#marvel imagines

You've been down here so long your bones have started to match the temperature of the concrete, cold seeping through your jeans where you've been sitting cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by a semi-circle of photocopied articles that all essentially say the same nothing in different ways.

3:17 AM according to your phone, which you check compulsively every twenty minutes like maybe time will take pity and skip forward to your deadline. The security guard made his last round two hours ago—Gerald? Gary? Something with a G—his whistling fading up the stairwell along with any pretense that you're not completely alone down here.

Your neck cracks when you roll it, vertebrae protesting the last six hours of hunching over sources that shouldn't be this hard to parse. But your advisor had smiled that sharp little smile when assigning this topic, the one that says let's see if you're really cut out for this, and spite is a hell of a motivator.

Even if your eyes are burning. Even if the coffee tastes like battery acid. Even if your soul bond has been aching since midnight with that peculiar emptiness you've learned to ignore.

The lights flicker—building's older than sin, held together by asbestos and prayer—but the air changes with it. Shifts. Like all the oxygen just remembered it had somewhere else to be.

Your fingers still on the keyboard mid-sentence.

Don't be stupid. It's a basement. In a library. The scariest thing down here is your browser history.

But your body knows things your mind pretends it doesn't. Every hair follicle suddenly awake, skin prickling with the kind of ancient warning that kept humans from being eaten in the dark. Your heartbeat kicks up, stuttering from normal to concerned between one breath and the next.

You turn.

He stands at the edge of the stacks like violence in human form.

Black tactical gear eats the light, makes him look like someone cut a hole in reality and taught it how to hunt. The mask covering the lower half of his face should make him less human, but somehow it's worse—forces you to focus on the eyes that track your movement with the kind of empty precision that makes your hindbrain scream predator predator predator.

"Oh." The sound punches out of you, high and strangled.

He doesn't speak. Doesn't need to. Just moves toward you with the kind of lethal economy that makes you understand, suddenly and completely, why rabbits freeze when hawks circle overhead. No wasted motion. No hesitation. Just purpose distilled into muscle and intent.

Your body tries—God, it tries. Scrambling backward, papers scattering, laptop sliding off your thighs to crack against the floor in what feels like slow motion. Three months of work fracturing into digital garbage as you crab-walk backward, palms slipping on photocopies, knee catching on your backpack hard enough to send you sprawling.

He crosses the space between you like it's nothing.

Like you're nothing.

His hand finds your throat before you've even processed standing, leather and pressure sending you backward into the wall hard enough to knock the air from your lungs. Old brick catches your hair, pulls it, but that barely registers against the feeling of being pinned like an insect, specimen for examination before disposal.

Both your hands fly to his wrist, fingernails catching on tactical fabric that won't give, won't move, won't budge. He's not crushing your windpipe—not yet—but the promise is there in the careful placement of his thumb, the calculated pressure that says I could, if I wanted to.

"Please—" It comes out thin, reedy. Your right hand abandons his wrist to push against his chest, trying to create distance that doesn't exist, will never exist. "I don't know what you—I'm nobody, I'm just—"

His head tilts. Minute. Considering. The eyes stay empty, stay cold, but something flickers there—assessment, maybe. Calculation. How long it will take. How quiet you'll be.

Your left hand keeps clawing at his grip while your right slides up his chest, finds the edge of his tactical vest, pushes uselessly at a shoulder that might as well be carved from stone. But the movement makes you stretch, makes your hand slip higher, past the collar of his gear, past the edge of the mask, until—

Your fingertips brush his jaw.

Skin against skin.

The world breaks apart.

Heat races from that point of contact like lightning seeking ground, if lightning could rewrite your DNA as it traveled. Every nerve ending lights up at once, not with pain but with recognition so profound it feels like drowning in reverse. Like every cell in your body suddenly remembers how to breathe.

His entire body locks. The hand at your throat spasms, loosens, and you hear him make a sound—sharp, bitten off, like someone just slid a knife between his ribs. Those empty eyes blow wide, pupils expanding until there's barely any gray left, and his chest heaves against your palm like he's just broken the surface after being underwater too long.

He rips the mask off with his free hand. Tears it away like it's burning him, revealing a face that makes your chest cavity feel too small. Sharp jaw, soft mouth, stubble that catches the shit fluorescent lighting and turns it into shadow. Beautiful in the way broken things can be beautiful, in the way that makes you want to cut yourself on the edges.

The leather glove at your throat disappears—he tears it off with his teeth, movements gone jerky and desperate where they were smooth before. Then his bare hand is cupping your face, thumb brushing your cheekbone with the kind of reverence reserved for holy things, impossible things, things that might disappear if you breathe wrong.

He pulls you forward, or maybe he falls into you—either way, your foreheads meet in the space between one heartbeat and the next. His breath fans across your face, ragged and hot, and you can feel him shaking. This man who moved like death incarnate thirty seconds ago is shaking.

"Oh," he breathes, and his voice—Christ, his voice is nothing like you imagined during those empty nights when the bond ached worst. Rough like he hasn't used it in years. Soft like he's afraid it'll break something. Accent pulling at the vowels in ways that make your chest hurt. "Oh, no. No, not—not like this."

You can't move. Can't think. Can't process anything beyond the electricity still racing through your veins, the place where his thumb traces your cheekbone like he's trying to memorize the architecture of your face through touch alone. Your hands are caught between you, one still fisted in his tactical vest, the other pressed flat against his chest where you can feel his heart hammering out a rhythm that matches yours.

He pulls back just enough to look at you, and the devastation in his eyes makes your throat close for reasons that have nothing to do with violence. Gray like winter mornings, like grief, like the moment before the sky breaks open.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, wrecked. His thumb catches the tear you didn't realize was sliding down your cheek, and the tenderness of it makes you want to scream. "I'm so fucking sorry, I didn't—I couldn't—"

"Who are you?" Your voice comes out destroyed, barely recognizable. The soul bond hums between you like a live wire, like coming home to a place that's on fire, and you don't know whether to run toward it or away.

His jaw works, muscles tightening and releasing like he's fighting something immense. When he speaks again, it's careful. Measured. Like each word costs him something irreplaceable.

"Someone who's going to disappear." His forehead presses against yours again, harder this time, desperate. Both hands frame your face now, holding you like something precious, something he's about to lose. "Someone who needs you to run. Now. Before—"

A sound echoes down the stairwell. Footsteps. Multiple sets.

The change in him is instant and terrible. The softness vanishes like it was never there, replaced by the same lethal efficiency that brought him here, but now there's something else in his eyes. Something that looks like anguish.

"Forgive me," he says, and before you can ask for what, his thumb finds a spot behind your jaw.

The world tilts. Your legs go liquid. But he catches you—of course he catches you—lowers you to the ground like you're made of spun glass while your vision tunnels to nothing.

The last thing you feel is his mouth pressed to your forehead, words whispered against your skin in a language you don't recognize but somehow understand.

I'll find you again.

I promise.

I'm sorry.

When security finds you four hours later, you have bruises on your throat that look like purple-black fingerprints, a concussion that makes the world swim, and no memory the EMTs will accept of how you ended up unconscious in a locked basement.

But you remember.

You remember the way his hands shook when he held your face. You remember the devastation in winter-gray eyes. You remember the electricity of recognition, the soul bond snapping into place only to be severed, leaving you with a phantom ache that feels like dying in slow motion.

There's a leather glove clutched in your fist that no one can pry from your fingers.

You tell them you don't remember where it came from.

You lie.

The world had always been divided into two types of people: those who'd found their match and those still waiting.

You'd grown up watching the found ones move through life with that particular brand of settled confidence, like they'd discovered some fundamental truth the rest of you were still stumbling toward.

Your mother used to tell the story at dinner parties, after her second glass of wine made her sentimental. How she'd been twenty-three, working at a bank in downtown Brooklyn, when a man came in to dispute an overdraft fee. Their hands touched when she passed back his paperwork. The bond snapped into place like a rubber band that had been stretched across decades, just waiting to contract.

She'd knocked over her coffee. He'd forgotten his own name for thirty seconds. They'd been married six months later.

"You just know," she'd say, fingers intertwined with your father's across the table. "It's like every cell in your body suddenly remembers what it was made for."

You'd wanted to believe her. Spent your eighteenth birthday waiting for that recognition to hit, for your body to suddenly make sense in a way it never had before.

But days turned to weeks turned to months, and all you felt was the same low-grade emptiness everyone without a bond carried—that constant, quiet ache of incompleteness.

By twenty-one, you'd stopped looking for it in every accidental touch.

By twenty-three, you'd convinced yourself you were one of the statistical anomalies. No bond. No match. Just you and your dissertation and a future that looked exactly like your present, only with better coffee and maybe tenure if you played your cards right.

The bruises have faded to sick yellow-green by the time you make it back to campus. Two weeks of medical leave that you spent staring at your apartment ceiling, trying to make sense of something that refuses to be made sensible. The official report sits in your email, cc'd to your advisor and the department head and probably half the university's legal team: Student found unconscious in library basement. Possible assault. No cameras functioning. Investigation ongoing.

You don't correct them. Don't mention the glove hidden in your nightstand drawer. Don't explain that the bruises on your throat match the exact span of fingers that had held your face like you were something holy, something worth breaking for.

Your body remembers even when your mind tries to forget. The soul bond, severed as quickly as it formed, has left you feeling like someone hollowed out your chest cavity with a melon baller. It's worse than before—before was just absence. This is active loss. This is knowing exactly what you're missing.

The dreams start the first night home from the hospital.

Not nightmares—that would be easier. These are soft things that leave you gasping awake at 3 AM with tears on your face and your hand pressed to your cheek where he'd touched you. Dreams where those gray eyes find yours across impossible distances. Where his hands shake as they frame your face. Where he whispers apologies in languages you don't speak but somehow understand.

Sometimes you dream of snow. Of cold so profound it burns. Of a voice saying his name—names?—until there's nothing left but the mission.

Sometimes you dream of falling. Of a train that screams through mountain passes. Of reaching for something—someone—who's always just beyond your fingertips.

But mostly you dream of that moment. The mask coming off. The devastating gentleness of his forehead against yours. The way he breathed you in like his lungs hadn't recognized oxygen until then, like you were the first real thing he'd touched in decades.

You become an expert in lying about the nightmares. "Trauma response," you tell the university-mandated therapist. "Yes, I'm processing. No, I don't remember details. Yes, I feel safe on campus."

Lies. All lies.

You remember everything. The weight of him. The contrast between violence and tenderness that shouldn't have existed in the same person. The way the soul bond had sung between you for those impossible seconds—not the gentle hum your mother described, but something desperate and raw, like two halves of something broken trying to fuse back together.

The research starts three weeks after the incident. You tell yourself it's academic curiosity. Tell yourself you're not the first person to lose a soulmate before really finding them. There are support groups. Statistics. An entire subset of psychology dedicated to severed bonds and what they do to the human psyche.

Increased rates of depression. Anxiety. Insomnia. Some subjects report physical pain at the site of initial contact. Others experience what researchers call "phantom bond syndrome"—the persistent sensation of a connection that no longer exists.

You check every box. Feel him in every room you enter, just a second too late. Wake up with your hand pressed to your face, trying to hold onto the ghost of leather and gunpowder and something metallic you couldn't place then but can't stop tasting now.

The databases give you nothing. Facial recognition software turns up empty. You sketch what you remember of his face—strong jaw, soft mouth, eyes like winter—but it feels like trying to draw music, like something essential gets lost in translation.

"Maybe he was military," Katrina suggests over coffee that tastes like disappointment. She's trying to help, your best friend since undergrad, but she looks at you with the kind of careful concern reserved for people about to break. "Special ops or something. That would explain the tactical gear."

You don't tell her about the way he moved. Don't mention that special ops soldiers don't usually have metal arms—you'd felt it when he caught you, the strange whir of plates adjusting beneath the fabric. Don't explain that whatever he was, military doesn't quite cover it.

December bleeds into January. You submit your dissertation proposal late, blame the incident, receive an extension wrapped in sympathetic looks. The bruises are long gone but you wear scarves anyway, can't stand the feeling of air against your throat where his thumb had pressed.

Your google search history becomes a testament to obsession:

“severed soul bonds recovery time?” “can soul bonds reconnect?” “military tactical gear supplier identification” “metal prosthetic arm advanced” “soul bond physical pain management”

Nothing. Always nothing.

But late at night, when the world sleeps and you're alone with the ache that lives between your ribs, you pull out the glove. Run your fingers over worn leather that's been softened by use and something else—care, maybe. The kind of attention that comes from having nothing else to focus on.

It smells like winter. Like violence. Like the ghost of cologne that might have been nice once, before it mixed with gunpowder and fear and whatever else clings to people who move through the world like weapons.

You press it to your face and breathe deep, eyes closed, trying to summon those impossible seconds when he'd looked at you like you were salvation and damnation all at once. When his voice had broken on an apology for something you didn't understand. When he'd promised to find you again in words you shouldn't have been able to translate but did.

The bond throbs. Phantom pain for a phantom connection.

You fold the glove carefully. Place it back in the drawer. Go to bed knowing you'll dream of gray eyes and the kind of gentleness that only comes from people who've forgotten they deserve it.

Tomorrow you'll get up. Go to class. Pretend your chest doesn't feel like someone excavated it with rusty tools. Pretend you don't scan every face on campus, looking for winter eyes and a jaw that could cut glass.

But tonight, you let yourself remember. Let yourself feel the echo of his forehead against yours, the desperate press of his mouth to your skin, the way he'd held you like you were worth breaking the world for.

I'll find you again.

You touch your throat, the memory of leather and promise.

I'm waiting.

The asset doesn't fight anymore.

Hasn't for years. Learned the hard way that resistance only makes it worse—more voltage, longer sessions, deeper cuts into whatever remains of the person he might have been.

Better to go limp. Better to let them position him like a doll, open his mouth for the rubber guard, wait for the electricity to wash it all away.

The asset craves it sometimes. The blankness. The nothing. Easier than carrying the weight of what his hands have done.

But Bucky Barnes fights.

Screams himself raw before they get the guard between his teeth. Thrashes against the restraints hard enough to bend the metal table, to make the technicians step back with wide eyes because the asset never does this, hasn't done this in fifteen years, not since they perfected the chair's calibration.

"Hold him!" Pierce's voice cuts through the chaos, sharp with irritation. "Get those restraints tightened before—"

Bucky's metal arm tears through the leather strap like tissue paper. Swings wild, catches a handler across the jaw with a crack that sends him spinning into medical equipment. Two more rush forward and he fights them with everything he has, everything he'd forgotten he could be.

Soft hands on his face. Bright eyes wide with recognition. The soul bond singing between them like coming home—

"No!" The word tears out of him, accent thick with desperation. Russian, English, something older—he doesn't know anymore, doesn't care. "Please—please, I can't—"

A needle finds his neck. Sedative, fast-acting, enough to drop an elephant. His knees buckle but he keeps fighting, keeps reaching for—what? The memory's already going slippery, falling through his fingers like water.

Someone. There was someone. Wasn't there?

"Interesting." Pierce circles him as four handlers wrestle him into the chair, voice clinical. "What happened on the mission? You terminated the target, but something affected you. The timeline's off by forty-three minutes."

Bucky's jaw works around the guard they're shoving between his teeth. Can't tell them. Won't tell them. But what is he protecting? The feeling's there—urgent, desperate, worth dying for—but the shape of it keeps shifting.

A face. Soft mouth parted in shock. The way she'd—

The electricity hits before he can finish the thought.

White-hot agony races through every nerve ending, bows his back against the restraints they've doubled, tripled. The scream locks in his throat, comes out as a sound that doesn't belong to anything human. But underneath the pain, worse than the pain, is the feeling of something essential being carved out of him.

Don't take her, some part of him begs. Take everything else, but not her, not this—

But the machine doesn't care about please. Doesn't care that he's crying—when did he start crying? The asset doesn't cry. The asset doesn't feel. But Bucky Barnes is sobbing, choking on the rubber guard as memories start to fracture and fade.

Her hand against his jaw. The world breaking open. Recognition so profound it rewrote thirty years of programming in seconds—

Another pulse. Stronger. Pierce has turned the dial past safety parameters, past sanity, past anything they've done before.

"Sir," one of the technicians ventures, nervous. "The readings—"

"Continue."

Forehead to forehead. Breathing her in. The apology scraping his throat raw because he'd never wanted to meet her like this, never wanted her to know him as a weapon first and a man second—

Gone. It's gone. He reaches for it, desperate, but there's only white noise where her face should be. Only the echo of something precious he'd held for minutes—hours?—seconds?—he doesn't know anymore.

The machine winds down. Silence except for his ragged breathing, the drip of something (blood? tears?) hitting the concrete floor.

"Asset."

He doesn't respond. Can't. There's something wrong with his chest, like someone reached in and scooped out everything that mattered.

"Asset."

Training kicks in where consciousness fails. His head lifts, eyes focusing with effort on the man in the suit. Pierce. Handler. The one who holds the leash.

"Ready to comply." The words come out broken. Mechanical. But correct.

"Mission report."

"Target eliminated. No witnesses." A pause. Something scratches at the back of his mind, urgent, important. But when he reaches for it there's nothing but static. "Extraction successful."

Pierce studies him, pale eyes narrowed. "And the deviation? You were off-schedule."

The asset blinks. Searches the white noise of his mind for an answer that makes sense. "Unexpected resistance. Handled."

"I see." Pierce doesn't look convinced, but he waves to the technicians. "Run a full cognitive recalibration. I want him stable before the next deployment."

They unstrap him eventually. He doesn't fight. Doesn't do anything but stare at his metal hand, trying to understand why it feels wrong. Why everything feels wrong. There's an ache in his chest that wasn't there before—or was it always there? He can't remember. Can't remember anything but the mission, the chair, the readiness to comply.

But that night, locked in cryo-prep, he dreams.

Fragments. Glimpses. A basement that smells like old paper and fear. Someone pressed against a wall, hands pushing at his chest. The feeling of skin against skin and the world exploding into color he didn't know existed.

He wakes with her ghost on his lips—no name, no face, just the shape of an apology in a language he's not supposed to know.

The asset reports for cryo on schedule. Lies still as they prep the chamber, ice already forming in the tubes that will freeze him until the next time he's needed. But as consciousness fades, as the cold takes him under, one thought persists:

Someone. There was someone. And I've lost them.

The machine hisses. Frost spreads across the glass.

The asset sleeps.

Bucky Barnes screams.

The Starbucks on 42nd doesn't have soul bonds on the menu, but they do have overpriced lattes and witnesses, which is why you're here instead of home, staring at your bedroom ceiling and trying to parse nightmares from memories.

Six months.

Six months of the glove under your pillow losing his scent. Six months of your advisor asking pointed questions about your "lack of focus" and your therapist prescribing sleeping pills that don't work because how do you medicate a severed soul bond?

How do you explain that you're mourning someone you knew for less than five minutes?

You're arguing with yourself about the merits of a fourth shot of espresso when the world explodes.

Glass shatters inward, the windows becoming a thousand diamonds catching afternoon light. Your coffee hits the floor—there goes eight dollars you don't have—as your body moves on instinct, dropping behind the counter with five other people who smell like fear and pumpkin spice.

Screaming. So much screaming. Cars screeching outside, the percussion of something that might be gunfire but sounds too wrong, too close, too real for a Tuesday afternoon in Manhattan.

You peek around the espresso machine and your heart forgets how to beat.

He's standing in the middle of the street like death dressed for winter. Same tactical gear, same casual violence, same way of moving that makes everyone else look like they're traveling through molasses. The mask covers the lower half of his face again, but you'd know those eyes anywhere. Have been seeing them every night for six months, after all.

A cop raises his weapon. The soldier—your soulmate, your ghost, your nightly torment—disarms him with an economy of motion that's almost beautiful. The crack of breaking fingers carries even through the shattered windows.

Get up, your brain screams. Run. Move. Do something that isn't standing here like a deer watching headlights come to claim it.

But your body has other plans. Your treacherous, soul-bonded body that recognizes his even across thirty feet of chaos and broken glass. You're moving before conscious thought catches up, stumbling through the destroyed storefront on legs that feel like they belong to someone else.

This is stupid. Monumentally stupid. The kind of stupid that gets psychology PhD candidates killed in broad daylight. But your hand is already reaching, already grasping, because maybe—

Your fingers close around his wrist.

The barest slip of skin where his sleeve has ridden up, your thumb finding his pulse like it was made for nothing else. The connection slams through you—heat and recognition and yes, finally, yes—

The gun clatters to the asphalt.

His whole body goes rigid, that same terrible stillness from before. You watch his pupils dilate, watch six months of careful nothing shatter in his eyes as a stranger crashes back into existence.

He moves so fast you don't process it. One second you're standing there, thumb on his pulse, the next you're spinning, back slamming into his chest as his metal arm locks across your body. The gun—when did he pick it up?—presses cold against your temple.

You stop breathing.

Around you, cops and civilians alike freeze. Weapons lower incrementally because now there's a hostage situation, now there's a girl who was stupid enough to touch the Winter Soldier and—

"Name." His voice in your ear, so quiet you almost miss it under the sirens. That sound that had haunted your dreams, rougher now, desperate. "Your name. Please."

Your lips barely move, sound threading between heartbeats. You tell him, soft as a whisper.

The gun doesn't waver. To everyone watching, he's perfectly still, a predator considering prey. But his metal thumb moves against your bare arm where your shirt has ridden up. Gentle. Deliberate. Tracing letters maybe, or just feeling, and you wonder if he can—if there are sensors in the metal that let him—

"My name is James Buchanan Barnes." Each word careful, precious, pressed into the space below your ear like a secret. Like a gift. "Bucky. My name is Bucky. I won't remember, so I need you to—you have to remember for me."

James Buchanan Barnes.

It tickles something in your memory. A history class, maybe. Something about World War II, about Captain America, about—

"What have they done to you?" The words slip out, horrified, because the pieces are trying to fit together but the picture they're making can't be right, can't be possible—

"Find me." Urgent now. His realness, his hereness makes your chest ache with completion even as your mind screams danger. "When I—after they—find me. Please. I can't—"

His voice cracks.

The gun leaves your temple.

The crack of the shot makes you flinch, but it's the cop to your left who goes down, clutching his knee, screaming. Bucky shoves you—not hard, but enough to send you stumbling into the crowd as he moves the opposite direction, using the chaos as cover.

You hit the ground hard, knees cracking against asphalt, palms scraped raw. Around you, people scatter like startled birds. Someone's hands on your shoulders, pulling you back, asking if you're hurt, if you need medical attention.

You can't answer. Can't do anything but stare at the place where he'd stood, where he'd held you, where he'd given you his name like it was the only thing he had left to give.

Your arm throbs where his metal thumb had traced patterns. When you look down, you can see the faint red marks—not bruises, just pressure. Just proof.

"Miss? Miss, we need to get you checked out—"

"I'm fine." You're not. You're the opposite of fine. You're shattering in slow motion, held together by adrenaline and the phantom feeling of his chest against your back. "I'm—he didn't hurt me."

The EMT looks skeptical. "He held a gun to your head."

"He didn't hurt me," you repeat, and you're not sure who you're trying to convince.

They take you anyway. St. Luke's emergency room, where you spend four hours being poked and prodded and questioned by people who look at you like you might break or explode. The FBI shows up eventually, two agents in bad suits who ask the same questions fifteen different ways.

"Did he say anything to you?"

My name is James Buchanan Barnes.

"No."

"Are you sure? Even something small could help."

Find me.

"He didn't say anything."

They don't believe you. You can see it in the way they exchange glances, the way their pens hover over notepads. But what are you supposed to tell them? That the most wanted man in America is your soulmate? That he gave you his name like a prayer? That even now, hours later, you can still feel the phantom press of metal against your skin?

They release you near midnight with a card and instructions to call if you remember anything. You take a cab home because the subway feels too exposed, too dangerous, like maybe he'll be there in the shadows between stops.

Your apartment is exactly as you left it. Laptop open on the counter, half a cup of cold coffee growing something ambitious by the sink. Normal. Safe.

Empty.

You sink onto your bed, still fully dressed, and pull out your phone. Your search history is already damning, but what's one more nail in the coffin?

James Buchanan Barnes

The results make your stomach drop.

Born 1917. Best friend of Steve Rogers, Captain America. Sergeant in the 107th Infantry Regiment. Fell from a train in the Alps in 1945. Presumed dead.

Except he's not dead. He's not dead because you touched him today, felt his pulse under your thumb, heard him breathing in your ear as he held you like something breakable and precious all at once.

You dig deeper. Past the official records, past the Wikipedia entries, into the conspiracy forums and leaked documents that only half-load on your shitty wifi.

The Winter Soldier.

HYDRA.

Seventy years of ghost stories.

An assassin who appears and disappears like smoke, leaving bodies in his wake.

Your soulmate is a century-old brainwashed assassin. Your soulmate is Bucky Barnes, who died in 1945. Who didn't die. Who was turned into something else, something violent and beautiful and dangerous.

Who fights back to consciousness every time you touch him only to be dragged under again.

What have they done to you?

You close your laptop. Lie back on your bed, fully clothed, and stare at the water stain on your ceiling that looks like a rabbit if you squint. Your arm still throbs where he touched you. Traced letters, maybe, or just—

You bolt upright.

Grab a pen, try to recreate the pattern from memory on your other arm. It takes three tries before the movements feel right, before the shapes resolve into something recognizable.

Numbers.

He'd traced numbers on your skin. Coordinates.

Find me, he'd said.

Your hands shake as you type them into your phone. A location upstate, middle of nowhere, the kind of place where no one would look twice at an abandoned building or hear the screams from underground.

You should leave it alone. Should forget his name, forget the numbers, forget the feeling of being whole for thirty seconds in the middle of chaos. Should be smart and safe and boring and alive.

Instead, you screenshot the location. Book a rental car for tomorrow. Pack a bag with things that might matter—the glove, pepper spray that won't do shit against a super soldier but makes you feel better, a first aid kit you probably won't get the chance to use.

Find me.

You're going to. God help you, you're going to find James Buchanan Barnes.

Even if it kills you.

(It probably will.)

(You're going anyway.)

The HYDRA facility squats in the pre-dawn darkness like something that crawled out of the Cold War and forgot to die. You're crammed in the back of a tactical van between enough weaponry to level a city block and Captain America's guilt, which somehow takes up more space.

Forty-eight hours. That's all it took from wine-drunk-email-to-vague-Avengers-PR-listing to this—body armor that doesn't fit right, your heart hammering against ceramic plates, and the ghost of coordinates still throbbing on your arm where he'd traced them.

"Two minutes to insertion." Natasha's voice crackles through comms you're not supposed to have. But Steve had insisted, jaw set in that way that apparently nobody argues with. Not even Fury.

Steve Rogers had shown up at your door with Natasha Romanoff and Nick Fury, your roommate had screamed in her towel, and you'd told them everything. About the library. About the way Bucky's entire being had shifted when you touched him, like watching someone break the surface after drowning.

About how he'd held you in that Starbucks, whispered his name against your ear like a secret, like salvation, like the only thing he had left that was his.

Steve had gone very, very still. Then: "We're finding him. We're bringing him home."

Now he's sitting across from you, shield balanced against his knee, and you can see why people follow him into impossible situations. It's not the shoulders or the jaw or the way he fills out tactical gear like he was born to it. It's the way he looks at you—not through you, not around you, but at you. Like you matter. Like your connection to his best friend makes you worth protecting.

"Remember," he says quietly, pitched below the engine noise. "The moment we find him, the moment you make contact—"

"I know." Your fingers won't stop moving, tracing and retracing the numbers Bucky left on your skin. "Skin contact. Bring him back." Don't let go."

What you don't say: What if it doesn't work this time? What if they've wiped him too many times? What if whatever's left isn't enough to—

The van stops.

Everything happens too fast after that. Doors flying open, bodies moving with practiced precision, you stumbling to keep up as Steve's hand on your elbow guides you through pre-dawn shadows toward a concrete mouth that looks like it's waiting to swallow you whole.

The facility is worse inside. All industrial fluorescents and that particular kind of silence that sounds like screaming if you listen too hard. Your soul bond, quiet for months, starts to ache with proximity—a deep, bone-level recognition that makes your teeth chatter.

"Northeast corridor clear." Natasha's voice, clinical.

"Southwest clear." Someone else, call sign you didn't catch.

"Movement in the lower levels." Another voice. "Looks like they're mobilizing—"

A sound cuts through the chatter. Not quite human. Not quite animal. Something between a scream and static that makes your hindbrain light up with warnings to run.

Steve's already moving. "That's him."

You follow because what else can you do? Down stairs that smell like rust and terror, through corridors that branch like diseased arteries. The ache in your chest intensifies with each level down, soul bond pulling taut as piano wire.

Then—

The room opens before you like a wound. Medical equipment that belongs in museums next to things that belong in nightmares. And in the center, strapped to a chair that looks more like an electric chair than anything medical—

"Bucky." Steve's voice breaks on it.

He's shirtless, sweat-slick and shaking, with enough electricity running through him to light up half of Brooklyn. His hair hangs limp around his face, and even from here you can see the way his muscles lock and release in waves as current pulses through the chair. Fresh burn marks lattice across his chest where the nodes attach, and there's blood—so much blood—dripping from where he's fought against the restraints.

There are bodies on the floor. Technicians, by their white coats. The blood is fresh enough to still be spreading.

"Stay back." Natasha has her weapon trained on him, all business. "He's still the Winter—"

Bucky's head snaps up.

His eyes find yours across twenty feet of blood and machinery.

Time stops.

Those aren't the empty eyes from the library. Aren't the desperate clarity from the coffee shop. These are something else entirely—feral and frightened and so fucking broken under all that damage. He looks like something that's been torn apart and reassembled wrong, like an animal that's been in a cage so long it's forgotten what sky looks like.

You're moving before conscious thought catches up. Dodging Steve's reaching hand, slipping past Natasha's outstretched arm. Your feet slip in blood—whose blood? His? Theirs?—but you don't stop. Can't stop. The soul bond is screaming, every cell in your body reaching for its other half.

"Don't—" Someone shouts. Might be Steve. Might be God himself. Doesn't matter.

Because Bucky's watching you approach with the kind of stillness that precedes violence. His metal arm—and this close you can see how it's grafted to flesh, red and raw and infected at the edges—flexes against the restraints. The leather creaks. His chest heaves with each breath, and there's a wild look in his eyes like he can't decide if you're real or another torture.

You collapse on the arm of the chair. His breathing is ragged, chest heaving, and this close you can see old scars layered on new ones, a roadmap of decades of damage. Seventy years of this. Seventy years of being unmade and remade into something sharp and wrong.

Your hand reaches up, slow as you'd approach a wounded animal.

He flinches.

Actually flinches, this assassin who's probably felt every kind of pain there is. A sound escapes him—small, wounded, barely human. But when your fingertips brush his cheek—skin to skin, that electric recognition—his whole body convulses.

"Oh," you breathe, and it's inadequate, it's nothing, it's everything. Because the bond slots into place like coming home if home was a person who'd been carved hollow and filled with ghosts.

His eyes clear incrementally. Pupil contraction, focus sharpening, and then—

The noise that tears out of him is inhuman. Seventy years of grief and rage and desperate loneliness condensed into a single sound that makes your bones ache. His metal hand shatters the restraint like tissue paper, then the flesh one, and before you can process the movement he's dragging you up, up, into his lap, crushing you against his chest with desperate strength.

"You," he's saying, over and over, voice wrecked beyond recognition. "You, you, you—real, you're real, you're—"

His hands are everywhere at once. Metal fingers tangling in your hair, flesh hand splayed across your back hard enough to bruise, holding you like you might dissolve if he loosens his grip for even a second. He buries his face in the curve of your neck and the sob that escapes him is pure agony, seventy years of touch starvation hitting him all at once.

You can feel him shaking—no, not shaking, convulsing, like his body doesn't know how to process gentle touch anymore. Doesn't know what to do with softness after decades of nothing but pain.

"I'm here," you whisper against his temple, your own tears falling freely. "I'm real. I found you. I've got you."

His response is to hold you tighter, tight enough that breathing becomes difficult, but you don't care. Can't care when he's falling apart in your arms like this. The metal hand fists in your tactical vest and you hear fabric tear, but he doesn't seem to notice. He's pressing his face harder into your throat, breathing you in like you're air and he's been suffocating for seventy years.

"Thought I dreamed you." The words come out destroyed, muffled against your skin. "They said—they said I made you up. That the pain was making me see things. But you smell real. You feel—" His flesh hand slides up to cup the back of your head, holding you in place. "Please be real. Please, please be real."

"I'm real." You press your lips to his temple, just a brief touch of comfort. "James Buchanan Barnes, you're real and I'm real and I found you."

His breath hitches at his full name, and suddenly he's pulling back just enough to look at you. This close, you can see everything—the burst blood vessels in his eyes, the way his pupils can't quite focus, the decades of accumulated scars. He looks ancient. He looks young. He looks absolutely shattered.

"Don't know who that is anymore." Raw honesty, delivered while his thumbs trace your cheekbones with desperate reverence. "Don't know who I am when I'm not killing. When they're not—" He breaks off, jaw working. "I've been empty for so long. So fucking long. And then you touched me and I remembered what it felt like to be human and they took it away—"

"They can't take it away again." You frame his face with your hands, forcing him to meet your eyes. "We're leaving. Right now. Together."

"You don't understand." He's crying openly now, no shame in it, just pure emotional overflow. "Seventy years. Seventy fucking years of this chair, this room, these walls. They put me in the dark and take me out to kill and put me back and I can't—when they say the words, I disappear. Everything disappears."

"Then we don't let them say the words."

"I've killed so many people." He presses his forehead to yours hard enough to hurt, but the contact seems to calm something in him. "Children. Civilians. Good people. Bad people. So many I lost count. The things they made me do—the things I did—"

"I don't care."

"You should." His metal hand comes up to wrap around your throat, gentle but present. "This hand has strangled innocent people. These fingers have pulled triggers that ended lives. I'm not—I'm not good. I'm not worth—"

"Stop." You turn your head to press your lips to his metal palm, and the sound he makes is pure agony. "You're worth everything. You're my soulmate. You're—"

He makes a broken noise and crushes you against him again, like he's trying to crawl inside your skin. His whole body trembles with the effort of holding you close enough, like no amount of contact will ever be sufficient after seventy years of nothing.

"They're gonna wipe me again." Matter-of-fact. Resigned. "Soon as they realize what happened here. They always do. And I'll forget you again. Forget this. And next time—" His voice breaks. "Next time they'll make sure I can't touch you. They'll find ways to hurt you through me. They'll make me—"

"No." Your hands tighten on his face. "No, they won't. We're leaving. Steve's here. Natasha. We're getting you out."

"Stevie?" For the first time, his eyes flicker past you, landing on his best friend. The confusion there is heartbreaking. "But you're—you're supposed to be—"

"Hey, Buck." Steve's voice is thick with emotion. "It's me. It's really me. We're taking you home."

But Bucky's already looking back at you, like he can't bear to look away for more than seconds. His flesh hand hasn't stopped moving—tracing your face, your neck, tangling in your hair like he's trying to memorize you through touch alone.

"I don't want to forget again." It comes out small, broken. "Please. I can't do it again. Can't lose you again. It'll kill me. It'll—"

"You won't forget." You shift in his lap, wrap your arms around his neck, and he makes a sound like you've given him salvation. "I won't let them take you. I won't let them hurt you anymore. I promise."

"We need to move." Natasha's voice, soft but urgent. "Security response in two minutes."

Steve's at your side instantly, but when he reaches for Bucky, the soldier flinches back violently, metal arm coming up in defense. The only thing that keeps him from lashing out is your hand on his chest, your voice in his ear.

"It's okay. It's Steve. He's safe. He's here to help."

"Can you walk?" Steve asks, careful to keep his distance.

Bucky nods against your shoulder, but when you try to move off his lap, his arms lock around you with desperate strength.

"No." Panicked. "No, please. Need to—need to touch—"

"I'm not going anywhere." You run your fingers through his hair, and he leans into it like a cat. "We're walking out of here together. But you have to let me stand up."

It takes visible effort for him to loosen his grip. When you stand, he follows immediately, swaying slightly. He towers over you even hunched with exhaustion, and when his hand finds yours, it's with the grip of a drowning man finding driftwood.

You start moving as a unit, but Bucky can't stop touching you. His free hand keeps finding your face, your hair, your shoulder, like he needs constant confirmation you're real. At one point he stops entirely, pulls you back against his chest, and just breathes you in for several seconds while Steve and Natasha stand guard.

"Left," he says suddenly as you reach a junction, pulling you down a side corridor. "Service tunnel. I've—I've tried before. Three times. No. Four? They always—" His free hand comes up to his head, pressing against his temple.

"Hey." You squeeze his hand. "Doesn't matter. Which way?"

The service tunnel is narrow and dark. Bucky pulls you through it like muscle memory, but halfway through he stops, pressing you against the wall. His hands frame your face in the darkness.

"What if this isn't real?" Desperate. "What if I'm still in the chair? What if this is just another way they're breaking me?"

You reach up to cradle his face in return, thumbs brushing over his cheekbones. "Does this feel like a dream?"

"No." He breathes the word against your mouth. "No, it feels—it feels like waking up."

The exit spills you out into pre-dawn forest. The quinjet looms out of the darkness, and for the first time in seventy years, Bucky Barnes runs toward freedom instead of away from it.

But even on the jet, even safe, he can't stop holding you. He pulls you into his lap on the bench seats, ignoring the medical team, ignoring everyone, and just holds on. His face stays buried in your neck during takeoff, his arms locked around you like prison bars in reverse—keeping the world out instead of keeping him in.

"You're free," you whisper, over and over, like a prayer. "You're free. You're safe. You're mine."

"Yours," he agrees, and finally, finally, his death grip loosens just enough for you to breathe. "Yours. Always yours. Even when I couldn't remember. Even in the dark. Somehow I was always yours."

The sun breaks the horizon as you fly toward home, and for the first time in seventy years, Bucky Barnes believes he might actually make it there.

The first time Bucky Barnes calls you at 3 AM, your body knows it's him before your mind catches up.

The phone vibrates against your nightstand, and your hand's already reaching, heart already racing—not with fear but with recognition. That soul-deep pull that's been your compass for three months now.

"Bucky?" Your voice comes out sleep-rough, concerned.

Just breathing on the other end. Ragged, like he's been running. Or fighting. The sound makes your chest tight.

"Can't—" His voice cracks like splintered wood. "Can't remember if the blood on my hands is from yesterday or a decade ago."

You're already moving, sheets tangling around your legs as you hunt for clothes in the dark. "Where are you?"

"Steve's. The Tower. I'm—" A shaky exhale that you feel in your own lungs. "I'm safe. Everyone's safe. Just needed—"

"Me." Not a question. The bond thrums with his distress, a phantom ache under your ribs. "I'm coming."

"You don't have to—"

"I'm coming."

Twenty minutes later, Happy's pulling up to the Tower's private entrance. You're wearing the first things your hands found—pajama shorts with snowflakes on them that you stole from your roommate, one of Bucky's hoodies that still smells like him (cedar and gunpowder and something indefinably him).

The elevator ride feels eternal. Your skin prickles with proximity, the bond pulling taut as you rise through the floors. By the time JARVIS deposits you on the residential level, your hands are shaking with the need to touch him, to soothe whatever's tearing him apart.

You find him on the couch, knees drawn up to his chest like he's trying to make himself smaller. His metal hand is clenched so tight you can hear the recalibration whirs, flesh hand buried in his hair. Steve hovers nearby, hands opening and closing like he wants to help but doesn't know how.

"Buck," you breathe.

His head snaps up, and oh—his eyes are winter-wild, pupils blown with panic, caught in some liminal space between then and now. You watch him catalog you in pieces: face, voice, the way you're already moving toward him like gravity's reversed its pull.

You don't speak. Don't need to. Just fold yourself onto the couch beside him, close enough that the line of your body presses against his from shoulder to hip. His flesh hand finds yours immediately, desperate, fingers lacing between yours like maybe if he holds tight enough he won't drift away.

The effect is immediate—a full-body shudder, his breathing starting to sync with yours. The bond hums, warm honey spreading through your veins. Steve makes a sound—relief wrapped in something more complicated—and quietly retreats.

"Sorry," Bucky murmurs after a moment. His thumb finds your pulse point, traces it like he's counting heartbeats. "Shouldn't have woken you."

"Yes, you should have." No reproach, just fact. "That's what this is."

He turns to look at you then, really look, and you watch him surface by degrees. His metal hand comes up without conscious thought, fingertips ghosting along your jaw with impossible gentleness. The cool metal makes you shiver, but you lean into it, letting him map the reality of you.

"There you are," he whispers.

Something fractures inside you. He pulls you in—careful, always so careful with you—until your foreheads touch. His breathing ghosts across your lips, and you stay suspended in that space, sharing air and warmth and the indescribable thing that ties soul to soul.

It becomes your new normal.

The calls come at all hours. Sometimes Steve's the one calling, voice carefully controlled: "Can you come? He's asking for you." Sometimes it's Natasha, brusque but not unkind: "Barnes needs you." Once, memorably, it's Tony: "Your touch-starved assassin is having a moment. Also, he may have broken my espresso machine."

You always go.

The team adapts to your presence like you're a new piece of furniture—necessary, functional, occasionally in the way. You learn to read Bucky's tells from across a room: the way his eyes go distant when memory bleeds through, the micro-flinches when sound becomes too much, the careful way he holds himself when he's fragmenting.

But more than that, you learn the language his body speaks when it's seeking yours.

He's always careful at first, tentative as a feral cat learning to accept kindness. A brush of fingers, testing. The barest press of his palm to yours. But once that first contact is made, something in him unravels.

He touches you like he's mapping a new world.

It starts innocuous enough—fingers tangled together during movie nights, his thumb painting absent patterns on your wrist. His hand finds the small of your back when you walk, not possessive but anchoring, like he needs proof you're real. He pulls you between his knees when he's sitting, arms banding around your waist, chin notching over your shoulder while you chat with Sam about nothing important.

But as weeks become months, the touches grow bolder. Hungrier.

"Does it bother you?" he asks one afternoon.

He's had a brutal therapy session—three hours of guided recall that left him shaking and grey-faced. You'd spent the past hour with his head in your lap, your fingers carding through his hair while he pieced himself back together. His flesh hand has found its way under your shirt, palm spread wide over your ribs, and his metal fingers trace delicate patterns on the inside of your wrist.

"Does what bother me?"

"This." He gestures vaguely at the negative space between you that stopped existing weeks ago. "How much I need—" He stops. Swallows. Tries again. "How I can't stop touching you."

The question deserves honesty, so you give it consideration. Think about how your life has restructured itself around these points of contact. How you've started wearing layers just so there's always fabric to push aside, skin to find. How your body anticipates his touch now, turns toward him without conscious thought.

"No," you say finally. "It doesn't bother me."

He studies your face with those searching eyes, looking for the polite lie. You let him look, keeping your expression open.

"I've been thinking," you continue, adjusting so you can see him better. His hand immediately shifts, fingers splaying wider across your ribs like he needs more contact to make up for the movement. "About touch. About deprivation."

A muscle in his jaw ticks.

"Seventy years," you say softly. "Seventy years where touch meant pain. Programming. Violence. Where hands on you meant—"

"Stop." Rough. His hand presses harder against your ribs, feeling your heartbeat.

"—so is it any wonder you're hungry for something else? Something good?"

His exhale shudders out of him. "The doctors say it's codependence."

"The doctors haven't had their souls systematically unmade and remade." You cover his flesh hand with yours, pressing it more firmly against your skin. "You're not codependent, Bucky. You're human. You're healing. And if touch helps—"

"It's not just that it helps." The words come out jagged, confessional. "I want—" His metal hand comes up, traces the line of your throat with one careful finger. "I want to touch you all the time. Want to know the texture of every inch of your skin. Want to map you like territory, like—" He cuts himself off, jaw clenching.

Heat pools low in your stomach, but you keep your voice steady. "Like what?"

"Like you're mine." Barely audible. His eyes won't meet yours. "Like I have any right to—"

"You do." You turn into him more fully, catch his face between your palms. His eyes flutter closed, and he leans into the touch like a man starved. "You have every right. We're soulmates, Bucky. That means something."

"What if I never get better?" Raw, honest. "What if I always need this? Need you?"

"Then you'll always have me."

His eyes snap open, winter-blue and desperate. "You can't promise that."

"Watch me."

The trial is excruciating. You watch from designated seating as Bucky sits statue-still, hair pulled back severe, wearing a suit that makes him look like someone else entirely. They read names, show photographs, detail missions that exist in his memory like shattered glass—some pieces clear, others reflecting nothing but blood.

The days he testifies, he comes to you after.

Never speaks about it. Just shows up at your door looking hollowed out, and you let him in without questions. He wraps himself around you like you're the only solid thing in a tilting world, face buried in the curve of your neck, breathing you in like oxygen.

These are the times his hands grow bold.

Not inappropriate—never that. But searching. He maps you like a cartographer charting new territory. Palms skimming your sides, memorizing the curve of waist to hip. Fingers tracing the ladder of your ribs through thin fabric. Metal thumb finding the hollow of your throat where your pulse flutters hummingbird-quick.

"I need—" he'll say against your skin, words muffled and desperate.

"I know," you always answer. "Take what you need."

So he does. His flesh hand slips under your shirt, finds the warm plane of your stomach, spreads wide like he's trying to absorb your steadiness through osmosis. His metal fingers trace patterns on whatever skin he can find—the inside of your wrist, the nape of your neck, the sensitive spot behind your ear that makes you shiver.

Sometimes you'll find his hand at your sternum, metal fingers splayed over your heartbeat like he's using it to calibrate his own. Sometimes he'll trace the boundary where clothing meets skin, fingertips ghosting under hems and necklines but never pushing further, just needing to know there's softness underneath, that not everything in the world has sharp edges.

"Is this okay?" he asks every time, even as his touch grows more familiar, more certain.

"Yes," you answer every time, even as your skin heats and your breath catches and you want—

You want.

"So are you two fucking yet?"

You choke on your coffee, hot liquid searing your throat. Across the kitchen, Bucky's shoulders go rigid where he's making eggs with the kind of focus usually reserved for defusing explosives.

"Tony," Steve says, warning clear in his voice.

"What? It's a legitimate question. All that touching, the eye-fucking across every room, the way Barnes goes feral if anyone else so much as—"

"We're not." Your face burns. "That's not—we haven't—"

Tony's eyebrows achieve escape velocity. "You're telling me you've been playing the world's most intense game of grabass for three months and haven't—"

"Stark." Bucky's voice is winter-quiet, dangerous in the way that makes smart people reevaluate their life choices.

But Tony's never been accused of survival instincts. "I'm just saying, that level of sexual tension could power—"

The plate in Bucky's metal hand shatters.

Silence rings out, broken only by the drip of egg yolk hitting tile.

"I'll just." Tony backs toward the door, hands raised. "Workshop. Important things. Very important things."

He's gone before anyone can blink, leaving you, Bucky, and Steve in a kitchen that suddenly feels airless. Bucky stares at the ceramic shards in his hand like they've personally betrayed him.

"Buck—" Steve starts.

"I need air."

He's out the door before you can process the movement, leaving you with cooling eggs and Tony's words hanging in the air like smoke.

Steve sighs, the sound of a man who's aged a century in the last minute. "He's an idiot. Tony, I mean. Though Buck's also—" He stops. Runs a hand through his hair. "This is none of my business."

"But?"

"But." Steve fixes you with those earnest eyes that probably ended wars. "He thinks he's protecting you. From himself. From what he's done. He doesn't think he deserves—" A gesture encompasses you, the kitchen, the entire situation.

"That's not his decision to make."

"No," Steve agrees. "But when has that ever stopped him?"

You find Bucky on the roof because of course that's where he goes. He's sitting on the edge, legs dangling over nothing, and your heart does something complicated in your chest.

"Most people have their existential crises at ground level," you say, settling beside him carefully.

His mouth twitches—not quite a smile, but close. "Most people haven't fallen off a train."

"Fair point."

The city spreads below like a circuit board, all light and movement and life. Without looking, his hand finds yours, fingers interlacing with the ease of long practice. The bond settles, that constant thrum of rightness that comes with skin meeting skin.

"Tony's not wrong," he says eventually.

You wait, let him find the words in his own time.

"I think about it." His voice is carefully controlled, but you can feel the tremor in his hand. "Touching you. Not just—not just to ground myself. Not for the bond. I think about touching you because I want to. Because you're—"

He stops. His throat works, and when he speaks again, his voice is rougher. "Because you're beautiful. And kind. And you laugh at my terrible jokes even when they're not funny. You come when I call at 3 AM. You let me put my hands on you even though these same hands have—"

"Bucky—"

"I dream about it." The confession comes out raw. "Dream about kissing you. About how you'd taste. How you'd feel. Wake up with your name in my mouth and my hands reaching for you, and it's not about the bond, it's about—" He turns to look at you then, eyes dark with something that makes your breath catch. "It's about how much I want you. How much I want things I have no right to want."

"What if," you say, voice steadier than your pulse, "I want those same things?"

His breathing stutters. "You don't. You can't."

"Don't tell me what I want." You turn toward him fully, free hand coming up to his jaw. He leans into it helplessly, eyes falling closed. "I know exactly what I want. Who I want."

"I'm held together with duct tape and trauma," he says, but his resolve is crumbling. You can see it in the way he presses harder into your palm. "I can't take you on normal dates. Can't promise I won't have panic attacks. Can't even sleep through the night without—"

"I don't want normal." Your thumb traces his cheekbone, feels him shudder. "I want you. Every piece, every edge, every nightmare and bad day. I want the man who hums old songs when he thinks no one's listening. Who makes terrible eggs but keeps trying. Who touches me like I'm something precious and looks at me like I'm a miracle."

"You are," he breathes. "You're—"

You kiss him.

Or maybe he kisses you.

Maybe you meet in the middle, drawn together by forces older than choice.

The first press of lips is tentative, a question asked and answered in the same breath. His flesh hand comes up to cradle your face, and the tenderness of it makes your chest ache. But then you make a sound—small, needy—and something in him breaks.

Or maybe something in him finally fixes itself.

His metal arm bands around your waist, pulls you against him with desperate strength. The kiss deepens, and oh, you understand now why people write symphonies and wage wars. Because Bucky Barnes kisses like he's drowning and you're air, like he's been starving for seventy years and you're sustenance, like maybe the universe knew exactly what it was doing when it tied your souls together.

He kisses you like he's trying to crawl inside your skin.

His tongue traces the seam of your lips and you open for him without thought, and the sound he makes—broken, grateful—sends heat racing down your spine. He tastes like coffee and something indefinably him, and you chase that taste deeper, hands fisting in his shirt.

He doesn't surface for air. Doesn't pause. Just tilts his head to find a better angle and kisses you deeper, harder, like he's trying to memorize the shape of your mouth, the texture of your sighs. His metal hand spans your lower back, pulling you impossibly closer, while his flesh hand maps your face, thumb stroking your cheek even as his mouth devastates you.

You're half in his lap now, twisted awkwardly on the ledge, and you don't care. Can't care about anything beyond the heat of his mouth, the way he groans when you nip at his lower lip, the way his hands shake where they hold you.

"Wanted this," he gasps against your mouth, not pulling back enough to actually stop kissing you. "Wanted you. Before I even knew you. So long, so fucking long—"

You answer by sliding your hands into his hair, nails scraping his scalp, and he shudders against you, kiss going a little sloppy and desperate. He's not cold, not controlled, not careful. He's burning, pressing against you like he wants to fuse at the molecular level, like the soul bond isn't enough and never could be.

When you finally break apart—only because oxygen is apparently necessary—you're both wrecked. His lips are swollen, eyes dark and dazed. You probably look the same. His forehead drops to yours, and you can feel him trembling against you, all that careful control finally, beautifully shattered.

"Okay?" His voice is destroyed, rough like he's been screaming.

"So far past okay," you manage. "Though your timing—we're on a roof, Barnes."

He laughs, the sound surprised out of him, and presses kisses to your cheeks, your jaw, the corner of your mouth like he can't quite stop now that he's started. "Sorry. I'll plan better next time."

"Next time?" You're going for teasing but it comes out breathless, hopeful.

His eyes find yours, and the intensity there steals any words you might have had. "Every time. Any time. All the time, if you'll—if you want—"

You press your mouth to his again, swallowing whatever self-deprecating thing he was about to say. He makes a noise of pure relief and hauls you closer, and you think maybe Tony Stark has exactly one good point in his entire existence.

Not that you'll ever tell him.

** The science had been clinical, sterile words on a page that you'd skimmed in college while nursing a hangover and trying to make sense of your Behavioral Psych reading.

Enhanced neural connectivity. Synchronized endorphin response. Heightened sensory feedback between bonded pairs.

Academic language that utterly failed to capture this—Bucky's mouth hot and slick and desperate against your throat while his hands relearn territory they've been mapping under cotton and denim for months, each touch sending electricity racing down your spine like lightning seeking ground.

"Fucking finally," he growls against your pulse point, and you feel the words more than hear them, vibrating through skin into bone, into the very marrow of you. His metal hand spans your ribs, each individual plate recalibrating against your skin with tiny whirs and clicks, like even the machinery of him is trying to get closer.

"You know what it's been like? Having you close enough to smell, to taste in the air, but not—Christ, the way you tremble each time I touch you, like you're starving for it—"

You try to form words but he's already peeling your shirt away with hands that shake despite their practiced efficiency, and the first full press of his bare chest to yours—scarred skin against soft, furnace heat against cool air—whites out anything resembling higher thought.

The soul bond doesn't just sing—it screams, every nerve ending recognizing its other half and lighting up like a constellation, like a neural map catching fire.

"Oh," you gasp, and it's inadequate, it's nothing, but Bucky goes rigid above you like you've shot electricity straight through his spine.

"Yeah," he agrees, voice absolutely wrecked. His forehead drops to your shoulder, dog tags dragging cold metal across your overheated chest as he pants against your skin, each exhale making you shiver. "Yeah, that's—fuck, is it always gonna feel like this? Like touching a live wire, just—"

"More," you manage, arching into him until there's no space left between your bodies, and you feel his control splinter like ice under pressure.

His mouth finds yours again, hungry and graceless, all that careful restraint from months of chaste touches finally, blessedly gone. His tongue slides against yours and you taste coffee and something metallic—blood maybe, from where he's been biting his lip. When you nip at his bottom lip he makes a sound like something wounded, something primal, hips rolling into yours with zero finesse, just pure need, his cock hard and insistent through too many layers of fabric.

"Sensitive," he warns against your mouth, but it comes out more like a plea, like he's begging you to understand. "Everything's dialed up to eleven, I can—I can hear your blood moving in your veins. Can feel every place you're warm and wet and—fuck—" His whole body shudders when you rake your nails down his back.

Your fingers find the scarred terrain of his back and he actually whimpers, muscles rolling under your touch like water, like something liquid and desperate. That's when the second revelation hits: whatever you're feeling, he's feeling it magnified. Seventy years of sensory deprivation plus enhanced everything plus a soul bond that's been stretched taut for months—

"Gonna lose my mind," he mutters, mouthing at your jaw, your throat, anywhere he can reach, leaving wet trails that cool in the air and make you shiver. His stubble scrapes against sensitive skin and you gasp, hips bucking up involuntarily. "Already lost it. Lost it the second you touched me in that library. Do you know? Do you have any fucking idea what it's like, having someone reach inside your skull and turn all the lights on? Like going from black and white to color, like—Jesus—"

His flesh hand fumbles with your pants, clumsy with urgency, while his metal hand grips your hip hard enough to leave marks—and god, you hope it does, hope you wear his fingerprints for days. The button pops free and he makes a victorious sound that might be funny if you weren't so desperate, if you weren't already so wet you can feel it soaking through your underwear.

His hand slides lower, fingers slipping beneath elastic, and when he finds you soaked and swollen, the noise that punches out of him is pure animal—a growl that starts in his chest and rumbles through both your bodies where they're pressed together.

"Christ." His fingers slip through wetness, exploratory and reverent, and you can feel the tremor in his hand. "This is—this is for me? You get like this just from—" He circles your clit with his thumb and you cry out, hips jerking. "Fuck, you're dripping. Can feel your pulse in your cunt, baby. So swollen, so ready—"

"From you," you gasp, grinding down against his hand as he slides two fingers inside without warning. The stretch makes you moan, makes your walls clench around him immediately. "Always from you. Only from you."

Something fractures in his expression—something raw and possessive and desperately vulnerable all at once. He hooks his fingers, finding that spot that makes your vision white out, and watches your face like he's cataloging miracles, like he's mapping the geography of your pleasure. "Say that again."

"Only you." It comes out breathless, edged with desperation as he finds a rhythm that has your thighs shaking, has wet sounds filling the air between you. "Only ever you, Bucky, please—"

"No." His thumb finds your clit and circles with devastating precision, pressure just the right side of too much. "Not yet. Not when I've been imagining this for—do you know how many times I've jerked off in the shower thinking about this? About how you'd sound when you're desperate? How you'd taste?" He adds a third finger, stretching you wider, and grins dark and feral when you sob. "Bet you thought about it too. Bet you touched yourself thinking about me, didn't you? Tell me."

"Yes," you admit, face burning, and his pupils blow even wider.

He drops to his knees between your thighs suddenly, metal hand holding you open like something precious, like an offering. The first swipe of his tongue has you jackknifing off the bed, but he just pins you down with his metal arm across your hips and does it again, slower, a long drag from entrance to clit that has you seeing stars.

"Fuckin' knew it," he groans against you, and the vibration of his voice makes you clench around nothing. "Knew you'd taste like heaven. Like mine. Knew you'd shake for me just like this." He spreads you wider with his fingers, looking at you with dark eyes. "So pretty. So perfect." He spits on your cunt, watching it mix with your wetness, and the filthy intimacy of it makes you moan. "Gonna ruin you for anyone else. Gonna make it so you can't come without thinking of my mouth, my fingers, my cock."

His words dissolve into action, mouth working you over with single-minded focus. He eats you out like he's starving, like he's dying, all lips and tongue and just the edge of teeth. The soul bond makes it devastating—you don't just feel the physical sensation, you feel his hunger, his satisfaction at finally being allowed to give pleasure instead of pain. His metal fingers dig into your thigh hard enough to bruise and you hope they do, hope you wear his marks for days, hope everyone who sees them knows exactly who put them there.

"Close," you warn, though he probably knows—can probably taste it in the way your cunt's clenching, feel it in the bond that's gone molten between you. Your thighs are shaking, muscles pulled so tight they hurt, and there's a sound filling the room that you distantly realize is you, making noises you've never made before.

He pulls back just enough to speak, lips glossy with your wetness, chin soaked, eyes wild. "Yeah? You gonna come on my tongue? Gonna let me taste it?" He slides three fingers in, curling with devastating intent, and your back arches off the bed. "Come on, sweetheart. Give it up. Let me have it, don't be greedy."

You shatter with a sound that might be his name, might be pure noise. The orgasm rolls through you in waves, each crest higher than the last, and he works you through it mercilessly, not letting up even when you try to squirm away from oversensitivity. Through the bond you feel his echoing pleasure—not physical, not yet, but something bone-deep and satisfied and proud.

"Atta girl," he murmurs against your inner thigh, pressing kisses to sweat-slick skin while his fingers still move lazily inside you, drawing out aftershocks. "So fucking beautiful. Look at you, all fucked out and soft and mine. Could do this for hours. Will do this for hours. Keep you here, coming apart on my hands, my mouth, until you're so sensitive you cry, until you forget there was ever a time we weren't—"

"Bucky." You tug at his hair, need making your voice rough despite the orgasm still sparking through your nerves. "Get up here. Need you inside me. Need—"

He's moving before you finish, shucking his pants with graceless efficiency. The first glimpse of his cock—thick and long and leaking steadily—makes your mouth water and your cunt clench with fresh want. When you reach for him he catches your wrist, gentle but firm.

"Next time," he promises, reading your intent with unnerving accuracy. His voice is strained, like he's hanging on by a thread. "Let you taste me next time. Let you choke on it, fuck that pretty mouth until you're drooling, until—" He cuts himself off with visible effort, chest heaving. "But right now I need—if I don't get inside you in the next ten seconds I'm gonna fucking die—"

"So do it." You spread your legs wider, shameless, showing him how wet and open you are, how ready. "Come on, sergeant. Follow through."

His control snaps audibly. He's on you between one breath and the next, pinning you down with his weight, cock nudging at your entrance. The head catches on your rim and you both groan, but he stops there, trembling with effort, forehead pressed to yours.

"Look at me." It's not a request—it's a command, rough and desperate. You force your eyes open, meet his gaze—winter blue swallowed by black, raw and vulnerable and fierce. "Need to see you when I—need to know you're here, that you're real, that this is—"

"Real," you confirm, wrapping your legs around his waist, heels digging into his ass to urge him forward. "I'm real. You're real. This is—oh fuck—"

He pushes inside in one long, devastating slide, and the world reconstitutes itself around this moment. Around the stretch and burn and perfect fullness of him, around the broken sound he makes against your throat—half sob, half growl—around the soul bond lighting up like a supernova, like every nerve ending suddenly discovering what it was made for.

"Fuck." His metal hand grips the headboard hard enough to crack wood, splinters raining down. "Fuck, you're—tight. So fucking tight. Hot. Perfect. Can feel—God fucking damn, I can feel everything. Can feel how good it is for you, can feel how your cunt's trying to pull me deeper—" He shifts his hips and hits something devastating inside you, makes you clench around him involuntarily. He laughs, breathless. "Yeah, right there. That's it, isn't it, baby? Right fucking there."

He moves experimentally, just a slow roll of hips, and you both moan at the drag of him inside you, at how your bodies fit together like they were made for this, only this. The angle is perfect—he's reading your body's responses in real-time, adjusting until every thrust has you climbing higher, until you're making noises that would embarrass you if you could think.

"Not gonna last," he warns, rhythm already getting ragged, desperate. Sweat drips from his forehead onto your chest, mixing with the sheen already there. "Not this time. Too much, too long waiting, too—the way you feel—" His flesh hand finds your throat, rests there warm and possessive, thumb pressing just enough to make your pulse flutter. "Like velvet. Like coming home. Like I could fuck you forever and it would never be enough—"

"Don't care." You pull his head down, bite at his jaw hard enough to leave marks just to feel him shudder, to watch his control fracture further. "Just want you. Just need—"

"Tell me." His grip on your throat tightens fractionally, not enough to restrict breathing but enough to make you aware, to make you feel it. "Tell me what you need. Want to give you everything. Want to be so good for you, sweetheart. Want to make up for every night you went to bed empty when you should've been—"

"Full of you," you finish, and his hips stutter, lose rhythm entirely for a moment.

"Yeah?" His thumb presses against your pulse, feeling how fast your heart's racing. "That what you need? Need me to fill you up? Keep you full and fucked out and dripping with my come? Make sure everyone knows you're mine, that I'm the only one who gets to—"

"Yes." You're beyond shame, beyond anything but the building pressure where he's driving into you harder now, each thrust shoving you up the bed. The wet sounds of your bodies meeting fill the room, obscene and perfect. "Yes, Bucky, please—"

"Say my name again." He's fucking you harder now, chasing his release with single-minded intensity. The bed frame creaks ominously with each thrust. "Want to hear it when you come. Want to feel it when you—fuck, you're clenching around me, baby. You close? You gonna come on my cock? Gonna be good for me?"

You nod frantically, words lost to the slide of him inside you, the relentless pressure against that perfect spot, the way his pubic bone grinds against your clit with each thrust. His metal fingers find your clit, cold against overheated flesh, and the contrast makes you scream.

"That's it," he growls, working your clit in tight circles while maintaining that punishing rhythm. "Come for me. Come on my cock like a good girl. Let me feel it, let me—fuck, there it is, I can feel it starting, you're getting so tight—"

You come with his name on your lips, back arching off the bed so hard you think you might snap in half. The orgasm slams through you like a freight train, like dying and being reborn, every muscle locking up as pleasure whites out your vision. The bond makes it circular—your pleasure slamming into him and reflecting back, amplified, until you're both shaking with it, until you can't tell where you end and he begins.

"Oh fuck—" His rhythm breaks entirely, becomes something desperate and animal. "Fuck, I'm gonna—gonna fill you up, gonna—"

"Inside." You dig your nails into his shoulders hard enough to draw blood, hold him deep even as oversensitivity makes you want to squirm away. "Want to feel it. Want all of it."

He comes with a sound that's half your name, half prayer, half roar, hips grinding deep as he spills inside you. You feel it all—not just the physical sensation of his cock pulsing, filling you with warmth, but the emotional avalanche through the bond. Relief and want and mine mine mine and something that feels dangerously close to devotion, to worship, to complete and utter belonging.

He fucks you through it, shallow little thrusts like he can't help himself, like his body won't stop even though he's already given you everything. Each movement makes more come leak out around his cock, makes wet sounds that have you hiding your face in his shoulder, embarrassed and aroused in equal measure.

The aftershocks last forever, little sparks of shared pleasure that have you both gasping, twitching, clutching at each other like lifelines. When he finally stills, he doesn't pull out, just shifts enough that his weight isn't crushing you, keeping you plugged full of him.

"Stay," he mumbles into your neck, words slurred like he's drunk. "Just—stay exactly like this. Please. Need to—need to keep you full. Need to know you're here, that this is real, that I get to—"

"Not going anywhere." You card your fingers through his sweat-damp hair, feel him shiver at the gentle touch after all that intensity. "Never going anywhere. You're stuck with me, Barnes."

His arms tighten around you, and you can feel his smile against your skin, feel the way his cock twitches inside you with renewed interest. "Good. Because now that I know what this feels like, what you feel like—" He rocks his hips experimentally, and you both groan as you feel his come shift inside you, feel how wet and open you are. "We're not leaving this bed for a week. Gonna fuck you in every position I've imagined. Gonna map every inch of your body with my mouth. Gonna find out exactly how many times I can make you come before you beg me to stop—"

"What about—"

He kisses you quiet, slow and thorough and filthy, tongue fucking into your mouth in a pale imitation of what his cock just did. When he pulls back, his eyes are dark with promise and his cock is fully hard inside you again, enhanced recovery time making itself known.

"Nothing else matters," he says simply, starting to move again, slow and deep and devastating. You're so sensitive it borders on too much, but the soul bond floods you with his pleasure, his desperate need, and suddenly you're right there with him again. "Just this. Just us. Just how many times I can make you come before sunrise. How full I can keep you. How loud I can make you scream."

You clench around him involuntarily and his eyes flutter closed, hips stuttering.

"Gonna kill me," he mutters, picking up speed, the wet sounds even more obscene now with his come easing the way. "Seventy years of nothing and now—" A particularly deep thrust has you seeing stars. "Now I've got a soulmate who looks at me like I'm worth something, who touches me like I'm not a weapon, who lets me use her however I need—"

"Who loves you," you interrupt, watching his face crumble and rebuild itself, watching him fight back what looks suspiciously like tears.

"Yeah?" Barely a whisper, so vulnerable it makes your chest ache.

"Yeah." You pull him down for another kiss, pouring everything you can't say into the contact, letting him feel it through the bond. "So much. So long. Even before I knew you, I think I loved you. Think I was waiting for you."

He makes a broken sound and starts fucking you in earnest, like a man possessed, like he's trying to climb inside you and never leave. "Say it again."

"I love you."

"Again." Harder now, each thrust shoving you up the bed.

"I love you, Bucky Barnes."

He fucks you like a promise, like a prayer, like maybe if he does it right the universe will let him keep this. You come apart under him again and again, until time becomes meaningless, until the only reality is where you're joined, where the soul bond burns brightest, where his come leaks out of you with each thrust only to be fucked back in, marking you inside and out as his.

When exhaustion finally claims you both, he's still inside you, still hard, wrapped around you like armor and apology all at once. You're going to be sore tomorrow—hell, you're sore now—but you wouldn't move for anything.

The last thing you feel before sleep takes you is his lips against your temple, his voice rough with wonder and satisfaction:

"Love you too, sweetheart. More than I've got words for. More than I probably should. Gonna spend the rest of my life showing you, if you'll let me. Gonna take such good care of you. My girl. My soulmate. Mine."

"Yours," you mumble, already drifting, clenching around him one last time just to feel him shudder.

His arms tighten, and you feel his smile against your skin, feel the way his cock twitches inside you with interest despite everything.

"Forever," he promises.

"Forever."

Outside, Brooklyn wakes to another morning, unaware that two souls have finally, fully, found their way home.

"No." Peter shook his head. "It's just... the mask. It kind of defeats the whole anonymous superhero thing."

Frank opened his mouth with a retort, but (y/n) beat him to it. "What happened to your face?"

He scoffed, pointing to Peter with his spoon. "Ask this dum-dum. He bashed up my van."

"Myrtle?"

"Myrtle."

Peter frowned beneath the suit. He'd been the one hiding so much that he never thought she'd been hiding anything. She'd said her parents were gone, which appeared true if Frank "adopted" her. But what would push a bristling man like him to do something like that?

That was a question for another day.

The trio finished supper before long, and Peter went off to work on his inhibitor. He was pleasantly surprised that Frank had the tools he needed. After the day he'd had, he was starting to learn to not count the man out. He couldn't help but overhear the pair's conversation from their spot in the living room.

"You okay?"

"Yeah," she sighed. "It's been a day."

"What happened?"

"One second I was on my lunch break, and then I was swinging here with Spider-Man."

By the creak of the couch springs, it sounded like he sat down beside her. "That girl... The kid said she's after you."

"I don't know why."

"You're not leaving this boat until I take her out."

"Dad-"

"No. I'll put a bullet between her eyes before I let her get to you again."

"I know," she whispered.

Silence stretched between them.

"How are you and Peter Pan, or whatever his name is?"

(Y/n) laughed softly. "We're good."

"Why haven't I met him yet?"

"Don't even act like you haven't done some crazy illegal background check on him."

"What? Me?"

Peter shook his head and pulled off his mask with a huff, suddenly aware that he was definitely prying. On his girlfriend of all people! Sure, Frank being her adopted dad was a bombshell, but he trusted her. She would tell him in her own time.

Before long, footsteps echoed down the hallway, and (y/n) emerged. Thankfully, he had the curtain pulled between them.

"I bet it's crazy having Frank as your dad."

A deep breath was the only indication she'd heard him. Too much, Peter thought. Leave it be.

"I didn't mean for you to find out this way," she said quietly.

He looked up from his work, brows furrowing. "What?"

"Can you come out here, please?"

What was going on?

"Uhh, sure."

He tugged back on the mask and slid back the curtain. (Y/n) sat on the cot with her hands on her head. When he entered, she looked up at him.

"Without the mask, Peter."

If his mind was already frazzled, that sent it into overdrive. "My name's not Peter," he sputtered, raising his hands. "I don't even know a Peter."

(Y/n) stood slowly and approached him, a slight smirk on her lips. "I'm not stupid."

Peter's mouth went dry. "I never said you were," he ground out.

And then she was only a foot away, smiling at him and slowly pulling up his mask until it rested on his nose. Her warm breath fanned against his face. "I know you, Peter," she whispered.

(Y/n)'s hands hooked around his neck and pulled off the mask as she closed the distance, soft lips meeting his. Peter responded immediately, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her closer. They pulled away, breathless, and pressed their foreheads together.

"Hi," she whispered when their eyes opened.

"Hi."

(Y/n) smiled. "You're Spider-Man."

"You're Frank's daughter."

She nodded, stepping back from him, but Peter kept his hold around her waist. "It's a long story."

"You don't have to tell me now. But when did you find out? About me, I mean?"

"About eight months ago."

Peter's eyes widened, then narrowed in confusion a moment later. "What? How?"

"It wasn't hard," (y/n) smirked. "You're always out at night, you cancel all the time, you always have random cuts and bruises. But what really sold it was the red and blue lint in your dryer vent."

He shook his head with a groan, closing his eyes. "I should've known. You never asked me about anything."

"I knew you'd tell me when you were ready."

"Yeah. Does, uh, does Frank... know?"

"No," (y/n) insisted. "I wouldn't do that to you. Besides, I think he might shoot you on sight."

Rolling his eyes, Peter pressed a quick kiss to her lips and moved back to his workstation. Her eyes roamed the screen as he sank into the rolly chair. "Peter, what is this? Arachnid DNA?"

So he told her everything---from his episode with the cacoon to the inhibitor he now worked on. By the end of his spiel, she stared down at him with tears in her eyes.

"You've been going through all of this alone? Pete. Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't want to put you in danger. What happened to May... that was because of me. I couldn't live with myself if that happened to you, too."

A wave of deja-vu washed over him. He'd said the same words to her earlier, except it wasn't her. It was Jean.

"Well, now we're in this together," said (y/n), running a hand over his hair. "Let's get this figured out."

~~~

A few hours and brainstorms later, they figured out the goggles were messing with the inhibitor's magnetic field. Relief flooded his senses as it activated, lowering the arachnid DNA in his bloodstream.

"Are we sure this is a good thing?" she asked cautiously.

"Yeah, I'm sure. I don't want to turn into a monster."

"You could never be a monster."

Peter's gaze fell to the floor. "(Y/n), you haven't seen what happens when it takes over. I-I can't control myself."

"I understand, but pushing it down... that can't be good."

Before he could respond, Frank called out for (y/n), and she retreated to the living room with a sigh. They would talk more about it later. He used the time to set up a visual search for Jean Gray.

~~~

The next morning, Peter found himself sitting across from Frank, sipping a cup of coffee while he scoured the internet for any trace of the girl. He'd found nothing but a few adoption records.

"What really happened yesterday," asked Frank, "-with (y/n)."

Peter's gaze met his. "I already told you-"

"Don't bullshit me, kid. I know there's something you're not telling her."

"Alright," he sighed. "When Jean inhabited her, she, uh, made her jump off the roof."

"And why is she being targeted?"

Because she's my girlfriend? Absolutely not.

"I'm not exactly sure."

Frank didn't seem convinced, but didn't push him. "Thanks for keeping her safe."

"Yeah."

A chime filled the air. SUSPECT SIGHTED.

"Jean's been sighted. Looks like she's attacking Damage Control HQ. I gotta go." He looked over his shoulder at the door she slept behind. "Can you make sure-"

Rolling his eyes, Frank scoffed. "You don't have to ask. Go."

A few moments after Peter disappeared, (y/n)'s door creaked open. She crossed her arms over her chest and tilted her head at her dad.

"You're really gonna let him go alone? You owe him after Staten Island."

"Oh come on, sweetheart. You know I-"

"Dad."

Frank reluctantly rose from his chair, grabbing his vest from its hook by the fridge. It only took him a few seconds to grab all his equipment and stand before her.

"You stay here, you hear me?"

(Y/n) nodded. "Be careful."

"Aren't I always?"

With a kiss to her forehead, Frank followed Peter into the fray. (Y/n) stared at the door, saying a silent prayer that the two most important people in her life would return to her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N: I just might be working on a part three if y'all want it! Let me know in the comments! Thanks for reading!

The knocks come close to midnight. You’re still awake, folding all of your laundry you’d tackled on your day off. You aren’t tired by any means, however, you definitely weren’t expecting the company behind those three even raps on the wooden door of your apartment.

You approach the door with rightful caution—something your years of fighting crime, aliens and evil villains had taught you—but nothing you’d faced before could have ever prepared you for what was on the other side of that peephole.

You almost didn’t open it, backing away with a heartbeat that pumped too quickly for you to keep up. Your breathing grew heavy, like the weight you’ve spent so long trying to lift off your shoulders came crashing down on you again. Yet, there’s a part of you inside that desperately wants to swing the door open, which only makes you angrier—that after all this time, your heart still fails you in the presence of him.

Despite the voices in your head screaming at you from every angle, your body betrays you. Fingers switch the locks and you’re pulling the door open, a small gust of wind following in its path.

Bucky Barnes looks different from the last time you saw him—in person, at least. You’ve seen the new prince charming hair and scruffy beard plenty of times on your television but after a while, his face grew harder to look at so you stopped paying attention. Something once familiar became foreign and you convinced yourself you accepted that.

But there he stands at your front door. Only he isn’t alone, because behind him are the rest of his team of bandits turned heroes; bruised, bloodied and battered.

For a second, you don’t think you’d be able to speak but then your mouth moves faster than your brain. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

It’s silent, and you’re pissed. The goddam Thunderbolts are at your front door in the middle of the night and none of them have the decency to speak. Not even the man who brought them there.

“Is this a joke?” You say, blinking.

Bucky, as if your words snap him out of some sort of daze, raises his chin. “Hi Y/N.”

His voice was as gruff and deep as you remember and the sound of your name rolling off his tongue triggers something you thought you’d long gotten rid of.

When you don’t respond, out of equal parts shock and anger, Bucky continues, “We’re on a mission and it hasn’t been going well. We need,” He pauses. “We need some place to stay. Just for the night.”

There was no way, you think. Maybe you passed out and hit your head, hard enough for your brain to conjure up this sadistic nightmare.

“Seriously?” You breathe, fingers clutching the door with an effort that makes your knuckles turn white.

Bucky opens his mouth but is unable to come up with any words—shame and guilt flickering in every corner of his eyes.

You use the silence to glance around at the other five strangers standing at your front door. They look like they’ve all gone through the ringer; dirty and exhausted. When your eyes land on hers—Yelena’s—your breath falters.

She looks exactly like Natasha under the harsh fluorescent light of your hallway, with a deep gash on her lip and those same rich blue eyes. She stares back at you, tired in a way that makes your heart hurt.

Suddenly, you felt like shit for contemplating slamming the door right in their faces.

When your eyes meet Bucky’s again, that thumping in your heart is undeniable—the one that reminds you of just how much he’d once meant to you, of how you would’ve pulled him inside without question had he knocked on your door years earlier. It was yelling at you to let him inside. Them.

Because that part of you, the one that once loved him and everything that came with him, wasn’t entirely gone. No matter how much you tried to get rid of her.

With a sharp inhale, you step to the side for them to walk through.

Bucky hadn’t expected you to. Of course, he knew the kind of person you once were but he didn’t know the kind of person you are now—you had every right to turn him away and yet, your apartment door was wide open.

His feet feel frozen in place. After a moment of waiting for him to move, and sharing confused glances when he didn’t, the rest of The Thunderbolts begin walking through your door giving you murmurs of appreciation.

Bucky was the last one to step inside.

He feels the energy shift the second he walks through the threshold of your apartment. He hasn’t been inside since the breakup—since the day he practically ripped your heart out with his hand and tried to move on like nothing had happened.

You hate the way he doesn’t bother to look around like the rest of his teammates because he already knows the apartment like the back of his hand. More so, you hate locking the door behind him because that makes the situation all the more real.

Clearing your throat, you spin around despite the fact that your brain still feels as if it’s melting. “I’m Y/N.” You don’t know why you bother telling them your name when surely he beat you to it.

“Oh, we know who you are.” The big man—Red Guardian, you think—laughs, a smile stretching across his face in admiration. “You are Avenger. I see you fight on television. Big fan.”

You blink. “Well, I’ve seen you all fight on TV too,” Your words are laced with bitterness and you resist the urge to side-eye Bucky in the process. “The New Avengers. That’s taken some getting used to.”

Everyone in the room can feel the tension between you and the man who stands near the archway of the hallway, attempting to remain out of the way.

They know you and Bucky used to be a thing, the whole world does. The details of said separation are unknown to most but people have their theories and the creation of The New Avengers is rumored to be one of them.

“For us too, believe it or not.” The woman with a short brown bob and thick accent steps forward. “Thank you for opening your home to us. I’m Ava.”

You give her a simple nod of acknowledgement before the room falls back into quiet.

Then, John Walker who leans against your wall cockily, clears his throat. Your head shoots towards him and you resist the urge you have to drop kick him out the window of your apartment.

You knew him, of course. You’d been there when Sam and Bucky took down the Flag Smashers, and when the same shield that once belonged to Captain America was dripping with blood on live television at the hands of the very man standing in your living room.

“Ma’am.” He nods, offering a mock salute.

“Right.” Your voice is clipped when you look everywhere but at him, disregarding him sassily.

“Is this,” an unsure voice interrupts. It belongs to the brunette man with the shy face whom you hadn’t heard speak until now. He stands near the side table, his hands tucked into the pockets of his jacket like he’s afraid of intruding by just asking. “Is this you?”

He’s looking at one of the various picture frames on the table, stopped in front of one in particular—a slightly worn photo in a gold frame. It’s of you, sitting cross legged on a rooftop during golden hour. You were laughing, with your head thrown back happily and wearing his sweatshirt that was slightly too big for you. The city behind you was blurry but glowing, making your smile look radiant.

You swallow. The laugh in the picture still echoes in your head and you remember every second up to that photo being taken.

Years ago, Bucky and you sat on the rooftop of a building in Prague. The two of you had been on a mission, a long and exhausting one where you’d figured you both needed a moment of peace among the chaos. On the roof, you watched the sunset together and you practically begged him to take a photo with you to commemorate the night. He refused nonchalantly, and you teased him that he’s never in any photos. He joked that he can never sit still long enough to take them.

“Gives me cramps.” He smiled.

You’d thought that was the funniest thing you’d heard all day. Your laugh was genuine, pure and sweet sounding in his ears as it bounced off the rooftop of the building. At the sight of your easy smile, Bucky lifted up his phone and snapped the photo. You’d scolded him for taking the candid without giving you a warning, but he absolutely loved it.

“‘M gonna frame this,” He stared at it in admiration between your laughter. “You’re so beautiful.”

“Bucky.” You’d whined, a flush gracing your face.

“Seriously.” He turned to you, eyes softening. “Always so damn beautiful.”

The next time he’d come into your apartment, the first thing he had done was place the framed photo on your table, insisting you keep this version because he’d already printed out one of his own.

Now, the picture sat still and quiet, collecting dust because it hadn’t been appreciated since he left.

“That’s me,” You confirm to the man. “A few years back on a mission. Someone told a joke and I guess I laughed hard enough to be worth remembering.”

He nods, a gentle smile on his face. “It’s a good picture. You look happy.”

You blink, the photo staring back at you almost mockingly. “I was.”

Bucky shifts on his feet where he stands the farthest away in the living room. He knows exactly what photo it is without even having to see it because it’s still the lockscreen on his phone, only he never lets people get close enough to question it.

The younger man’s gaze flickers up to you like he can sense the sadness you feel by looking at the photo. He steps towards you, offering you his hand meekly. “I’m Bob.”

Maybe it’s something about his face, or the attentiveness with which he holds himself, but you smile back—small and sweet. “Nice to meet you, Bob.”

You’re still holding Bob’s hand when another voice speaks from behind you. “You’re a lot quieter than I imagined.”

You twist around and there she is, staring at you with sharp but exhausted eyes.

“Yelena,” She says, stepping forward and offering her hand too. “Belova.”

You take it, her grip steady, and fight the urge to say that you already know who she is. It appears she caught onto the fact that you recognize something in her.

“Y/N.” You nod your head back, taking the moment to analyze her face because it looked so much like the one you’d grown to miss.

She swallows, eyes flickering between your own, like maybe she wishes she knew you like her older sister had. “I like your place. It smells like coffee and books.”

The comment makes you huff, a quiet and gentle laugh. “Thank you.”

When you pull your hand away, you take a moment to scan the room full of standing guests, waiting to be told what was appropriate of them by you, who was now their host. You rarely have people over anymore so you aren’t entirely sure how to do this. Your eyes linger in the direction where Bucky stands for only a second, before you clear your throat and shake him off of you.

“Can I get you guys anything?” You ask no one in particular.

“Change of clothes.” Yelena.

“Water.” John.

“A first aid kit.” Ava.

“Snacks, please.” Bob.

“Tequila.” Alexei.

A small “oh” leaves your mouth as The Thunderbolts speak over each other, staring at you with hesitant grins and eager eyes.

“Yeah,” You nod your head. “Uh, the bathroom's down the hall and the kitchen’s through those doors. I don’t have any tequila but I do have snacks, water, and vodka in the top left cupboard.

Alexei practically threw his fist in the air with a joyous, “Yes!”

Bob almost did too at the mention of free snacks.

“There’s also blankets in that basket right there and the remote for the TV is on the coffee table,” You explain, motioning around with your hands and entirely unaware of the way Bucky’s softened eyes fixate on you and your natural hospitality. “I’ll go get the first aid and clothes, but uhm, help yourself to anything. Except if you’re Walker, which in that case, you can sit on the couch and not speak.”

It was a sarcastic joke—one that earns a snort from Yelena and a soft chuckle from Ava. Even Bucky, who remains behind you at a far enough distance, feels his lips curl up in a grin.

“I deserve that.” John nods, plopping down on the couch with an exhausted huff, ultimately just happy to have somewhere safe and comfortable to rest for a little.

Bob and Alexei remain still, neither man wishing to overstep boundaries, especially yours, though they so desperately want to get into that kitchen. Sensing their eagerness, you nod towards the kitchen once more in reassurance. Both of them immediately set off for it, seemingly racing each other to see who can get to the goodies first.

You blink, shaking your head in what was still disbelief before twisting around on your feet to head towards the hallway. Unlucky for you, Bucky still leaned against the doorway to the hall and when your eyes meet his, you nearly freeze in your spot.

You almost forgot he was there.

After so long of him being gone, you eventually got used to not having his physical being pressed to the couch or sleeping in your bed. However, his presence straggled in every corner of your apartment, haunting you in a way that kept you up at night because of how strongly you felt it—felt him. The fact that he’s back inside feels extremely surreal, but something you’d secretly imagined for years whenever you looked at a photo of him for too long or smelled the lingering scent of his cologne on one of your pillows.

You open your mouth, as if you instinctively want to speak, but shut it equally as quickly. You have nothing to say to him. Not right now.

You can’t pinpoint when it starts to feel normal. Not entirely, but just enough so that the silence in your apartment isn’t uncomfortable anymore. Just enough that their boots by the front door and empty water glasses on the table don’t feel like clutter but rather, signs of life.

Maybe it’s when you toss back a shot with Red Guardian, because he insists it’s his way of saying thank you, and his laugh almost physically shakes the apartment with how happy he is to be “drinking with an actual Avenger!” Or when Ava and John sit on the couch, fighting over the remote and arguing about what movie they should watch for the night.

Maybe it’s when you catch Bob carefully folding up one of your throw blankets into a comfy square, before plopping on the ground to eat a granola bar like it was a five star meal. Or when Yelena clamors all over your kitchen in search of microwave popcorn and shortly gets distracted in a conversation with you about your makeup routines, so the first batch burns. You both laugh about it extensively and even more so when Alexei insists you let him eat it instead of throwing it out.

Or maybe, just maybe, it’s when Bob—sweet, innocent Bob—asks where your glasses are so he can get some water, and before you can even get up from your seat on the couch, Bucky’s already on his feet.

“Bottom cabinet, to the left of the sink.” He says over his shoulder, though he’s already halfway there.

You hesitate, lips parting like maybe you mean to say something but no words are capable of coming out. You merely watch him as he moves with ease–like he still belonged, like nothing has changed.

He doesn’t look at you either, not when he opens the cabinet and pulls out the glass without question. Not when he passes it off to Bob like it’s completely normal. Not when he walks right back to his seat on your arm chair in the corner of the room without so much as glancing in your direction.

Suddenly, you’re angry again–that same heat bubbling up in the middle of your chest and threatening to spew out with every second you spend staring at him.

How dare he? Your brain screams. How dare he float around your apartment after everything that happened? How dare he bring his team to the place where you live and just expect you to let them in? And how dare you be so completely and utterly helpless as to fall for it.

You curse yourself and your stupid heart; the one that still reserved a spot for him despite all that you’d done these past years to try and relinquish him. It was impossible to forget Bucky Barnes and you learned that the hard way. Even more so, it was impossible to unlove him. You realize this the more you look at him sitting, with his idiotically beautiful prince hair and uniform that he hasn’t bothered to change out of yet.

As if he could feel your eyes on him, he glances up from where he fiddles with a ring on his finger and your eyes meet for what feels like one too many times that night.

This time, though, you really can’t find it in yourself to look away. Not yet.

His breath hitches in his throat and you notice the way his body goes still under your gaze. He leans back in his seat, slowly but softly, like he’s tired and no longer wants to hide it from you. His tough, soldier demeanor falters for a second, his eyebrows softening at the distant expression in your face.

It was killing him inside, that he was this close to you physically, but so, so far away from you emotionally.

Bucky had been the one to call off your relationship around three years ago. After the whole ordeal with the Flagsmashers was over and Sam had finally gotten the shield back, you and Bucky had decided to move on together. He’d completed his book of amends, having made peace with all of the people he’d harmed and finally feeling like he’d made peace with himself.

The two of you were good–perfect, even—for months after that. You were settling down, taking things slowly, but beginning to live a life that didn’t always require missions every other day and constantly fighting off evil villains.

He’d practically moved in, falling asleep and waking up beside you in your bed, limbs tangled in the sheets like you could stay forever that way. He’d make you coffee in the morning after you’d smothered his face in kisses to wake him, then you’d spend all day together because you couldn’t bear to be a minute apart. You’d walk around town going to restaurants, or shops, or little book stores where he watched you scan the shelves with such admiration, you thought he might’ve jumped out of a romance novel himself.

He took you on dates and never once forgot flowers, no matter how many times you insisted you didn’t need that many bouquets of lilies. He’d stay up late with you while you binge watched one of your ridiculous reality shows, sitting behind you on the couch and pretending he wasn’t engaged though you knew he secretly loved it. He’d smile whenever you danced around the living room of your apartment while you were cleaning, and complained, but ultimately gave in when you’d tug him by the arm and insisted he slow danced with you too.

That was the life you’d dreamed of and just when the both of you started to get it, things began falling out of reach.

Bucky still struggled, hell, you did too, but adjusting to the simple life was a lot more difficult for him than it was for you. He’d still wake up with frequent nightmares where you’d then hold him until he felt safe enough to fall back to sleep in your arms. Sometimes he’d go silent, leave to get some fresh air and not come back for hours. When he did though, you’d always be waiting with a gentle hug and a warm cup of tea—ears open if he wished to speak about it, which he never really did.

Each time he felt like maybe he was getting better, he always fell back into old habits. You helped, of course. In fact, you were the only thing making him happy in his own life and the knowledge of that made Bucky overwhelmed with guilt.

He knew you wanted to settle down, wanted to slowly begin living a life of peace and quiet, with the occasional ‘saving the world mission’ here and there. Yet, he was worried you would never be able to achieve that tranquil lifestyle with him attached at your side. He was used to the chaos, to the noise and restlessness, so it was only a matter of time before he began feeling like one giant burden to you.

Your kindness, your hope, your ability to love without condition were all things that Bucky felt completely undeserving of—wonderful things that you were wasting on him. He’d felt selfish asking you to wait beside him while he tried to fix himself over and over again, so he convinced himself that letting you go was the most selfless thing he could do.

“Bucky,” You had stepped forward, with a frown and tears that threatened to spill over your waterline. “I just, I want to be here for you.”

“I know,” He nodded, trying his best to make you understand though he didn’t quite understand it himself. “But you shouldn’t have to. I don’t want to hold you back anymore. I don’t want you to keep bending yourself backwards for me, it’s not fair to you.”

“This isn’t fair to me,” You shook your head in disbelief. “I want to be with you. None of it bothers me, not if it means I get to have you, you know that right?”

“And what about the life you want to live?” He hummed, water brimming his own eyes. “I’m not going to be able to give you that–none of the peace or the quiet–not when I can barely go to sleep on my own without waking up from these fucked nightmares. There’s, just, so much more out there for you than this.”

Every word that slipped from his mouth was equivalent to someone taking a knife that was freshly sharpened and lodging it in your chest repeatedly. “So what,” You blinked up at him. “You’re gonna leave? After all of this, you want to leave because you think you’re too difficult?”

“Y/N, you don’t get sleep anymore because of me. You say it yourself, you’re so exhausted and it’s because of me. You stay up, waiting for me to come home and I feel like shit the moment I step through that door and see you still awake on the couch. It kills me that you feel like you have to do that, because you don’t and you shouldn’t. You shouldn’t have to wait for me anymore.” He continued.

“That doesn’t matter to me. I’ll do it, I’ll wait for you no matter what.” Your words come from your gut—genuine and determined. “When we started dating, I told you that I’d be here to take care of you regardless of the circumstances. I meant that because I love you too much to let you do this alone.”

“And I love you too much to drag you down with me.” He blurted, just as a stray tear rained down his cheek.

Your body faltered and you paused at the feeling of your heart crack away in your chest. The reality of the situation had weighed on you, and you needed a moment to catch up—to understand that Bucky was being serious.

Sure you’d argued before, over little things that you resolved with a second of alone time, some communication and a shared kiss. However, this didn’t feel like the sort of conversation that could be fixed with a kiss. The expression on Bucky’s face started to make you think that he had already made up his mind.

“So,” Your voice cracked. “So what, this is it? You’re just gonna leave after everything we've been through, after all the time we’ve spent here? This is your home.”

“And it was your home first.” He breathed. “You opened your door to me and so I came in, with all of my bullshit and problems. I intruded.”

“You did not intrude–”

“I did.” He pressed, sternly. “I don’t want to ruin this for you, I can’t. Not when you’re so bright, and full of life, and good. God, you’re so good, that I don’t want to be the one responsible for taking that away from you. You deserve better than me, better than this.”

Had your knees not locked, you thought you might’ve collapsed right there on the floor of your living room. It was a horrible dream, a sick one even. Except, the more you stared into the depths of his, once, vibrant ocean eyes to find them darkened to a storm blue, you realized just how real this was.

Bucky approached you slowly, his gentle hands finding their places on the sides of your hips, holding you up and simultaneously closer to him. “I’m sorry,” He whispered, it sounded more like a whimper past his devastated lips. “I’m so sorry.”

You sobbed almost immediately, dropping your head and letting it fall against his chest. He didn’t push you away, only wrapped his arms around you and held you like it was the last time he was going to—which in this case, it was.

It didn’t feel the same though. His grip was tight around you but his hold was loose, like he had already checked out by the time he’d placed his chin on top of your head and ran his hand down your back in comfort. Regardless, you savoured the moment, melted into it for as long it took to commit his touch to memory. Unfortunately for you, the feeling of his skin on yours would linger like a tattoo for all the years that he’d be away.

Your sadness was shortly accompanied by anger, a feeling completely foreign to you, especially around the man you loved. You were wiggling out of his grasp, and pushing him by the chest to increase the distance between the two of you.

He watched with knitted eyebrows as you wiped the tears off of your face on the sleeves of the hoodie you wore—one that belonged to him. You tried to regulate your breathing, make it as leveled as you could so you could spit out the words, “Fine. Go.”

This time, it was Bucky who felt like he’d just gotten stabbed in the chest.

“If giving up on our relationship is easier for you than sticking around, there’s no reason for you to be here anymore.” You hiss, sudden resentment dripping off of your tongue.

You had every reason in the world to be upset about this, he knew this. He also knew that it was hypocritical of him to be hurt by your words because this was his doing, after all. He deserved this, he reminded himself, your anger and your hatred as opposed to your patience and love. Because Bucky’s days as The Winter Soldier had trained him to be unloveable–to be cruel, and sad, and lonely. That was all he knew and sometimes, he felt it was all he was made for.

“Go.” You snapped when he couldn't find the dignity to move his legs. “Please. Just, please get the hell out, and don’t come back.”

With an empty void where his heart should be, Bucky left that night, for good this time. He didn’t quietly enter again at two in the morning to be greeted by the love of his life carrying a warm cup of freshly brewed tea. He didn’t climb into your bed with you so you could comb your fingers through his hair and lull him to sleep. As much as he wanted to, he didn’t because he knew the distance was the only thing good for you. It was the only thing that would keep you free from him.

That distance held true for three years. No matter how many times you’d see him on your television, whether it was under the guise of Congressman Barnes or now, New Avenger Bucky, you never once ran back to him. It was something you’d thought about many times because god, you missed him more than you’d missed anything in your life, but you weren’t going to fall victim to your own heart.

Instead, he eventually ran back to you–standing at your front door with his new team, his new friends, his new priorities. None of which involved you. Up until the moment he needed a place to stay for the night.

Your attention finally flickers away as you turn back to the rest of The Thunderbolts that gathered in your living room despite the fact that it was well past midnight. Yelena, who sits beside you on the armrest of the couch, immediately jumps into storytime about what went wrong on their mission that resulted in them camping out at your place.

Alexei however, sprawls out on the floor with a small bowl of trail mix in his lap, tossing back peanuts into his mouth like a sport. His focus seems to be on Bucky. With a curious head tilt, he asks during a pause in Yelena’s story, “What’s up with this guy?”

The room falls into a beat of silence and all eyes flicker over to the super soldier, including yours, but you look away faster than any of them can notice.

“What?” Yelena hums.

“He has not said anything at all for the past hour.” Alexei continues.

“He doesn’t talk much, you know this.” Ava shrugs simply.

“Yeah, but he is talking a lot less than usual.”

Bucky inhales, leaning back in his seat and offering the room a small but sarcastic smile. “Just tired. Long day.”

The Thunderbolts nod in agreement, all except for Alexei who tilts his head between you and Bucky curiously. “Well, there is an elephant in this room and I think it is very big.”

“Dad.” Yelena hisses, nudging him in his foot with her own.

Your body tenses on the spot and you swallow the lump in your throat harshly.

“What? I am just curious,” He says genuinely. “They were a thing, no? Her and Barnes?”

As badly as you want to chuck one of your throw pillows directly at the Red Guardian’s head, it’s clear to tell that he was sincerely asking. He’s horrible at reading the room though, you’d give him that.

“There is a time and place,” Yelena mumbles under her breath. “We talked about this, remember?”

“I think this is the place,” he argues. “It feels so heavy in here, like I am crushed.”

You don’t want to look up to catch Bucky’s reaction to his teammate’s words, though you were sure it mimicked your own. Desperately needing to put an end to whatever this was, you straighten your shoulders in an attempt to be casual.

“It wasn’t really a thing,” You say lightly, like it’s not a carefully crafted lie. “We worked together for a long time, that’s all.”

A beat.

“So it was not anything more?” Alexei continues, in between crunches of trail mix. “Because I watched the news and the news said you were dating. But it can be wrong, the news can be wrong.”

Your stomach was churning quickly, like your ribs were bruising from the inside out. You hated talking about it because the wound was still fresh, like a cut that never scabbed over properly.

“We were partners who got close, but that's it. It was work, ” You respond simply, reaching for your glass of water like it would save you from this confrontation. “That’s all it ever was.”

And it hurts to say it like that—to minimize everything that once was between you, but it was the one thing you learned how to do since he left. It made the loss of him easier to manage.

Alexei, finally seeming to have caught on, frowns into his snack bowl and mutters something under his breath about Americans being too vague. Bob clears his throat, totally uncomfortable by the silence and tension, just like Ava and John who focus their attention on the television screen though it was obvious they were thinking about something else. Yelena gives you a small glance–not pitying, but knowing.

Bucky doesn’t say a word, but his hand is curled tight around the glass he sips from, so much so that his knuckles have gone completely white.

It pains him, so much more than he’d like to show on his face, to hear you diminish your relationship to simply business. Because he remembers it all; the early mornings and late nights, the dates and bouquets of unnecessary flowers, the slow dances in the very same living room you were gathered in. Despite having been the one to walk out, he thought about those moments every day of his life and it killed him to know that it was all just passing to you.

In your peripheral vision, you catch it; the way he gazes at the floor like if he stares at it long enough, he might just be able to sink right into it—the look on his face as if he’s watching the life he could’ve had disappear all over again.

The damage had been done and while it should’ve felt like a weight lifting off of your shoulders to say, it only makes your lungs close up even more. Your breathing begins to feel dense and the longer you sit in the living room, the more it feels like its walls are closing in on you.

You push yourself off of the couch to turn towards Bob on the ground and hold your hand out for his empty glass. “You want a refill, Bob?”

Truthfully, he doesn’t but he notices the desperation in your expression for a way out so he nods his head quickly.

You take his glass and set off towards the kitchen. The second you step inside, you immediately put the cup down to grip the edge of the counter. Dropping your head, you close your eyes and try to regulate your breathing but your chest is so heavy, it almost feels impossible.

You feel ridiculous for letting this bother you as much as it was, but how could it not? You’re trying so hard to fight the collapse of the walls around your heart but, god, they’re shaking. Buckling. Breaking. It’s only a matter of time before they crumble completely under the weight of every memory you’ve tried to keep buried.

Why does it hurt so much? Why does it still hurt so much?

You want to cry, your throat burning with the pressure of holding it all back. You inhale a deep breath, one that rattles on the way down. You keep your palms flat against the countertop, like maybe if you hold onto it hard enough, it might keep you from crashing to the ground.

A creak sounds from the floor behind you, soft and careful, indicating that someone has stepped into the kitchen.

“Are you okay?” Yelena’s raspy voice asks.

You don’t turn around right away, but open your eyes with a heavy breath. “Yeah.”

The lie was weak and perfectly unoriginal. Yelena doesn’t call you out for it. She just waits, unmoving.

Finally glancing over your shoulder, you see her—arms crossed over her chest as she leans against the doorframe, watching you with equal parts sympathy and intrigue.

“I feel like an idiot.” You admit, wearing your feelings right on your sleeve. “When I saw him at that door, it was like everything came rushing back and, and I couldn’t do anything but let him in. God, I’m so pathetic.”

“You are not pathetic.” Yelena tilts her head.

“Yes I am.”

“No,” She steps forward with knitted eyebrows. “You are not.”

The two of you stare at each other for a moment. When you can’t find the words to speak, she exhales a soft breath.

“We were in deep shit on this mission,” She explains. “Bucky told us he knew a friend who might be able to help but I had no idea that it’d be you. I don’t think he was even sure you would be willing, but you were the first person he thought of anyways. You didn’t have to open the door but you did because you’re good. Doesn’t sound pathetic to me.”

The admission makes your head pound and you nearly wince at the ache you feel around your temples.

Yelena watches you lean against the counter, your eyes darting around as if searching for an answer that wasn’t there. She swallows and asks cautiously, “What happened with you two?”

You bite the inside of your cheek, the sensation of lingering tears itching the back of your throat. You hate talking about it, but it’s been so long since anyone bothered to ask, that you think you might be able to get through it this time.

“It was his idea,” You say with a shaky breath. “To end things.”

Yelena doesn’t respond right away, doesn’t push—she just gives you room as your gaze fixates on the tiled floor, like it might offer you some clarity.

“He told me I deserved better,” You continue, the bitterness in your soft voice laced with sadness rather than spite. “That I was too good. Didn’t want to hold me back, or burden me. He said he wanted me to live a life where I wasn’t constantly trying to pull him out of the dark.”

Yelena’s gaze is quiet, unflinching as you move to sit across from her at the table with a sigh.

“The worst part about it is, I don’t even think I fought hard enough. I mean, yeah, I begged and I cried but, then I just got mad,” Your brows furrow as you recall the memory, like it physically pains you to do so. “I let him leave—I made him, and he did it like it was the easiest thing he’s ever done.”

You finally look up to meet her eyes.

“So yeah,” you say. “I’m still so angry. Angry that he left and found a new group of people to rely on, angry that I let him and didn’t fight harder for us, angry that I still—”

You stop yourself short, the words halting in your throat because saying them out loud terrified you.

Yelena blinks, softly nodding her head in understanding. “You still love him.”

Hearing her say the exact thing you were thinking makes the back of your eyes sting with tears that have been hiding themselves all night. You pause for a second, because she’s right, and you can’t stand it.

“I remember everything, Yelena. Every single fucking thing and I hate that I do.”

Yelena leans closer on the table, catching your eyes with sincerity. “He remembers too.”

You pause, breath tight in your throat.

“He never talks about it, but I can tell, we all can.” She continues gently. “There’s this bracelet—gold and braided with a star charm—you made that for him, didn’t you?”

Swallowing, you nod, remembering the one night where Bucky couldn’t sleep and you’d insisted on staying up with him, claiming you could do crafts to pass the time. He taught you how to make little animals out of origami and you taught him how to make friendship bracelets.

“He still wears it. Everyday, on every mission.” She explains. “The other day he forgot his phone on the kitchen counter. I tapped it to check the time and that photo of you, the one Bob saw in your living room, it’s still his wallpaper.”

You think your heart might give out right then and there. A single tear drops from your eyes and you dig your nails so far into the skin on your palm, it’s enough to make you bleed.

“Y/N,” Yelena speaks softly, reaching out to carefully place her hand on top of yours. “I do not think he has ever stopped thinking about you—loving you.”

This time, more tears fall before you have the chance to hold them back. Softly, you let Yelena unclench your fists so she can slip her hand into yours to hold.

“Then why did he leave?” You whisper between a small sob.

Yelena frowns, shaking her head. She didn’t have the answer.

You did though, so it was silly you even had to ask.

The night Bucky left replays in your head like a film reel, and his words echo in every corner of your brain.

“I love you too much to drag you down with me.”

It was ironic, you thought, because you’d only started drowning when you were without him. He was not your anchor but rather your life jacket—pulling you out of the deep end when you got too tired to swim. These last three years without him were the longest moments you’ve ever spent with your head submerged underwater.

When he left, you sank all over again.

The quiet chatter has slowly dissipated to a still, and the only noise comes from the gentle hum of the television.

From where you sit in the corner of the couch, you glance around the room at the silence. On the couch, Yelena lays with her head on your lap and her feet tangled with Ava’s, whose sleeping figure matches Yelena’s on the opposite end. Near your feet on the floor was Bob, resting comfortably on top of one of your throw pillows. The rest of the floor is occupied by Alexei and John, who sprawl out with outstretched limbs—Alexei face down as if he’d just passed out from a three day bender, and John using his backpack to rest his head because he refused when you’d offered him a pillow.

You let yourself glance briefly in Bucky’s direction, where he still sits on the armchair in the dark corner of the room. You can make out the silhouette of his fully clothed figure. His head leans back towards the ceiling, a tell he had to be sleeping.

While you don’t want to risk waking any of them up, you’re beginning to grow uncomfortable squished on the couch.

Gently, you lift up Yelena’s head just enough to tuck a throw pillow beneath it so she doesn't recognize your absence. Slipping off of the couch, you adjust her head atop it, brushing a stray strand of hair out of her face to as she hums in delight before sinking further into the pillow.

Reaching into the wicker basket beside the couch, you unfold a fleece blanket and delicately drape it over Bob who’s curled up like a ball. He, too, makes a soft noise of satisfaction, and you swear he mumbles something under his breath that you can’t make you.

Of course he talks in his sleep. You can’t help but smile to yourself at the observation.

Twisting around, you step over John’s feet and over towards Alexei, whose snores are so deep, he seems to grumble with each step you take. With a hushed chuckle, you pick up the bowl of trial mix beside his body so he doesn’t knock it over in his sleep.

Backing away slightly, you falter in admiration at the scene before you. Your apartment has never been this full and you can’t remember the last time you had people over besides that time you hosted dinner for Joaquin Torres and Sam Wilson. Other than that, you’re always by yourself.

Except for tonight.

The team of heroes occupy so much space in your living room, it makes the walls feel less empty—less sad. Regardless of how you felt about them before they entered the threshold of your apartment, you knew how you feel about them now. They’re chaotic, and messy, and unbelievably new to this whole “working as a team” thing, but in the few hours that they’ve kept you company in your place, they’ve offered you more joy and comfort than you’ve experienced in a while.

Beside you, Bucky shifts in his seat. He’s been wide awake the entire time—enough to see you give Yelena the pillow and Bob the blanket, enough to watch you observe his team with a soft, longing expression. The same one he carried whenever he looked at you for too long.

It was endearing, to say the least. To watch you care for his team like they were your own, despite not knowing any of them at all. You’ve always been that way—sweet, nurturing, and just plain kind. It makes Bucky’s heart swell, knowing that at least you didn’t lose that part of yourself when he left.

At the sound of movement, you glance in his direction and, once again, your body tenses at the sight.

“I didn’t know you were awake.” You say quietly, before your brain really registers you’re speaking to him.

He replies, “I couldn’t sleep.”

Blinking, you nod quickly before moving to carefully pick up the empty water glasses from the table. “Me either.”

You struggle to gather all of the cups so Bucky pushes himself out of the seat and moves to help you—against his inner monologue that tells him you’d likely be much happier if he sat down and didn’t move at all.

“It’s okay,” You stutter. “I’ve got it.”

“No, it’s alright, I’ll help.” He answers, picking up the remaining cups that you can’t.

You try to swallow the lump forming in your throat but it’s nearly impossible as you spin around to walk towards the kitchen, and Bucky follows hot on your trail. It’s silent when you place the glasses in the sink and you hate how natural it feels to watch Bucky do the same.

“I can clean these when I get up tomorrow,” Bucky nods. “Before we leave.”

“No, it’s fine.” You shake your head.

“I’ll just do it real quick so you don’t—”

“Seriously,” You interrupt more sternly this time as you finally look at him. “It’s fine, don’t worry about it.”

He visibly swallows at your harshness, but nods nonetheless.

Then the two of you fall back into an odd quiet, where neither of you know what to say to each other but both understand that a conversation was inevitable from the moment he walked inside.

Blinking, you motion towards the sleeping bunch in your living room. “They’re, uhm,” You say. “They’re really great.”

Bucky purses his lips at the casualness with which you speak. “Yeah, they try.”

“Even Walker,” You continue, grabbing a towel to wipe down the counter because you so desperately need something to do with your hands. “He seems different.”

“He is.” Bucky nods, watching you intently. “I think we all are.”

His words have double meaning, this you know, and you hate the way you want to press him for details. Instead, you bite the inside of your cheek and focus on the counter you were cleaning.

Bucky knows he has to talk to you—keep the conversation going—because he knows this is the only opportunity he might get. It really is now or never.

“I’m sorry for asking you that favor.” Bucky says suddenly, sincerity laced in his soft but gruffly voice. “For showing up unannounced.”

You nearly pause, your knuckles squeezing the towel in your hand like it was the only force keeping you on earth. “Would you have shown up announced?” You ask, your words holding a hint of hostility.

Bucky stills. “Y/N,” He breathes, his voice just above a whisper, like he can read all of the sarcasm you speak with.

He watches you intently with a burning desire to fix all of the wrong he’d caused that day he left—to mend what was broken between the two of you because he’s not sure he can live anymore knowing you’re angry with him.

You shake your head quickly because not only was it stupid to have this conversation in the kitchen where a few feet away, his entire team slept, but also, you were petrified of the words that were going to leave his mouth once the two of you finally worked up the courage to talk it out.

“Bucky,” You breathe.

He pauses, waiting for you to go on.

Only you don’t. Instead, your eyes flicker down to the uniform he still has on. With a sudden blink and a change of demeanor, you tilt your head. “Do you want to change clothes?”

He pauses. “I didn’t bring any.”

You don’t know why you suddenly cared whether or not he was comfortable in his clothes. A lot of things, you notice, got confusing when you were around him.

“I,” You pause, hating yourself for thinking of what you were. Deciding it would simply be way easier to do instead of say, you twist around on the balls of your feet and begin walking down the hallway towards your room.

Bucky blinks, until you glance over your shoulder at him.

“C’mere.” You say quietly, your suggestion soft in his ears, whether you intend it to be or not.

His feet move faster than his brain can even process. His head gets foggy as he maneuvers through the hallway. He knew exactly where he’s going because he’d been to your room so many times before in the past. It almost made him sick to his stomach when he realizes that’s where you’re taking him.

When you turn that corner into your bedroom, Bucky stops just outside the doorframe. He glances inside, immediately overwhelmed by the familiarity of it all. It’s practically exactly as it was when he’d walked out that day, reminding him of just how much he’d left behind—a happiness he’d pulled out from right under your feet.

He watches you rummage through your closet, reaching high onto a shelf in search of something. You mindlessly glance in his direction, chest clenching at the way he stands frozen outside of the threshold. He's too afraid to step foot inside which is so weird, because the Bucky you knew once took up space in this room like it was his own.

Tugging down two articles of clothing from the shelf, you twist back to him and hold them out. “Here.” You say. “You left these here.”

The navy blue hoodie and black sweats are folded neatly in your outstretched hands in such a way that almost makes them look brand new. Only they aren’t. You wore them for months after he left because it felt better to sleep in his clothes than it did your own.

Bucky looks from your face and back down to the clothes. He doesn’t want to step forward to grab them—feeling entirely undeserving of walking back into your room after all this time. But you aren’t going to him. So you stand frozen in the middle of your room, waiting for the moment he musters up the courage to come inside and retrieve them himself.

Eventually, his feet make their way slowly over to you, taking the clothes with a gentle ease. He can’t figure out what to say so he gives you a small nod of appreciation before turning back around, heading down the rest of the hall towards the bathroom.

Without him in the room, you’re finally able to take a deep breath. It’s shaky and long as it leaves your chest like you've been holding it all night.

You can’t stand it but somewhere deep down, this entire ordeal feels normal. You’re beginning to realize just how much you’ve missed it—missed him, and that thought alone keeps you wide awake because if being awake means more time with him before he leaves all over again, you’d have to take it.

Minutes pass of you bouncing your leg up and down where you sit on the edge of your bed, when the bathroom door clicks open and a newly changed Bucky emerges. It makes your stomach twist into a pretzel, to see him in the same hoodie you wore that day he left.

You press your hands into your knees, hesitating even more at how ridiculously good he looks in it. “Are you,” You hum. “Are you alright?”

Don’t ask that, I don’t deserve it, was what he wanted to say but he merely nods as he lingers in your door’s threshold again. “Why’d you keep them?”

Swallowing, you shrug. “I was gonna set them on fire, but the hoodie was too comfortable.”

For the first time that night, the corners of Bucky’s lips almost twist up into a smile. “Really?”

“Really.” You nod, glancing at him when he leans against the doorframe with his arms crossed. “That and, I guess I always hoped you’d just come back to get them.”

Bucky falters with an expression that you can’t quite read. A silence washes over the two of you before he exhales, “I wanted to.”

“Did you?”

“I did.”

“Okay.” You hum sarcastically.

Bucky purses his mouth shut with a tilt of his head. “Y/N,”

“You know what,” You say with squinted eyes. “I don’t actually believe that, like at all, but it’s fine. Doesn’t matter to me anymore.”

“Why?” Bucky breathes. “Why don’t you believe it?”

“Because you left, Bucky!” You snap, your anger finally cutting through the surface after brewing all night. “You left and we never spoke again. I waited for you for months—to call or to text but you never did, so yeah, maybe I did believe you’d come back at some point but then I just got tired of waiting.”

“You moved on.” Bucky points out. “That’s good, that’s what you were supposed to do.”

“Yeah, except I didn’t.” You huff, pushing yourself off of the bed to glare at him. “You left because you wanted me to be happy but I wasn’t happy, I’m still not. The life you wanted me to live for myself was only possible if I lived it with you.”

Bucky’s face tightens in guilt as you let your words slip from your tongue.

“Then, I have to watch you on my television screen with your new team, the new people you have to take care of, and it kills me inside.” You don’t bother wiping away the stray tear that slides down your cheek. You look up at him, dead in the eyes and ask, “Are you happy?”

The question catches him off guard. He steps into your room with hesitancy, maintaining his distance but needing to be close to you to shake his head.

You nearly wince as you watch his face contort into a sadness much similar to your own.

“Not happy in the way I was when I was with you.”

The words are genuine, making your ears ring in disbelief. You swallow, but the lump in your throat feels like it might be permanently stuck.

“I have never been the same since the moment I walked out that day. I thought I was doing the right thing, I swore I was,” He admits. “I threw myself into work because I believed that somehow it would make up for what I was missing, but I learned right away that none of this could ever fill the gap that you left.”

You don’t seem to notice when you instinctively take a step closer, your body drawn to his as if your hearts were magnetized.

“You followed me everywhere, Y/N,” He exhales a defeated breath. “There were so many times when I just wanted to run back here, back to you, but I couldn’t because I figured you’d be doing better without me—without my burden.”

“You were never a burden.” You add, shaking your head with a furor you hope makes him understand. “Neither were any of your problems or trauma, and I hate that you think you were. I took care of you because that’s what you do when you love someone.”

Bucky takes a step closer too, though neither of you seem to notice with the way your eyes are trained on the other pair.

“Love someone?” He asks, his voice the most quiet and careful you’ve heard it all night.

It took years, and Bucky Barnes standing in front of you again, to finally admit it: you did still love him. What you felt for Bucky had never been surface level affection. You loved him desperately, like he was the air you needed to breathe and the light against all of the darkness that you’d hid from your whole life.

Loving him had never been easy. It came with deeply shared fears and anxiety of vulnerability and closeness. Though, you never desired an easy love anyways. You wanted a love that was complex and passionate, where obstacles were something you could leap over together if your relationship was built on a foundation of sincere care and respect.

Your love for him was so rooted in your veins, you always believed that your souls were destined to merge—surpassing time and change. You knew for a fact that you’d love him no matter how far apart the two of you were; your heart was his across states, countries, planets, timelines.

There was a vast multiverse out there, much bigger than your brain could even comprehend, and you were positive you loved Bucky Barnes in every single one of them.

“Love.” You nod, the most confident you’ve been about anything in years. “I’ve always loved you, James. I’ve never been able to stop.”

The sound of his name on your lips makes his heart swell, desperately wanting to jump out of his chest and towards you—where it knew it’d finally be at home.

Bucky can no longer deny the way he feels either, only he’s never really been able to. He loved you like you were the only thing on this planet of any importance. Sam saw it, Yelena saw it, hell, so did the rest of the goddamn world. He’d never been the same since he left and nothing ever felt right, not until he stepped back into your apartment where the walls remembered him and whispered stories of memories he’d never forgotten.

He lets out a shaky exhale. “I messed up so badly.”

“I did too.” You nod. “I shouldn’t have let you leave, I should’ve tried harder to-”

“No, hey, no,” Bucky shakes his head immediately, stepping forward so you two are the closest you’ve been in years. His fingers brush against yours, and when you don’t flinch away, he links his pinky with your own. “None of this was your fault, don’t blame yourself. I fucked up, I’m the one who left. This is not on you.”

You remain quiet, the small act of physical contact rendering you speechless.

“You were on my mind everyday. Whenever I got up to speak at congress, whenever I did press for the team, on every mission, every late night and early morning,” He whispers, eyes scanning your face like it was the first time he was getting the privilege of looking at you. “I hate myself for making that decision for you, for thinking we’d be better off. You were my world, still are.”

Everything comes flooding back, the walls around your heart breaking like a dam that was doomed to fall from the beginning. You want to cry, want to break down right there in his arms and hope the Bucky you still knew would be there to hold you.

“I can’t change what I did, but I can tell you what I want to do,” He goes on, hand coming up cautiously to cup the side of your face. “I want to love you all over again, the right way this time. I will spend the rest of our lives trying to rebuild what I tore down, if you’ll let me, and I promise to do better this time and give you whatever it is you want—”

“I want you.” You interrupt. “All of you. I want to know how you’re feeling or the things that keep you up at night because I want to be the one to help you through them. Don’t hide yourself from me.”

Bucky swallows at the desperation in your tone. How lucky was he to have your unconditional care once, and then all over again now, even if he still feels like he doesn’t deserve it. You’re still too good—far too good for him—but this time, he’s determined to be just the same for you.

“I promise.” He nods, his thumb rubbing your cheek like you’re a ceramic doll he’s afraid of breaking.

You place your own hand on his hand cupping your face, before running your other hand through his beautifully blown out hair. He grunts out a soft noise of delight, one that makes your stomach twist.

“God, I’ve missed you so much.” He says.

This almost doesn’t feel real; his touch or the words that leave his mouth, but it is—he is. He’s unbelievably real beneath your fingertips and it suddenly feels like you’re falling in love all over again as you stare at him.

“You came to me first.” You hum, your voice just above a whisper. “Yelena told me.”

Bucky lets out a small chuckle but his eyes still hold traces of disbelief, like he can’t fathom you’re running your hands through his hair the way you are. “She did?”

“Mhm.” A smile begins to curl its way onto your lips, one you can’t deny.

“She’s a rat.” He grumbles, his hands dropping to your waist to gently run his palms over your sides.

“She’s sweet,” You correct, reaching down to grab his non-metal arm and gently pull his sleeve up, revealing the bracelet on his wrist. “And she also told me you still wear this.”

Bucky watches your fingers run over the braided material before his eyes flicker back up to you. “I’ve never taken it off.”

Your gaze meets his soft blue eyes where you can read the longing all over them. It’s been so long since you've seen it and yet, it’s still capable of sending a cacophony of butterflies through your stomach like something out of a dream sequence.

“I love you.” He says out of the blue.

The three words have your breath hindering in your throat.

“I’ve loved you every moment I was here and every moment I wasn’t.”

You don’t know what to say, how to express how much you reciprocate that love, so before you have the opportunity to think about it, you stand up on your toes and press your lips against his.

Bucky wastes no time. He wraps his arms further around your waist and tugs you closer to his chest. With your hands placed on the sides of his neck, you sink deeper into the kiss.

Kissing him feels just like it had all those years ago. It’s warm just like you remember it to be but more passionate, if that’s even possible. For Bucky, kissing you is still sweet but delicate in a way that reminds him of just how lucky he was to be able to press his lips against yours.

You kiss each other with a burning desire to make up for all the lost time, to fill the gap of what was once missing between the two of you—not lost but something simply misplaced. The two of you wished to stay forever that way, and maybe now you would.

“I fucking knew it.” A voice whisper shouts from the frame of your open door.

Pulling apart, you and Bucky both turn your heads in the direction of the hallway. Yelena stands with her hands in the pockets of your sweatpants, a knowing smirk stretching across her face.

You look down like you just got caught doing something you shouldn’t have, all while biting back your smile. Bucky’s face turns red and he purses his lips with a small nod. He side-eyes you as you cover your mouth with your hand, suppressing your small hysterical giggles. Your laughter made him grin helplessly, and he squeezed your hand, gently moving closer to your side where he intended to stay for good.

Yelena smiles. “Ava owes me twenty bucks.”

Peter Parker aka. Spider-Man

Peter has been through a lot. He’s fought villains, lost people he’s loved, and carried the weight of responsibility since he was a kid. But nothing—not Venom, not Doctor Octopus, not the Green Goblin—has ever hit him as hard as opening his phone and seeing you.

He’s perched upside-down on a fire escape, mid-stakeout with Daredevil, when his phone buzzes. He barely glances at it at first, assuming it’s an update from MJ or the Bugle. But then—his Spidey-Sense misfires. His stomach drops. And suddenly, he’s scrambling so fast that he almost falls off the fire escape.

“...Parker?” Matt’s voice is suspicious, brow furrowing beneath the red mask. Peter clutches his phone like a lifeline, heat rushing to his face, his entire body going rigid. “Uh—nope! Nothing’s wrong! Totally fine! Just, uh—gotta—go!” Before Matt can say another word, Peter web-slings away, heart pounding.

Later, in his apartment, he stares at the image, biting his lip so hard he might draw blood. Then, fumbling with his phone, he types back: You cannot just drop this on me in the middle of a mission. I almost DIED. You’re gonna make it up to me. In person. Immediately.

Tony Stark aka. Iron Man

Tony Stark is always the one making people flustered. He’s the king of inappropriate timing, the grandmaster of chaos. So when you flip the game on him? When you send him something completely indecent while he’s in the middle of a live press conference? Oh, he is in trouble.

He’s mid-sentence, standing in front of a sea of reporters, when his phone vibrates. He glances at it without thinking, because hey, it might be about stock prices or another alien invasion. But no. No, it’s you. In the filthiest pose imaginable.

He visibly freezes. Blinks. Blanches. Then—his brain blue screens. The entire room stares as Tony suddenly cuts off mid-sentence, clears his throat, and forces a smirk that’s absolutely not covering up a crisis. “Uh—ladies and gentlemen, I think that’s enough questions for today.”

The moment he’s offstage, he stumbles into the nearest private room, yanks at his tie, and pulls out his phone like it holds the meaning of life. He types back immediately: Oh, now you’ve done it, sweetheart. I hope you’re home right now, because I’m on my way, and I’m bringing consequences.

Steve Rogers aka. Captain America

Steve is not a prude. He’s been around, he’s seen things. But there’s something about you—about the way you know exactly how to knock the breath from his lungs—that makes him feel like a kid again.

He’s in the middle of a strategy meeting with Sam and Bucky, his shield leaning against the table, when his phone vibrates. He checks it without thinking, eyes flicking down—and then every muscle in his body tenses. His grip on the phone tightens. His ears burn red.

“You good, Rogers?” Bucky gives him a knowing smirk, because he immediately recognizes that look—Steve flustered beyond belief. Steve clears his throat, hard, locking his phone like it’s offended him. “Fine,” he says, voice a little too even. “Let’s, uh—let’s keep going.”

But later, when he’s alone, he exhales deeply, pressing a hand over his face before looking at the image again. Then, with slow deliberation, he types: I hope you know what you just started. Because I don’t break my promises, sweetheart. And I promise—you’re not leaving that bed when I get there.

Thor Odinson aka. God of Thunder

Thor has seen battles, has waged wars across the cosmos, has faced monsters and gods. But when his phone pings—when he sees the absolute sin that you’ve just sent him—he forgets how to breathe.

He is in the middle of the Avengers’ common room, laughing boisterously with Bruce and Natasha, when he pulls out his phone. He expects something simple—a text from his brother, perhaps, or a message from Jane. But instead? Instead, he sees you.

The entire room feels it when Thor’s laughter stops. There is a moment—just a beat of silence—before the lights flicker. The air crackles with static electricity. His fingers twitch around the phone, and then, in a low, very serious voice, he mutters, “By the Norns…”

Natasha raises an eyebrow, but Thor abruptly stands, clearing his throat. “I must depart. Urgently.” Bruce frowns. “What? Why?” Thor barely offers an explanation before storming out of the room, typing furiously: You dare tempt the God of Thunder? Very well, little one. You shall learn what it means to summon a storm.

Loki Laufeyson aka. God of Mischief

Loki is the undisputed master of control. He is calm, composed, always one step ahead of everyone else. But when you send him something so shameless, so brazen, in the middle of an important diplomatic event in Asgard—he nearly drops his goblet of wine.

He’s reclining on his throne, listening to some dull ambassador drone on about trade negotiations, when his phone vibrates. He lifts it lazily, expecting nothing of importance—until he sees you.

His entire body goes rigid. His grip tightens around the goblet, the silver denting beneath his fingers. His green eyes darken, and for the first time in centuries, he feels his pulse stutter. The ambassador keeps talking, oblivious, but Loki? Loki is seething.

Later, in his chambers, he lounges on his bed, turning the phone over in his fingers before smirking. Then, with slow, careful precision, he types: You dare tease the God of Mischief? Oh, darling, you are in such trouble. And you know how much I enjoy trouble.

Clint Barton aka. Hawkeye

Clint Barton is used to chaos. He’s fought alien invasions, taken down crime syndicates, and, most impressively, lived in a house with three dogs and somehow survived. But nothing—not the Avengers, not S.H.I.E.L.D., not even Kate Bishop’s endless sarcasm—could have prepared him for this.

He’s in the middle of a debriefing with Captain America and Black Widow when his phone vibrates. Normally, he’d ignore it, but boredom gets the better of him. He sneaks a glance, tilting the screen just slightly—and immediately chokes on his coffee.

“Barton?” Natasha’s voice is sharp, her suspicious gaze snapping to him. Steve looks concerned. Clint, on the other hand, is malfunctioning. He quickly locks his phone, pressing it to his thigh like it’s burning him. “Yep. All good. Just… wrong text thread. You know how it is.”

The second he’s alone, he whistles, rubbing a hand down his face before sending a text: You are absolutely trying to kill me, aren’t you? I’m a trained marksman, babe. You know I always hit my target. Hope you’re ready.

Natasha Romanoff aka. Black Widow

Natasha Romanoff is a professional. She’s endured psychological conditioning, trained with the deadliest assassins in the world, and can lie so well that even she forgets what’s real. But when you send her something so utterly filthy, in the middle of a high-stakes poker game with some very dangerous people—she nearly loses her composure.

She’s holding a perfect poker face, one leg crossed over the other, a cigarette between her fingers (purely for effect). Then, her phone buzzes. She never checks her phone during missions, but for some reason, she does this time.

The second she sees the image, her fingers twitch. She almost fumbles her cigarette. Almost. A single slow breath is all that betrays her before she locks the screen and smirks, adjusting her sunglasses to hide the flicker of heat in her gaze.

Later, after she’s won the game (because of course she has), she finally responds: You must be very confident, sending me something like that. I hope you know what happens when I catch my prey, моя любовь (my love). Because I always catch them.

Bucky Barnes aka. Winter Soldier

Bucky is already always on edge. He spent decades being controlled, his mind fractured, his instincts constantly telling him that danger lurks around every corner. But when his phone vibrates in the middle of a mission briefing and he makes the mistake of checking it—he nearly self-destructs.

He’s sitting next to Sam Wilson, arms crossed, trying to focus on the tactical discussion. Then, out of habit, he glances at his phone. And suddenly? His enhanced heartbeat spikes. His grip on the phone tightens, metal fingers creaking.

Sam immediately notices. “Dude. You okay?” Bucky doesn’t answer. He just exhales deeply, jaw clenching, and locks his phone like it’s personally offended him. “Fine,” he mutters, but the way his throat bobs betrays him.

Later, in the privacy of his room, he leans against the wall, pressing his flesh hand over his face before looking at the image again. Then, he types—slow, deliberate, full of promise: You are playing with fire, doll. And you know I don’t burn alone.

Matthew Murdock aka. Daredevil

Matt has learned to control himself. He has to, considering his senses pick up everything. The heartbeat of a liar, the scent of blood, the whisper of fabric against skin. But when he puts in his earpiece during a stakeout with Elektra and hears you—sultry, teasing, wicked—his composure shatters.

Your voice is a purr, warm and full of amusement, as you describe, in explicit detail, exactly what you want to do to him. Every syllable slides into his ear like a sin, and for the first time in years, Matt Murdock forgets how to breathe.

“Murdock.” Elektra’s voice is unimpressed. “Are you even listening?” Matt clenches his jaw, forcing his expression into something neutral as he slowly removes the earpiece. “Yeah,” he lies, his voice way too tight. “Loud and clear.” But his fingers twitch, betraying him.

Later, alone in his apartment, he plays the message again. And again. Until his own heartbeat is thunderous in his ears. Then, with a slow smirk, he records his reply—his voice low, gravelly, barely more than a rasp: Angel, you have no idea what you’ve just done. And I promise—you won’t be able to walk tomorrow.

Frank Castle aka. The Punisher

Frank Castle does not fluster. He’s a man who’s seen the worst of the world, a soldier who has lost everything. He does not get distracted. But when he’s sitting in the middle of a grimy bar, brooding over a whiskey, and his phone vibrates—everything stops.

He checks it absently, expecting intel from Micro or maybe a warning from Daredevil. But instead, he gets you. And just like that, his grip on the glass tightens. His jaw locks. His entire body tenses, muscles coiled, because you have just sent him something so utterly indecent that he has to set his whiskey down before he crushes the glass.

The bartender notices. “You good, man?” Frank barely glances up, his fingers white-knuckled around his phone. “Fine,” he mutters, voice rough. He shoves his phone back in his pocket and downs the rest of his drink in one go.

Later, in the dead of night, he finally lets himself look at the picture again. He exhales, rubbing a hand over his face, before sending a single message: You think you’re real cute, huh? Yeah. Keep that same energy when I get home. See if you’re still smirking when I’ve got my hands on you.

Marc Spector aka. Moon Knight

Marc has lived multiple lives. A mercenary. A vigilante. A fist of vengeance. But the moment his phone vibrates in the middle of a stakeout, and he sees you—he nearly blows his own cover.

He’s perched on a rooftop, watching a weapons deal go down, his mind sharp and focused. Then, out of habit, he checks his phone. His breath hitches. His grip tightens around the device, and he has to physically restrain himself from groaning. Khonshu’s voice rumbles in his mind: "Your mortal desires are distracting, Spector." Marc grits his teeth. "Yeah, no shit."

“Something wrong?” Jake’s voice purrs from inside his head, amused. “She send you something nice, hermano?” Marc rolls his eyes, exhaling sharply before locking his phone. “Mind your damn business.” But his pulse is thundering.

Later, back at his apartment, he leans against the wall, staring at the image before typing: You have no idea what you’ve just done. Hope you’re home. Hope you’re ready.

Johnny Storm aka. Human Torch

Johnny Storm is used to attention. He thrives on it. He’s a celebrity, a hero, a walking flame. But when you send him something scandalous in the middle of a live television interview, even he isn’t ready for it.

He’s laughing, flashing his signature cocky grin at the camera, when his phone buzzes. He checks it without thinking—because hey, it might be Sue yelling at him again—but instead, it’s you. In the filthiest pose imaginable.

Johnny visibly chokes. His entire body tenses. For the first time ever, he forgets what he was saying. The interviewer blinks. “Uh… Johnny?” His brain short-circuits. His face heats—literally. The tips of his ears ignite before he clenches his fists and forces himself to not spontaneously combust on live television.

The second the interview is over, he’s sprinting to his dressing room, slamming the door shut and typing frantically: Ohhh, you are in trouble. You’re really trying to set me on fire, huh? Hope you’re home, babe, ‘cause I’m flying over. Right. Now.

Reed Richards aka. Mister Fantastic

Reed Richards is a genius. His mind is constantly working at speeds beyond human comprehension. But when he’s mid-lecture at a prestigious scientific conference and his phone vibrates—his brilliant mind suddenly goes blank.

He absently checks his phone, half-expecting an alert from the Baxter Building. But instead, it’s you. Wearing almost nothing.

For a solid ten seconds, he is frozen. His eyes slightly widen. His fingers twitch. And then, very slowly, he locks his phone and clears his throat. “Ah—excuse me, esteemed colleagues, but I must—um—attend to an urgent matter.”

Later, he adjusts his glasses, staring at the image with a fascinated, almost scientific appreciation. Then, with methodical precision, he types: You are a very distracting woman. I will be conducting an… in-depth study on you as soon as I return. Expect a thorough examination.

Felicia Hardy aka. Black Cat

Felicia Hardy is a master of seduction. She flusters men for fun. But when she’s in the middle of a high-stakes casino heist, and you send her something utterly indecent, even she loses her composure.

She’s leaning against the bar, sipping an expensive martini, eyes locked on her mark. Then, her phone buzzes. She lazily checks it, expecting an update from her crew. But instead? Instead, she sees you.

Her eyelashes flutter. Her lips part just slightly. And for the first time in years, her poker face cracks. The bartender—oblivious—raises an eyebrow. “Everything okay, miss?” Felicia exhales, smirking as she locks her phone. “Oh, it’s better than okay.”

Later, she lounges on silk sheets, staring at the picture before purring into her phone: You really think you can tease me, kitten? Oh, sweetheart… you just made a very expensive bet. And I never lose.

Stephen Strange aka. Doctor Strange

Stephen Strange is not easily shaken. He’s fought cosmic horrors, bent reality, and wielded power beyond mortal comprehension. But when he’s in the middle of a magical duel with Dormammu, and you send him a sinfully explicit picture—he almost loses.

He’s mid-incantation, floating above the Sanctum’s rooftop, when his phone vibrates. Normally, he’d ignore it—except something in the back of his mind tells him it’s you. He flicks his fingers, glancing at the screen—and immediately regrets it.

His spell stutters. His fingers twitch. The fabric of reality briefly warps. Wong, standing below, yells, “What the hell was that?!” Stephen clenches his jaw, locking his phone immediately before snapping his wrist and repairing the timeline. “Nothing,” he mutters. “Absolutely nothing.”

The moment the battle is over, he retreats into his study, loosening his Cloak, before typing: You dare distract the Sorcerer Supreme? You have no idea what you’ve just unleashed, darling. And I do hope you’re prepared for consequences beyond mortal comprehension.

Namor aka. The Sub-Mariner

Namor is a king. He does not answer to anyone. He has waged war against the surface world, stood against the mightiest heroes, and commands the loyalty of an entire empire. But when he is seated on his throne, discussing politics with his council, and his communicator vibrates—everything else becomes irrelevant.

He glances down, expecting a diplomatic missive. Instead, he is greeted by you—a vision of temptation, captured in a way that only he has the privilege to see. His grip on the communicator tightens, his lips parting slightly. The light of the display reflects in his dark, narrowed eyes.

The council drones on, but Namor hears nothing. His golden gauntlets flex, his knuckles tightening as his jaw sets. A slow, deliberate exhale is all that betrays his reaction. But those closest to him—his most trusted generals—see the flicker of something dangerous in his expression. A storm, barely contained.

Later, as he stands upon his balcony, overlooking the endless ocean, he types a single response: You seek to tempt a king, my love? Then be prepared for the wrath of a god. When next we meet, you will drown in my devotion.

Johnny Blaze aka. Ghost Rider

Johnny Blaze has seen Hell—literally. He has ridden across the desolate highways of damnation, stared into the abyss, and laughed. But when he’s sitting in a biker bar, nursing a whiskey and half-listening to some guy ramble about the Devil, his phone vibrates. And when he checks it—he nearly sets the whole place on fire.

The image of you is burned into his mind, seared into his soul. He sucks in a slow breath through his teeth, his fingers tightening around the glass. His knuckles go white. Somewhere deep inside, the Spirit of Vengeance chuckles.

“Something wrong, Blaze?” One of the other bikers eyes him warily. Johnny forces a smirk, setting his whiskey down before he crushes the glass in his grip. “Nah,” he rasps, his voice a little too rough. “Just realized I got… unfinished business to take care of.”

Later, on his Hellfire-coated bike, he sends a text: You got a real bad habit of making me wanna sin, sweetheart. And I promise—I’ll make sure you repent. Over. And over.

Eddie Brock & Venom aka. Venom

Eddie Brock has been through hell. He’s fought monsters, been one himself, lost everything, and still kept going. But nothing—not a damn thing—could prepare him for the absolute carnage of getting that picture from you in the middle of a crowded subway.

He’s scrolling through his phone absentmindedly, Venom muttering in his head about wanting tater tots, when the image loads. For a solid five seconds, he is completely still. Then—

“Eddie.” Venom’s voice rumbles, amused. “Your mate is very… bold. We approve.” Eddie, red-faced, slams his phone against his chest like that’ll somehow erase what just happened. “Jesus Christ,” he mutters, eyes darting around to make sure no one saw. A teenager across from him raises an eyebrow.

Later, when he’s alone, he finally lets himself look at the picture again. A slow, predatory grin spreads across his face as he types back: Oh, you think you’re being cute, huh? Yeah. Just wait till I get my hands on you. Hell, maybe we’ll even let Venom have a little fun, too.

T’Challa aka. Black Panther

T’Challa is a king, a warrior, a legend. His mind is a fortress, his will unshakable. But when he is seated in the royal palace of Wakanda, surrounded by dignitaries, and his Kimoyo Beads alert him to a personal message—his focus wavers.

He allows himself a discreet glance. And in that moment? His heart skips a single beat. His fingers—steady even in the heat of battle—tighten just slightly around his beads. His expression does not change. But to those who know him well—Okoye, Shuri—they notice the subtlest flicker of something dangerous in his eyes.

Shuri smirks. “Brother,” she murmurs, leaning in. “You look… distracted.” T’Challa exhales deeply, locking the message with a casual flick of his fingers. “I am merely… anticipating a conversation.”

Later, when he is alone, he reviews the picture once more, fingers grazing his jaw before he types: You are testing my patience, beloved. And you know I am a man of great discipline. But for you? I am willing to break my own rules. Expect me soon.

Elektra Natchios aka. Elektra

Elektra Natchios does not fluster. She has slit the throats of kings, danced on the edge of oblivion, and played cat-and-mouse with death itself. But when she is sharpening her sai on the rooftop of a New York high-rise and her phone buzzes—her grip falters.

The blade nicks her glove. Barely. But it happens. Her lips part in a slow, dangerous smirk as she tilts the phone toward the moonlight, drinking in the absolute audacity of your message.

“Something amusing?” A voice—a rival assassin, lurking in the shadows. Elektra does not answer. She merely tucks her phone away, standing smoothly, her stance lethal. “Yes,” she purrs. “Something… very amusing.”

You join the Avengers in the least dramatic way possible.

No alien invasions.

No secret prophecies.

No world-ending catastrophe.

You’re simply very, very good at your job.

You’re a trauma medic attached to a relief organization the Avengers occasionally partner with, and after patching up three agents, one diplomat, and Sam Wilson himself during a mission in Madripoor, Fury offers you a permanent position.

You say no.

Twice.

The third time, Pepper Potts calls personally.

By the fourth offer, you finally cave.

Which is how you end up living in the compound three floors beneath a supersoldier who actively avoids you.

At first, you assume he just doesn’t like people.

Natasha informs you otherwise.

“Oh, he likes people,” Natasha Romanoff says dryly over breakfast. “Just not many.”

You glance toward the empty seat Bucky abandoned the second you walked into the kitchen.

“…Did I offend him somehow?”

Natasha actually chokes on her coffee.

Across from her, Sam suddenly becomes deeply fascinated by his cereal.

“What?” you ask.

“Nothing,” Natasha says immediately.

“Absolutely nothing,” Sam agrees.

You narrow your eyes.

Neither elaborates.

You begin noticing things after that.

Little things.

Bucky always leaves the room when you enter it—but somehow your favorite tea always appears stocked in the kitchen.

You mention once that the compound hallways are freezing, and two days later there’s a thick knit blanket folded neatly outside your door with no note attached.

You complain about a stubborn cabinet hinge in your apartment.

The next morning it’s fixed.

No one admits responsibility.

But when you thank Bucky casually over dinner just to test a theory, he nearly inhales his drink.

“…Wasn’t me.”

You smile slowly.

“Okay.”

He stares at you like you’re dangerous.

Which is ridiculous.

You’re wearing bunny slippers.

The age gap becomes obvious one night during a movie marathon.

You, Sam, Peter, and Bucky are sprawled across the common room while some absurd eighties action movie plays on the screen.

Peter groans dramatically. “This CGI is awful.”

“It looked good at the time,” you argue.

Bucky turns his head.

“At the time?”

You freeze.

Sam bursts into laughter so violently he almost falls off the couch.

“Oh my God,” he gasps. “She thinks the eighties are ancient history.”

“They are ancient history,” you defend.

Bucky stares at you with something between horror and disbelief.

“You were born after the eighties?”

“…Yes?”

“The nineties?” he asks weakly.

“Yes.”

Peter pipes up helpfully. “She was born in 1998.”

Bucky looks like someone shot him.

You blink. “Are you okay?”

“No,” Sam says gleefully. “He is not.”

Bucky stands abruptly.

“I’m going for a walk.”

Sam loses it completely.

After that, Bucky avoids you harder.

Which would almost be impressive if he weren’t terrible at hiding the fact that he cares about you.

He watches you constantly.

Not in a creepy way.

In a protective way.

Like he’s making sure you’re breathing.

You catch it in fragments.

His eyes tracking you during missions.

His body subtly positioning between you and danger.

The way he relaxes when you laugh.

The way he goes still when someone touches you for too long.

You start understanding the truth before anyone says it aloud.

Bucky Barnes is in love with you.

And for some insane reason—

You’re falling for him too.

It happens slowly.

Then all at once.

You fall for his quietness first.

Most people assume silence means emptiness.

Bucky’s silence is full.

Heavy with observation. Care. Thoughtfulness.

He notices everything.

The exact way you take your coffee.

The songs you hum absentmindedly.

Which nightmares leave you restless.

You realize he starts leaving the compound gym earlier on mornings after you wake from bad dreams.

Like he’s trying to make breakfast before you get there.

Like feeding people is the only comfort he knows how to offer.

And God.

When he smiles?

Rare. Small. Crooked.

It feels precious.

Like discovering something hidden beneath ice.

The problem is that Bucky refuses to let anything happen between you.

The closer you get, the more distance he forces between you afterward.

You’ll spend hours talking on the roof at night—sharing stories and terrible coffee and quiet laughter—and then he’ll avoid you for three straight days.

It hurts more than you expect.

Because you know he feels it too.

One night, after a mission in Prague, you finally corner him.

He’s sitting alone in the hangar cleaning his weapons when you walk in.

“Did I do something wrong?”

His hands stop moving instantly.

“No.”

“Then why are you avoiding me?”

“I’m not.”

You fold your arms.

He sighs.

“You shouldn’t be down here.”

“Bucky—”

“You should be out with people your own age.”

The words hit like cold water.

You stare at him.

“…What?”

He doesn’t look at you.

“You’re young. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you.”

“And?”

“And I’m not…” He swallows hard. “I’m not someone you build a future with.”

Anger sparks sharp and immediate.

“You don’t get to decide that for me.”

His jaw tightens.

“You think this is a joke?”

“I think you’re scared.”

That gets his attention.

Steel-blue eyes snap to yours.

“You don’t know what I am.”

“I know exactly what you are,” you fire back. “You’re kind. You’re loyal. You’re infuriatingly self-sacrificing. You bring me tea when I’m stressed and pretend you didn’t. You stay outside the medbay when I work late because you think I don’t notice.”

His expression fractures slightly.

“You deserve someone better.”

“No,” you say softly. “I deserve to choose.”

Silence stretches between you.

Raw.

Fragile.

Bucky looks wrecked by it.

By you.

“You don’t understand,” he whispers. “I remember too much.”

Your anger fades instantly.

Slowly, carefully, you walk toward him.

He goes perfectly still.

“I know,” you say gently.

“You’re twenty-seven.”

“Twenty-eight.”

“That’s not helping.”

Despite everything, you laugh quietly.

His eyes close briefly like the sound physically affects him.

“You’re gonna wake up one day,” he says roughly, “and realize you wasted your life on an old man with too many ghosts.”

You crouch in front of him.

“James.”

He looks at you helplessly.

“You are not hard to love.”

Something inside him breaks.

You see it happen in real time.

Like a wall finally cracking after decades under pressure.

His metal hand flexes once.

“You shouldn’t say things like that to me.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to believe you.”

Your heart aches.

So you do the only thing that feels right.

You take his hand.

Both of them.

Flesh and metal.

Equally.

“I mean it.”

Bucky stares at your joined hands like he’s never seen anything so devastating.

Then he pulls away.

Not harshly.

Worse.

Carefully.

Like it costs him everything.

“I can’t.”

And he leaves.

You cry exactly once about it.

Natasha finds you sitting on the kitchen counter at two in the morning eating dry cereal from the box.

“You look terrible,” she says.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

She takes the cereal from you.

“…He said no?”

You nod miserably.

Natasha sighs the sigh of someone deeply exhausted by male stupidity.

“He loves you.”

“I know.”

“Unfortunately, he’s also an idiot.”

A startled laugh escapes you.

Natasha bumps your shoulder lightly.

“Give him time.”

Time, unfortunately, turns out to involve disaster.

Because of course it does.

This is the Avengers.

Nothing emotionally significant can happen without explosions.

The mission in Bucharest goes sideways fast.

An arms deal.

Bad intel.

Too many hostiles.

You’re there strictly as medical support, tucked safely in the quinjet several blocks away.

At least, that’s the plan.

Then the building collapses.

Your comms erupt with shouting.

“Medic down—”

“—need extraction—”

“Where’s Barnes?”

Dust fills the air.

You’re dragged from the wreckage half-conscious with blood running down your temple and your left leg trapped beneath concrete.

And then Bucky arrives.

You’ve seen the Winter Soldier before.

Cold.

Efficient.

Terrifying.

But this?

This is different.

This is rage.

Pure, horrifying rage.

He tears through debris with his metal arm like the rubble personally offended him.

Someone tries to stop him.

That person immediately regrets it.

“BUCKY—” Sam shouts.

Bucky ignores everyone.

His eyes find you.

And you swear the entire world stills.

“Hey,” you whisper weakly.

He drops to his knees beside you.

Hands shaking.

Actually shaking.

“Don’t move,” he says, voice rough with panic.

“I wasn’t planning on it.”

Your attempt at humor nearly destroys him.

You can see it.

Blood loss makes everything hazy, but one thing becomes crystal clear:

Bucky loves you so much it terrifies him.

He lifts the concrete slab like it weighs nothing.

The second you’re free, he gathers you against his chest.

Protective.

Desperate.

Your face presses against tactical gear and leather and the frantic pounding of his heart.

“You’re okay,” he mutters, like he’s trying to convince himself. “You’re okay.”

“I’m okay.”

His forehead rests briefly against your hair.

For one tiny moment, the world disappears.

No missions.

No history.

No fear.

Just him.

Just you.

Then your pain catches up.

You hiss sharply.

Bucky immediately pulls back. “Medbay. Now.”

The quinjet ride is chaos.

You fade in and out while Bruce works on your leg.

Bucky never leaves your side.

Not once.

At some point you wake to find him sitting beside your cot, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor like he’s praying.

“You stayed,” you murmur.

His head snaps up instantly.

“Yeah.”

“You hate medbays.”

“I hate hospitals.”

“Still counts.”

A faint huff of laughter leaves him.

Relief flickers across his face just hearing you joke again.

You watch him quietly.

Disheveled hair.

Blood on his gloves.

Exhaustion carved into every line of his body.

And underneath it all—

Love.

So much love.

“Bucky.”

His eyes meet yours.

“Come here.”

He hesitates.

Then obeys.

You shift carefully, making room for him beside the cot.

“Doll—”

“Please.”

That word wrecks him every time.

He sits carefully beside you.

You lean into him immediately.

No hesitation.

His entire body locks up.

Then slowly—

Slowly—

He wraps an arm around you.

Like holding you is both instinct and privilege.

You rest your head against his shoulder.

“I meant what I said before,” you whisper.

Silence.

Then quietly:

“I know.”

“You still think you’re too old for me?”

A long pause.

“…Yeah.”

You snort softly.

He looks offended.

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.” You tilt your head back to look at him. “You know what I think?”

“What?”

“I think you’re using age because it’s easier than admitting you’re scared someone might actually love you enough to stay.”

Bucky goes still.

Dead still.

The truth lands hard.

You see it.

And because apparently you enjoy emotional violence, you add gently:

“I think everyone leaves you eventually, and you’re trying to leave first.”

His breathing catches.

For a second you think he might walk away again.

Instead, he whispers:

“You make me want things.”

Your chest tightens painfully.

“What kind of things?”

“A home.” His voice is barely audible. “A future. Somethin’ normal.” He swallows hard. “Kids, maybe.”

Your eyes sting unexpectedly.

Bucky looks horrified he admitted that aloud.

“You’d be a good dad,” you say softly.

He laughs once.

Broken.

“No, sweetheart. I wouldn’t.”

“You already are.”

His brows pull together.

You smile faintly. “You take care of everyone. Especially the people you love.”

The word hangs there.

Love.

He doesn’t deny it this time.

Instead, he reaches up carefully and brushes hair away from your face.

His fingertips linger against your cheek.

Warm flesh hand.

Not the metal one.

Like he still thinks the other might hurt you.

“Tell me to stop,” he whispers.

Your heart pounds.

“Why would I do that?”

His eyes darken with emotion so intense it almost hurts to look at.

Then finally—

Finally—

He kisses you.

Soft at first.

Tentative.

Like he’s waiting for the world to punish him for wanting this.

But the second you kiss him back, everything changes.

His hand slides behind your neck.

He kisses like a man starved.

Like he’s been holding himself back for months and doesn’t know how to do it anymore.

It’s not frantic.

It’s worse.

Careful.

Reverent.

Every brush of his mouth says something he doesn’t know how to speak aloud.

You pull back breathless.

Bucky’s forehead drops against yours.

“I’m in so much trouble,” he mutters.

You laugh softly.

“Because you kissed me?”

“Because I’m never gonna stop wanting to do it again.”

Dating Bucky Barnes is surprisingly domestic.

You expect intensity.

Drama.

Brooding declarations in the rain.

Instead, you get:

Quiet mornings.

His hand at the small of your back.

Shared coffee.

Movie nights where he falls asleep with his head in your lap despite insisting supersoldiers “don’t nap.”

You get Alpine deciding you’re her favorite human.

You get Bucky standing in the kitchen at midnight making grilled cheese while listening to you ramble about terrible reality television.

You get a man who loves fiercely but carefully.

Like your happiness is something precious he’s been entrusted with.

The age gap still bothers him sometimes.

Usually in small ways.

Pop culture references.

Technology.

The occasional existential crisis when you tease him about being born before penicillin.

“You are never saying that sentence again,” he informs you gravely.

You grin. “You were literally alive during swing dancing.”

“So were old people in the nineties.”

“You are old people in the nineties.”

He glares.

Then kisses you to shut you up.

Which honestly feels like a win.

The real turning point comes six months later.

It’s after a mission.

A bad one.

You wake in the middle of the night to find Bucky sitting on the edge of the bed staring at nothing.

Nightmare.

You recognize the signs now.

Without speaking, you move closer and press against his back.

His shoulders tense briefly.

Then sag.

“You okay?” you whisper.

“No.”

Honest.

Always honest with you now.

You wrap your arms around his waist.

“You wanna talk about it?”

Long silence.

Then quietly:

“I saw you die.”

Your chest aches.

“In the dream?”

He nods once.

You press a kiss between his shoulder blades.

“I’m still here.”

“For now.”

The fear in his voice destroys you.

You turn him gently until he faces you.

“You know what’s really unfair?” you murmur.

“What?”

“You think loving you is a burden.”

His eyes flicker downward.

“But loving you is the easiest thing I’ve ever done.”

Emotion crashes across his face so openly it startles you.

You touch his jaw softly.

“I’m not going anywhere, James.”

And for the first time—

He believes you.

You can actually see it happen.

The shift.

The surrender.

His walls finally lowering completely.

Bucky pulls you into his lap and buries his face against your neck.

Holding you so tightly it feels instinctive.

Necessary.

“I love you,” he says roughly.

Not tentative.

Not fearful.

Certain.

“I love you too.”

He kisses you afterward like he finally understands he’s allowed to.

A year later, Sam finds Bucky in the compound kitchen staring at a jewelry website with naked panic.

Sam nearly drops his smoothie.

“Oh, this is serious.”

Bucky slams the laptop shut.

“Get out.”

Sam grins slowly. “You’re proposing.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You’re absolutely proposing.”

Bucky scowls.

Sam’s expression softens unexpectedly.

“You happy?”

Bucky glances toward the hallway where your laughter echoes faintly from another room.

His entire face changes.

Softens in a way that would probably terrify his enemies.

“Yeah,” he admits quietly. “Yeah, I am.”

He proposes on the roof.

No audience.

No elaborate setup.

Just the city lights below and cold evening air curling around both of you.

You’re rambling about something completely ridiculous when he interrupts suddenly:

“I wanna spend the rest of my life loving you.”

You blink.

“…What?”

Bucky looks nervous.

Actually nervous.

More nervous than when facing down armed mercenaries.

“I had this whole speech planned,” he mutters, frustrated. “Was supposed to be better than this.”

Your heart starts pounding.

He drops to one knee anyway.

“I know I’m older than you.”

You snort through sudden tears. “Slightly.”

“Brat.”

You grin shakily.

Bucky takes your hand carefully.

Reverently.

“But every good thing I have now started with you.” His voice roughens. “You made me believe I could still have a life after everything.”

Tears spill down your cheeks immediately.

“So yeah,” he says softly. “Marry me?”

You don’t even let him finish reaching for the ring box before you’re kissing him.

Bucky laughs against your mouth for the first time since you’ve known him.

Pure happiness.

Unrestrained.

“Yes?” he asks breathlessly.

“Yes.”

Again.

“Yes.”

He slides the ring onto your finger with shaking hands.

Then pulls you into his arms like he never intends to let go again.

And this time—