#madripoor

“I still think you’re doing an accent.”

Dating an American guy was never really on your things you were just going to do without good reason list, but Marc was not what you had expected. He was a good reason, kinda. He was sexy and awkward and made dry jokes that felt forced but still laughed like the last guy at the party hanging back by the drinks table. Steven was confident acting awkward. Marc was awkward acting confident.

You felt like maybe it should’ve been a little weird they were essentially using sex with you as a negotiation tactic, but at the same time, the sex was really good. It was hard to care if it was partially about them getting along.

“And since when do you speak Spanish?” 

The last few weeks had been even weirder than usual with them. Marc had been weird. 

“I speak a lot of languages for my work.”

He was a mercenary, in the biz through some big shot called Khonshu, told him where to go and what to do. He was apparently the worst boss around, even by the market’s standards.

Things had been steady on three months. Slow, deliberate. With both of them. You never even considered a relationship like that before, but sharing a body helped loads, as much more of a hurdle it was in most other ways.

“You’re lying abou’ something.” You say as you set your book aside. He finishes undressing and joins you in your bed.

Marc (and Steven’s) life was a goddamn rabbit hole. Matc didn’t talk much. You think he thought it made him mysterious, then it just clicked he was autistic and hiding things. And good at it. He managed to keep this part of himself a separate secret for something like twenty years. You’d be impressed if it hadn’t messed up Steven so bad.

They didn’t talk about that. You didn’t talk about it.

Marc eyes the book you’ve been reading and you can see him burying the disapproval.

He hums, hooking both hands under your knees.

“We doin’ this or not?”

Him being back was not something Marc could accept. He’d rather have six new guys than him.

You were comfortable. Possibly the most comfortable he’d managed to get in his life, which was wild, considering you tangled Steven up with him. It was nice to talk to Steven, though. He hadn’t since he was a kid.

“Can I have my chest back?” Marc asks, stroking down your shoulder. He would’ve been content to stay in your bed the entire day, but he had to let Steven get his shopping in for the week before he left the country. He was saving a ton on less trips, staying instead of getting flights back and forth, he wanted to keep that going. Reap the good out of this. Enjoy it while it lasted.

“Can I see Steven before you go?” You pull your head up to look at him. You always feel so weird asking for one of them when you’re looking at the other. It’s even weirder watching him change.

Marc grumbles.

“We’ve got time, Marc. C’mon.”

You’re giving him eyes. Big ones. He’s such a sap.

“Yeah. Yeah okay.” Marc lets his eyes back, and the tension leaves his eyes and body back to the soft Brit you adore.

“Hey love.”

“Steven.” You press a kiss right in the center of his lips.

“Good to you?”

“He is great to me.” You shift up a little. “He’s like my dad, all soft on the inside.”

“Good.” He smiles. “Think we could stay for lunch?”

“Steven, we don’t have time—”

“Please. I hate his shag and dash.”

“I’ve been set up.” Marc draws out loudly, pulling at Steven, but he’s firmly to front, not going anywhere.

“Steven, can you tell me about your parents?”

You’re sat at the kitchen table of your apartment, a place both boys have very gotten familiar with.

Neither you nor Steven are fully dressed. It’s Friday, no one needs to. No one needs to do anything, really, and it’s wonderfully freeing.

You’re topless and Steven still acts like it’s the first pair of breasts he’s ever seen outside of a picture. Because you are.

“Well I haven’t seen my dad in a good while now, but I actually live in my mum’s apartment.” He says. He doesn’t stare. He isn’t staring, he’s eating his crisps. He actually does pull his attention into his thoughts, answering the question. You love that you can be yourself around him.

“She travels,” he goes on. “So, when she’s not using it…” unease deepened in Steven with every word. That didn’t fit with what he knew now about Marc, how he was a mercenary, how he’d led this double life in him and whoever he was out there in the world.

Come to think of it, his mum hadn’t sent him a postcard in forever, which wasn’t like her at all. The last he could remember getting was about the time he walked himself in to get signed up for his first therapy session, and surprisingly gotten sat down that same day just a few hours later.

“I er… hold on, sorry. Can I use your bathroom?”

“Sure.” You wipe your hands on a napkin, pouring yourself another cup of tea.

Steven locks the door, striding right up to your mirror and staring Marc down.

“Marc.” He says when he refuses to speak first.

“What.” Marc deadpanned. He could hear the berating edge in Steven’s tone. He was in for it.

“Is… did you lie to me about our mum? Is she ‘live?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t she be?”

“Well because you’ve manufactured maybe just about every detail I’ve ever thought about myself.”

“Our brain did that. I didn’t lie to you. I just reinforced it.”

“Through lies.”

“Water under the bridge.”

“I think the bridge is submerged…”

“‘Ey, forget the bridge, wrap up in there. You need food, okay, smart ass?”

“Wait for real? I thought you were sayin’ that we—“

“What’s the point of having a code if you never use it! Yes! We’re tracking him down and cutting his face off.”

“Alright, you don’t have to be rude about it. And no one’s face is getting cut off.”

“Yours is if you push me, buddy.”

He walks back out to the kitchen and three things happen.

First, you knock your teacup onto the floor, and it smashes into a dozen pieces.

Second, he quickly pulls his and your chairs out so you can pick it up.

Third, your front door bursts open at the lock and two heavily armed men stomp into your apartment.

Marc fronts and steps out instantly, putting his hands up. They’re here for him.

“Look. I can get you your money, okay?” He says.

You stay right where you are, eyes wide, ribcage pressed to the table leg. He took to it so coolly you didn’t actually believe two strangers just broke down your door. Marc promised you no such thing would ever happen. You believed him.

One of the men looks at you and Marc goes for the guy closest’s gun, twisting it out of his grip and whipping it across his temple.

Bullets fly through your stereo and into your bedroom as Marc hits the deck.

Your ears feel like they burst over and over, your whole head full of sharp fat worms, putting pressure on your skull, hands pressed hard doing nothing.

You don’t see what happens, you just feel a gloved hand wretch you up by the elbow.

There’s a gun pointed at you, then there isn’t, it’s skidding across the floor, Marc punch him so hard the force made his head bounce against the tile.

“You alright love?” Steven asks you, hands on your shoulders. You nod. You would’ve said no to Marc. Probably would’ve headbutted him if you had the presence.

“Get back by the shelves. You’re gonna be just fine.”

You did not feel you were gonna be just fine but you crouched and rushed to the opposite end of the kitchen anyway, it really wasn’t a time to argue.

Steven looks back out to them. They’re both recovering, balaclava clad faces training on them by the sink.

“Steven you either need to do the thing or give me the body!”

“Right!”

You watch him stand, dressed in nothing but his pants and one of your shirts, as cloth wraps around him from nowhere. Sleeves, trousers, a mask. A three piece suit. He pulls  each cuff and the lapel before reaching behind him and brandishing a truncheon in each hand, gripped tight.

He says something unbearably, generically witty and proceeds to beat the everloving daylights out of the intruders. They try to team him and it doesn’t work, bullets do nothing but punch dry little holes into the fabric and heads don’t take well to the edge of your sink.

You poke your head out when it’s done. They’re both (hopefully) unconscious face down in your carpet, disarmed. But you’re not looking at them. You’re staring at the figure dressed in white with glowing eyes who seems to have forgotten you exist. He’s turned away from you.

“Well that’s taken care of then,” he says quietly, pushing the guy closest just a tad with his foot.

“Oh,” he says aloud like something’s just occurred to him. “She was right there. She saw!”

“Yeah– Steven, she’s looking at us.”

“Oh. Shit!”

The mask pulls away from Steven’s face as you turns right back to you, hands out.

“Timeout,” he says. “I can explain. For real this time.”

“You are shitting me.” You have your head in your hand, finally dressed.

“Believe me I wish I was.”

Your living room is only somewhat destroyed. You only calm down after Marc offers to pay for everything. And you mean everything.

You knew you recognized him. That suit. The gold colored weapons. He was all over the news.

Why couldn’t he have been a normal guy in the caf with normal problems? The blanket Steven put around your shoulders is helping, but only just.

“So Khonshu—”

“Isn’t a guy, no. He’s the actual deal.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Yep. Not as nice, though. That was about my reaction when I found out.”

“You– you just found this out?”

“After I told you about the– about the sleep? I told you, and then you met with us, and Marc an’ I started working on… well a bit of a mess.”

You let out a long sigh. That was so long ago. He kept this from you for months and months.

“They pointed a gun at my head.” You sigh.

“They did, yeah.”

“I should break up with you.”

“That would be a rational response.”

You look up at him. His hair’s a mess.

You take in a breath. “Where’re we goin’ from here?”

“You are not going anywhere.”

You’ve never slept in a shipping container before. You think it’d be more fun if you weren’t seasick.

“Well do you have a bloody phone charger then?” Marc’s been a warden since you left dock.

He’s ‘keeping you out of it’. He says again for probably the five hundredth time. You’re quite literally in it but you respect his caution. You’re scared. It’s just you can only remain huddled so long.

“I’ll take care of it.” He plucks the device out of your hand and shuts the door behind him, setting himself into the cot in the corner, pulling open a ThinkPad, plugging it in.

He does something into a command line and the thing bricks. He hands it to you and it won’t turn back on.

“Hey!”

“I’ll recover it when we get back to London. I told you to leave it.”

Or it may have slipped his mind. All he can think about is this is the most foolish thing he’s ever done. Khonshu agrees. But what was he supposed to do with you? Your apartment was compromised, so Steven’s had to be too. He couldn’t just leave you with the police, if they got whiff of him you’d be charged too. Steven Grant was burned. There was no where in the UK you were safe.

“You don’t need it for anything anyway.” He shrugs. “I’m working everything out with these guys.”

You don’t know what’s more overwhelming. The gunfire or that you can’t understand a word your boyfriend (Marc?) is saying as he reloads. He looks like he’s been beaten. You’re conflicted on if it’s better it’s his blood on him.

He gets the magazine in and returns fire around the corner of the container. You don’t look where the bullets hit. You’re too busy squeezing your skull closed to the sound.

The last guy falls and it stops. The yelling, the bullets. He spits blood and looks up at you, sliding up from where he’s had his weight let into the corrugated metal.

“¿Estás bien?”

You know what that means. You nod.

Before you can ask what the hell he’s been on about Marc has your arm and you’re halfway to your rental tucked in an alley.

You almost want to protest. He’s being so unnecessarily rough. He opens up the passenger seat then stops. He walks you around the car and puts you at the wheel, then gets in and points for you to start it. You do.

He presses his head back and sighs.

You ask when you’re gonna be heading back home and Marc says soon. He needs to get this artifact back, it’s giving these goons super strength annnd you space out through the rest of his explanation. He’s getting pointers from Steven, you’re sure.

You ask him about the Spanish and he goes quiet, dismisses. Won’t look at you. You don’t know what to think. He looks tortured. Like he’s being stretched on a rack.

You’re glad he’s letting you drive because this so called adventure has been nothing but sitting on your arse and getting shot at so far.

The road leads on seemingly endlessly in front of you. You check with him this is where you’re supposed to be going and keep driving along the cliff shore, through bends that snake like winding tails.

You don’t pass a single car. This part of the world seems to be completely empty except for you and him in this car and whoever else is in his head.

“Before I got swept up in this…” he finally says as it’s getting dark, you’re up in the countryside, misty grass. “Swept up in you– I didn’t really have anyone. I mean family, friends, it was just me. Well. Us. I just want you to know that you mean a lot.”

That’s possibly the most Marc has ever said to you. You feel honored and aggressively wary.

“What are you going to do?” You ask seriously.

“Well I don’t have to do anything he tells me.” Steven answers effortlessly. His brow lifts and his jaw loosens and that seemingly permanent bone deep nasolabial crease becomes semi permanent.

“Steven what is Marc going to do?” You demand and he doesn’t meet your eyes.

“We can’t just run.” He says. “Not with you. We have to face it. And you’re not a superhero.”

“You’re not dumping me.”

“No! Of course not,”

“Then what’s Marc so sentimental about all the sudden, huh? You guys gonna ghost me?”

He presses his lips flat.

“Do you think I can’t hear you when you talk?” You say.

“I think I hope you can’t.” He says quietly. It was embarrassing, he thought.

“We’re not dumping you,” he continues. “We’re just getting you somewhere safe until this is over.”

“Is that what he told you?” You grip the wheel tighter.

He doesn’t answer.

Your relationship finally felt like it had gotten somewhere. Like you could actually be a part of each other’s lives. But of course there were more secrets and problems and now lies.

So you weren’t cut out for this. That was a given. That didn’t mean he could just sideline you like this. Without ever saying. He was going to ghost you, you could feel it.

No. He was too caught up in this righteous protector martyr bullshit to see that you weren’t pulling away. That this was off the rails but you were staying on the train with him. All of him. You trusted him with the brake. To know when to jump.

You’re eating something with incredibly thin spicy noodles and all the leftover fried shrimp he picked aside out of a styrofoam box in the center of a hostel bed, crying. This wasn’t like when he left to take care of something. He was gone.

He said he was gonna get a shower. That was six hours ago.

An envelope with two thousand Madripoorian dollars cash, a fake passport, and the number of some guy you’re supposed to call with a flip phone he also left sitting on the dresser was there when you woke up. If he was going to uproot your entire livelihood the least he could do is stay. Stay with you.

You had known for months something could happen and you stayed. Through everything. You could date other people but you didn’t want to. You knew the risks and it didn’t bother you. Your apartment, bothered you. But this? You liked them. With your whole heart. Nothing was a real or as hard in your life as them.

And you loved simple but you’d lived with simple forever, in everything. He was what, you didn’t completely know, obviously, but you wanted to. Moon Knight was a step closer, not a chasm between you. He saved people. Real people. More than you even imagined. Traffickers, drug smugglers, weapons dealers, down to domestic abusers and cops. People on the streets, alone. He protected them. Before you thought they were just a side effect but they were the medication. It was what he did, who he was. And you loved him for it.

But now you’re alone. You don’t know what he even expects you to do.

A thud comes from outside your door. Like someone hitting a wall.

Your eyes fall to the lock and you pull the pistol out from under the bed, checking it’s loaded, clicking the safety off and training it dead ahead.

Silence. Then footsteps.

The door bursts open at the lock and Marc falls face first down to the floor. You rush from where you’re ducked behind the bed to check the hall; empty.

You drag him in through the threshold and shut the door. He’s really out. Your heart beats even faster. You roll him over and blood meets your hands. He isn’t breathing.

He’s in different clothes. As you pull back his jacket to start chest compressions a wallet falls out, open to a driver’s license.

Jake Lockley.

He’s healing. Slow. Whatever he was stabbed with caught him off guard and went deep. It can’t be from this world because Khonshu hasn’t seemed to be able to heal it yet.

He doesn’t speak English. You’re stuck playing charades without your phone once he wakes up.

Tú. You. He keeps saying you. You don’t know what you have to do with anything, not to him.

You gave him CPR and he only just coughed back to life. He’s avoided you, been nothing but abrasive. Now he has his hand on your arm stroking like he needs it to comfort himself.

He needs you for something, that’s all you can gather.

“Jake?”

“Sí.”

“I need to talk to him. To Marc. Can you do that? Let me talk to Marc.”

“No, Marc. No, no.”

He pulls away, close to tears.

“Marc.” He clenches his fist hard, teeth grit.

He starts to get up and regrets it when pain forces him back down.

He curses and feels his forehead. He looks down himself and then up at you. His cheeks burn. You can see it. How he keeps looking away.

“No puedo conseguir a Marc.” He says, exhaling.

He turns back to you and you put your hand behind his head, stroking his hair. He wets his lips, won’t meet your eyes.

“Siento, señorita. No sabía a dónde más ir.”

He looks apologetic. Guilty like he caused all of this. He’s still showing his teeth.

“You don’t have to be sorry. I’m just glad you’re here.”

“Cómo lo dices...“ it was physically there in his head. He could hear it, sound it out. “Estoy aquí para ti.”

I’m here for you. 

He couldn’t say it no matter how much he wanted to. Not in a way you could understand.

“Estoy aquí para ti…”

Your noses brush and you kiss him, notching your lips together like you have so many times and yet not like any of them. He doesn’t tilt his head. Doesn’t part his lips. He doesn’t move at all except to press you together at that one point.

You lean back. He follows, desperate not to let them break apart.

“Por favor, cariño.” 

You slide your hand down to the back of his neck. “It’s gonna be okay, okay?”

“Tengo esperanza…”

“You’ve been waiting for that for a long time, haven’t you?”

“Tal vez si mis hermanos no pueden ver, está bien.” He murmurs to himself, eyes pressed tightly shut, tears on his cheeks. 

He opens them and gazes up at you, pulling you in closer, arms under yours.

“Solo quiero estar dentro de ti. Estoy harto de esconderme.”

“Yeah?”

You move back. He looks distressed for a moment, that is until you straddle his hips and he sucks air through his teeth, hands around your waist.

“Dios, duele.” He grunts, pressing his head back into the headboard.

“Is this okay?”

“Sí, no te atrevas a parar. Sí, sí.” He nods his head. You keep going.

His hand comes to your ass. You bend forward and press closer together, starting to pant.

You kiss him again and when you find the right spot shudders rock your whole body.

You both wake up clothed, which you aren’t sure if you’re happy or sad about.

He’s breathing deep and when he opens his eyes he lets out a groan.

“Shit,” he closes his eyes again.

You’re practically on top of them, with no plans to move.

“Of course he did.”

“Marc, I know about Jake.”

“Of course you do. Frick!” He put his face in both hands. “What’d he tell you?”

“I was hoping you could tell me.”

He slides his hands down and gives you a look. A long, weird look.

“Me?”

“I don’t think the bloke speaks English. He’s a real quiet type, even so.”

“And he will be dead!” Marc shouts, sitting up, throwing you off him. “I’ll do it myself!”

He inhales, tearing his eyes down. “Sorry, n-not you, the… yeah.” He sighs.

You pull yourself up. “Tell me about him. Come on. You owe me that.”

“Well he’s a prick. That goes for both of them.” He glares briefly up across the room. “He’s been on the inside. He just protects us, okay? I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I think he does a bit more than that.”

His smile had looked so hurt. He sounded broken. Scared. Of Marc.

“Why did you keep him from me?” 

“I didn’t–! I didn’t keep him from you.” He groans, slicking back his hair with his hands. It does nothing. “He didn’t want to be here.”

That isn’t the whole truth.

“You were going to leave me.” You digress.

He sighs hard, pushing back and lying up against the headboard, feeling the raw skin of his chest through his shirt and wincing. “Yeah not sure entirely where that went wrong.”

He blacked out. Completely. There was nothing. But he knew why Jake had come back here. 

Hearing him say it you can’t believe he really feels nothing.

“Where’s Steven?”

He shrugs and you want to hurt him.

“Marc where is he!”

“I don’t control it, okay!? When we’re– when we’re divided I can’t even hear him, alright? Last he had the body he gave it to me to go after the guy responsible for all of this. Then this fiasco. If I can’t hear him, you can’t see him right now.”

“You’re a selfish twat.”

“Yeah, I’m aware. Kept you alive. You know how many bullets I’ve taken in just the last four days? Lot more than you could.”

“Look. I ripped someone off,” He says. “I knew it was a bad idea, but he’s a piece of shit and I didn’t think it through. I didn’t think he knew it was me, but somehow he found out. This artifact he’s using on his gang, it’s only accessible to descendants of families of Sobek, are you following? You’re one of those. This artifact is like a battery, but it can be shut down. You can shut it down. Drain and sever the connection to the Overvoid.”

He sees your face and quickly adds.

“I wouldn’t ask this if it wasn’t life or death.”

You can’t believe he would ask you now.

“I wanted to figure something else, but I guess that didn’t work out.” God, he wished he could keep just one day straight in his head. What he was doing, where he was going. Even more so lately his missions had been back and forth, messing up.

When he woke up next to you he thought it was Steven that did it and was even more frustrated he seemed to have more control than he’d ever had.

“I’ll make this right. Soon as we can breathe. I swear. So, what do you say?”

It’s pitch black. The white of Marc’s suit spills through the night like light into cracks.

Slinking between huge wooden crates and pallets, you’re as close behind him as you can be.

You know you still don’t have the full story. Steven’s somewhere in there grieving your relationship or else too ashamed to speak and you have to at least try for him.

He’s so quick at it. You’re in from a high window into what looks like an empty helicopter hanger. It’s so dark. Which makes your goal obvious. A large block topped with a stature of a figure with the crocodile head, covered in hieroglyphs, glowing with a pulse like sunlight.

You heave yourself up onto the statue’s base, able to make out most of the room from the vantage point.

You see Marc only because you’re looking for him, he’s silently choking out a guard.

You make eye contact with a man retreating and your eyes go wide. 

It’s your dad.

You can’t tell if he recognizes you, you’re too shocked to speak.

Marc calls your name. “What are you waiting for! End this!”

You grasp the statue’s wrists tightly with both hands. You feel it rush up into you, through the heels of your hands, up your arms and through your spine.

You gasp as just as quickly as it came, it’s gone. The glow disappears. It’s just a hunk of rock, now.

You hear something collide near the entrance and when you look up Marc has your father on the pavement.

“Marc stop stop!”

Marc looks at you, then back at the man under him. He definitely recognizes you now.

“He’s my father.” You whisper.

The resemblance is there. He swallows back all the ungodly things he’s seen this man do. It doesn’t work. He chokes on it.

He slices the blade clean across the man’s throat, practically in half, he doesn’t get a chance to sputter.

Your chest empties. You stare with wide eyes, unable to look away. The blood gushes, a few more pumps before it stops.

“I’m sorry, baby.” Marc shakes his head, standing. The head slumps. “He orchestrated this he knew—”

“Get away from me.” You back up and nearly trip on another corpse.

“I didn’t want you here. If it were up to me you never would’ve seen this.”

“I said get away from me!” You scream.

“He was going to kill you!” He stands in front of you. “They weren’t after me. They were getting me out of the way. They wanted security in this power, nothing to take it from them. I saved you.”

He breathes out hard.

“You wanted to be with me I’m right here.”

You can’t hear him. You don’t want to hear him.

Finally, he takes a step back.

“Love?” He looks around him, dropping the still dripping blade from his hand. “What the hell’s happened here?”

Your head is spinning. You can barely see.

You force your feet forward and Steven into a tight hug.

It’s over.

You and Steven find a hotel.

Marc is ashamed, he finally breaks.

You talk with all of them for the first time.

Steven’s been in total darkness. He trusted deeply, when he realized what Marc was doing, he shutdown, he couldn’t take it. Less that Marc would do this, but that he let him.

Jake’s been in love with you since the moment Marc woke up in your apartment. He wanted to tell you so many times. He thought doing so would push Marc over the edge; he was right.

The mum Steven’s been leaving messages to has been dead for almost a year.

Your dad had been trying to kill you. He’s not the person you remember.

You’re back on square one. They feel like strangers to you.

You sit at the foot of the bed, legs out, ankles almost touching.

“I knew this would be a lot.” You say quietly.

“I can’t believe you’re still here.” Marc. He shakes his head against the sheets.

“Yeah, well.”

“¿Por qué?” Jake.

“I said I liked you.” You grip their hand. “I still do.”

“I know, but, this is like,” Steven. “You like us like this?” He turns to you.

You won’t stay like you were. You can’t. It’s all out. You can decide where to go.

“This is…” he trails off.

Weirder than fiction. 

“Yeah,” you sigh, smiling sadly. “That weird.”

──────────────────────

He comes back from Madripoor like a ghost wearing Bucky Barnes’ face.

You hear him before you see him—the careful way the door opens, the pause like he’s bracing for something. Usually when he comes home from a mission there’s relief in him, a hunger. He’d drop his bag, cross the room in three long strides, kiss you like the world might end if he didn’t. Half the time you never even made it to the bedroom.

Tonight, he doesn’t touch you at all.

“Hey,” you say softly, already standing, already searching his face.

He gives you a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Hey.”

You step closer. He smells like rain and smoke and something unfamiliar underneath. He lets you hug him, but his arms come around you a second too late, too loose. When you pull back, your hands linger on his chest out of habit.

He gently moves them away.

That’s when your stomach drops.

“Bucky,” you say, frowning. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he answers too quickly. Then he exhales and looks past you, toward the window. “Just tired.”

You’ve seen him tired. You’ve seen him wrecked, half-broken, stitched together by stubbornness alone. This isn’t that. This is distance. This is guilt.

You sit together on the couch, the space between you loud and wrong. Normally his knee would be pressed to yours, his thumb tracing absent patterns on your hand. Instead, his hands are clasped tight like he’s holding himself together by force.

“You didn’t text much,” you say.

“Couldn’t,” he murmurs. “Madripoor’s… complicated.”

That word again. You swallow. “Did something happen?”

His jaw tightens. For a long moment, he says nothing. Then, like he’s ripping off a bandage, he says, “Sharon’s there.”

Your heart stutters. “Sharon?”

He nods once. “She’s been living there.”

The way he says it—careful, weighted—tells you more than the words. Your chest feels tight, like there’s not enough air in the room.

“And?” you ask, even though part of you doesn’t want to hear the answer.

He finally looks at you then. His eyes are full of something raw and ashamed.

“It was a mess,” he says quietly. “Everything there is.”

You shake your head, a bitter laugh slipping out before you can stop it. “Bucky… did something happen between you two?”

Silence.

It stretches, heavy and cruel.

Your throat burns. “Did you—” You stop, swallow hard, then force the words out. “Did you fuck her?”

He doesn’t answer.

He doesn’t have to.

His shoulders sag just a fraction, like he’s been waiting for the question and doesn’t have the strength to lie. His eyes drop to the floor. That’s it. That’s everything.

You feel it settle in your chest, sharp and final.

“Okay,” you whisper.

“I didn’t mean for it to—” He scrubs a hand over his face, metal fingers catching the light. “I was alone and drunk. I wasn’t thinking straight. That’s not an excuse, I know. I just—”

You stand, needing space before you break. “So that’s why you won’t touch me.”

He looks up, panic flashing across his face. “It’s not that I don’t want you.”

“But you don’t feel like you deserve me,” you finish, voice trembling.

He nods once, miserable. “I feel like I already ruined everything.”

You wrap your arms around yourself. The room feels colder now. “I knew the second you walked in,” you say quietly. “You’ve never looked at me like I was something fragile you might shatter just by wanting.”

“I hate that I hurt you,” he says, voice rough. “You’re the best thing in my life.”

You meet his eyes, tears finally spilling over. “Then why does it feel like I’m the one paying for a mistake I didn’t make?”

He has no answer. He just sits there, broken open, watching the distance grow between you—this time, not because of a mission or a war, but because of a choice.

And for the first time since you’ve known him, you don’t reach for him to make it better.

He flinches when you say, “Explain it. All of it.”

Not because he doesn’t want to—but because he knows there’s no version of this that doesn’t hurt you.

You don’t sit back down. You stay standing, arms crossed tight over your chest like you’re holding yourself together by force. “How did it even happen?” you ask. “One minute you’re on a mission and the next—what? You just fall into bed with her?”

Bucky drags his hands down his face. “It wasn’t like that.”

“Then tell me how it was.”

He swallows. “Madripoor messes with your head. Everything’s blurred there—right and wrong, past and present. Sharon and I… we were working together. A lot. She knew the place. She knew parts of me I don’t like remembering.”

You laugh, sharp and broken. “So that makes it okay?”

“No,” he says immediately. “Nothing about it was okay.”

Your voice drops, trembling. “Was she better than me?”

That one finally makes him look up, eyes wide and pained. “No. God, no. It wasn’t about that.”

“Then what was it about?” you demand. “Did you want her?”

He hesitates. That hesitation is another cut. “I wanted to disappear,” he admits quietly. “I wanted to feel like the mess in my head matched the mess around me.”

You wipe at your face angrily. “Did you at least think about me?”

“Yes,” he says, voice cracking. “That’s the worst part. I thought about you the whole time.”

The room feels like it’s tilting. You ask the rest of the questions anyway, because not knowing feels worse than knowing.

“Were Sam and Zemo just… gone?”

“They weren’t there,” he answers.

“Were you drunk?”

“Yes”

Each answer lands like a stone in your chest.

When he finishes, there’s nothing left in the air but the truth and the sound of your breathing coming apart.

Tears spill down your face before you can stop them. You laugh again, this time hysterical and soaked in pain. “You know what I was doing?” you choke out. “I was here. I was feeding your fucking cat. I was sleeping on your side of the bed. I was telling myself you’d come home safe.”

Your voice breaks completely. “And you were off in Madripoor fucking her.”

He stands, instinctively reaching for you, then stopping himself like he’s afraid to contaminate you with his touch. “I hate myself for it,” he says hoarsely. “I would take it back if I could.”

You shake your head, tears falling freely now. “That’s the problem, Bucky. You can’t.”

And for the first time, the distance between you feels like something neither of you knows how to cross.

You shove at his chest before he can say another word.

“Don’t,” you snap, hands shaking as they make contact. He stumbles back a step, more from shock than force, eyes wide. “You don’t get to look at me like that. Like you’re the one bleeding here.”

He opens his mouth. “I—”

“You’re a fucking asshole,” you cut in, tears streaming freely now, voice cracking with fury. “Some fucking hero you are. You’re just like every other guy who swears he’s different.”

“That’s not—”

“It is,” you say sharply. “You promised me. You looked me in the eyes and promised me you’d never do anything like that, that you loved me and would never look at another woman the same was you look at me.”

He looks wrecked, like the words are physically tearing him apart, but you don’t care anymore. Hurt has curdled into something hard and protective.

You turn away before he can reach for you again. You grab your bag from where it’s been sitting by the door—half-packed from the last time you stayed over, half like you always knew you might need it.

“I was here,” you say, not even looking at him now. “Holding your life together while you were gone. And you threw us away like it was nothing.”

“It wasn’t nothing,” he says desperately.

You pause at the door, hand on the handle. “It was everything to me.”

For a moment, it feels like the world holds its breath. Like if he says the right thing, maybe time will rewind.

He doesn’t.

You open the door and step out, the apartment—your apartment with him—falling silent behind you.

The door closes with a final, hollow click.