mother’s breath hitches, a sound like outrage.

Bucky’s expression softens—not into triumph, but into something that looks like relief.

“As you wish,” he murmurs.

Courting Bucky Barnes is not like courting any other gentleman.

He does not bombard you with flattery. He does not bring you bouquets that smell like a stranger’s effort. He does not linger too close, smile too wide, speak too loudly.

He brings you books.

The first time he arrives with one, your mother nearly chokes on her own indignation.

“A gift already,” she snaps. “Your Grace, this is—”

“A book,” he says, calm. “Not a diamond.”

“It is still an impropriety.”

He glances at you, eyes quiet. “Does she think it is?”

Your mother’s gaze darts to you, warning.

You take the book with careful hands, as if it is precious. “No,” you say softly. “I think it is… thoughtful.”

Bucky’s mouth twitches. “Good.”

He visits, properly chaperoned, though he treats your mother’s hovering like bad weather—present, irritating, not something worth surrendering to. Sometimes the chaperone is Arabella when she can manage it, her presence a small mercy. Sometimes it is Cordelia, who tags along like a determined little guardian, refusing to let your mother poison every moment.

Bucky speaks to you as if the room is not full of observers.

He asks what you like. What you think. What makes you laugh when no one is watching. He listens when you answer, even when your voice is quiet.

At first, you don’t know how to do it—how to exist without shrinking. You catch yourself softening your opinions, hiding your enthusiasm, stopping sentences before they become too much.

And every time you do, he notices.

“You don’t have to edit yourself for me,” he says one afternoon, when you pause mid-thought about a novel’s heroine.

Your cheeks heat. “I’m not—”

“You are,” he says gently. “I know that look. It’s the same one I wore when people asked me what the war was like and expected me to say something that made them feel brave for listening.”

You swallow. “What was it like?” you ask quietly.

His gaze drops to his tea. “Loud,” he says after a moment. “And cold. And… lonely, even with men beside you.”

Your chest tightens. “And now?”

He lifts his eyes. “Now it’s loud in a different way. People stare and whisper and decide what I am without asking.”

You shift, then, without thinking, you let your fingers brush the cuff of his sleeve where the metal begins beneath. Not grasping. Not claiming. Just touching the fabric, a question.

He goes very still.

Then, slowly, carefully, he moves his arm so the metal hand rests on the table between you.

The room is quiet. Even your mother, across the way, has paused—watching with something like horrified fascination.

Bucky’s eyes stay on yours. “You can,” he says, voice low. “If you want.”

Your breath catches.

You reach out.

Your fingertips meet cool steel.

It is not monstrous. It is not obscene. It is simply… part of him. And in the precision of its design, the careful way it responds when he flexes his fingers beneath your touch, you see something you didn’t expect.

Survival.

A body refusing to be ended.

A man refusing to be reduced to what he lost.

You don’t know why tears prick your eyes. You blink them back quickly, embarrassed.

Bucky’s gaze softens. “Hey,” he murmurs, as if the word is a comfort. “Don’t cry for me.”

“I’m not,” you whisper, voice breaking. “I’m… angry for you.”

His throat works as he swallows. “No one’s ever been angry for me,” he admits, so quietly it feels like a secret.

Your fingers curl slightly around his metal ones—not tight, not possessive, just steady.

“I am,” you say. “And I think… I think you deserve better than their whispers.”

His eyes go bright for a moment, and you realize he is fighting something too—something sharp and painful and hopeful.

“So do you,” he says.

It is not the ton that tries to tear you apart first.

It is your family.

It begins with little cruelties. Imogen “accidentally” misplaces your gloves before an outing. Seraphina makes comments about your “strange taste” in men. Daphne, though less malicious, sighs and says, “But imagine the gowns you could have if you married someone… normal.”

Your mother grows colder by the day. She critiques your appearance like she is searching for flaws to justify her disapproval.

“Your hair is too plain.”

“Your laugh is too quiet.”

“Do not look at him like that. You’ll encourage him.”

One night, after Bucky leaves, your mother corners you in the corridor.

“You think this is romance,” she says, voice harsh. “You think you’ve found some poetic tragedy to live in. But men like that do not make good husbands.”

“Men like what?” you ask, quiet but steady.

“Broken men,” she spits.

Your chest aches. “He isn’t broken.”

“He is,” she insists, and her eyes flash with something ugly. “And he will break you too.”

You stare at her in the dim hallway, the candlelight making her face look older, harder. “You don’t know him,” you say.

“And you do?” she scoffs. “Because he listened to you read a book? Because he made you feel special for once?” Her voice sharpens. “You are vulnerable, and he sees it.”

Your throat tightens. “He sees me,” you correct, and your voice shakes on the truth. “No one else bothers.”

For a heartbeat, your mother looks struck—as if you’ve slapped her without touching her.

Then her face closes. “You are my daughter,” she says, as if it is ownership. “And you will not disgrace this family.”

You feel the familiar pull—the urge to shrink, to apologize, to become the obedient shadow again.

But the memory of Bucky’s steady gaze, his gentle don’t disappear, holds you upright.

“I’m not trying to disgrace you,” you say softly. “I’m trying to live.”

Her eyes narrow. “Then live quietly. Live properly.”

You swallow. “I have done that my entire life,” you whisper. “And it has never been enough for you.”

She inhales sharply, as though she might retort.

But footsteps echo from the entry hall—Bucky returning, perhaps forgotten something, or Arabella calling for you.

Your mother’s face hardens. “We will speak of this again.”

And she leaves you standing in the corridor, shaking.

The next ball you attend is not yours.

It is Seraphina’s—a smaller gathering, hosted by a friend who has a ballroom and a mother with ambitions just as sharp as Lady Ashford’s. Your mother insists you go, insisting that if Bucky intends to court you, he must show the ton he can tolerate society.

“He must prove himself,” she says, and you know she means: He must prove he is worth the risk of having you attached to him.

Bucky arrives late.

When he enters, the room shifts. Conversations stutter. Eyes turn. Whispers bloom like rot.

You stand near a wall with Cordelia, who clings to your hand as if she can feel the danger.

“There he is,” Cordelia whispers.

You look.

Bucky’s gaze finds you immediately, steady as ever. He crosses the room with controlled steps, ignoring the way people part like he is dangerous water.

When he reaches you, he bows. “Miss Ashford.”

Your mother appears at your shoulder like a hawk. “Your Grace.”

He doesn’t flinch at her chill. His attention returns to you. “Would you grant me this dance?”

A hush seems to fall around you—not because people are polite, but because they are eager to witness either romance or disaster.

Your mother’s fingers dig into your arm. “You must consider—”

“I have,” you say, and you step forward.

Bucky’s metal hand extends, palm up, not as a command but as an invitation.

You place your gloved hand in it.

His grip is careful, steady, warm through fabric despite the steel.

He leads you to the floor, and as you take your position, you feel the ton’s gaze like needles.

The music begins.

Bucky moves with surprising grace. The metal arm does not hinder him; it simply exists, as natural to him as breathing. His other hand rests at your back, firm but gentle, guiding you through the steps.

“You alright?” he murmurs, close enough that only you hear.

You swallow. “They’re staring.”

“I know,” he says softly. “Look at me.”

You do.

And the ballroom blurs.

Because his eyes are on you like you are not a spectacle, not a scandal, not a disappointment—just a person worth holding.

“Good,” he murmurs, as if praising bravery you don’t feel.

Halfway through the dance, you hear it—a sharp, cruel whisper from the edge of the floor.

“She must be desperate.”

Another: “No one else would have her.”

Your chest tightens. Your steps falter.

Bucky’s hold steadies you instantly, his hand at your back firming. “Hey,” he murmurs.

You blink rapidly, fighting tears. “I’m sorry,” you whisper, humiliated. “I shouldn’t—”

“Don’t apologize,” he says, and there is steel beneath the gentleness now. “Not for existing.”

You swallow hard. “They’re right,” you whisper, the old poison rising. “No one else would—”