#mcu fic

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.

it was a rainy morning, dark clouds had covered the sky, and the atmosphere was melancholic. you had just stepped out of the book cafe you usually went to study or read in, it was a hidden gem in the ever-crowded streets of new york city, usually quiet and peaceful. this time, you’d just paid a visit to buy a drink with some pastries.

today’s gloomy weather felt right to you, somehow, it spoke to your soul and fit your mood. you’d stuffed the pastries you’d bought into your bag, and you were going to walk around a little bit, holding your drink in one hand, your umbrella in the other. you thought you might sit somewhere, maybe go to a park after walking for twenty or so minutes, you enjoyed the smell of rain mixing with earth to bring life to the world.

and that’s when you saw him.

he was standing at the other side of the road, wearing a simple hoodie, getting wet from the rain. an expression on his face as gloomy as the weather. he’d grown, his face had taken a sharper shape, his hair had curled on the tips from meeting with water.

peter parker, the boy from your ap chemistry class, from days long forgotten, and much less destructive.

you froze, your gaze set on his face, which had been painted in subtle and few scars, and bent downward from either the rain getting into his eyes, or life. the regular noise of the city was reduced to background buzzing in your ears, all the pedestrians walking past you, and the people waiting to cross roads around peter had turned blurry and faceless, the cars passing by had become trails of colors. the boy, or perhaps now man, you had just noticed, was someone you’d never thought you’d see again.

peter parker had been the smartest student in the class you took together, you used to keep notes and read ahead before every lesson, and he’d come sleep-deprived, busy himself with unrelated trinkets, and answer every unexpected question coming his way correctly. later, when you learned that he was spiderman, you realised he must’ve been so tired and out-of-it every day for saving lives and fighting crime.

you had learned of his superhero activities, like everyone else in the world. you didn’t use to see him outside of your shared lecture hours, not because you were actively avoiding him, fate just hadn’t coincided a conversation between you two. after you’d passed the course and stopped seeing peter entirely, you hadn’t busied your mind with thoughts of him, until that incident with mysterio. learning that he’d been trying to help people every step of the way, back when you used to see him, had changed your view of him.

and then, suddenly, no one remembered anymore. you saw it all happen. you saw the sky shatter and shadows watch the earth through its cracks. you saw what you could only describe as hundreds of aliens preying on your planet. you knew spiderman fought to save the world from their clutches. yet when it was all over, no one remembered the hell-torn skies. or peter parker.

no one remembered he was spiderman. no one remembered he was peter parker. no one remembered peter parker was. no one from your old high school, not even his best friend, not even his girlfriend. they all looked at you as if you spoke of a ghost, he was a painted over memory, he’d escaped from the weak grasps of the growing brains of the youth and the ever-tired minds of the grown.

he’d even escaped from records and photos, like how short-lived cherry blossoms disappeared in a week, as if trees had never been pink. like how spring never lasted. you’d questioned whether you’d made him up, if something was wrong with you. but how could you make up a whole person, that you simply never had a relationship with? he wasn’t an imaginary friend, he had never been a friend.

trying to catch a glimpse of his existence had been like trying to catch smoke with bare hands. and yet, now, he was standing right in front of you, waiting to cross roads. waiting to come towards you.

the lights turned green for pedestrians, and peter snapped out of his stillness, he gained motion, he slowly came closer. people around you made noises indicating they were annoyed at your inaction, but you could barely hear any of them. you were focused completely on one person only.

he crossed the road, and started walking the opposite way from where you had been nailed to the ground, unable to take your eyes off him.

no, don’t go. i must know. i must talk.

you ran after him, forcefully making yourself a way amongst bodies covered in layers of clothing. you closed your umbrella, so it wouldn’t get tangled in others’. you caught up to peter, and grabbed his arm.

he turned instantly, gripping your arm in return, a shocked expression on his face, ready to take you down, had you posed a threat. he looked into your eyes; questioning, confused, hesitant… sorrowful? how had he grown so solemn? how had he lived forgotten?

“peter?” you asked, “peter parker? is that you?”

his eyes widened, grip loosened, lips parted. he looked completely dumbfounded, drops of water dripping down strands of his hair, and the tip of his nose. he searched for something in your eyes, just silently thinking. trying to process, you assumed.

he opened his mouth to talk, and his breath hitched.

“you…” he started, seemingly talking feeling like labor to him, “you know who i am?”

you couldn’t help giving him a sincere smile, he really was peter parker. the boy from your class who was remembered by no one. he was real.

“i was in the same ap chemistry class as you in high school,” you explained, he might not have remembered you, as you’d never interacted outside of topics regarding course materials, “if you don’t remember.”

“no, no,” said peter, his voice still laced with shock, and a tune that dropped a tiny piece of despair into your chest, “i remember. you were the smartest student in class.”

“that’s… debatable,” you said, your surprise clearly read from your face.

“it wasn’t,” he said, defensive, “everyone borrowed your notes, and you always had the correct answers.”

“so did you,” you said softly, the bitter taste of nostalgia repainted with a blue hue catching up to you, tightening your chest, placing a lump in your throat. “what happened, peter?” you asked, “why have you disappeared?”

peter closed his mouth, and his grip slightly hardened, he hadn’t let your arm go. you hadn’t let his go, either.

he lowered his head, and fixed his gaze on the grey stone ground. you couldn’t quite name the emotions you saw in his eyes, but they made you tear up. what must it have been like to suddenly cease existing? what must he have been through? what must he have thought, watching his chosen family from afar, like a vampire looking at a mirror, erased from his own reflection?

the cloudy weather truly felt fit for the day, maybe peter had been feeling it too, today. raindrops fell on earth like shattered glass pieces, you thought you might’ve been bleeding with your umbrella down, but peter wasn’t, was his skin thicker?

“would you like to sit down somewhere, peter?” the tale must have been long, how else could a person, and a rift in the atmosphere, be erased from the minds of billions? “like a bench at the park, or maybe my place?”

he looked deep into your eyes, thinking.

“okay,” he said at last, determination adorning his words now, “we can. we can,” he said while nodding.

“okay,” you repeated after him, and finally let his arm go.

────── 𓆩˚.⋆🕸⋆.˚𓆪 ──────

peter had been on his way to his small apartment, by himself, as always, after another long, sleepless night, that rainy morning. clouds had covered the sky, obscuring the sun, as if to match the weather inside his ribcage. the sun hadn’t shone on him since it had seen space ripped apart because of him, for his mistakes.

it was a day the same as any other; he was walking in the crowd, unseen without a mask, faceless. then, someone he hadn't sensed had touched him, must have been because no harm was intended, yet he'd felt alarmed.

a girl, he'd realized, a familiar face. that wasn't strange, he was used to seeing people he used to know, what was strange was... the look you had in your eyes, almost like you recognized him. a kind of tiny beam of light in your irises, aimed at him.

and then you called out his name.

the world tilted. he felt as if hit by a shockwave, rolling backwards, losing the tightness of his grip on reality, on you. he’d been completely dumbfounded, he could barely process what was happening. someone remembered him. you remembered him. you knew.

he looked you over again, he remembered, too. he remembered how you sat at the front seat, carefully trailing the teacher with your eyes, focus unbreakable. you didn’t use to look his way unless he was asking or answering a question related to the course, he wouldn’t think you would recognize him under normal circumstances, without happenings made foggy through magic, let alone when the whole world has left him behind. the whole multiverse.

he couldn’t get out of the shock he’d been thrown into, not even enough to wonder the why, the how, or think of the implications of the possibility that someone(s) might not have forgotten. he had been erased even from stone and paper, ink had evaporated, computers had lost their binary numbers. human memories couldn’t even be held, they must’ve been so easily broken apart and mended without wholeness again, didn’t people always forget things, anyway?

that had been hard to accept, of course. the fact that the feelings people reserved for him were fragile and unresistant, that they could be so fully erased, that they could be erased at all. but you remembered, was your mind stronger, or was it the impression he’d left on you? was it you, or him?

he hadn’t even been able to ponder if this was a good thing at all, if he should be worried, if he should accept this, how he should react. the past year had been so soul-crushing, so lonely, that after slightly getting over the initial shock that had hit him, holding back his tears had been all he could manage to do. you were wet from the rain, a drink forgotten and an umbrella folded in one of your hands, the other one holding him, looking at him expectantly, worried. you had come after him. you were holding onto him. he tightened his grip again.

you’d even wanted to talk more, to learn of his story, to listen. so he’d agreed, he suspected he would chase you on that road if you’d walked away. his chest had been closing in on his veins and heart, increasing the pressure and twisting his organs, breathing had become harder every day for the past year, he was suffocating. you’d held his arm like a tree branch offered to a drowning kid, an olive branch offered to a warring people, a willow… willows were hunched and weary, weren’t they? he was like a willow, layers of leaves covering his face, unseen.

he didn’t have anywhere to go, or anyone waiting for him. he hadn’t wanted to let you go, now that someone had finally, truly seen the shape of his face. so he had just followed you, let you draw a destination for two.

you had brought him to a small apartment, similar to his own, in an austere street lined with buildings that were short compared to the signature buildings of new york city. you’d told him you were staying there for the time being. your place, as you’d put it. the inside was much nicer than his living space, expectedly, and it contrasted with the grey view of the street from your windows and the pipe-filled outer layer of your apartment building. the floor was covered in soft carpets, the living room was filled with books, its walls covered in bookshelves, academic books left open and stationary scattered about on a table, notebooks filled with your handwriting, it was lived in.

you had taken him to the kitchen, said you’d just bought pastries and had some leftovers to reheat for him, he’d insisted it wasn’t necessary, but you’d shut him down. “how could i send my guest off on an empty stomach?” you’d asked, made him sit down at the kitchen table, and gotten to work on the countertop. the living room had smelled of a flowery incense he couldn’t name, the kitchen was now smelling of baked dough and vegetable soup, making him feel his hunger. he hadn’t eaten anything for breakfast, or during the night.

“i apologize for the mess,” you said, while putting two bowls of steamy soup on the table, “i wasn’t expecting a guest.”

“oh, no, no,” he quickly scrambled to apologize himself, “i don’t mind at all, i’m sorry for… for…” he gestured around himself, trying to find the right words. being a burden? interrupting?

“for accepting my invite? i’d say that was the polite response,” you said, finally sitting opposite to him, having brought the pastries you’d sliced and placed on plates nicely, and the fruit salad you’d quickly put together. “thank you for that, by the way.”

he didn’t know what to say, he looked down flustered, “i- of course- i mean, thank you for inviting me,” he said, gesturing towards you with his hand, a slight smile on his face. how long had it been since he last smiled? it sure didn’t feel like an every day occurrence.

you gave him back a smile that made him… feel warm. he was still on the verge of tears, he was barely holding it together, focusing on the moment, trying not to let all the overwhelming feelings leave his body.

“please, enjoy,” you said, as you slid the plates closer to him, and he nodded in gratitude. he was hungry, and looking at the warm vegetable bisque… he hadn’t eaten a homemade meal in a very, very long time, especially one that was delicious, one that was warm.

and it was delicious. it tasted like a hug, a hearthfire, a blanket. it tasted like something you would eat at your home, like something your mother would cook for you. “this is,” he started, in between spoonfuls, “this is great. you’re a good cook.”

“thank you,” you said, and then started explaining. “i roasted tomatoes, carrots, zucchini, potatoes, bell peppers, and an onion, and blended them with vegetable broth and cream, so probably the easiest way to make something like…” you trailed off as you realised peter was… crying. he was looking down on the bowl of soup in front of him, and tears were silently rolling down his cheeks, as he kept taking spoonfuls.

peter was mortified at his reaction, he quickly scrambled to wipe his face with the tissues you’d placed on the table, and apologize. you told him it was fine, and he could take however much time he needed or wanted. you let him eat and think in silence for as long as he needed, you gave him time and space as he filled his stomach with warm food and sweet fruits. he didn’t know why tears had won against his willpower this time around, considering how good he’d gotten at holding them in. he didn’t know why just eating in your kitchen, with you, had made him feel emotions overwhelming enough to rush out of him. he was embarassed, despite your reassurances. it was the first time he was meeting with you in years, the only person who still remembered him, and he had started crying over a soup. he wasn’t a teenage high schooler anymore, why was this happening?

after a silence long enough to make someone less patient uncomfortable, he finally felt he could talk, and decided to tell you everything that had happened. all of it. you were the only person who knew him now, was it wrong to want to be known fully? to be understood?

so he told you everything, from the start… from a time too early, one might’ve thought; from before he even became an avenger. there had been people in his life who knew of his journey, how he became a hero, how he became an avenger, who he fought against, who he fought with, what really happened with mysterio, and then… then aunt may’s death… then everyone else’s little deaths.

peter used to be talkative, he used to converse with even the people he was actively battling, yet telling you all he wanted made him realise it had been a long time since he’d spoken so much. so transparently, willingly. had life crushed him under a fallen bridge without him noticing? he had been feeling it, but couldn’t guess how dire his cuts and walls had been drawn.

you listened all of it, without looking away once, without looking at the time. and then, once he concluded his speech and drifted off to silence, you let it fester. it seemed as if you had a hard time proccessing everything peter had dumped on you, or maybe couldn’t find the right words to continue with. this time, peter left you in your own silence, his hands slightly shaking in nervousness. what was your reaction going to be? what were you thinking?

“i’m truly sorry,” you said at last, a rueful expression adorning your face, making you look older than you had when telling him of the soup recipe. you had grown older, peter had noticed, more beautiful. “i’m sorry about your aunt, too. i had no idea. i thought… i guess i assumed at least your family would remember you.”

“yeah,” said peter in defeat, “there is no one.”

you looked deep into his eyes, pain visible on your face, “i remember,” you said. “and now i know.”

peter sighed and put his face in between his hands, closing his eyes in despair. “there is nowhere i belong, now. i fight for this city, and… and no one cares.”

this was horrible. truly horrible. a weight had been lifted off his shoulders when you’d recognized him, listened to him, welcomed him into your home. but he also felt bothered by it, too. had being known always been so scary? he hadn’t meant to say the last bit, he hadn’t even thought that to himself before. he’d been on the verge of it, but hadn’t actually thought it. why did he say it out loud now? why did he tell you?

you took a deep breath, “a lot of people care, especially the ones you save. you’ve been making a huge difference, peter. yours can be a thankless job sometimes, but many are grateful.” you paused for a moment, “i’ve always been grateful. when i learned how you’d been fighting for people this whole time, my respect for you skyrocketed. i thought i would help you in any way i could if it ever came to that.”

peter pressed his hands harder on his eyes, he didn’t want to start crying again. he didn’t know if you realised how your words had fallen into the deepest part of his soul. it was strange, how only a few words could help people keep going, how humans could be built merely by caring, and how humans could be so worn-out that they could stop tasting without even realising.

his phone vibrated silently in his pocket, taking him out of spiraling. he sighed again, what was it now?

strong fire in a building, spreading speedily, authorities unable to protect the citizens despite doing their best. he stood up abruptly, “i should go,” he said.

“what is it? what happened?”

“fire in a tall building, i need to save those people,” he said while walking towards the door, you trailing behind him.

“okay- be careful, peter. and come back here after you’re done there, okay? even if it’s late, because i’ll wait for you, and if you don’t come back, i’ll wait until morning,” you said quickly as he was wearing his shoes, the door to your house open.

“okay,” he said, stuttering slightly, “thank you.” truly. you’ve made breathing possible for me again. thank you.

and he left you behind like that, because he never had a break. he didn’t know if he deserved a break. none of that mattered though, there were people suffering, and he couldn’t leave them behind, no matter what.

────── 𓆩˚.⋆🕸⋆.˚𓆪 ──────

you were leaning on the metal handrails of your small balcony, looking at the few people and cars that passed by the road in front of your apartment. it was desolate, compared to most of new york, but it was steadily never-ending, there never was a time when people stopped in this city. your view was made up of other grey apartments like yours, sharp corners and square shapes, nothing tasteful added to their designs. could this be good for the soul?

you looked up at the sky, to watch the stars, but as always, not many were visible. you counted four stars that could be clearly seen from your balcony. the same as yesterday. you sometimes wondered: if you could reach greater heights, would more of them shine on you? the city had offended the stars in an effort to be independent from them, brighten night time, they didn't show their faces anymore. even if they wanted to, they couldn't be seen.

peter had been shining since he was a kid; clever, kind, righteous, fair-faced in a way the cleanness of his heart had reflected on his features. how big of a loss was it for the world to be forsaken from his face? it was lucky that peter was good-hearted, for he kept showing up under a mask anyway, offering those who looked a glimpse into his light.

it was past midnight already, and peter was still nowhere to be seen. he'd left you a little past noon, the fire had been extinguished by now, and spiderman had left the premises after saving dozens of lives (that the firefighters would've been too late for, despite their best efforts), and yet, peter was nowhere to be seen. it worried you, you wished you had asked for his phone number; you'd considered asking, but decided against it, thinking he might be bothered by the request.

after you'd talked to michelle, his girlfriend, some time back, and she hadn't remembered the boy she’d been in love with, you'd been thinking of peter regularly. even if you had made him up in your mind, it had just flooded your chest with such profound sadness, that you had decided at least you would remember him, whether it would matter to him or not.

and, he was real, he was spiderman. and he’d been so lonely. graveyards had become his only sanctuary, teenage diaries and late night messages had been buried next to the corpses of anyone who'd ever taken care of him, and he did not know their hiding spots. he just wandered around graves, knowing they were somewhere under his feet, to stay there forever. if he tried to dig them out, he would be swallowed up by lava, dooming the rest of the world to a volcanic apocalypse.

it seemed like volcanos had already been erupting behind his eyes, in his lungs. the peter you remembered used to be a jolly kid.

your head perked up as you heard your doorbell ring, and quickly rushed to open the door. a smiling peter greeted you, clothing changed. he looked more put-together than he had in the morning; a clean shirt under a black jacket and denim pants, not the baggy sweats he had on before.

you welcomed him inside, and brought him to sit on your couch, in the living room.

“are you all right?” you asked, “does anywhere hurt? do you need anything?”

he hesitated for a moment, a little surprised. “no, no- it’s fine. i didn’t fight anyone, so didn’t really get injured… much. it’s fine. i took care of it.”

you looked at him in silence for a few seconds, thinking. “liar,” you said.

“what?” he said in low voice, sounding worried. did he think he’d messed up somehow?

“you gave me your word that you would come straight to me, instead you took your sweet time tending to your injuries and changing your outift? you showered too, didn’t you?”

“i… i-” he quickly started talking, and then stopped to think. that was fine, he didn’t need to rush a response, never with you. he would learn that you’d always wait for him patiently. with time, he’d become more comfortable. you assumed this must be… somewhat of an uncomfortable experience for him, after being alone for so long. “i thought-”

he didn’t know what to say, you supposed.

“did i sound mad? i’m sorry. i was just worried. i.. uh, i’d wanted to help you with your injuries and stuff, too,” you weren’t exactly used to these kinds of conversations either. “since you’re not alone anymore… and all.”

“oh…” was all he could say.

“i mean, i’m glad you’re okay, and you look great, and i don’t mind that you had some alone time before coming and all, but you could, uh, if you want to, just come straight to me as well. after a fight or whatever. and you can take care of… your stuff here,” you forced the words out, you had to take these kinds of initiatives, if you wanted to have a closer relationship with him. because he wouldn’t impose anything on you. “if you want to, of course,” you added.

“i… thank you, i would, uh, yeah,” he said. you supposed that was a positive answer.

“so, what happened?”

he recounted the fire and the struggles in detail, how he saved the people trapped, how he had to deal with the authorities after him, how he got injured (only a little, he emphasized), and then how he went home to wear something better to come back to you. he’d wanted to rid the smell of ash and soot off his skin.

“i got tired just listening to you,” you said.

he chuckled slightly, “ah, yeah, things like this happen sometimes.”

“would you like anything to eat or drink?”

“no, no. not necessary, thank you,” he said quickly, raising his hands.

“okay, just tell me if you need anything.”

“all right, thanks… again,” he had a beautiful smile, but it looked like guilt had mixed into his skin, stopping him from smiling fully, with his eyes, or eyebrows. you wanted to tell him that none of this was his fault, he wasn’t responsible for the cruelty of others, he wasn’t at fault for being a victim. his aunt hadn’t died because he’d shown mercy, he was just being humane, the fault lied solely with the… whichever supernatural freak had done that, it was getting harder to keep track of them now. and the spell hadn’t gone wrong because of him, couldn’t doctor strange tell that he obviously wouldn’t want his own family to forget him? why wouldn’t he automatically add that to the spell? and the second time? surely he could’ve just kept two people out of his spell. none of it was his fault.

but you couldn’t bring yourself to, you didn’t want to push too hard, or overstep your bounds. peter didn’t know you, not really. you assumed he must be happy that someone remembered him, but you wouldn’t be too surprised if he had forgotten you.

why had you remembered? you weren't magical, as far as you knew, so what had gone wrong? wasn't this... somewhat bad news? if you remembered, could it be possible that someone evil might, too? you didn't know, you supposed maybe you should try to ask doctor strange, somehow.

after a while of silence, you decided telling him how you feel, being straightforward, should be better than leaving thoughts to go back and forth in your head, bothering you. “peter,” you started, “i know what kind of a person you are for the most part. i know that you have a good heart, and you’re loyal, and honest. i… don’t doubt that you’ll be a good friend, that’s why i can be… this comfortable with you. i know, because i’ve been able observe you quite well until now.”

he was listening to you, eyes getting wider and smile dropping slowly, as you went on.

“i also know that you don’t really know me as well, so i’ll have to prove my character to you, in the way that you’ve already proven yours,” you quickly added, which was the point you’d wanted to make. “so, uh, i just wanted to say that… is the reason why i would like to be… good friends with you, even though we didn’t interact much back then. telling you just in case… you were wondering.”

he gave you a shy smile. "thank you," he said, occasionally glancing away.

then a small chuckle escaped his lip. “all i’ve been doing the whole day has been thanking you."

you giggled in return, "i thank you as well."

"for what? i haven't done anything."

"for saving this city and the world over and over again."

his expression turned serious, thoughtful. "i just do what i should. it’s my responsibility."

you leaned back on the couch, observing him. was it? did he really have to do what he did? he didn't have to, no one had to do anything. but it was right that he did. you supposed, being able to help people did mean you should, would it be wrong if he didn't interfere?

"what are you thinking?" he asked.

you hummed. "i think you are right, but then it's our responsibility to be grateful, and to help you in any way we can, even if that's just emotional support." you looked into his eyes carefully, "you've been doing your duty, but most others in the city haven't."

"that's all right," he said. "i don't expect anything. i don't do this to get anything in return."

"well," you started, "you can expect things from me, and feel free to let me know."

the shy smile returned to his face, "thank you again," he said. "you as well," he hastily added, raising his eyebrows while gesturing at you.

you were glad he seemed to be in a better mood now, compared to this morning. he was more put together, and somewhat more confident. you assumed having more time to process your situation must've helped.

the two of you talked for around another hour, peter got more talkative as you went on, and by the end, he was the only one talking. he'd started to tell you all about the various villains he'd been fighting, and you were very interested; you enjoyed listening to him.

but the time was getting closer to two in the morning, and you were having to fight your own eyelids to keep yourself from dropping to the floor right at that moment.

peter stopped abruptly mid-sentence, looking at you concerned. "oh," he started "i'm sorry, it's really late, i talked too much."

"no, no," you said, shaking your hand, "i really want to know about all of these things. let's continue tomorrow?"

"okay, sure," he said, smiling. "i'll get going now, and uh, see you tomorrow."

"get going? i could arrange my living room for you, if you'd like to stay the night? should you be alone when you're injured?"

"i don't want to bother you," he said as he stood up. “it’s fine, this isn't really all that bad, I've had much worse."

"okay, but call me if anything happens. i'll be more upset if you don't," you said as you followed him to the door.

"i will. you call me too," he said, having gotten out, wearing his shoes.

"deal."

“good night."

"good night."

and he was gone.

and you were so sleepy that you could fall asleep standing there. as you made your way to your bed, you decided to go over today's events tomorrow, when your braincells wouldn’t be forming a union to counter your abuse.

────── 𓆩˚.⋆🕸⋆.˚𓆪 ──────

peter opened his curtains to look outside, as soon as he managed to get out of his bed.

the sun was shining down on him, bathing his room and face in its light. he opened the window, and took a deep breath in. the air had the beautiful smell of rain, still lingering, left from yesterday.

he leaned on his window, and for the first time in forever, a smile graced his lips for the sun, for the day ahead of him.

he wanted to put on his spiderman suit and swing around in the city, not out of obligation or because he didn’t have anything else to do; he had an unfamiliar motivation in him to do something with his day.

so he did. he quickly got ready for the day, and all the steps felt less intimidating today. even brushing his teeth had become a tiring chore. he'd supposed it must've been because he was so tired all the time, but today, it had been easier, all of it. even breathing.

and it wasn't like he'd gotten more sleep than usual, either. sleeping was something out of routine for peter. sometimes he could only get a few hours at night, having to be spiderman. sometimes he would stare at the ceiling, unable to drift off to sleep. sometimes he would end up sleeping for more than ten hours, not wanting to get out of his bed, forcefully scraping his body off of it with a mental spatula, skin tearing apart from muscle, using every bit of his willpower. but, no matter which scenario happened to play out, peter would never feel rested.

he got mad at himself sometimes. for sleeping. or not sleeping. surely none of this was supposed to be this hard, everyone always did them just fine. so why was he like this? what was wrong with him?

he shook his head, getting out of his window as spiderman, and started wandering new york from the tops of buildings. not today, though. today he felt rested. and like something good could happen, strangely. and his chest could host the air he breathed in, unlike any day he could remember in months. he hadn't realised how air had been refusing to get into his lungs, until it finally did today.

he watched people walking towards their destinations without looking anywhere else. the streets of new york were always overfilled with motion and a million faces, and no one stopped to look at one another.

how had you seen him, yesterday? were you looking? were you always looking at people? were you searching for someone, something?

clouds had poured more rain on the city at night, and towards the morning. it was almost as if they had only stopped momentarily for the fire in the building to spread.

peter had gone to his apartment as soon as he was done rescuing civillians from the fire. he'd wanted to wear something nice, look cleaner for you. he was sort of embarrassed that your first meeting had been when he looked... less than ideal, let's say.

while showering, he'd spaced out, and ended up thinking for almost an hour. mostly about you.

he'd tried to remember everything about you, any kind of clue about your exceptional situation, but there was nothing. you used to mostly keep to yourself, peter hadn't even interacted with you all that much.

despite that, you'd been so accepting of him so quickly yesterday. he had wondered why, before you explained that you… knew him.

not only remembered, you knew him. not completely, but enough to trust. his heart fluttered in his chest, making a gentle movement for the first time since the last time he'd been called peter by anyone at all. thinking about your words excited him, energized him, made him move faster,

you wanted to get closer. you offered to patch up his wounds. you weren't afraid or displeased. you wanted to be close. his friend.

he would call you around noon, he'd decided. he'd kept you up quite late and didn't know when you would wake up. then maybe you could meet up this evening. outside, perhaps? he could take you to... he would come up with some ideas, by then.

he stopped and perched on top of a building, examining the back alleys. he knew the way to your house from where he was, he was really looking forward to seeing you again. was that why waking up had been easier today?

he shook his head and took a deep breath, preparing himself for the day, and the task in front of him. he needed to focus, do his job. he would get to see you when the time came for it. you would respect him more for his service, anyway... or at least he hoped so.

────── 𓆩˚.⋆🕸⋆.˚𓆪 ──────

the the sun had just started setting, the orange hue of dusk hadn't settled in the sky yet. you were sitting on the stairs at the entrance of your apartment building. the ground was still wet, but the upper part of the stairs had been protected from yesterday's rain thanks to the architecture of the building. you would just need to dust off its filth once you stood up.

peter was supposed to come any minute now, he'd called you around noon and asked if you'd like to meet up this evening, and he could take you to see some places. you had started preparing some hours ago. you hadn't known what to wear, or what he had in mind, and had been too nervous to feel completely good about an outfit. you didn’t want to mess this up. at last, you'd just decided to get out of your house and wait. sitting on cold stairs. you were beginning to regret your choices slowly.

“hi,” appeared a head suddenly in front of your nose, making you yelp in surprise and slide backwards on the stairs. you put your hand on your mouth, wide-eyed, and finally processed what the dangling head in red was: peter. he was hanging from your building, held by his web, upside down, in his spiderman suit. he wouldn’t be as instantly recognizable from afar, as he was wearing a jacket, pants, and sneakers on his suit. it looked good.

“sorry,” he said, landing next to you, but not moving towards you. “sorry,” he repeated quickly. “i didn’t mean to scare you.”

“my goodness, peter,” you said, exhaling a deep breath. “no, sorry, spiderman.”

he chuckled lightly. “did i make you wait too much? sorry about that, too.”

“no, no, you are…” you looked at your watch, “right on time, actually.”

“uh,” he started, then hesitated for a moment before taking out a piece of cloth… no, a mask from the pocket of his jacket. “this should be really comfortable, i brought it in case you wanted to, you know, keep your identity hidden.”

“oh, you will stay in your spiderman costume?” you asked, taking the mask, and putting your hand in it so see what it looked like.

“yeah,” he said, “i can’t do what i want to do with you without my suit.”

you looked at him questioningly, “what is it that you want to do with me, peter?” you asked with mock seriousness.

he made a low-volume laughing sound. “i was planning on carrying you in the sky with me. if that’s okay.” he raised his hands in hurry, “it’s okay if you don’t want to, of course. just… i just thought you might like it, is all.”

you looked at the mask, and swiftly wore it. fixing it on your face, you looked at peter. “how do i look?” you asked.

“wait, let me help,” he said as he came closer to you, and fixed the back of the mask.

“thank you.”

so peter took you to the skies.

you held onto him like your life depended on it (it did), arms wrapped around his shoulders. his movements in the air were fast and sharp, the wind felt like a slap to the face at points. yet, you didn’t feel an ounce of fear, if anything, excitement and joy would be descriptive of your feelings. peter had a strong grip on you, somehow, you trusted that without doubt, he would never drop you.

──────

he had taken and placed you on top of a skyscraper, with a view of busy streets and the decorated balconies of shorter buildings. having ascended on the city as rain yesterday, clouds in the sky had thinned, and the atmosphere was clear. the sun was half gone by now, and all your gaze rested upon was dusk-touched; bathed in the burning scarlett of the sun’s farewell.

you smiled, looking over at the city. the wind was caressing your face gently, and breathing had become easier since seeing peter. being where you stood now, it felt freeing.

“this is amazing.” you glanced at peter briefly, and saw he’d been looking at you.

“i’m glad you like it,” he said, then joined you in gazing towards the horizon.

──────

you’d been sitting where peter had caried you to, on top of the skyscraper, for a while now. topics chased each other with ease, built onto each other, and you ended up talking about things you’d never told anyone before. but peter listened, contributed, he seemed truly interested, and then he outclassed your yapping, so words ended up spilling out of your mouth naturally.

“my favorite tree is willow, actually. i love willows, they are so pretty, they have leaves like drapes. they look magical," you said, adding onto the conversation that you’d ended up talking about because… the city layout, then parks, then trees, then if many people have favorite kinds of trees, then his being olive trees…

he looked into your eyes carefully, like you'd said something that struck a cord, something he'd considered before.

"really?" he asked, then turned his gaze towards the city again, eyebrows laying heavier, eyes looking below. "willows look hunched," he said, "they look weary."

was he hunched? had he grown tired? was he trying to tell you that was how he saw the world now? hunched, instead of magical?

"hmm, " you thought for a moment, "do you know why willows are hunched?"

he looked at you questioningly. "no?"

"i've been told a story from someone who'd been told a story; there once was a willow next to a lake. you know how willows like wetlands. and there once was a child sweet as a sugar beet, yet did not know how to swim. choose one day from the countless days the old willow had seen, the sweet child fell into the lake right next to its roots, he couldn't stay on the surface, so he asked the willow for help. the willow bowed its leaves as fast as it could, to offer a branch to hold onto, but it was too slow, and the leaves touched the water too late. after that day, the willow's leaves never rose again. word spread to every willow with time, and they lowered their branches one by one, so if a child were ever drowning, they would never be too late."

he was still looking down, but his expression had changed lightly. his brows were slightly tented, his eyes seemed watery. you studied him, it looked like the story had touched him; he was quietly in thought.

was he a willow? had he failed to save a drowning child? had he been hunched?

had he realized being hunched didn't have to be ugly?

"stories are great," you said, not to fill the silence, but because you now felt comfortable enough to share your thoughts with him. "they can verbalize things you keep in your head, and make you realize; oh, someone else thought the same thing back when who knows how many years ago, and i’m not the only one."

he nodded after another moment of silence. "that was a beautiful story," he said, looking at you, "do you know many like it?"

"short tales like these? not many. i generally read novels."

"maybe i should start too."

you perked up. "you could!" you said, voice coming out too excited for your liking, "i'll lend you some."

"okay," he said, smiling in his usual, reserved way, "thank you."

poor, innocent peter. he had no idea what he'd just signed up for, basically accepting to be subjected to a reader's propaganda of their favorite books.

"i should be thanking you," you responded, "for bringing me here."

the sun had fully gone down, no traces of orange left in the sky, although it hadn't gotten fully dark yet. the moon could be seen, finally getting out of the sun's shadow. or more so, light. too bright for anything else to stay visible near it, yet nothing on earth would be visible without its light, including the moon.

you looked down at the ant-sized citizens of new york, ever-moving, flowing like a river. the wind was caressing your face, chilly, up here was colder than down below, yet it didn't feel as hostile.

"i used to really like it," he said while nodding, a half-smile left on his face from your previous conversation, and perhaps memories of years gone.

"sitting atop buildings?"

"yeah. sitting or swinging or... just height."

"it is kind of freeing."

"and just... you know, a different kind of perspective."

"yeah, i get it," you said, looking at your ant subjects, "why don't you like it anymore?"

he seemed to search for words for a moment, looking around. and then shrugged. "i guess i just... don't really like things anymore."

you sighed, nodding. "well, it's a miracle that you liked my below-average vegetable soup, then."

"it was very much above average!"

"as i said, a miracle."

"why am i having to defend my tastes in the middle of a date right now?"

he stopped abruptly, his smile fading, eyes widening. "i mean!" he quickly scrambled to fix his mistake, "not like- not a date like a date date, you know, i was just saying... just-"

was this a time for you to interrupt? he didn't seem like he wanted to finish that sentence.

"i know," you said, chuckling, "don't worry. i'm also really glad we're doing this. take me soaring the skies more often."

"i wouldn't necessarily call it soaring."

"well, whatever it was."

and then, once again, hours chased one another, carrying your long-winded conversation back and forth, and the deep black of night had fallen on the two of you like a blanket.

peter was sweet, it was like honey dripped from his lips; you hadn't found a conversation so enjoyable in years. you were glad he'd opened up more, back in high school, you had no idea he was so talkative.

you had brought a homemade meal with yourself, considering how much he'd appreciated that yesterday. and you’d shared it over the hours you’d spent together.

peter seemed to relax more and more around you, smile actually coming naturally to his face now, dangling his feet with comfortable, quiet joy.

“ah,” he said at some point, “this is… somewhat hard.”

“what is?”

he thought on it for a moment. “no, nothing. forget i said anything.”

“nooo,” you grabbed his arm and slightly shook him, “i’m curious now!”

he chuckled, “no, it’s embarrassing.”

“peter, listen to me,” you started with mock seriousness, “whatever it is, it cannot be as embarrassing as my cringeworthy memories, so i won’t even register it as embarrassing.”

“okay,” he said after a short silence, “i guess… i guess i got used to being alone too much, now i find it kind of hard to… be known, i guess. it leaves me with a kind of anxiety.”

“it wasn’t like that before?”

“no,” he turned his gaze to the city, “i don’t remember it being like this.”

you hummed, nodding your head. you were going to tell him that you understood, that you felt similarly occasionally, that it was normal, but he kept going before you could.

“at least, the bad parts.”

“what bad parts?”

“you know, my mistakes and flaws and other such things,” he took a deep breath before continuing. “i told you everything but… i wish you didn’t know some of it, now.”

you studied his face; he definitely looked more youthful, like the weight of the world wasn’t crushing him anymore. like he could put his burden down for a moment, take a break. peter didn’t seem like a person who would have a hard time being vulnarable, or being known, but pain did change people. was it just being alone, or being alone with what he thought were his mistakes, scenes repeating over and over in his head as he stared at empty walls, with no one to talk to?

“i like you as you are,” you said, “with your mistakes and flaws; that’s being human, and you’re not lesser for any of it. not objectively, and not in my eyes.”

he was looking into your eyes now, he’d become more comfortable resting his gaze upon yours; you found it comforting, you tried to make him feel the same.

“isn’t that the part of being known that matters?” you asked. “knowing the imperfect parts, the harder to accept parts, and accepting anyway, and loving anyway. doesn’t it make you feel better that i know you fully and like you even more for it?”

peter seemed truly lost for words, for the second time since you’d met. you’d wanted to make him feel welcome into your life, so you’d done your best to tell him things you’d wish to hear yourself, and they were the truth, but you really hoped it would come across right. he wasn’t the only one to overthink conversations.

he opened his mouth to give an answer, and then, suddenly, chaos erupted.

the thunder of a bomb going off shook the ground and the buildings around you. screams mixed into a deafening whistle of the wind that carried them as people ran away from the sound collectively, pushing each other.

peter stood up instinctively, looking towards the explosion. it had happened close enough that you’d felt the shockwave.

“what was that?” you yelled, trying to be heard over the sound, clumsily standing up next to peter, as you were quite high up. he held your arm to steady you.

“i’m not sure, but i think i know who’s responsible for it,” he said with a serious expression on his face, brows furrowed, thoughtful, voice lower than yours, but you could still hear him.

“are you going to go?”

“i have to, this is… these people are dangerous, you should go home.”

he grabbed you by your waist and brought you down to the ground in a hurry, gently placing you. “i’m sorry,” he said, “i’ll come back, uh, to your house, if that’s okay?”

“of course,” you responded, “i’ll be waiting. and don’t be sorry.”

and he dissapeared into the sky, swinging.

────── 𓆩˚.⋆🕸⋆.˚𓆪 ──────

peter hated villains, truly. criminals who committed heinous acts of terrorism, knew nothing but cruelty, unashamedly hurt people, kidnapped, wounded… there were so many of them, too. he kept defeating those hurting new york, and new ones kept popping up.

well, he thought he hated them, but he didn’t know how exactly he felt. he remembered a time when feelings so negative and irritating hadn’t ever been inside him, it was like they added onto each other. one would think it would get easier with time, that he would get used to repeated things. like losing… but not only had losing aunt may been harder than losing uncle ben, he was now more bitter, and more mournful over the past deaths he’d thought he’d gotten over, as well. or, how instead of growing numb to seeing horrible crimes unfold, every act of abuse and cruelty made him angrier, every time he hated… he hated more, although he wasn’t sure exactly what he was hating.

when he tried to track the target his hatred was pointing at, he saw blurry pictures. villains were a part of it, surely, but he didn’t feel a burning rage while fighting them, it was more so weariness, or disgust, mostly, he just wanted all of it to be over. he didn’t want to… ponder more on it, after that point. he had tried once, and then felt an untangible pain. he couldn’t admit it to himself, but he was afraid of what else he could find in that blur. himself? tony? aunt may? mj? new york? the world?

so the picture stayed anonymous, and he couldn’t fully direct his fury at anything, and he disliked all the villains, but could hardly muster up the energy to truly hate them. and perhaps it wasn’t in his nature, either. anger and hatred, he’d never been very good at those. was that why his heart was withering? because he couldn’t feel well? because those were all there was to feel in his life now, and he failed at it?

he felt so done with everything, currently. was he not going to be able to spend time with you uninterrupted? the conversation was going well, too. or at least he thought it was. he hoped you would agree.

back in high school, he knew you were smart, and funny, and would be a good friend if anyone could approach you, but you’d prefered to stay away from him, and he hadn’t had the courage to initiate a relationship with you, he’d found you intimidating. now getting to know you better, he wished he’d just done it, back then. but maybe not. maybe then he would lose you too.

would he lose you now, as well? he’d lost everyone, hadn’t he?

or he’d break your heart, maybe. he’d left liz, he’d left mj, he’d left ned. thrice taken, something was wrong with him.

he arrived at the site of the explosion, looking from above. the thick, suffocating hotness, the pain-filled wails of the survivors, the rubbles of the building crumbled down, his eyes searched for certain signs in between the horrors. he would first save those who couldn’t save themselves, then he would stop whoever was responsible.

as he started carrying survivors out of flames and rubble, he also started scanning everything around him carefully. a sign, a clue, a mistake on the culprit’s part… he knew who it was, he was almost sure the organization he’d been tailing down for the past few months was responsible for this. they were onto him, too, they knew.

he’d found out the position of their base was last week, a site with several factories and buildings in it, towards the border of the city, in a mostly desolate area, as it used to just be an industrialized site, but had now turned into an unpreferred place for bussiness. he’d wondered if they had something to do with that as well, but he supposed that didn’t matter much, in the grand scheme of things.

he would go there, and… and confront them. fight them. end them. something. somehow. the police were rendered useless for the most part, when it came to these underground syndicates, some were bought puppets, some were too powerless, peter knew better than to give away his knowledge now. he’d been burned enough. he would have to do it himself, and do it quick, before any other disasters struck his city.

────── 𓆩˚.⋆🕸⋆.˚𓆪 ──────

you hadn’t gone back home, you were waiting next to a shop near the place peter had left you, looking at the exploded building from afar. you were growing more worried by the second; peter had seemed serious, and talked about a criminal organization who would bomb a whole building like it was a normal thing. was he engaged in a fight, currently? how often did things of this magnitude happen to him?

your phone buzzed, you immediately looked at the screen, it could be important in these circumstances. peter. peter was calling. he’d gone to fight, said he’d come back to you, and now was calling-

“peter?” you answered before you made any assumptions.

quick gasps cut short responded to you, and peter’s voice had taken the shape of slow, low wailing, or wheezing, or… regardless, it was obvious he was in pain.

“i…” he started, clearly having a hard time speaking, “i’m stuck. it was a trap.” he was breathless, his voice kept cracking.

“you- where?” you asked, choosing your words carefully. he was stuck. trapped. time. time was important. ask only for the information that matters right now.

“the building- that- there were people, i wanted to save them,” he was crying, it was obvious. “but i couldn’t, they are stuck too, and unconscious, some are dead. i couldn’t-” he cut his sentence short, taking quick breaths, most likely trying to keep himself awake, or too pained to continue. you understood it anyway.

“where are you, peter?”

“the building crumbled down, and it’s all rubble- but, it’s a huge- a huge, i don’t know. i’m under a heavy part, big, i can’t move it. not safely. i can’t try anything too dangerous, or the- the others might get crushed,” he managed to say in between his gasps and pained groans.

your heart sank, an awful dread dropped into the pit of your stomach. what to do now?

“i’m sorry,” he said, “i just- i didn’t know what to do, and i’d told you i’d come back, i don’t know. there is no one else i could call, i’m not- i’m sorry.”

no one else.

“don’t apologize,” you said, voice firmer, having gotten slightly angry. you weren’t angry at peter, you were angry at… at the reason why peter was hurt. it had only been two days since you’d truly gotten to know him, and you wanted to scream into a void at the top of your lungs already.

you started walking towards the road, looking for a taxi, or you would call one. the initial chaos had subsided, but now people wanting to immediately go back home around you had taken its place, taxis were working, you just didn’t know how fast you could go to wherever peter was.

“send me your location or describe where you are,” you said.

you could only hear his gasps for a moment. “no,” he said, “no, no, i don’t want you to come, that’s not why i-” his breath hitched, he started coughing.

your eyes had gotten teary, you blinked harshly a few times to get rid of the blurriness. would a bicycle be faster? a… motorcycle, perhaps? you started looking around to see any unclaimed ones, you could maybe pay someone-

“i’ll come either way, i’ll help you,” you said, as you started walking towards the site of the explosion, you thought finding an abandoned vehicle might be easier there… maybe even one that no longer had an owner. maybe even a gun. “send your location or i will go into the flames and try to find a clue.”

another pause.

“okay,” he said, exhaling in pain, “but be careful, run away the moment you see anyone dangerous. okay?”

“all right.”

────── 𓆩˚.⋆🕸⋆.˚𓆪 ──────

it had been a long while since peter had been in such peril, had he underestimated his opponents? had he been too rash, reckless? it was highly unlikely that his street-level work would be as dangerous as the avengers-level threats, and he’d survived those, hadn’t he? so why was he crying now?

when he’d arrived at the site, and looked around a little, he’d found people, kidnapping victims, being sent to somewhere. he’d thought he’d needed to act fast to save them, but he’d fallen into a trap. not a trap specifically set for him; it more so looked like a last resort to cover up their traces while killing anyone at their tail, just destroying the building with evidence and their enemies in it. peter was just one person though, was that enough for them, or had they not bothered to check?

he didn’t know where exactly he was wounded under the rubble, everything was hurting. somewhere on his abdomen, he assumed, and legs, they were stinging like a thousand needles were sinking into his flesh at the same time.

he sighed, putting his forehead on the fallen stone in front of him.

he hated himself. that was it, yeah. that was the true target of his hatred. more than anything else. he realised so when he admitted it to himself; hating had suddenly gotten much easier, much deeper.

he’d just killed the last person on earth who knew him. why had he called you, anyway? he should’ve just… done as he always did before meeting you, deal with it himself. or die. the world wouldn’t lose much if he did, there was no one to mourn him. well, maybe you could get a little sad, but it wasn’t like you were particularly close to him, you’d never really been friends before. and you had a life, other people around you, you had no reason to hold onto him like he did you. so why were you even coming? why would you do this to him?

he killed everyone around himself. he would kill you. he would kill you. he would lose you.

no, no, stop. you could survive this, right? sinking into despair had never been helpful. he would need to stay sharp for you. he would… you could survive this much, right? and then he would never see you again. he would block your number, and… good thing he hadn’t brought you to his apartment.

he’d been so selfish, thinking only of himself, the happiness he felt at being remembered. what was he thinking? he should’ve never talked to you. he should’ve told you to raise your umbrella and go home without getting wet. he’d been erased from existence for a reason, hadn’t he? had he forgotten why he hadn’t gone back to mj and ned? how could he do this? how could he keep doing this? why did he never learn from his mistakes?

────── 𓆩˚.⋆🕸⋆.˚𓆪 ──────

you were breathless, having ridden a bicycle (that you really had managed to find abandoned next to the explosion) until a point where traffic wasn’t jammed, then taken a taxi to the point where the driver would be willing to drive to, then ran until you could see the eerie factory site peter had told you about. you’d stopped to catch your breath briefly, your throat was hurting, sweat was coming down on your face like rain had been on the morning you’d grabbed peter’s arm. you put your hand on the right of your abdomen, you had a bad case of side stitch pain. you were holding a metal pipe in your other hand, you hadn’t been lucky enough to stumble upon a gun lying around, unfortunately. you had wanted to find a shield of some sort, but the blown off car bits were mostly too heavy, and couldn’t be carried on a bicycle.

there it was, the area of a dangerous mafia organization. how many cameras were there? you wore the mask peter had given to you, even though you really didn’t want to when you needed so much air.

you could see the remnants of a big dust storm behind a few buildings, you would need to get closer to truly figure it out, but you assumed you could go towards that direction to find peter. your heart was drumming against your chest, your fingertips had suddenly gone cold. a tiny portion of it was because of your previous marathon, mostly your nervousness and… fear were the cause.

but you had to do this. there was simply no other choice. someone needed to save peter, and the authorities wouldn’t do it, and the heroes wouldn’t do it, and you were there already. so you got a move on.

you mostly walked behind walls and next to corners, nervous about being seen and shot dead on the spot before you could even get into the mafia’s base. you reached… a chain-link fence, surrounding the complex.

“NO TRESSPASSING” the sign on the fence read, “PRIVATE PROPERTY”.

well, you’d already stolen a bicycle.

you took a shaky breath, and put your foot into one of the chains. you’d never climbed over a chain-link fence before, but everything had a first time, right? so you gripped the chains for dear life, and although you probably looked ridiculous and unnatural doing it, managed to climb to the other side. you did scratch a few places on your legs and hands, but it was mostly a success.

now you needed to sneak deeper into the complex, somehow.

you walked half-crouched down, mostly next to walls, looking around yourself nervously, yet as fast as you could. as you got closer to the collapsed building, you started hearing screams, and gunshots. there was a commotion going on somewhere close to you, was it the kidnapped people? the ones peter had been able to save, the ones who’d gotten out? you stopped where you were and pressed your back to the building next to you, where did you go from here? where were the gun noises coming from? what did you need to do to avoid that, yet still reach peter?

your hands had started shaking, would it be possible to find an abandoned gun as you walked closer? it would be so easy for them to kill you.

you'd only managed to make a few turns from that point before you were caught. by a man with a gun in his hand.

"look at that," he said, as he pointed the gun at you. “it seems a little mouse sneaked in, in this chaos."

you stopped, completely frozen. your heart was beating in your throat, your hands were trembling, you'd forgotten how to breathe. you'd never been so fear-stricken in your life.

what could you do? one shot and you would be dead, what could you do with the metal pipe in your hand? you couldn't look away from the man to see what else you could use.

he started walking towards you slowly, saying things that would only distract you and make you more nervous if you focused on them, so you blocked them out.

he was clearly enjoying cornering you like a prey animal, that must have been why he was walking closer to you; to scare you. you fought against your urge to back away, to protect a distance between you two; you had a metal pipe. a gun was a long-range weapon, being closer might make it harder to run away, but would make it easier to fight back, and running away in this situation would do you no good. if he missed the first time, he would get you in the second. so you forcefully nailed your feet to the ground, ignored the alarms setting off in your mind, and tried to prepare yourself for a confrontation. your legs were trembling; you hoped the man would just think you'd frozen in fear.

he came close enough to put the gun to your head, just an arm's length of a distance between you. “you can't run even when the gun is in your face?” he asked mockingly.

would begging work? would it keep you alive long enough to catch an opening?

you would die. you would die.

you hadn't opened your mouth to form a single sentence since this man had found you, and you didn't think you could now. one wrong word and it would be over. you needed to act.

was there anyone else around? why was he alone? had you lucked out, somehow? they weren't going to take you into custody, you were a transgresser, they were going to kill you. you assumed this man had stumbled into you coincidentally in the ruckus, and hadn't felt the need to call for reinforcements. even if there were others in places you couldn't see, you had no choice but to act now.

the gun's tip was touching your forehead. seconds. i must act in seconds. by bending your knees, you ducked your head faster than he could process what happened and pull the trigger, and while ducking, swung the pipe in your hand as fast as you could, with as much force behind it as you could muster, and hit him in the groin.

you immediately made a move to get behind him while he buckled over; there was no running away from someone with a gun.

should you hold his hand with the gun, or hit it with your pipe? he was turning his face towards you, and would shoot you the moment he got a good view.

no, you’d taken too much time to think, and he’d already directed the gun at you, pulling the trigger. you immediately hit his hand with your pipe. the shot wasn't completely wasted, however, and grazed your leg.

you screamed in pain.

he reached for you with his other hand, grabbing your hair.

no time.

you gripped your pipe with all your strength, and hit his hand again while he was yanking your hair. and then kept hitting his hand, lest he direct the gun at you again. one, two, three, four, five— he kicked your leg. you buckled over in pain as he put your head to the ground, your hair still entangled in his hand. he was saying something, eyes bulging, looking very mad, but you weren’t proccessing any of it. your ears were still ringing because of the gunshot, and the pain in your leg was so powerful that you couldn't focus on anything. it was as if endless knives were constantly stabbing you. it was unbearable.

his hands were occupied with your head and the gun, you were nowhere near strong enough to set free from his grip, but he'd forgotten you were still holding onto the pipe. or maybe he'd just thought you'd be in too much pain to use it now. or maybe he just hadn't had the time to do something about that yet, everything was happering in seconds.

you swung it again in one last, reckless effort to fight back, and hit his head. the momentum tossed him to the side while taking you with him as he hadn't let go of your hair. before he could turn to face you back, you hit his head again, with all your might. he let go of your hair while balancing himself with his other hand, and hit you across the face before you could land your third hit, but you planted yourself to the ground, and landed another hit anyway. his head was bleeding, and he was clearly distraught.

what now? a few seconds. this had given you a few seconds of decision time. what now? should you keep hitting him? take the gun, somehow? how could you get rid of him?

you tried to move reflexively, to get away. but your leg was done for, you couldn’t get up. no. no. you couldn't move.

your heart was going to burst out of your chest, your nerves were completely wrecked; you couldn’t get up.

what, then? did you have to… kill? you were going to throw up. your hands started trembling even more violently. you couldn't. you just couldn't.

you wished you could yell for help. but you were supposed to be the help. it was as it had always been before, pick yourself up and dust yourself off.

no time to think.

you hit his head again, and when he flailed, this time you put his head to the ground, climbing on top of him, twisting his gun-holding arm under his body. now… now you could... how could you stop him? if you managed to take the gun, and told him to stay put until you could run away... you couldn't move, though. you couldn't even properly restrain him because you were having to drag one leg. the concussion he had was doing most of the heavy lifting.

an idea did come up in your mind. you supposed you had no other choice.

──────

you were lying on the floor, your back towards the sky. you’d left your unconscious attacker where he was lying, and managed to drag yourself for a few centimeters before you’d stopped, and leaned your forehead against the ground. you needed to get away, you knew. at least near a wall, somewhere you wouldn’t be seen so clearly, but your leg was hurting too much to use.

you couldn’t raise your head, and just started sobbing openly. you’d already been crying, but trying to hold back, keep quiet. you needed to sit up, and look at how bad the wound was, and how much blood you’d lost. the pain was all you could think about, your head was hurting from stress and forcing yourself to think through the pain, your eyes and throat were hurting from crying (and maybe also sleep-deprivation, as time was diving deeper into the night), your face was hurting from the hit you’d taken, and yet, nothing could be compared to the pain you felt in your leg. you wanted to take off your mask, it was suffocating enough even without it, but any cameras catching your face would be more of a disaster long term.

you took a deep breath, and put your hands on the ground. you pushed yourself up while shaking, and turned around. you looked at your leg, and immediately regretted it. it was bleeding a lot, and your flesh had been ripped apart. you didn’t know what to do, there was no one you could call.

you took out your phone from your pocket, and found peter’s number. you really didn’t want to, but you had no other choice.

peter answered by calling out your name questioningly, his voice came across better than last time; it still did sound like he was in pain, but he was calmer.

“peter,” you said, failing to sound like you weren’t crying. “a guy shot me. my leg is hurt.”

“a- what? where are you?”

“i’m near the collapsed building you should be in.”

“i- i-”

you took a second to breathe. “no, no, i… i just don’t know what to do,” you said, sniffling and gasping, “i can’t get up. i, uh, should i wrap something around my leg?”

“yeah,” he said, “a piece of cloth until you can get out, how close are you to the exit? you should call an ambulance or a taxi or—” he also had to stop to take a breath in pain, “i don’t know— i’m sorry. i’m really sorry.”

“what are you sorry for? it’s the fault of this piece of— well, garbage. at least i have a gun now.”

“who was it? is he still there?”

“i don’t know, some random guy. he’s unconscious.”

“… how?”

“well, i… kind of strangled him? he was,” you huffed, “he fainted because he couldn’t breathe, he’s alive though. i did hit his head a few times, i don’t know how that bodes for him.”

“probably not well,” he said, now with a hint of surprise and amusement in his voice, “you, uh, you did well. very well.”

“huh, thank you.”

good, this was good, hearing peter’s voice had been good for you. you pushed yourself up somehow, and sat up straight.

“what happened?” he asked, “why is the pain worsening?” probably because of your increasing groans.

“i was trying to sit up. i need to find a piece of cloth.”

you looked around, and decided to take anything you could from the man who attacked you. you went through his pockets, and sure enough, found a knife. you cut a piece off of his shirt, and used it as bandage.

“how tight should it be?”

“you should be able to slide a finger under it.”

next, you needed to drag yourself away from the middle of the road, to somewhere you could hide—

no.

no, that wasn’t why you were here.

“how are you doing, peter?” you asked, but couldn’t add that you would be there soon.

“i’m…” he started, but drifted off. and then you heard silent sobbing. “i’m sorry,” he said.

“you have nothing to apologize for.”

“no, it’s all my fault. i never should’ve dragged you into this mess.”

“you didn’t drag me into anything, i stole a bike and ran a marathon to get to you,” you’d sounded firmer now, although still couldn’t stop your crying; the pain just wasn’t getting any better.

“i let you down along with everyone else,” he wasn’t listening to you, “and i don’t know what to do, i can’t come to you, i don’t know how to get you out,” his voice had gotten frantic again.

you sighed, trying to get your sobbing under control, and think of a reply. was it his fault? no, you were certain it wasn’t. had he let you down? no, the thought hadn’t even crossed your mind. should he stay away from you? were you afraid of pain or death? would you rather live a more stress-free life than stay with peter?

you closed your eyes to let the tears roll down your cheeks as the realisation that you couldn’t immediately say “no” set in, you felt betrayed by yourself. you’d thought about this, yesterday… or two days ago, you supposed, as it was past midnight. he’d told you everything, so you knew the risks, and you’d thought about it. you’d decided it would be fine; worrying for his safety or being at risk yourself. and if you got injured, then you could handle some pain. and if you died, well… there was no getting ahead of death. if you died, that would mean your time had come.

so where had your conviction gone to? had the pain been too much, after all? it was the pain, the stabbing sensation was making your brain foggy, demanding all the attention be on it. you hated it, you hated everything. you were mad at yourself; why couldn’t you just be better?

“peter,” you cut him off, “i know i can’t understand you fully, but i get it,” you’d decided to just ramble. you couldn’t come up with the perfect answer to make his worries disappear, so you would just… tell him whatever was going through your mind.

“i lay awake some nights, randomly afraid of the dark. then i curl up under my blanket, and try to comfort myself. because there is no one to lie next to me. i look out from my window and see grey walls. i look up at night and see no stars. i walk outside and hundreds of people just walk past me without even looking at my face, and i don’t remember any of theirs the next hour. all i hear all day are the honks of cars, and depressing news. abuse. crime. kid died. alone person went missing. don’t go out at night. don’t talk to anyone. there is no one anyway, who would i talk to?” you paused to sniffle again, and catch your breath.

“i come home and say ‘hello’ to emptiness and darkness, i turn on the lights myself, then think about what i’ll eat. and i don’t properly eat most days, because i just don’t want to prepare something only for myself. yesterday, i was so happy you liked the food i made, i wanted to cook something for the first time in months while waiting for you,” words were just coming out of your mouth without restraint now, was it the sleep deprivation?

“in high school, i used to watch you and your friends, and wish i could find someone who would be in sync with me too. i used to wish i had a reason or an excuse to join in when i saw you three laugh or talk. i go to university now, and i attend lectures, and i make small talk with a few people, and then i drown in my own thoughts the whole day. i tell myself that i’m fine by myself, but i feel like my soul is getting thinner by the day, looking at walls. is it just me, or is everyone just disconnected now, i don’t know.”

you finally stopped, and let silence stretch after your words. your crying had gotten worse as the suffocation of your life had built up enough to rush out of you; you didn’t cry much, not really. sure, you sometimes shed silent tears, sitting by yourself on your couch, but normally, you just kept going without thinking much about it. you had your exams, and job, and volunteer work, and projects to worry about, so pitying yourself was at the bottom of your to-do list. but now? you were crying waterfalls. was it because you’d finally found someone to tell what you were really thinking? no, it was probably because of the pain you were already in.

peter didn’t answer, for a long while, it was just silence.

“you were right,” you said, “being known with your negative sides sucks.”

“no,” he said, “you were right. i’m glad to know you as you are.”

he didn’t sound good. he didn’t sound good at all. you sighed in resignation, closing your eyes tightly shut to clear your view of tears. “i’m closing now, peter, wait for me,” you said, and closed the call before he could reply.

you looked at the ground, and furrowed your brows in concentration. you would get up. you had to. you had no choice. peter had called you for help. he had no one. no one else to call. no one else to save him from making a choice between death and killing innocent victims under rubble. no one else to save him from death.

you gritted your teeth, your leg hurt as the deep cut touched the bad guy’s shirt, and in some parts, the cold air of the night. the wound kept bleeding, and hurting more by the second. but you gritted your teeth anyway, through your tears and gasps for air that you had an abundance of, but your lungs refused to take in. you put your hands on the ground, and pushed yourself up, using all the strength you had.

you whimpered and groaned in many attempts to stifle your screams before they could come out, and alert whoever was close enough to hear, and managed to set your back straight. it was unbearable, the pain was holding you from the collar, trying to drag you down, making your vision red, exploding in your brain.

it’s just pain, you kept repeating to yourself, it was just a feeling, you could move through it. so you would walk now. towards peter. as quickly as possible. you needed to reach him, that was why you’d come this far, how could you let pain make you forget? it was simply unacceptable, the thought of peter dying under that rubble.

so you put one foot in front of the other, and made your way to peter through every force working against you.

──────

"peter?" you asked, trying to walk through the rubble, and then heard your name back.

"i'm here!"

you tried to reach him at least enough to see his face, as fast as you could, but it was still taking too long with your injured leg. too long for your impatience currently, anyway.

"i'll remove the victims so you can get out of there," you said as you stretched your head enough to see his face, not being able to get closer. he was... he'd taken off his mask, and he looked horrible; his eyes had become red from tears and most likely his injuries, his face was covered in dust and some drops of blood. looking at him stung your chest. "tell me where they are."

──────

peter was strong. he truly was. not only mentally; you were currently watching him lift what was essentially an entire ceiling with other pieces of rubble on it off himself, with most likely many crushing injuries. insane. he was insane. no wonder he couldn’t move with all with those unconscious people around.

you had somehow managed to move them out of his way, seven people in total, much more than you’d anticipated. how could you get them out of here now? you were injured, peter was probably in worse condition… although he did seem to be able to carry significant weight. maybe you could carry them until the exit and call an ambulance, for yourselves, too.

──────

peter walked towards you until he was a breath away, his face was covered in sweat on top of everything else, and he was gasping for air, as were you. he looked at your leg.

“i’ll carry you,” was all he said. he seemed so tired.

“we need to carry these people first.”

“no, i’ll carry you first. until you’re out of this complex.”

──────

you were sitting on the sidewalk, waiting for the ambulance you had called. well, ambulances, as they’d be carrying nine people. you had, also, finally taken off the mask you’d come to despise at this point, associating it with very negative feelings.

you saw peter swing down with the last one of the survivors. he landed, placed the unconscious man on the sidewalk, and sat right next to you.

you sat together in silence for a while, until you took a deep breath, and chuckled lightly. it was over. you’d done it. everyone was alive.

peter looked at you questioningly, although it was hard to read his face; he’d turned mostly expressionless. because of how much effort it must have been taking to even stay awake for him, you assumed.

“it’s over,” you said, “we did it.”

he looked away again, to the desolate road in front of you. “you did it,” he said, “i messed up.”

“how so?”

“i acted rashly. i should’ve been more careful. now they’ll find a new base, and i have to start from nothing to track them down again. and they know i’m after them. and i couldn’t change anything in the end, i just made things worse. all of this was for nothing, it could have been completely avoided. it started with the collapse of one building and then it ended with the collapse of another for no reason.”

you were watching him carefully. lines of exhaustion had formed on his face, the sorrow and… and whatever it was that dropped a boulder of burning despair into the pit of your stomach from when you first met had come back; you’d thought the youth had somehow returned to his face this evening.

“so,” you started, taking another deep breath, “you came here after they exploded a building to stop them, like, end them in general, or at least weaken them, do something. that makes sense to me. then you acted rashly here? why?”

“i saw… the kidnapped victims, and they were suffering, so i wanted to save them.”

“then you didn’t mess up, right? you saved them.”

“not all of them, and i wouldn’t have without you.”

“well, a big majority of them, you did save. all of them would die without you. and what else could you have done but to directly interfere? you did the only thing you could.”

he just stayed silent, was he not convinced?

“i don’t think this was a failure, peter. i think you did well and saved many people, and i think it was worth it.”

his eyes were teary, but he didn’t look at you again, he turned his gaze to the ground, and just stayed silent.

──────

you had decided on what to tell the authorities before the paramedics had arrived, and then you’d been separated, put into different ambulances.

then… well, the rest was as you imagined it would go. still a lot of pain, and a lot of hasty doctors as they asked questions and barked orders. it was horrible, really, with the way your head had been aching, but at least they were numbing your leg. and you would most likely be allowed to drift off to sleep at some point, right?

──────

you lied on the hospital bed, staring at the ceiling. it was almost noon, and you’d waken up not so long ago. you just kept playing what happened again and again in your head, trying to make sense of every detail.

it was a miracle you were alive. you’d faced off a gun. an actual gun.

it was good that all you could do by yourself in this hospital bed was think; you’d been asking yourself the same questions for a while now. did you still want to be involved with peter? you’d known him only for two days, and you’d ended up in a hospital already.

you’d considered every outcome and every reason, every choice you could make. in the end, it boiled down to a few core options. would you rather live a less risky life by yourself, or risk getting hurt like this to be with someone? someone who can meet you as deeply as you crave?

not just that, human bonds were too important to be disregarded because of what external threats might arise. the reality now was that you loved peter, he was a good person, he didn’t deserve to be abandoned because of what evil people did. your choice didn’t come out of loneliness; even if you had a dozen bonds like this, you would still choose to stay with peter, because you’d formed a relationship with him now. and that was that.

out of every outcome you considered, the worst one was definitely living your life without peter, and then getting news that spiderman just died somewhere, by himself. even the thought of it was nausiating. then again, the thought of just him getting hurt like this, and having no one to go to was just as horrible. so you needed to choose the opposite of what would cause that outcome to happen.

it hadn’t been that hard a decision to make; staying involved with peter. you’d already been tangled, it wasn’t much of a possibility to untangle yourself now, a part of you would be left behind.

besides, you somehow remembered him, didn’t you? that had to mean something. there had to be a reason for it.

──────

after finally being discharged, the first thing you did was look for peter, but he’d somehow gotten out before you. not because his wounds were less severe, quite the opposite, the nurses had said he’d been restless to get out, and they couldn’t keep someone against their will.

the orange of dusk had faded away, although it wasn’t fully dark yet. you were on your way to your apartment while you kept ringing peter’s phone, he was stubbornly refusing to answer.

you huffed as another attempt turned out to be in vain. you looked at the taxi driver, who did not acknowledge your existence, and then turned back to your phone.

“peter, are you okay? is everything all right?”

you messaged him. then waited for him to see. aaand waited. still waiting.

you huffed again, three minutes of staring at your screen impatiently and he wasn’t responding.

although you’d asked him if he were okay, you knew the truth. it wasn’t that he couldn’t answer, it was that he’d decided to go through with his stupid “i’ll never see you again because i’m ruining your life” nonsense. in your heart of hearts, you knew. so you sent another message.

“if you’re thinking about cutting ties with me, then do it properly. come and talk to me about it.”

and then looked out the taxi’s window for the rest of your journey.

────── 𓆩˚.⋆🕸⋆.˚𓆪 ──────

you were right, peter knew. after everything that happened, opening up to you and accepting you into his life, if he wanted to step away now, he needed to respect you, and tell you about it properly. so he was standing in front of your door now, trying to gather up the courage to ring your bell, and tell you he’d never see you again. this door had seemed so inviting one night ago, and it had tricked peter. he was not supposed to be invited into any house, didn’t your house know that?

he took a deep breath, and rang the bell. when you opened the door, you looked tired. not your expression, but the lines on your face and the look in your eyes gave it away. that was his fault, wasn’t it?

you stepped aside to welcome him, and he followed you into the living room, the couch he’d sat on the night he’d told you everything.

bidding you farewell was going to be hard, he didn’t know if he could be brave enough, or selfless enough. he’d been so when he had been wiped from the memories of every living being, and that was much harder a task, wasn’t it? so couldn’t he do it a second time?

but he hated waking up every day, and hated… well, he couldn’t even properly hate. getting up, putting one foot in front of the other was becoming harder every day, he didn’t want to do anything, anymore. so circumstances had changed since then, but he still kept fighting every day, and he still kept doing what he thought was right. so he could do this too.

or you would die. he’d lost enough people. to love was to lose. to love was the possibility of loss eventually.

he shouldn’t even have sat on this couch, actually, why had he done so? he should’ve just told you he was leaving, and then leave. he made a move to get up again, you grabbed his arm to stop him.

“you should stay seated,” you said, “i’ll bring something to eat for dinner.”

“please don’t, i’ll be on my way shortly anyway.”

“no,” you said as a statement, firmly, and left him alone in the living room.

peter never should’ve come. you deserved to have one last conversation, but how could peter move on from you? he supposed it would’ve been impossible even if he hadn’t come to your place today, even if he’d told you to turn back without getting wet the day you first recognized him. he would just have to live missing you forever, and that wasn’t unrealistic. it’s what he was doing now, missing everybody he’d ever known. and he was living, wasn’t he? well, he was alive.

you brought pasta with chicken, obviously freshly made, and put down two plates on the couch.

“we could eat in the kitchen,” he said.

“couch is comfier.”

he sighed, looking at his plate. he really didn’t want to eat anything made by you again, he didn’t need more things to miss. you’d said you didn’t feel like preparing a meal just for yourself, that he made you want to cook something… he remembered everything you said, of course. that you’d apparently wanted to get closer to him in high school too, why had he been so nervous? afraid?

it was for the best, though. otherwise, you might’ve died years ago. no matter what you felt, he couldn’t be selfish enough to assume he could be there for you, or good for you.

“so,” you started, “you decided to go forward with your plan of ignoring my existence for the rest of your life?”

“it’s not ignoring,” he had a defensive tone, “i was wrong to even confirm i’m peter at the start, i’ll fix my mistake.”

“it wasn’t a mistake, how can you say that? would you prefer i believed i’d lost my mind?”

you had a hard time walking now, limping although you tried to hide it, and several wounds were visible on your face. you’d beat up a man with a metal pipe, what kind of damage did that leave on your psyche? peter didn’t know, he’d been warring since he was fifteen.

“you wouldn’t be in pain, at least.”

“you’re unbelievable,” you sounded exasparated, and seemed offended, but peter didn’t know what else to say. it was the truth. “i’d rather know the bitter truth, or suffer from its consequences than believe a lie any time. besides, you couldn’t have known this would happen, it’s not on you.”

“you can’t tell me you would still get a gunshot wound yesterday if we hadn’t met two days ago.”

“maybe not, but i don’t blame you for it and i don’t care.”

“you don’t care?!” peter was getting angry, was it because you were getting angry? he was angry at himself, was it dripping out of his chest into his tongue as poison?

“no,” you backtracked, “i mean, i’m fine with it. i can live with it. and i don’t hold it against you, i don’t have any resentment for you. i don’t know how else to explain this.”

he took a deep breath to hold back his tears. he couldn’t let your words get to him, make him feel better about what had occurred. he needed to protect you, he kept reminding himself.

“i can’t put you in harm’s way,” he said.

you paused for a moment.

“do you take care of your wounds by yourself? you did so after the fire the other day, and you basically ran away from the hospital this time around.”

peter was taken aback. “uh, yeah?” he answered.

you grabbed a bag that was positioned right next to the couch on the floor, and took a… first aid kit out of it. and then a salve, and bandages, and… what was going on?

“i bought these today after being discharged, figured you might need some.”

“i’m… fine?”

your expression was very unimpressed when you looked at him.

“so you think i don’t see your arm, or the way you have a hard time eating or breathing, or even just your hands?”

ah, right. his hands were bruised, not enough to warrant bandaging though, this happened regularly. and his arm did hurt, but the pain would go away in a few days or so. his abdomen… that was taken care of, too, the dressing they did at the hospital would be enough.

“it’s all taken care of,” he said.

“we need to put salve on your hands, and then wrap-”

“we don’t, this happens all the time.”

you looked at him in surprise for a moment. “this happens all the time and we don’t need to treat it?” you repeated with your eyes wide, tone something between offended and shocked.

he didn’t know what to say, so you just started doing whatever you’d set your mind to even before he came to your house. you gently held his hand, and started applying the salve. he sighed, and closed his eyes, leaning his head to rest on the couch. he shouldn’t have, but you didn’t give him much choice.

“i’ll learn how to suture,” you said, “and anything else that’s necessary.”

peter spoke your name, “i’m sorry,” he said, “i am so, so sorry. i don’t want to leave you either, but you saw what happened. mj and ned have forgotten me, and they are happier for it. this is what i need to do.”

“peter,” you said, as you started wrapping the bandage around his hand, “i haven’t forgotten you, and if you leave now, i still won’t forget. i don’t know how mj and ned are doing, having forgotten, but you can’t compare me to them. and even if i had forgotten, i still would want to know. how else can i put this?” you searched for the words, “i care about you more than i care about happiness. i’d choose you over happiness, i’d rather be in pain with you than be painless by myself.”

peter had straightened his back, his gaze fixated on your eyes, as you spoke. a lump in his throat, tears threatening to roll down his cheeks in his eyes, his hand in your hands… a warmth in his chest, how he hadn’t felt in so long. your words did soften his edges, but he couldn’t accept it. he still held back his tears, and still wanted to escape. run away. was that why he wanted to leave you? was his true reason to protect you, or his fear? he wanted to run, he wanted to run as fast as he could and hide, from anyone who could see him.

it was too much, but he couldn’t exactly tell what was too much. he was afraid of hurting you, but that wasn’t all he was afraid of, yet he couldn’t recognize what else scared him so.

“but,” you continued, “being with you will make me happy anyway, do you understand? i’ll be happier with you than alone, even if my life is at risk, and even if guns chase my back.”

you had teared up too, peter realised, but were wiping your tears away, to keep your vision clear while working on his now other hand, he assumed.

and that was it, the last drop of water to make his glass overflow. silent tears started finding their way to his chin, his gaze lowered in embarrassment. he’d already cried a dozen times in front of you, and he wished he hadn’t, he wished he could be stronger, firmer, he wished he could aspire confidence instead of silently crying. he hadn’t been able to cry for a while, before meeting you. even when it hurt deep inside his bones, his tears had dried up. were they all spilling out now?

he wanted you to stay, too, he was tired of being alone. he was tired of imagining “what if”s. he was tired of walking directionless with his hoodie covering his face, face a blur in crowds, never known by anyone. if you could bandage his hands every time after a fight, or have your textbooks scattered around in his room, then-

he didn’t want to imagine it. he just couldn’t accept it.

you were done with his hands, even though peter didn’t want you to let go. “how about this,” you started, “why don’t we give it some more time? i mean, how many times did mj or ned get wounded while knowing you?”

“… never, really.”

“yeah, so, either i’m also cursed, or this was a rare occurrence. either way, me staying with you won’t change anything. so, instead of making a rash decision like this, why don’t we try to be friends first? and if it doesn’t work out, then you can put some distance?”

that was… peter thought on it. and then his silent tears turned into straight-up sobbing. because that could work. he could accept that, it made sense to him.

he leaned down and buried his face in his hands. you started caressing his hair, which made it impossible for his tears to stop.

when everyone had forgotten, you'd remembered him. when faced with a gun, you'd survived. when injured, you'd walked. maybe he really was cursed, considering what had happened to you after you just met, but you seemed determined to break it.

and it might not be perfect, but it would be.

it must’ve been hard for you to make such a decision, you must’ve thought about it; staying with peter. you’d chosen him anyway. he could do the same, too. despite his fears, his horrible instinct to shrink and escape, he could stand his ground, and choose to stay, as you had. and maybe with time, it could get easier.

he stopped his sobbing, calmed down enough to face you, and raised his head.

“i don’t know what tomorrow will bring,” he said with a hint of nervousness in his voice.

“right,” you smiled, “exciting, isn’t it?”

ghost towns (youtube music) by radical face... as we part ways for now.

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.”

your eyes were slightly fluttering, the tiredness from the day rushing over you. your head dropped gently on dex.. he smelt of sea salt and oak, and a tad of musk. you closed your eyes just momentarily, soaking in the hum of the television and dex’s chilling body temperature. 

dex looked down at his body, gazing at your figure. he brought his trembling hand up to your face, stroking a stray hair from your forehead. dex then rested his hand on your cheek, thumb moving in small circles. you were so precious. what did he do to deserve you?

your eyes blinked awake, feeling a large, calloused hand on your cheek. dex stopped his movements for a moment, moving to retract his hand. before he could, though, you set your hand over his. the small, manicured one compared to his rough one. 

you removed your hand now, trailing it up dex’s muscular arm to his broad shoulder. “you're so beautiful,” you mumbled out between your sweet lips.

dex hadn’t replied with words, but instead lifted you to sit in his lap. god, he was so big. he was capable of so much, and you weren’t afraid a single bit. your body shifted around, finally settling on his strong thighs. his large arms came around you, hands settling at your lower back. dex peered back up at you with the deepest fucking eyes, looking at you like you were the sweetest girl ever. 

“my sweet girl,” he hummed, his grip tightening. it was firm, but not enough to bruise. never enough to bruise. dex would never hurt his girl, and he would never allow her to be hurt. 

you pawed at his shirt, begging to get the soft cotton off. “dexy, m’begging you, please.” 

“anything for you,” he rasped out, pulling the fitted navy shirt over him. his sculpted body was covered in scars, raised and red. you didn’t care, though. dex earned them. proof he was superhuman. 

now, clawing off your own tee, dex pulled you somehow closer. you were wearing the bra he liked. navy, fabric smooth like butter, and cupped your chest perfectly. it was his favorite because it wasn’t like the others that dug into your skin and left marks that you would silently rub before you stepped into the shower. 

you snaked your arms around dex, his eyes locked onto you like a target. his eyes were now rimmed with hazel and filled with a deep void of desire. you peered down at his pink lips, laying a warm kiss. it was short, but sweet. dex loved how soft and pliant you were. you would melt in his hands, like strawberry ice cream on a balmy day.

dex wasn’t much different. anytime you would cuddle, ass plush against him, he too would melt. anything you would do had him chasing the high over and over again. 

he now chased your lips, pressing back against your smooth ones. they tasted like your banana cream lip gloss and whipped cream. he licked them once before he went in again, tasting all of you. you giggled at his sweet action, a hand snaking to his sandy blonde tufts. you gripped it gently, bringing it towards you. he hummed in satisfaction, the slightest sting of pain thrilling him. “fuck.”

you ran a hand down his chest, down to his abdomen. your pointer finger drew hearts over his abs as you looked back up at him. “can i, baby?” you asked, eyelashes batting. you shifted your hips right over his growing bulge, a wet patch already forming in his grey sweatpants.

he nodded, “yes, f-fuck, love.” your gaze never broke, because that was the real intimate part. dex never took you fully from behind, unless there was a mirror in front of you two, or if he held you against him. he loved looking at your fucked-out face as you took all of him.

your finger trailed down, right above his length. you let it linger there, licking your lips. his hands engulfed your ass as you pulled at the band, letting it snap against his waist. his hips twitched at the action, restraining from bucking up into you. 

you pulled him out and cupped your warm hand around him. you could hear dex’s breath hitch, the airflow becoming heavier. after a few jerks, you swiped over the tip, a bead of his sweetness sticking to your thumb. dex whined out, mouth agape. you drew forward, taking advantage of the opening. you kissed the side of his mouth, your spit drowning his shaved skin. he tilted his head to the side to take control of your mouth now, his tongue immediately invading it.

you pulled your underwear to the side, already wet, waiting for him. every time you and dex made love, he knew at this point it was his turn to take the reins. dex dragged his hands up and down your thighs, feeling the soft skin. you hovered over him, not wanting to sink down until he gave the green light, even though you knew you always had it. when it came to dex, anything was plausible. 

“my girl needs me now, hm? need me to fuck her good?” he asked with a smooth tone, cupping the curve of your waist. 

you nodded with teary eyes, the ache in your cunt worsening by the second. a tear slipped, and dex wiped it away with his thumb, licking the wet streak. the salty trickle now replaced by his damped love that you would go to war for. 

dex brought you down slowly, easing into you. no matter how many times you had taken him, it was still far too much. maybe he needed to mold you more, he thought.

you whined pathetically, hands planted right on dex’s chest. he threw his head back in ecstasy, never getting tired of your gummy walls. “move please, please, dex, i need you,” you begged. 

he brought you back up before slamming down. a moan etched from you, the noise coming straight from the back of your throat. dex winced with pleasure, getting his fix. he brought his lips to your artery, leaving open-mouthed kisses on the pressure point. 

once he saw you catch your breath, he continued his movements, pulling your body back up and down with no effort whatsoever. he’s throbbing inside, tip kissing that sweet spongey spot inside you. you're babbling now, whispering sweet nothings against him. dex glanced at your tummy and the slight bulge in it. he was obsessed with the fact that he could see himself leaving and entering you.

dex closes his eyes, replaying the image over and over. his lips trailed down to your chest, licking and nipping gently at the smooth skin. dex was so proud whenever you took him, falling apart so easily. the fact that you let him every single time, treating him like he hung the moon. 

“i-i’m gonna cum, dexy..” you whimpered against his lips, closing your eyes. the tightness in your tummy was ready to snap. “i know, babygirl, let it out,” he moaned back, his jaw unlocked. 

you tightened around him, listening to dex’s instructions. you would never disobey him. you were so loyal, like a dog. 

“not much longer, baby,” you cried out, eyes tearing up once more. “now, c’mon, sweet girl,” he grunted. 

you threw your head back, letting go. you saw stars transform into white, chest heaving. 

dex wasn’t far behind, bucking up and his pace increasing. though, he was getting messy. he pushed your hair back before bringing your face back to his. dex smothered you in spit-soaked lips as you were still coming down from your high. 

“yeah, that’s it, baby. take fucking all of it,” he groaned. and you did. like his good fucking girl.

you could feel dex’s movements faltering as he gripped harder. “fuck, all mine. where, sweetheart?”

his hand trailed up to your throat, wrapping around it like he could cut off your airway at any given moment. “inside, dex,” a mewl comes from you. “inside me, please!”

dex sobbed at your words, thrusting fully into you. you both came instantaneously. he was still fucking up into you, his cum filling you to the brim. the creamy ring around him made you drool buckets. you whined at dex, laying a lasting sloppy kiss on him. “i love you, dex,” you mumbled.

“i love you too, doll, so fucking much. you’ll never know,” he whispered out, palm back to cradling the back of your head on his chest.

ᡕᠵデᡁ᠊╾━ ⁠𖣠

That little box is staring at you.

You can feel it, eyes boring into your back as you try your hardest to go about your day.

But it's there. In the back of your head. With that stupid sticky note on top.

For when Frank is gone, xoxo - Karen.

I mean, what was she thinking ? Getting you a vibrator ? God !

You exhale slowly through your nose, like that might somehow erase the entire situation. It does not.

“I cannot believe her,” you mutter to yourself, nudging the box slightly farther across the counter like distance will neutralize it. You scoff softly, dragging a hand down your face.

“I work with criminals,” you whisper. “Actual criminals. And this is what breaks me.” The box doesn’t respond. Unfortunately.

Frank has only been gone a few days. Some pressing work with Micro and Homeland that couldn't wait- and he left you with a soft kiss on your forehead and the promise to call every night to help you fall asleep.

You had no idea how you'd gotten a man so unbearably soft. I mean, it's not like you were a virgin or anything- but you weren't exactly experienced. You'd had a total number of one serious boyfriend your entire life, back in highschool - and he bled into your college and early adult life.

It's not like he was a great lay either.

All he would do is lay on top of you and rut helplessly, and then come on your stomach in the span of five minutes, shuddering helplessly and crying as he thanked you, and then whispering "did you come" in your ear, like it was a prize he was to be given after all of his hard work.

Even now you shudder at the memory, eyeing the box suspiciously as your stomach gave a vulnerable little flip.

You never had any siblings or parents or anyone for that matter- that taught you what it was supposed to feel like. What you were supposed to do, when you were on your own. You tried to touch yourself once, years ago, hiding in your bathroom with your phone, looking at diagrams of the female anatomy to figure out which part of the mess between your legs was the clit. It did not end well. It was enjoyable. It was a little bit painful, and it made your whole body tense and uncomfortable, so from that day on you just accepted that you weren't going to be that kind of person.

But now, with Frank gone- god your body is thrumming with need.

You exhale again, slower this time, like you’re trying to manually regulate your own thoughts. It does not help. The box remains on the counter. Judging you.

You turn away, grabbing a glass from the cabinet and filling it with water you don’t really want. You take a sip anyway. Your eyes flick back.

The box hasn’t moved. Neither has the problem.

Frank has only been gone a few days, and you’re fine. You are absolutely fine. You have been sleeping, eating, functioning like a normal adult woman with a stable marriage and a job that does not involve emotional damage on a daily basis. Except for the fact that your husband calls you every night like clockwork, voice soft and warm in your ear, asking if you’ve eaten, if you’re safe, if you miss him. Which is unfair, honestly. Borderline manipulation four your pussy, which clenches whenever you see his name pop up on your screen.

And then there’s this.

You glare at the box again.

“I don’t even need it,” you mutter. It does not care. You turn your back to it and start rinsing dishes you already washed earlier, because if you stay still too long you’ll think about it. And if you think about it, you’ll— Nope. Absolutely not.

“…It’s just a machine,” you whisper to yourself. It remains unhelpful. You take a step closer. Then another. Then stop.

“This is ridiculous,” you mutter. Another step. You reach for it, hesitate, and immediately yank your hand back like it bit you.

“Nope.” You exhale, rub your forehead, and glance toward the hallway as if Frank might appear telepathically just to catch you in the act of being a disaster. Nothing. Just you. Just the box. And Karen’s extremely smug handwriting. You stare at it for another long second.

"For fuck's sake." You whip up the box, tearing it open as you storm off to your bedroom, kicking your door closed like a teen hiding some big secret from her parents. You flop down on the bed, scooting up until your back hits the headboard, and you retrieving the vibrator out of the box. It's small, elongated, and thin- and you grimace as you try to picture the feel of it compared to Frank's thick and heavy cock resting between the two of you as his fingers dive inside of you getting you nice and ready for-

O-kay.... You really need to get yourself off before Frank comes home.

Laying back on the bed, you shimmy yourself out of your shorts and flip on the vibrator, flinching as it whirrs to life. You gulp down the fear balling up in your throat and bring it down between your legs. At first, it tickles a little, and you squirm, trying hard not to give up. You screw your eyes shut and try hard to focus on something else, anything else.

"Fuck, you're so gorgeous." God his body is perfect. So perfect heavy above yours, rutting into you so hard and violently you can't even breathe properly. God you can feel him in your throat, mouth hanging open. "Love watching you take me, baby. So fuckin' good f'me." The hard planse of his muscles glint with sweat, and the way his hand hikes up your thigh to drag deeper, and deeper and deeper and Your eyes snap open.

This is not working.

Your body feels worked up and ready to go, ready to burst with the tension coiled up inside of you, but nothing you do will help you get to that sweet sweet release you feel with Frank. Choking on a sob, you toss the vibrator aside and duck beneath the covers, horrified with yourself.

You don't have time to wallow in self-pity though, because your phone rings beside you.

You stare at it like it’s personally mocking you.

Frankie

Of course. Of course he calls now.

Your hand freezes halfway under the covers, heart still doing something deeply illegal in your chest, your body still half-aligned with the aftermath of your very humiliating attempt at self-sufficiency. The phone keeps ringing.

Once. Twice.

You swallow hard, yank the blanket higher like that will somehow fix your entire emotional state, and answer.

“Hey,” you say, immediately too breathy.

"Hiya, baby." His voice is soft and caring, and your insides melt immediately. "How's my pretty girl ?" You bite back a sob at the sound of his voice.

You bite back a sob at the sound of his voice. It’s not fair. It’s really not fair. Because he sounds normal. Grounded. Warm. Like he hasn’t just turned your entire nervous system into scrambled wires from three thousand miles away.

"I'm okay." You manage. "When are you - Frankie, when are you coming home ?" You whine. God, you sound so pathetic. But you miss him. You miss him so much your whole body feels on fire. Although that might be from the orgasm you tried to give yourself that never came.

"Soon, baby. Soon. I'll be home tomorrow night, i promise." His voice is torn and ragged, which tells you he obviously misses you too. That does something to you. Not just the words—but the way he says them. Torn. Ragged. Like he’s holding himself together with sheer will just to stay steady for you.

Your throat tightens.

“Tomorrow night?” you echo softly.

“Yeah,” Frank says. A pause. Then, quieter: “If everything goes right.” Your heart flips over in your chest.

“That’s… that feels so far away,” you whisper before you can stop yourself. Frank lets out a low sound—half agreement, half apology.

“I know.” Silence settles between you again, but it’s different now. Less empty. More full. Like both of you are sitting on opposite ends of the same thread, pulling gently without breaking it. You shift under the blanket, suddenly hyper-aware of everything—your skin, your breathing, the lingering frustration still coiled tight in your stomach from earlier. Frank clears his throat.

“You been eatin’?” he asks, slipping back into his steady tone. You blink.

“…Yes.” A pause.

“Don’t lie to me, sweetheart.” You groan softly into the pillow.

“I had crackers.”

“That’s not dinner.”

“It’s food.” Frank huffs a quiet laugh.

“Jesus,” he mutters. “I leave you alone for a couple days and you fall apart.”

“Excuse me?” you say, offended despite everything.

“You heard me.” There’s warmth in it though. Always warmth. You can picture him right now—probably leaning back in a chair, hand over his mouth like he’s trying not to smile too much at you. And that image makes something in your chest unclench.

“I miss you,” you admit again, smaller this time. Frank goes quiet for a beat. Then:

“Yeah,” he says softly. “I miss you too.” A pause. Then, lower—

“Tell me what you’re doin’ right now.” Your stomach does something stupid.

“…Nothing,” you say carefully.

“Mm.” Suspicious hum. You squeeze your eyes shut.

“Frank.”

“What?” he says, entirely too innocent.

“I’m literally just lying in bed.” A beat. Then—

“Uh-huh.” You can hear the smile now. Definitely. You groan.

“You’re impossible.”

“You love me,” he says easily. That shuts you up instantly. Because he’s right. And he knows it. Frank’s voice softens again.

“Hey,” he says.

“Yeah?”

“I’ll be home tomorrow night,” he repeats, slower this time. Like he wants you to hold onto it. “You hear me?” You swallow.

“Yes.”

“And when I get back,” he adds, voice dropping just slightly, “I’m not lettin’ you outta my sight for a while.” Your breath catches.

“…That a threat?”

“It’s a promise.” And somehow— Somehow that makes your whole body go warm in a way you definitely don’t need right now. You press your face into the pillow to hide it, even though he can’t see you.

“Frank?”

“Yeah, sweetheart?”

"Hurry home.”

-----

When the door thuds closed the next night, your entire body seems to perk up at attention.

"Baby ?" A bag thudding in the entryway. Boots getting kicked off. "You home, mama ?"

Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.

"Where you hidin', pretty girl ?" You practically tumble out of the bedroom and into the living room.

And dear lord there he is.

His hair has gotten longer and his bear is more scruffy, but it's him.

Frankie. Your Frankie.

Your body reacts before your brain does.

He catches you halfway across the room, arms wrapping around you so fast and so tight it knocks the air out of your lungs. You make a small sound—half laugh, half relief—and disappear into him completely, jumping up and wrapping yourself around him like a baby koala.

Frank’s hand slides into your hair immediately, holding your head against his neck like he needs to feel you there to believe it.

“Jesus Christ,” he mutters into your hair. Your fingers clutch his shirt, not wanting to let go. He wraps his arms around you, dragging you close. "God, you smell so good. Since when do you smell this fucking good ?" He rasps, chuckling and shaking his head. You laugh against his neck, the sound shaky from relief more than anything.

“Since you left.”

“Bullshit.”

“It’s true.”

“Mm.” He pulls back just enough to look at you. “Lemme see you.” You immediately tighten your hold around him.

“No.” A laugh bursts out of him.

“Baby.”

“Nope.”

“You launched yourself at me like a heat-seeking missile.”

“Correct.”

“And now you won't let me look at you?”

“Also correct.”

Frank shakes his head, smiling so hard the corners of his eyes crease.

“C'mon.” Reluctantly, you lift your head. The second he gets a good look at you, something in his expression softens. Not lust. Not amusement. Just pure affection. Like he genuinely missed every tiny detail. His hand comes up to brush a piece of hair behind your ear.

God, you can't take it.

With a groan, you surge forward, catching his lips with yours. He retaliates almost immediately, large hand cupping the back of your head to push you closer as you slide down his body and land on the floor. Your entire body feels like a live wire, and ever simple stroke of his knuckles along your arms is sending shock waves to your pussy that make you want to scream "fuck me, fuck me, fuck me". His tongue delves into your mouth as his large hands hold your head steady, and you melt at the feeling, your knees going weak as you can fee; the wetness in your panties spread and soak. You clench your thighs desperately, whimpering pathetically as your fingers knead into his hair your body shuddering as you try to step closer to him. Your hands leave his shoulders and trail down his chest, fumbling desperately for his belt. He breaks the kiss, chuckling.

"Woah, woah, baby-" You shake your head, already kicking off your shorts as you slot the belt off his waistband, your body thrumming. Your small hand finds his erection through his jeans, and he hisses a breath, hips bucking into your grasp. You moan, standing on your tiptoes to kiss him again. He smiles against your lips, dragging you close.

"C'mon, baby, slow down-" He chuckles. You shake your head, grabbing his wrist and shoving it down your panties, moaning at the sheer contact of the heel of his palm against your clit.

"No, no, no more waiting- Please, Frankie, fuck, please, i need you to make me come, please-" You're practically crying, rutting against his hand in the living room, hand gripped into his shirt.

"Hey, c'mon, wait-" His hand slips out of your panties and he presses his hand to your collarbone, stopping you from reaching up and kissing him again. "Whaddya mean, 'make you come' ? What's wrong, baby ?" He's staring down at you, confused, his brows drawn tight. Shame bursts through your body, hot and embarrassing, and you shrink away from him, shoving his hands off you.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry." Frank's entire expression changes instantly. The teasing disappears. The confusion stays, but now it's threaded with concern.

"Hey." He catches your wrist before you can retreat too far. Not trapping you. Just stopping you from running. "Baby." You can't look at him.

"Don't."

"Don't what?"

"Look at me." A beat of silence. Then, gently:

"That's gonna be a problem, sweetheart. You're my favorite thing to look at." Normally that would make you laugh. Instead, you groan and bury your face in your hands.

"Oh my God !" You grumble and take off in a run for the room.

"Wait- Sweetheart !" You can hear Frank thundering down the hall behind you, and you throw yourself down on the bed, head first into your pillow, curling around it as if it could help absorb the embarrassment coiling through your veins. The door opens, and you don't look up. You clench tighter around the pillow.

"Baby, come on." Frank says, chuckling a little in disbelief. "You gotta tell me what's goin' on. I've been gone for a month, you're gonna need to fill me in here." The mattress dips beside you, and his hand falls on the small of your back, rubbing affectionately.

"Alright." His voice stays calm. Steady. "Talk to me." You immediately shake your head, refusing to look up at him.

"Baby."

"No." you grumble into the pillow.

"Sweetheart."

"It's embarrassing." Frank actually snorts.

"You've known me for years."

"Exactly."

"I have seen you do far more embarrassing things than whatever this is." You let out an offended noise into the pillow.

"That's not true."

"Sweetheart." Frank's hand slides up and down your back. "I once watched you accidentally send a grocery list to your boss." Your face immediately burns hotter.

"That was one time."

"You signed it with three heart emojis."

"I was tired."

"You called him 'love.'"

"I know." Frank laughs. The traitor. You groan louder and shove your face deeper into the pillow. For a moment, he just sits there beside you, rubbing your back while your dignity actively leaves your body. Then, more softly:

"Baby." You refuse to answer. "Sweetheart." A muffled grumble escapes you. "I can't help if you don't tell me why you practically shoved my fingers inside you three minutes after i stepped into the door."

"It's stupid."

"Okay."

"And embarrassing."

"Okay."

"And you're gonna laugh."

"Probably."

"Frank!"

"I'm bein' honest." You finally roll over just enough to glare at him. He's sitting on the edge of the bed with that stupid patient look on his face. Hair longer than when he left. Beard scruffier. Eyes soft. Home. Your annoyance immediately loses half its strength.

You sigh dramatically. Then sigh again. Then hide your face in your hands. Frank waits. Eventually, the words come out.

"Karen bought me something." His eyebrows rise.

"Okay." You immediately regret speaking.

"Never mind."

"Nope." He points at you. "We're already committed now." You groan.

"Karen bought me something."

"What'd she buy you?" Silence. Frank's eyes narrow.

"A vibrator."

"Oh." Your face catches fire.

"Oh my God."

"Oh."

"Stop saying oh." His mouth twitches.

"Baby."

"Don't." His eyebrows disappear into his hairline.

"Karen bought you a vibrator?" You make a strangled sound and bury your face in a pillow. Frank completely loses the battle. A laugh escapes him. Just one. Then another.

"Frank!"

"I'm sorry."

"No you're not."

"No, I'm not." The pillow you throw at him hits him directly in the face. He catches it, still laughing. You want the earth to swallow you whole.

"Okay," he says after a minute, finally composing himself. "Now I definitely need the rest of the story."

"There is no rest of the story." The look he gives you says he doesn't believe that for a second. You stare at the ceiling. He stares at you. Eventually, you crack.

"I tried." Frank blinks.

"Tried what?" You point vaguely into the room.

"The thing."

"The thing...The vibrator."

"Yes." Silence. Then understanding dawns. Slowly.

"Okay." You immediately hide your face again.

"Please stop saying that." Frank's expression softens instantly. The amusement fades.

"Baby."

"It didn't work." He pauses.

"What do you mean?" You shrug helplessly.

"I don't know." The confession comes out smaller than you intended. "I thought maybe I was supposed to know how." Frank's face changes completely. Every trace of teasing disappears. You hate how emotional that makes you. "I just..." You stare at the blanket. "Frank, i've never.." You gulp down the fear in your throat. His big hand finds your thigh and he softly squeezes it, making you look up at him.

"You can tell me, Mama. It's okay. I won't judge." He says. You sigh and tuck your hands under your thighs to stop them from shaking.

"Frank, i've never come before." Frank stares at you for a second, and then his brows furrow.

"Well, i know that's a lie."

"Frank-"

"Baby, i've felt you gushing on my dick. I know full well you've come before." He says, his head tilting to the side. You groan.

"On my own." You clarify. "I've never made myself come before. I don't know how." You say, your voice small. "I tried once, with my fingers but it- it felt wrong and it hurt so I never did it again and- and the vibrator didn't - it just didn't-"

"Woah, okay, hey." Frank cups your cheeks in his big hands, his thumbs pressing into your cheekbones. The panic that's been building in your chest hits a wall. Not because it's gone. Because Frank is looking at you like you just confessed you're scared of thunderstorms.

Not broken. Not weird. Not embarrassing. Just something he wishes you'd told him sooner.

"Baby," he says softly. You immediately wince. "Stop that"

"What?"

"That look."

"What look?"

"The one where you're already deciding you're defective." His eyebrows lift. "Cut that out." You let out a helpless laugh.

"I'm serious."

"Frank—"

"No." His thumbs brush beneath your eyes. "You're not broken." You stare at him. "It's not weird."

"It feels weird."

"To who?"

"Everyone knows how to do this stuff."

"Sweetheart, half the people on this planet don't know how to assemble IKEA furniture and you think everybody's got their body figured out?" He shakes his head. "C'mon." Despite yourself, you snort. Frank looks pleased. You roll your eyes.

"You don't understand."

"Then explain it to me." You hesitate. Then sigh.

"It's just..." Your shoulders slump. "Something's wrong with me." The words hang in the air. Frank's expression softens immediately.

"Oh, mama."

"You make it look so easy." His eyebrows shoot up.

"Me?"

"Yes, you. When you... you know."

"Sweetheart," he starts, his chest heaving. "I need you to show me."

"Show you ?" He nods, leaning back.

"Show me what you do. With your fingers. To yourself." Your chest goes tight.

"Frank-"

"I can help you." You shake your head, your cheeks going red.

"No, Frank. It won't work if it's not you. The vibrator didn't even work because my body knew it wasn't you !" He cups your cheek, shaking his head.

"Hey- Stop that." He presses a kiss to your temple and gets up, before dragging a chair over, and slumping down in it. "I just need you to show me." You watch as Frank settles—spread wide, forearms on his thighs, eyes gentle but expectant. He nods at you like this is any other day, like he’s just watching you taste a new dessert, and not die quietly of embarrassment.

“C’mon, baby. Let me see.” There’s no teasing, no mockery. Just Frank. You push yourself up against the headboard, drawing your knees up protectively before lowering them in slow-motion. The air between your legs feels cold, exposed, but you force yourself to tip your pelvis forward so that Frank can see you, see what happens when you actually try.

“Go on,” he murmurs, voice lower now. “Just like you do when you’re alone.” His wrists rest on his knees, hands loose, relaxed, like no man has ever been more patient for anything in his life. Your fingers shake as you draw them down your stomach. It feels—to call it embarrassing would be a disservice to the word. Frank’s eyes are so serene, so kind, it almost makes it worse. But he wants to help. And you trust him more than anyone. So you slide your hand lower, cupping yourself, and immediately whimper at the heat—how much you want this, despite the chasm opening in your chest.

“That’s it,” Frank says, and the way he’s watching—like you’re his favorite art hung in a museum—sends a jolt up your spine. “Nice and slow, baby.” You do as you’re told, fingertips swirling awkwardly against your clit. It doesn’t feel like when Frank does it, not at all, but maybe that’s because you’re so busy worrying that you’re doing it wrong. You look up at Frank, expecting impatience or a smirk, but he just nods, leaning in ever so slightly.

“Good girl. Rub little circles, just like that, yeah?” You follow his voice, more than his example, focusing on the encouragement. Your hips twitch, electricity licking up your thighs.

“Does it—d’you like how it feels?” he asks, and your face goes scarlet.

“Sort of,” you admit. He nods, jaw flexing, still not making a move for you, just keeping his gaze where your fingers are.

“What does it feel like, pretty girl ?” You open your mouth and nothing comes out, not at first, but Frank is patient, always. He looks at you like it’s the most important thing in the world to know the texture of things inside your soul. So you try again.

“It feels… ticklish? But not in a bad way.” Your lashes flutter as you try to think. “It’s just… not intense enough, unless you—” You trail off, embarrassed. Frank’s tongue flicks briefly over his lips.

“Unless you what, baby?”

“Unless I do it really, really hard,” you admit. It sounds so dumb in the air, so clumsy, but Frank hums in approval.

“Show me how hard. I wanna see, mama.” His voice is deeper now, rich as espresso, and somehow makes your whole body clutch tighter with need. You press your hips up a little, digging the heel of your palm down, as if you could press yourself straight through the mattress and merge with it. The pressure makes you squirm, and you almost want to look away, but you keep your gaze on Frank. His eyes go soft in this unguarded way that makes you feel like you’re doing it right, even if it isn’t pretty. His hand falls between his knees, palming himself absently through his jeans as he watches.

“Good job, baby. Bet it’s so fuckin’ sensitive right now, yeah?” You whine, nodding helplessly, and grind circles against yourself harder as the heat grows and grows from a low simmer to a desperate ache.

“Wish I could touch it for you. Know it gets all throbbin’ when you’re feelin’ this kinda way.”

“Frank…” His name comes out as a high, tremulous sigh. Your thighs are shaking. You aren’t sure if you’re supposed to keep going or stop, but Frank gives you a tiny nod of encouragement.

“You’re perfect, y’know that?” His voice is so rough now it’s almost a growl. “Look at you. Gonna make yourself come all by yourself, just for me? Never seen anythin’ so pretty.” You clench, and the next circle you rub makes your whole body seize up.

“Keep going, sweetheart. Let me see you get yourself all wet for me.” The praise makes your chest climb and tumble. You keep your movements steady, letting the slick sound grow, feeling how much you’re starting to want it, how it’s building, slow and clumsy but honest.

“You got this, mama. Small circles, hmm ? Just like how I do to you.” You whimper, fingers moving clumsily at first, then with more intent, desperate to please him and yourself both. Frank watches you so closely, never letting your eyes go. He’s leaning forward ever so slightly, like he wants to reach for you, but he doesn’t. His patience is endless, and weirdly, that only makes you want to be good for him more. Your hand tightens, index and middle finger pressing a little firmer, and you draw a ragged breath as a flash of heat spikes up your spine.

“Better,” Frank rumbles, and you can hear it in his voice, how much he wants you. “That’s it, baby. See how easy you make it look?” You shake your head, panting softly. “You’re doin’ so fuckin’ good for me, you know that? Look at you. Beautiful.” The praise hits so much harder than you expect, and your thighs squeeze together, trapping your hand. You rub harder, faster, your hips starting to lose their careful rhythm. Frank’s voice is the only thing keeping you anchored.

“Take it slow,” he soothes. “Don’t gotta race it, angel. Just wanna see you enjoy yourself.” The endearment makes your eyes sting with sudden emotion. You whimper, grinding your palm into yourself desperately, chasing something you’ve never quite caught before. Frank’s hand moves to his thigh, palm flexing, and then he shifts his weight as you hear the low, unmistakable zip of his fly. Your brain whites out, then floods with molten heat. Frank’s eyes flick from your face to your hand to your face again, and he gives you the most devastatingly gentle smile. “You feelin’ it, sweetheart? Body wantin’ it now?” His voice is hoarse.

“Yes,” you gasp, and the need is so intense you can hardly breathe. “Yes, Frankie, please—” You don’t even know what you’re begging for. More? Guidance? Permission? All of it, probably. He pushes his waistband down just enough for his cock to spring free, thick and flushed at the head, and he wraps his hand tight around it. He groans, deep and low in his chest.

“Shit, baby—" He huffs out a laugh, voice husky. "Look at you. You're so fuckin' pretty like this." You keen at his words, and your circles become sloppier, more desperate. That ball of want in your stomach is tightening, winding itself into something sharp and barely containable. It's almost painful how bad you want it, and Frank watches every second. His hand glides slow and steady along his cock, every shift of his wrist a resounding validation. Your clit throbs under your touch, and you whimper, legs splaying wider. You want to shut your thighs, hide your embarrassment, but Frank's praise pins you open, more binding than steel.

“Don’t stop, baby.” he rasps. A whimper tears out of you, louder than you expect, and your hips jerk up chasing the feeling. You dab your index finger to your clit, a little more pressure this time, and the electric shock of pleasure makes your spine arch off the mattress. You moan, high and sharp, and Frank’s cock jumps in his fist.

“That’s it, fuck—don’t stop, keep goin’,” He’s panting now, not trying to hide it, and the praise, the focused worship in his voice, it does something wild and animal in you. You want to soak in it, drown in it. You rub faster, desperate, your fingers slick and messy.

“Frank,” you gasp, your voice blurring with the tears lining your lashes, “I wanna—fuck, please—” He’s sweating now, eyes frantic on your pussy.

“Show me, angel. You’re doin’ perfect, so fuckin’ perfect.” His hand never stops moving on his cock, the sight of it making you dizzy. “C’mon, let yourself go. Gimme a show, baby, let me see you lose control. You don’t need permission to come, you never fuckin’ did.” You whine, your body on fire, and suddenly your mind screams at you. This is when it all fails. It builds and builds and builds and then nothing every happens. You shake your head, trying to combat the thoughts.

“F-Frank, it’s not working-” You rasp, back arching. “Please, come over here, god- Frank, please- I need to come so bad.” You whine, shaking your head, heels digging into the duvet. You can feel your orgasm slipping away from you- like it always does.

“Hey. Eyes on me.” His voice snaps you back. “You can do it, baby. Just keep going.” You take a breath, swallow down the panic, and focus—not on the movement of your hand, not on the heat in your cheeks, not even on the tactile ache between your thighs—but on him. Frank, watching you with reverence, coaching you with his voice alone. His praise is oxygen, pure and searing. "There you go," he mutters, voice so warm you want to wrap yourself in it. "C'mon, that's it. You're almost there. Angel, you got this." Your fingers stutter at first, but then you settle into a rhythm—rubbing little circles, the kind Frank uses that drive you crazy, remembering how his voice would break when you fluttered around him. Your whole body locks up, rigid and shaking, but Frank won’t let you look away.

“Keep going, sweetheart, don’t be scared. I know it feels weird, but that’s just your body figuring it out. You’re so good, you’re doin’ so good for me, c’mon—“You can hear it, the slick and shameless sound of your body wanting, the sound that used to make you pull away. But not now. Not with Frank’s hand gripping the base of his cock, his hips rising in slow, reverent flexes, his gaze pinned to your every move.

"Good girl," he huffs, jaw tight and teeth bared. "My smart, brave girl. Show me how pretty you look when you come, sweetheart. Fuck, you're perfect." The praise is a lifeline. Your nerves fray at the edges, but you force your eyes open, looking straight at him. He looks hungry—hungry and proud and so fucking in love with you, like every inch of you is a miracle. It sparks something new and wild in your gut, makes your fingers bolder, faster.

“Frank,” you cry, unsure if it’s a warning or a plea, and your thighs tremble as the feeling builds in you—this time, it’s different. It doesn’t recede. It grows, and with his gaze on you, it burns you alive.

“C’mon, honey, let go. You want it, I know you do—Jesus, I can see how bad you want it.” Your stomach knots, pleasure as sharp as a blade scraping at the inside of you, and you mewl, desperate and high-pitched. It’s right there. Right fucking there. And Frank’s voice is the only thing keeping you from falling apart. You don’t even realize you’re crying until the tears roll down your cheeks, but instead of shrinking with embarrassment, you bear down, chasing the feeling. Frank chokes out a curse, thighs flexing as he jerks himself harder, eyes glued to the sight of you. Something shakes loose in you, a final wall coming down. You slip two fingers down, plunging them inside, curling hard like Frank does, and the pleasure blooms so violently you nearly scream. It rushes through your body, sharp and beautiful and dangerous, and Frank is chanting,

“Good girl, good girl, that’s it, you got it, look at you, look at you—” You ride it out, your thighs clamping tight, your body rolling wave after wave, until you fall limp against the pillows, boneless and sobbing with relief. Frank’s voice is raw, barely there:

“Fuck, that’s the hottest thing I’ve ever seen. You’re so fuckin’ sexy when you come. Good job, baby, fuck, you did so good—” You blink hard, watching him lose the rhythm of his own hand as he watches you, and then he’s coming, spectacularly, hot stripes of it painting his abs, and the sound he makes—low, grateful, almost reverent—makes you whimper.

“Are you- shit- are you okay ?” He rasps. He’s still breathing hard, hand sticky and knuckles white.You blink up at him, lost, the aftershocks still rippling through you in erratic waves. Pride radiates off Frank in thick, tangible heat—he’s never once looked away, and now he’s not even pretending not to gawk. He wipes one hand absently on his thigh and stands, fishing a crumpled tissue from the bedside to clean himself off. You watch him. You barely recognize your own voice, thin and needy:

“Come here?” Frank’s mouth tugs up, soft and adoring, and he’s across the room in two steps, crawling up onto the mattress. His weight dips the bed and you relive every touch he’s ever given you all at once. He captures your face, gentle, thumbs sweeping away the dampness on your cheeks.

“You did so good, baby. So fucking good.” His voice is hoarse, tinged with awe, like you just performed high-level magic. “Don’t think you’ve ever looked prettier in your whole goddamn life.” You want to say something back, but your brain’s still a puddle; all you can do is reach for him and let him pull you into his lap, arms bracketed around your waist. He presses his forehead to yours, so close you could count the lines at the corners of his eyes, the flecks in his dark irises.

“Proud of you,” he whispers, breath hot and shaky. “My beautiful, brave girl. You want more?” It’s not really a question. Frank’s already nosing down your neck, teeth scraping the raw spot where your heart gallops under the skin. You gasp a yes, and he grins into your throat like he can’t believe his luck. There’s a second where you worry it’s too much, too exposed, but he’s gentle—wipes your cheeks with his thumbs and kisses you like you’re air and water both.

“Good girl. My fucking good girl, took care of herself just like I asked.” His voice is syrup-thick with pride, and it makes your bruised nerves sing. His hand traces your jaw, reverent. He presses you back on the pillows with one hand cupping the back of your head, careful even when he manhandles you. He groans at the sight of you, weeks of being away from you tearing through his chest.

“C’mere, c’mere, Christ—” He’s kissing you, all mouth and teeth, his beard scraping your cheeks and jaw, and it’s so real, so physical, you keen for it, reaching blindly for the soft cotton of his ruined t-shirt to cling to. He tastes like salt and home and himself. You want to bear down and devour him.Frank runs his hands reverently down the slope of your neck to your sternum, then lower, his voice unspooling out in a husky mess of vowels:

"Can I, baby? You want me to fuck you now, or you wanna rest, or—"

"Please," you blurt, and it's like setting off a gunshot in a church. Frank makes a ragged sound low in his chest and his hands move to the waistband of his pants, shucking the rest of his clothes with an efficiency so unsexy it circles right back around to perfect. Then he’s bent over you, hands bracketing your hips, gaze locked to yours as if you're the only thing that matters, the only thing in the world worth looking at. He fists the base of his cock, so thick it looks almost dangerous, and coaxes the tip forward. You shiver, anticipation making your thighs shake. The heat of it drags over your oversensitive clit, smearing precum everywhere. You twitch, gasping, and Frank groans so deep it feels like thunder. He hooks his hand behind your knee, pulls your leg way up to your chest, angling your hips to open you wide.

“Hold it there,” he rasps, guiding your palm to hook under your own knee. You do it automatically, so desperate to please both of you that your muscles buzz with anticipation. Then he lines himself up, head of his cock pressed just barely inside your entrance. The stretch is instant, sharp, and your body trembles.

“Look at you,” Frank whispers, eyes hungry and disbelieving as he looks between your face and your pink, swollen pussy. “So fuckin’ perfect, baby, so wet for me—” Your hands tremble as you use one to steady yourself, bracing it against his shoulder, the other curled around the backs of your own thighs to bare yourself even more for him. Frank doesn’t push in all the way. Just… waits, flexing his hips so the head slips in, then out, then in a little deeper each time. He watches your face the whole time. Like he’s looking for something, the exact second you go from want to need to frantic. You whimper, rolling your hips up to chase him, but he groans and pins you there, huge hand splayed just above your belly button to keep you still.

“Easy, baby,” he mumbles, even as his voice frays at the edges. “Don’t wanna hurt you.”

“You won’t,” you gasp, voice small and high and urgent. “Frankie, please, please—just—” He shush you, thumb tapping against your cheek.

"Yes, i will." He hums, softly pushing it a little bit more, as if to prove his point, when you whine and your body shudders in pain. He huffs softly, the sound almost fond, and then leans forward, the weight of his body pressing you further into the mattress. Your heart is rabbiting, lungs tight as you look up at him—wondering if you're supposed to be scared, or giddy, or both. Frank frames your face between his hands, rough palms gentle as they cradle you.

"You sure?" he asks, his voice stripped of everything but need and fragile reverence. You nod, frantic, too desperate to keep words in your mouth. The next thrust is a mercy and a violence at once. He pushes in deeper, the stretch immediate, overwhelming—a burning, aching fullness that makes your eyes prick with tears. You can't think for a second, can't do anything but pant and blink up at the dark shape above you as he holds himself still, your body fluttering around him.

"Jesus fuck," Frank breathes, like he's saying it for himself. "This sweet cunt's squeezin' me so goddamn tight, baby. Feels like the first time, huh?" You sob out a giggle, the pain and pleasure melting together until your head spins.

"Frankie, I can't—"

"Yes you can." He drags his thumb over your cheek, thumbprint anchored just under your jaw. "Take it, baby. C'mon, you always take it so good for me." He rocks his hips, shallow and slow, letting you get used to it. Each movement crackles through you, up your spine, until tears are streaming down your face and you don’t even care. You want to tell him it’s too much, but you also want to see if there’s anything better than this. The fullness, the pressure, the heat—like nothing else, nothing you could have done yourself. Frank slows, kisses the tip of your nose. "Tell me when you're ready." You squeeze his bicep, nails biting the skin to anchor yourself.

"Ready," you gasp, even though you're not, not really, but you can't stand the emptiness any more than you can stand the stretch.

"Fuckin' love you," he rasps, and then he starts to move.You're not sure how he manages to go both slow and deep, all that bulk moving with such careful, devastating force, but he does. Every time he drags out, you can feel your body trying to claw him back in, muscles fluttering with need. There's that bright, tender flare of almost-too-much that makes your back arch and then, just as you think you might shatter, he grinds his hips down, crushing your clit between the blunt root of his cock and your own pelvic bone. Even the friction is perfect. You must make a sound because Frank laughs, low and breathless, kissing your cheek and then your mouth, swallowing the moan.

"Like that, pretty girl?"

"Yes," you whine. "God, yes. Frankie, don't stop." He speeds up, and each drive of his hips knocks the air out of your lungs. The pain dissolves, replaced by a molten, high-strung pleasure that surges through your belly and threatens to short-circuit every nerve from your thighs to your teeth. You dig your heels into the mattress, chasing every piston-stroke, knees bracketing his hips to pull him even deeper.

"You fuckin' dreamed about this, didn't you?" he murmurs, pushing your face to the side so he can lick a stripe up your jaw. His breath is hot and disgusting and perfect. "All those lonely nights, just thinkin' about me splitting you open like this. Poor thing. Bet you hated every second I wasn't here to do it for you."You nod, frantic, your voice shredded.

"I did, I hated it, hated it, please, don't ever leave again—" He fits his teeth to your lower lip and nips, gentle and savage.

"Not gonna. Gonna keep you on my cock forever, baby, just like this. Fuck, you're so tight—jesus, you feel like heaven." Something in you snaps. The words, the rhythm, the obscene slow drive of him, it all blurs together and you explode underneath him. Your thighs tremble, your cunt clenching around him so hard he groans into your mouth. The orgasm is harder than any before, a full-body, burning-white spasm that makes you see stars. Frank goes still, hips buried to the root. He holds you through it, one hand cradling the back of your head and the other bracing your hip, voice reduced to guttural noises in your hair. You ride out every wave, writhing helplessly, unable to stop until the tremors taper off and you're left gasping, boneless, a hot mess of tears and sweat. He kisses your temple, soft as breath.

"Good job, baby. That's my girl." The praise splits you wide open again. You want to cry, or laugh, or maybe just shake forever. You thread your arms around his neck and pull him down for a kiss, messy and brutal, teeth knocking together and lips gone numb.He waits for you to catch your breath, then pulls out, slow and careful. Your cunt spasms empty around nothing, and the loss almost hurts.But you’re not empty for long, because Frank picks you up—gentle, but unrelenting, like he's remaking the world to suit himself. He hauls you up into his lap as he lays down, hips flush to his, and plunges back in, both hands gripping your waist so tight you know you'll bruise. The stretch is easier this time. Your pussy is still spasming, still dripping, still so fucking needy you'd let him take anything he wanted from you. Frank sets a punishing pace—nothing sweet about it—and each slap of his hips ricochets straight through your pelvis, making your whole body quake. Your clit throbs, oversensitive, but you can’t stop grinding back onto him, desperate and animalistic.

“Oh, fuck-” Frank rasps, staring up at you as you ride him. His hands dig deep around your ribs, holding you up like you weigh nothing, and it’s obscene, the way his thickness stretches you on every hard, perfect thrust. There’s no rhythm—he’s desperate, erratic, his head tipped back, his jaw clenched so hard the muscles stand out. Your own hands? Useless, scrabbling for purchase on his broad chest as the heat crackles off his skin and yours, sweat slicking between them. He fills you, each time bottoming out, and you can feel the angry pulse of him inside you, thick and hot, brutal in the best way. Your vision stutters with every slap of his hips, the sense of being split open eclipsing anything you’ve ever felt—no toy, no fingers, no desperate, solo night trying to chase something that never came close to this. Frankie hauls you down to meet his cock with such force you lose the ability to make sound, lips parted but all the air gone.

“That’s it—ride it, baby,” he groans, guttural now. His hands bruise you, his fingers mapped around your hipbones, and you swear you feel him everywhere: the base of your skull, the small of your back, the arch of your feet. You try to move, to match his rhythm, but he chokes out a laugh and pins you down, powerless to do anything but ride out the relentless, punishing grind of him.

“Look at you,” he pants, voice rough. “Split open on my cock, takin’ every inch—fuck, every time I come home to you, it’s like you get tighter, want me more. You know how crazy that makes me?” Even now, after all this time, you’re not sure he’ll ever fit, not really, but God, you’d let him try until your bones turned to dust. The burn slides into desperate need, and you choke a moan, knuckles whitening against his broad shoulders.

“Yeah, fuck, that’s it—look how you take me. Always so greedy for it,” Frank grinds out, sweat darkening the hollow of his throat. The noise you make isn’t human, not even close. The stretch, the fullness, the heat where it hurts and heals at the same time—you’ve never felt anything like it. It’s like there’s no boundary between pain and pleasure, not with him. He sets a hard, ruthless rhythm, slamming up into you so fast you see spots. Your head lolls, but Frank hooks a hand behind your neck, yanking you upright so you’ve got no choice but to meet his eyes.

“Nah, keep 'em open, baby. Lemme see you.” He says it like there’s nothing more important in the world than the look on your face when he’s absolutely ruining you.

“Need you to watch me fill you up. Fuckin’ hell, you’re already squeezing so tight—want it that bad, huh?” You try to answer but nothing comes out but this high, breathy moan. You can feel every inch of him—you can barely think around the sensation. It’s weeks of absence packed into seconds, and now he’s imprinting himself in your body, harder, deeper with every thrust. Your insides are all molten, shaky and raw, but every time you clench down, Frank just moans and bucks up harder, making you sob. He bends you forward, lips at your ear.

“You missed it, didn’t you?” His voice is rougher than you’ve ever heard, all grit and need. “Missed having me split you open. How’d that little toy stack up? Huh, angel?” He lets go of your waist, toying with your wrist, guiding your hand down to where you’re joined. “Bet it never got you this fuckin’ wet.” You shudder as you obey, fingers slick with both of you, and you can’t decide if you want to retreat or sink into it forever.

“Frank—oh—” The head of his cock knocks into the spot that always tips you over, and with the added friction of your own shaking hand, you’re already close.

“Do it,” he orders, reading your mind. “Come on, baby. You know how.” His fingers press you harder into yourself, making you touch where it’s almost too much. “You’re gonna make a mess all over me, aren’t you?” He sounds proud, triumphant. You come with a sob, your body contracting so hard your vision tunnels out to static. Frank never stops, not even when you sag limp against his chest—he just holds you up, one arm locked around your back like he’s been dying to get home and wreck you. You’re still twitching, oversensitive and wrung-out, but he’s relentless, hips driving through you pulse after pulse until you're wracked with helpless aftershocks. Snotty, delirious, you slur,

“Can’t—Frankie, fuck, it’s too much—”

“I know, i know,” he groans, “But you can, honey. You always do for me. One more.” His words wind around your brain and ignite something low and dangerous. All your nerves are frayed, synapses misfiring, but you want it—want to see if there’s an edge beyond this one. Frank’s hand spreads over your lower back, fingers splayed, anchoring you, and the angle goes sharp—he finds that spot again, the one that makes everything else disappear. He buries his face at your neck, voice muffled against her skin.

“Fuck, baby, gonna cream me again? Go on, you know I love it. Show me.” His filthy encouragement is almost worse than the physical sensation—you can feel him everywhere, over you, under you, inside you, rewiring every part of you into something desperate and raw. You fracture again, not even sure if it’s possible, but Frank wrenches the orgasm out of you, and this time you scream—no control, nothing left to hide behind. The shuddering clamps around his cock, and it undoes him. He lets go, hips jerking up in rhythmic, brutal pulses, groaning through clenched teeth as he floods you. It’s not enough for him just to come—he makes you hold still, makes you feel every spasm wrack his body, like he wants to brand you with it permanently. You whine out a tiny, tired, ruined breath, whole body shaking and shuddering, nails digging desperately in Frank’s chest.

“Jesus… Christ, sweetheart…” Frank’s voice is hoarse and spent, the afterglow so heavy it’s almost another drug.“Y’okay?” You try to answer, but your throat is raw, your voice shot to hell from all the screaming. All that comes out is a wet, shaky exhale that sounds suspiciously like a sob. You’re trembling—actually trembling—your limbs useless jelly, your heart still hammering like it’s trying to escape your ribs. Frank notices. Of course he notices. He always does.

“Hey,” he murmurs, rough thumb swiping at the corner of your mouth. “Hey, c’mere.” He shifts, still inside you, still thick and warm and anchoring you to the earth, and hauls you down against his chest. The movement makes you whimper—oversensitive, too full, your body confused about whether it wants to cry or purr. Frank wraps both arms around you, one hand cradling the back of your skull, the other spread wide across your spine, holding you like you’re something precious and breakable.

“Got you,” he whispers into your hair. “I got you, baby. You did so good. You’re okay.” You nod against his neck, tears leaking out despite yourself. Not sad tears—just… everything tears. Relief and release and the dizzying weight of finally, finally understanding what all the fuss was about. Frank doesn’t rush you. He just holds on, chest rising and falling beneath you, his heartbeat slowing gradually against your cheek.

“Fuck,” he breathes eventually, a laugh rumbling through his chest. “You’re gonna kill me, you know that? Gonna come home one of these days and you’re just gonna end me.” You snort, the sound ugly and wet, and Frank kisses your temple like he’s sealing something there.

“Shut up,” you mumble, voice muffled against his skin.

“Make me.” You don’t have the energy. You barely have the energy to keep breathing. But you manage to lift your head enough to look at him—really look at him—and the expression on his face stops your heart entirely. He’s wrecked. Hair plastered to his forehead, beard damp with sweat, eyes soft and dark and so full of you it almost hurts to hold his gaze.

“I missed you,” you whisper, because it bears repeating. Because you can’t say it enough. Frank’s hand slides down to cup your jaw, thumb tracing your swollen lower lip.

“I know, sweetheart. I know.” He pauses, something mischievous flickering in his eyes. “Missed you too. Though I gotta say… you seemed pretty motivated to make up for lost time.” Your face burns. You bury it back in his neck, groaning.

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” He’s grinning—you can hear it in his voice. “Don’t mention how you basically jumped me in the living room? Don’t mention how you were so desperate for it you—”

“Frank.”

“—shoved my hand down your panties like your life depended on it?” You reach up and clamp a hand over his mouth. He licks your palm. You shriek and yank it back, and he’s laughing, actually laughing, that rare, unguarded sound that makes your chest ache with love.

“Asshole,” you mutter, but you’re smiling. You can’t help it. Frank’s laughter fades into something gentler. He tucks a piece of hair behind your ear, studying your face like he’s memorizing it.

“You really okay, though? I didn’t… I wasn’t too rough?” You shake your head.

“No. It was… it was perfect.” You hesitate, then add, quieter, “Thank you. For… you know. For not making me feel stupid.” Something fierce crosses his expression.

“Baby. You’re not stupid. You’re…” He exhales, searching for words. “You’re brave. That shit’s hard for you, I get it. And you did it anyway. You let me watch. You let me help.” His voice drops. “That means more to me than you know.” Your eyes sting again. You lean down and kiss him—soft, unhurried, tasting the salt of sweat and the familiarity of home. When you pull back, Frank is looking at you with that look again—the one that says you’re the center of his gravity.

“So,” he says, casual as anything, though his eyes are dancing. “About that vibrator.” You groan.

“Oh my God, can we not?”

“Just hear me out.” He shifts beneath you, and you feel him soften inside you, the wet mess of both of you sticky between your thighs. You should probably move, clean up, but you can’t bear to lose the warmth of him yet. “I’m not sayin’ we gotta use it. But… maybe don’t throw it out just yet.” You stare at him.

“You’re serious.”

“Might be fun,” he shrugs, that infuriating half-smile playing at his lips. “Me watchin’ you use it. Or us usin’ it together. I dunno. Options.” Your brain short-circuits. You open your mouth, close it, open it again.

“Frank Castle. Did you just suggest we incorporate sex toys into our routine?”

“I’m a modern man, baby.” You laugh—actually laugh, bright and surprised and delighted. Frank grins up at you, pleased with himself, and you realize with a sudden, overwhelming rush of gratitude that this is what safety feels like. Not just physical safety. The safety to be messy, to be inexperienced, to try and fail and try again with someone who looks at your embarrassment and sees courage instead.

“I love you,” you say. It comes out unplanned, raw and honest. Frank’s expression softens instantly. He cups your face in both hands, pulling you down for a kiss that tastes like promise.

“Love you too, mama. More than anything.” You whine against him, pain lancing through your body as his now soft dick pokes at your wildly bruised and sore inner walls. Frank notices immediately—of course he does. He’s always hyperaware of your body, every twitch and breath, and he goes still beneath you, hands settling at your hips with infinite care.

“Shit,” he breathes, wincing. “Sorry, baby. Hang on—” He moves slowly, so slowly, easing out of you with a gentleness that contrasts sharply with the roughness of before. It still burns—a sharp, tender ache that makes you gasp and dig your nails into his shoulders. Frank pauses, forehead pressed to yours, murmuring soft apologies until you nod for him to continue. When he finally slips free, you feel empty in a different way now, aching and pulsing and thoroughly used.

“C’mere,” he whispers, already shifting, already planning. Before you can protest, he’s already sitting up, one arm wrapped securely around your waist. The sheets tangle around your legs as he carefully helps you move.

“Bathroom,” he decides. You groan.

“Frank.”

“Nope.” He presses a kiss to your forehead. “No arguments. C’mon.” You make a token effort to complain, but you’re exhausted, boneless in the best and worst ways, and Frank knows it. “Thought so.” He gets you to your feet with a hand on your back, steadying you when you wobble dramatically.

“You’re enjoying this.”

“I absolutely am.”

“You’re awful.”

“I’m handsome. Different thing.” You roll your eyes so hard it nearly hurts. The shower is warm by the time he gets you inside. Not hot. Just warm enough to ease the ache in your muscles. Frank fusses over you in that particular way he only does when he thinks you’re too tired to notice. Which, unfortunately for him, you always notice. He hands you your shampoo before you ask. Passes you a towel the second you reach for one. Keeps a hand at your elbow whenever the floor gets slippery.

“Frank.”

“What?”

“You’re hovering.”

“I’m helping.”

“You’re hovering while helping.”

“Semantics.” You laugh quietly. The sound seems to make him relax.

Later, wrapped in one of his old shirts and buried beneath fresh blankets, you find him staring at you from the other side of the bed.

“What?” you ask.

“Nothin’.”

“Liar.” His mouth twitches. He reaches over and drags you to him, before running his fingers in your hair.

"I just missed you." He presses a kiss to your nose. "Missed looking at your pretty face." You melt into him, your cheek pressed to his chest where you can hear the steady thrum of his heartbeat. His fingers keep moving through your hair, slow and methodical, working out tangles with a gentleness that seems impossible from hands that know so many ways to hurt people.

"Your heart's loud," you mumble, eyes already drifting shut.

"Yeah?" You feel him smile against the top of your head. "It's happy."

"That's corny."

"Don't care." He adjusts the blanket, pulling it higher around your shoulders, tucking it carefully under your chin like he's swaddling you. "You warm enough?"

"Mm." You nod, burrowing closer. "You're like a furnace."

"Good. Gonna keep you warm all night." His hand leaves your hair to trace down your spine, palm flat and warm against the cotton of his shirt. "You sore? Honestly." You consider lying, but he's Frank. He'll know.

"A little."

"Where?" His hand stills, waiting.

"Everywhere," you admit, face heating. "But… good sore. Like… stretched. Used." He makes a soft sound, almost pained, and tightens his arm around you.

"Sorry, baby."

"Don't be." You tilt your head back to look at him. "I liked it. I like… feeling you after. Knowing you were there." Something vulnerable cracks open in his expression. He looks at you like you've just handed him something precious and breakable, something he's terrified of dropping.

"Yeah?" he whispers.

"Yeah." He kisses your forehead, then your eyelids, then the tip of your nose again, each touch feather-light and reverent.

"My girl," he murmurs. "My brave, beautiful girl." You should make fun of him. The old you would have. But you're too tired, too loved, too safe in the circle of his arms. Instead you just hum contentedly and let your eyes close, breathing him in—gun oil and soap and something uniquely Frank.

"Water," he says suddenly, shifting like he's going to get up.

"Frank, no—"

"Yes." He presses you back down with a hand on your shoulder, firm but gentle. "You're dehydrated. I worked you hard. Gonna get you water and then you're gonna drink all of it, understand?" You groan, but you're smiling.

"Bossy."

"Damn right." He climbs out of bed, gloriously naked and unbothered by it, and pads out of the room. You hear cabinets opening, the fridge, the sink. He returns with a glass of ice water and two more ibuprofen, which he presents to you like offerings at an altar.

"Sit up," he instructs.

"I'm not an invalid."

"Never said you were. Said sit up." You grumble but obey, letting him prop pillows behind you. He watches you take the pills, watches you drink half the glass, then takes it from you and finishes the rest himself. "Good," he approves, setting the glass aside. When he slides back into bed, he doesn't just settle beside you—he gathers you up, arranging you across his chest like you're something to be cherished, legs tangled together, his heartbeat a lullaby under your ear.

"Frank?"

"Yeah, mama?"

"Stay like this? All night?" His chest rumbles with a quiet laugh.

"Not goin' anywhere. Gonna hold you so tight you'll have to pry me off with a crowbar in the morning."

taglist !

Earth-616. They were lucky enough to land within the protected perimeter of the Avengers compound. Alarms had flared, and Stark AI systems immediately flagged their arrival as potential incursion, until Bucky, who was currently manning the base while the other Avengers were away, recognized their signatures. He had seen versions of them before. Well, sort of.

“Facial recognition in progress. Welcome, Jonathan Storm, Susan Storm, Reed Richards, Benjamin Grimm. Earth-828 identifiers not found in multiversal registry. Alert: cross-dimensional duplicates confirmed.”

“Facility overseer: Dr. Stark, Stark Industries Executive Director.”

You’ve always had a main conference room reserved on the 41st floor of the Stark Tower—sleek glass walls, walnut wood table stretching across the length of the room, and a buzzing holographic projection of global networks, economic forecasts, and defense analytics. The kind of environment you thrived in. A structured chaos, numbers and negotiations, walls that are tall enough to keep emotions out.

You had just shut down an aggressive pitch from a foreign investor, when your phone lit up on silent mode, flashing a name you rarely ignored. Bucky Barnes—very few people could pull you out of a board meeting, and he was one of them. You calmly and professionally excused yourself, and stepped out into the hallway, your heels clicking against the polished marble floors. You pressed the phone to your ear.

“Barnes?”

Bucky’s voice had that clipped tension you had come to know and recognize right away from past emergencies. “You need to get to the compound. ASAP. Something…or someone showed up. Four of them. Not exactly hostile, but not from here either.”

“And dad?” Your eyes narrowed slightly.

“Still off-world. Cap, Romanoff, Barton, Wanda, everyone’s out. It’s just me here, and them.”

“Alright, I’ll be there in ten, tops.”

That was enough to convince you to go back to the compound. You pivoted, already striding towards your own designated elevator, tailored blazer moving with each swift step. You didn't know then that in a different universe, you had died in Johnny Storm’s arms, and you also didn't know that he would crawl into this one.

The drive to the compound was a big blur of the city lights and thoughts. FRIDAY updated you the en-route, inter-dimensional signatures detected, arrivals confirmed not to be hostile, communications disrupted. Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Ben Grimm, and Johnny Storm—names you recognized from archived reports, not from this universe, but recognized them nonetheless.

Inter-dimensional incursions were not new to you anymore. The multiverse was a broken glass pane, cracked and scattered, forever shifting. But what matters the most was what, or rather who, fell through. By the time you stepped into the compound hangar, Bucky was already waiting. Dog tags, fitted tactical shirt, arms crossed, his vibranium arm flexed as though he was already on edge.

“They’re in the east wing.” Bucky muttered, walking beside you.

“Any aggression?”

“The stretchy one keeps talking science. The rock guy hasn't smashed anything. The woman’s assessing the area, and the fourth one…” he paused briefly. “He’s loud and impatient.”

You entered the main holding room, but it was more like a debrief lounge at this point—bright lights, reinforced walls, and monitors overhead. Reed, Sue, Ben, and Johnny turned simultaneously when you stepped in, confident and composed—Stark blood running through your veins. Commanding without even trying.

Reed tilted his head lightly, Sue regarded you with both caution and familiarity, Ben grunted something unintelligible under his breath, and Johnny…Johnny went still. You felt it, but you didn't know it, at least not yet. Still, there’s something about the way his expression crumbled for a split second, how his chest stilled and shoulders locked. It was as if the world had stopped rotating for him, and only to restart violently seconds later.

Grief really had a funny way of burning someone alive from the inside out. Johnny had seen your face a thousand times inside his dreams, broken memories, photographs that he could no longer bear to look at. In his universe, you had always been his everything—best friend, fiancée, and the woman who had seen through his flashy charm and fire-wielding ego, but most importantly, the man who could barely sit still long enough to talk about his feelings. You had called him out on his recklessness, you were the one who grounded him.

You had saved him, until he could not save you.

In his universe, he watched you die in his arms minutes before your wedding. He was too late. Johnny never forgave himself for what had happened, and he swore that he would never love anyone again. But now, here you were. Standing before him in a pressed charcoal suit, your Stark Industries pin clipped to your lapel, posture sharp and assertive. Your eyes, while familiar, did not carry the softness that haunted his memories.

You didn't know him. Not at all.

Johnny didn't even blink, and you had no idea why. You didn't even flinch, just crossed your arms slightly, assessing the four of them.

“I’m here on behalf of Stark Industries and the Avengers initiative,” you said calmly. “You are no longer in your home dimension. Earth-616, to be exact.”

Reed stepped forward. “That would explain the shift in vibrational frequency. I’m Dr. Reed Richards, and—”

“I know who you are,” your tone was polite, efficient, but firm. “My father had catalogued the Fantastic Four from multiple universes. Your presence here is abnormal, to say the least, but not entirely surprising.”

Sue exchanged a look with Reed, and Ben shrugged. But Johnny had not moved an inch. His eyes were fixed—burning, with something that is unspoken. Something that is agonizing. He took a shaky breath, stepping forward as though drawn to you by some invisible tether.

“You…” it spilled out of Johnny’s mouth. Barely a whisper, almost like a prayer.

You turned your gaze to him fully then. Johnny’s face—handsome, disheveled, bright blue eyes, and blonde hair slightly askew from whatever chaos they had come through. He looked at you with a strange devastation.

Johnny took another step, his voice breaking a little, with Bucky shifting closer, protective by default. “You’re alive…”

You raised a brow at him. “I don’t believe we have met before.”

Johnny blinked harshly, like he was holding back a tidal wave. He gave a small broken chuckle, but it was devoid of humor, only grief. “Yeah, we have. Or we had.”

“You must be confusing me with somebody else.” You said, remained composed, even as you felt something heavy settled inside the room.

Reed spoke up softly, cautiously. “Johnny, don’t.”

“You…you died in my arms. I couldn't save you,” his voice was raw, hands trembling. But Johnny didn't stop looking at you. “And you’re here. You’re…here. Alive and well.”

Sue closed her eyes briefly as though she had already witnessed this scene before. You inhaled slowly, calm but not cold. You glanced back at Bucky. There was a flash of concern in his eyes—he knew loss, and had recognized it immediately.

You turned back, locking eyes with Johnny. “I…I’m sorry about whatever had happened. But I’m not her.”

Johnny’s jaw clenched, but nodded slowly. It was a tough pill to swallow. “I know,” his voice was a broken whisper. “But you look exactly like her.”

In the silence that followed, you softened, just slightly. There was a small shift in your tone. “I understand. This must be very difficult for you.”

He laughed—painfully, soft, and reverent. “You have no idea.”

You eventually initiated the logistics—secure housing, containment, and possible ways to return them to Earth-828. Reed gave all the data needed as possible, Sue collaborated, while Ben asked about the whole place. Johnny remained mostly silent, but always near you—watching and haunted.

It was already late when the team arrived, finally back from their off-world assignment. The quinjet had landed just before midnight, kicking up a storm of dust and loose papers across the landing pad. But you did not need a visual, you already knew that they were here.

You waited exactly twelve minutes before heading down. The lights in the hallways were dimmed at night, polished steel and glass of the compound washed in cool, bluish tones, corridor screens still displayed Stark Industries dashboards—satellite updates, global activity patterns, neutral-linked alerts that are synced to your personal feed. The soft hum of machinery surrounding you—familiar and efficient.

When you reached the briefing room, the doors slid open automatically. The mood inside was markedly relaxed, war was over—for now. Whatever battle they had just returned from must have ended in their favor. There was no tension lingering in the air, only the calm disarray that followed adrenaline. The energy was warm, familiar—low laughter, scattered banter, bodies slouched in chairs, and armor half removed. Some had ditched their gear entirely.

They all looked up when you entered the room.

You quickly scanned the room quickly—Steve was leaning back in his seat, forearms resting on his thighs; Natasha stood behind him, arms folded, and a faint smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth; Rhodey was beside Wanda, both of them in quiet conversation; Vision stood off to the side, as if waiting say his thoughts or opinions; Sam was perched casually near the end of the table; and both Bruce and Clint were in the middle of arguing over some minor mission detail. The only one that was not around was Thor, but you already knew he had returned to Asgard for a matter involving the bifrost.

Then there was your father. Tony was standing near the head of the table, his arc reactor glowing faintly beneath his black tactical undershirt, a half-empty espresso in one hand and a proud, tired grin on his face. You walked up to him, professional as ever despite the familial bond.

“Welcome back.”

“Hey, kiddo.” Tony said affectionately, arms open in invitation.

You allowed yourself the briefest lapse in composure, leaning in for a side hug, letting your hand rest on his back. Tony pressed a warm kiss to your temple, a gesture so casual, and deeply familiar that no one inside the room batted an eye.

“You cut another meeting short, didn't you?” He muttered low enough that only you could hear.

“Well I had to, Bucky called.”

“Always dragging you out of your high towers, huh?”

“Only when there’s something important,” you replied, pulling away from the side hug. “And this time, it was.”

“Alright, show me.” Tony’s tone shifted immediately to something serious.

“FRIDAY, let’s begin.” You turned towards the front of the room, and FRIDAY’s interface lit up at your voice command.

The room became silent as the lights dimmed, and the circular holographic projection table came alive, bathing the center of the room in cool light and flickering motion. You did not use the scripts, you didn't need them. You spoke clearly, posture straight, hands resting lightly on the edge of the table as you walked them through everything.

“Earlier today, four individuals arrived through what Dr. Reed Richards had identified it as an unstable inter-dimensional rift. Their molecular and vibrational signatures match that of Earth-828. They are currently contained and housed on-site under temporary status.”

A glowing map of the multiverse expanded across the table, folding over itself with rings and constellations of data. Earth-616 was centered in blue, while Earth-828 glowed in red.

“They call themselves the Fantastic Four. Their existence had been recorded in multiple other universes, though this is the first instance of confirmed cross-universal physical entry into our dimension from their team.” You continued.

FRIDAY had projected high resolution images; Reed’s molecular stretch in motion, Sue’s brief invisibility flicker, Ben’s stone form, and lastly, Johnny, surrounded by flame, hovering in the air with smoldering eyes. You noticed that from the corner of your version, Bruce’s interest.

“They are not hostile,” you clarified. “At least not at this time. Bucky did an initial assessment, and I’ve already spoken to all four.”

“They crash land into our universe and get a five star welcome?” Clint quipped, scratching his chin.

“They didn't crash,” you corrected. “They were pulled. They’re as stranded as anyone would be in their situation.”

Natasha stepped forward. “Do we know what caused the rift?”

“No, not yet,” you replied honestly. “Dr. Richards has a working theory involving harmonic convergence across layered multiversal tears, and one of those may involve our own previously recorded incursions.”

You paused. Then, with a subtle flick of your fingers across the hologram’s edge, you pulled up the compound’s schematics. “I’ve assigned them quarters in the east wing, and they’re secured. Not cells, but isolated enough that we can monitor movement and communication without giving them the impression of imprisonment.”

Rhodey let out a low whistle. “You did all that on your own?”

“I didn't think it's wise to wait for everyone to get back before making the decision.” You said plainly.

Steve nodded in approval. “Good call.”

“I also figured Bruce and Ben would either kill each other or get along splendidly,” you quipped with a faint smile. “So they’re currently as far from each other as the architecture allows.”

A ripple of low laughter passed around the table. Bruce glanced up with a soft smile. “What’s he like?”

“Gruff,” you said. “Surprisingly perceptive.”

“And the others?” Wanda spoke softly from her place near the corner.

“Well, Dr. Richards is brilliant, the kind of mind that could rebuild the whole compound from scratch with a coffee and screwdriver. Susan Storm has tactical precision, she’s already been memorizing layout grids. Then Johnny Storm…” you stopped yourself, a pause. Just long enough for Tony to glance at you. “Johnny Storm has a unique energy, one we should keep an eye on.”

“Flaming hothead,” Bucky offered dryly from the back of the room. “In every sense.”

You didn't bother to correct him, and you didn't speak again for a moment.

Tony folded his arms. “And you’re sure they’re not a threat?”

“If they were, we’d already know by now.” You met his gaze. “They’re shaken, stranded. But I believe they’re sincere.”

Another beat of silence passed. Then, FRIDAY’s voice filled the room. “Would you like me to archive the debrief for full internal access?”

“Yes,” you replied. “Log everything under multiversal priority class. Assign all access clearance to Level 4 and above. Thank you, FRIDAY.”

“You’re welcome, Miss Stark.”

The projection faded, and the room slowly returned to its normal brightness. You took a moment to glance around familiar faces. The family you didn't choose, but in some ways, had grown into. The world was always changing, but this room remained constant, and you took pride in that. However, you remained quiet and stood by the projection table. You could feel her eyes on you before she even spoke. Wanda.

Wanda hadn't moved, nor laughed. Hadn't looked away from you since the moment you faltered during your rundown of the Fantastic Four. Her gaze was calm but piercing, like there was some unspoken understanding etched behind her irises.

A quiet voice in your mind sighed, “you shouldn't be surprised.”

You quickly shot her a glance, lips were still. Wanda hadn't said anything aloud, she didn't need to. It was both a blessing and a curse for you, being known so easily by someone like her. You met her eyes just for a second, Wanda didn't press, at least not yet. But you knew she knew what was running through your mind.

You cleared your throat, drawing the room’s attention again before anyone could fully disperse. “There’s…” you trailed off. “There’s one more thing.”

The tone in your voice was measured with control, you slightly shifted in your balance, and put both hands inside the pockets of your trousers. Your action no doubt pulled everyone’s attention back to you instantly. Your father raised a brow, Natasha tilted her head, Bruce paused mid-step, Sam eased back down into his seat, and Wanda stayed motionless.

Like the good old fashioned way a Stark would break a news, you gave it to them straight.

“There’s a minor issue,” you kept your tone even, professional, though your fingers subtly tapped against the table’s edge. Once, twice, and a third time before you forced them still. “It concerns Johnny Storm.”

There was a sudden flicker of alertness around the room, like soldiers instinctively tightening their grip on imaginary weapons.

“He’s not dangerous,” you clarified quickly. “None of them are, that hasn't changed. But Johnny Storm recognized me somehow.”

“According to what I had gathered from Reed and Johnny himself, my counterpart was a significant person in his life.”

A beat passed, then you said it softly but clearly. It was a truth that felt so foreign and yet inexplicably close.

“In their universe, my counterpart was his fiancée.”

The room went very still, but you kept speaking, voice steady even as your heart betrayed you with its weight. “We were told that we were supposed to get married, but I died minutes before the ceremony. Johnny wasn't able to save her in time.”

You didn't add the rest, not aloud. You didn't say how broken Johnny looked the moment he saw you. How he said your name like it was the last thing anchoring him to reality. How your presence seemed to rip open something deep inside of him. Instead, you forced the breath out of your lungs.

“That’s why he looked at me like that, like I was a ghost. Well I’m not her, obviously. But I think seeing me like this—alive, here, breathing. It was disorienting for him. That’s all.”

Clint leaned back slightly, arms folded. “Damn.”

“That…” Bruce trailed off, frowning thoughtfully, half processing the emotional and multiversal implications. “That kind of trauma layered with alternate universe memory, that’s—”

“Dangerous,” Natasha finished, sharp-eyed. “Not just for this Johnny guy, but for her too.”

Wanda’s voice finally entered the conversation, soft and certain. “It’s not just a memory, he feels it. Every single part of it.” She turned her head towards you slowly, “you’re feeling it too.”

Your fingers curled subtly against the side of the table. Wanda didn't need to ask for permission, she never did because she already knew. Wanda had seen the thoughts that you tried to suppress, like static behind your composure. Not longing or recognition, none of those, but something shaken. Like there was a part of yourself that was trying to remember a dream that somebody else lived. You looked away from her, then back towards the rest of the room.

“But he’s not a threat,” you said again. “He hasn't done anything inappropriate—no aggression, no pushing boundaries. He’s just grieving, and that’s all this is. It does not compromise anything.”

Sam leaned forward. “And you? You good with this?”

“I don’t have a personal attachment, I don’t know him.” You said straightforwardly. “But I understand that for him, this might be difficult. So we treat it like any other psychological impact of multiversal travel. We keep boundaries, we observe.”

“Are you sure that’s all it is?” Rhodey asked gently.

“Yes, and if anything changes, I’ll report it right away. But for now, we give him space, and treat him like we’d want to be treated if our world shattered beneath our feet.”

Your father clapped his hands once, decisively. “Alright, we’ll monitor the situation. But good call telling us, kiddo.”

“Guy crosses universes just to find out his fiancée is alive somewhere else. That’s heavy.” Clint quipped.

“Yeah,” Bucky muttered from behind him, arms crossed. “It is.”

You began collecting your datapad and hologrid controls. One by one, they gathered their gear, drifting out into the corridors with quiet goodnights or murmurs about late night snacks, showers, or sleep. Steve gave you a gentle pat on the shoulder as he passed, Clint threw you a crooked smile, and Bruce placed a hand on your back in a familiar gesture of calm reassurance as he walked past. Your father, Tony, gave you a hug—that fatherly kind, and told him that everything’s okay. Finally, the room emptied until it was just you and Wanda left. She stepped closer to you, voice low.

“I can help, if you want,” she said softly. “I can block him out, or help you anchor yourself if it ever feels too much.”

“Thank you, Wanda.” You replied softly. “I may take you up on that.”

Wanda touched your arm once more, and then slipped out of the room, leaving you and your thoughts alone again. You rubbed at your temple, the lights were low and the room was quiet.

You should get some sleep, you know that, considering you have an early morning meeting with a new investor. Yet, as you stood there all alone in the darkened debriefing room, your mind drifted unwillingly to Johnny again—to the way his voice trembled, the way he said that you died in my arms.

You were not her, but somehow, you felt haunted.

Masterlist.

Notes: Hi! I should really be working on the drafts I have, but this idea just popped into my head and helped me get past a little writer’s block.

You’d been trying to pay attention to Bucky for almost half an hour.

With his usual calm demeanor, he was telling you how that day’s mission with Sam had gone. He talked about a chase that ended sooner than expected, his partner’s constant jokes, and a plan that had gone surprisingly well. You nodded from time to time, even smiled out of sheer habit, but in reality you hadn’t heard half of what he was saying. Your mind was trapped in a single thought that repeated itself over and over, impossible to ignore.

The positive pregnancy test.

The little plastic strip was still tucked away in your sock drawer, as if its mere existence had upset the balance of your entire life. You felt it took up a lot of space, even though it barely took up any at all. Ever since you’d seen it that morning, emotions had swirled inside you in a way that was impossible to sort out: fear, uncertainty, nerves, surprise, and a strange sense of hope that you still didn’t dare to accept.

You had no idea what to do.

During your early dates, the two of you had talked about starting a family. It had been a calm conversation, without arguments or promises. Bucky had admitted that he hadn’t imagined himself as a father and wasn’t even sure he could ever be one; after everything he’d been through, the idea of bringing a child into the world seemed too overwhelming to him. You, for your part, didn’t feel it was the right time either.

And yet, there you were.

Facing a situation neither of you had planned for.

The silence between you began to stretch because you had stopped responding several seconds ago. Bucky finished speaking and waited for a reaction that never came. That was when his senses picked up on what your words weren’t expressing.

Your heart was beating too fast.

The rapid, irregular, and persistent rhythm made him turn his full attention to you. He noticed the slight furrow of your brow, the tension in your jaw, and the way your fingers nervously fiddled with the rim of the cup resting on the table.

His expression changed instantly.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart? Are you okay?” he asked in a soft voice, full of concern, as he leaned slightly toward you.

His hand sought yours on the table and gently wrapped around it, giving it a light squeeze, as if to remind you he was there.

That simple gesture finally broke down the barrier you’d been maintaining throughout the conversation.

The words slipped from your lips before you could finish turning them over in your head.

“I think I’m pregnant.”

Time seemed to stand still.

A complete silence settled between you, heavy and almost tangible. Bucky’s eyes widened slowly until they were wide with surprise, as the air left his lungs in a held breath. His fingers trembled slightly around yours, unable to hide the impact of the confession.

You lowered your gaze and let out an unsteady sigh, trying to control the lump that had formed in your throat and the anxiety coursing through every corner of your body.

“I took a pregnancy test because my period was later than usual…” you murmured in a low, tense voice, feeling as though every word required an enormous effort. “I thought it would be a false alarm, but… it came back positive.”

As you finished your sentence, silence once again enveloped the room with an almost suffocating intensity. The world seemed to have come to a sudden halt. Only the sound of their breathing broke the stillness, along with the rapid beating of your heart, which Bucky could still hear with absolute clarity. Each beat revealed the fear you were trying to hide behind a serene expression. They both remained motionless, realizing that a few words had been enough to completely change the course of their lives.

“When…?” he whispered, almost to himself, his gaze lost somewhere on the table.

The question didn’t seem directed at you, but at his own memories.

He looked down as he mentally reviewed every moment of the past few months, trying to find an explanation. Then he remembered. His expression slowly changed until it twisted into a small grimace filled with recognition and regret.

That night.

The only time they had both completely cast caution aside, convinced that nothing would happen, letting themselves be carried away by desire, closeness, and the heat of the moment.

In her memory, that slip had seemed insignificant. Now she realized that just once had been enough.

Her fingers tensed slightly before slipping from yours.

You parted your lips shyly, ready to say something—anything—to break the silence or calm the growing anxiety that was beginning to settle in your chest. You wanted to explain that you didn’t expect an immediate answer, that you didn’t know how to feel either, that the two of you could work it out together.

But Bucky stood up before you could utter a single word.

The movement was so sudden that the chair slid a few inches backward, making a sharp clatter against the floor.

He ran a hand over his face, breathing heavily as he avoided looking directly at you.

“I need some air…” he said in a low voice, though the weight of those four words fell on you like a slab of stone.

There was no anger in his tone, nor rejection, but there was no calm either. Just a confusion so deep that he seemed unable to stay another second within those four walls.

You watched him walk with hurried steps toward the apartment entrance. He grabbed his jacket from the coat rack almost out of habit, without bothering to put it on properly, and opened the door.

For a moment, you thought he would stop, that he would turn his head to say something else or to reassure you.

It didn’t happen.

The door closed behind him with a sharp click that echoed throughout the room.

You stood motionless, staring at the spot where he had disappeared, as silence once again took hold of the apartment. The pressure in your chest increased immediately, and fear began to make its way through all the thoughts you’d been trying to hold back.

☆

The faint blue glow from the TV was the only light in the room you shared with Bucky. Images flashed one after another across the screen, accompanied by the distant voices of a show you’d been trying to follow for over an hour without success.

You were sitting on the bed, your back against the headboard and your legs drawn up to your chest, wrapping both arms around them as if that small gesture could hold you together while you felt everything else beginning to fall apart.

Your eyes remained fixed on the television, but they didn’t really see what was happening on it.

Your mind kept returning to the same place over and over.

The positive test.

Bucky’s expression when you told him.

The way he’d let go of your hand.

And, above all, the door closing behind him.

It had been almost five hours since he left the apartment.

Five hours without a call.

Five hours without a reply to any of the messages you’d sent him with trembling hands—messages that had gone from a simple “Are you okay?” to a worried “Just tell me where you are.”

The phone lay beside you on the sheets, completely silent.

You were worried about him.

You knew that the idea of becoming a father had never held an important place in his life. After everything he’d been through, the decades that had been stolen from him, and the burden he still carried for acts he hadn’t even committed while in his right mind, starting a family seemed like a dream reserved for other people.

He had never told you he didn’t want children, but he hadn’t said he wanted them either.

And now the decision had gone from being a distant possibility to an unexpected reality.

Yet, as you thought about him, it was also impossible not to think about yourself.

About what that new life growing inside your body meant.

About how it would change your future.

About whether you would be able to handle it.

About whether you would be alone.

A lump formed in your throat as you tried to hold back the tears that threatened to return.

The only sound that managed to snap you out of your thoughts was the unmistakable turn of a key in the front door lock.

Your breath caught in your throat.

Then came the creak of the door as it opened, followed by the soft thud as it closed again.

And finally, the heavy echo of boots echoing through the apartment.

You lay motionless on the bed, your gaze fixed on the bedroom door, listening as those footsteps moved slowly down the hallway. Each one seemed to last an eternity.

The doorknob turned and the door opened slowly.

Bucky stood in the doorway for a few seconds before entering. For the first time since you’d broken the news to him, his eyes met yours.

Silence settled between you once more.

You couldn’t help but notice the state he’d returned in.

His hair was more disheveled than usual, as if he’d run his hand through it countless times. The shadows under his eyes seemed to have deepened, betraying that he hadn’t found peace during those hours either. His jacket was still on, slightly wrinkled, and his shoulders remained tense.

But what caught your attention most was the expression on his face. There was fear and guilt.

His eyes scanned the room until they settled on the only source of light: the television.

He was silent for a few seconds before speaking, in that deep, restrained voice that barely let his true feelings show.

“You’re going to ruin your eyes like that…”

It wasn’t a rebuke; it was the only everyday thing he could think to say.

He walked over to the light switch and turned on the room’s light.

The warm glow instantly filled every corner.

You winced slightly at the sudden change in lighting and turned your face away a little, too late to hide what was obvious.

Your eyes were swollen and red. Dry tear stains remained on your cheeks.

Bucky stood still, his jaw tightening slightly. He looked down for a moment before looking back at you, as if he’d been struck by a silent blow.

He didn’t say “I’m sorry.” He wasn’t someone who found words easily, but the way he took a deep breath and stood motionless was enough to make it clear that he regretted leaving you alone for those hours.

With slow, measured movements, he took off his jacket, draped it over a nearby chair, and walked over to the bed.

The mattress sank slightly as he sat down beside you, leaving just a few inches between you and turning his back to you.

He didn’t try to touch you, but he didn’t move away either. He simply stayed there, his forearms resting on his legs and his hands clasped, staring at the floor as he searched, unsuccessfully, for the right way to sort through everything going through his head.

Silence settled in again, heavy and uncomfortable. Filled with questions neither of you dared to ask.

Several seconds passed before Bucky slowly exhaled.

“I walked down to the pier…” he murmured without looking up. “Then I kept walking. I wasn’t planning on going anywhere… I just needed my head to stop making noise.”

He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand and fell silent again.

“I didn’t answer because… I didn’t know what to say.”

The words came out clumsily, forced, as if each one took an enormous effort.

“And because I was afraid of saying the wrong thing.”

You felt a twinge in your heart and could barely manage a shaky exhale as you watched his back.

“I was never good at this.”

He didn’t specify what he meant, and you weren’t sure what he was referring to either. Maybe he meant talking, feeling, imagining a future, or becoming a father. It was probably all of those things at once.

The distance between you was still just a few centimeters, but the real obstacle wasn’t physical.

Your nails dug lightly into your legs before you began crawling toward him to gently take his chin and make him look at you.

He let you do it, and his eyes finally met yours. That blue you loved so much looked different; there was no anger or rejection, only a deep, silent fear mixed with an uncertainty that seemed to have robbed him of his breath.

For a moment, it seemed to you that you were looking at the soldier who had survived a war, not the man who always found a way to protect you.

You traced the rough line of his beard with your thumb.

“What do you want to do?” you asked in a barely audible whisper.

The question hung between you.

Bucky closed his eyes for a second, and his face twisted into an expression that was hard to read—a bitter mix of guilt, vulnerability, and resignation.

He was fully aware that this decision belonged solely to your body and your life. He also knew that he would never try to push you toward a choice that would benefit him over you. Even if he felt terrified, even if the idea of being a father overwhelmed him.

"I'll support you... whatever you decide." His voice was deep and low, almost hoarse.

It was the only certainty he had amid the chaos.

He paused for a moment longer before adding, almost as if he were struggling to get the words out.

"I don't know if I'll do this right... But I won't let you carry this burden alone."

☆

The next day, the uncertainty was still there.

After a nearly sleepless night, you began to convince yourself that maybe that home test had simply been wrong. After all, even pharmacy tests could yield false positives.

It was a possibility, so you clung to it with all your might.

After discussing it briefly over breakfast—if you could even call a cup of coffee you barely touched and the untouched toast on the plate breakfast—you decided to go to the hospital.

An ultrasound could provide answers almost immediately, and you wouldn’t have to endure the endless wait for a blood test.

When they called your name in the waiting room, your stomach turned instantly.

You stood up, your legs trembling, and without even thinking, you reached for Bucky’s hand and gripped it tightly.

He remained seated for another second, motionless, his back stiff and his gaze fixed on the floor. He seemed unable to force himself to walk through that door, not because he wanted to leave, but because he feared what he might find on the other side.

He stood up and walked behind you after you gently took his hand.

The office smelled just like the rest of the hospital: a clean, pungent mix of disinfectant and antiseptic products. However, the atmosphere was different.

The lights were warmer, and the walls were covered with informational posters about conception, birth control methods, fetal development, and drawings showing the approximate size of a baby week by week.

Your eyes lingered for a moment on each one.

Week 4—Poppy seed.

Week 6—Lentil.

Week 7—Chickpea.

Week 8—Cherry.

Week 9—Olive.

And the weeks and illustrations went on.

The illustrations seemed absurdly small for the enormous change they represented.

You swallowed hard as you clung to Bucky’s hand.

Your fingers were cold, and so were his. The slight tremor in his fingers betrayed that he was just as nervous as you were.

He stood beside you with his shoulders slightly hunched, staring at the floor as if he found it impossible to look up at any of those images. His jaw remained tense.

When the specialist told you to lie down on the examination table, you obeyed with slow movements. You lifted the fabric of your clothes just enough to expose your abdomen.

Moments later, the contact of the cold gel on your skin drew a small, involuntary grimace from you. A shiver ran through your entire body.

Without realizing it, you squeezed Bucky’s hand tighter, and he reacted almost reflexively, interlacing his fingers with yours and holding them firmly.

The careful squeeze of his hand was enough to make you understand that, even though he was still emotionally lost and the words remained stuck in some corner of his chest, he had decided to stay with you until he knew the answer.

The room was enveloped in an expectant silence.

The doctor moved the transducer calmly over your abdomen while watching the screen in front of her intently.

To you, that mass of shadows made no sense at all.

To her, every little change seemed to say a lot.

You felt your breathing start to quicken, and Bucky noticed it instantly.

Without taking his eyes off the monitor, his thumb began to slide slowly across the back of your hand—an almost automatic movement that he probably wasn’t even aware he was making.

It was strange and overwhelming for him.

A man who had survived wars, experiments, and decades of violence was completely defenseless in front of an ultrasound screen.

The doctor remained silent for a few more seconds, and your imagination began to fill in the blanks.

Maybe the test had failed after all.

Maybe your period was just coming soon.

Maybe...

“There it is.”

Her voice interrupted the whirlwind of thoughts.

She pointed to a tiny dot on the screen.

“It’s still very early, but we can see the gestational sac.”

You felt the air leave your lungs.

It wasn’t a mistake.

It wasn’t a false positive.

It was real.

Your eyes remained fixed on that tiny image, trying to understand how something so small could change two people’s lives so completely.

Bucky’s hand tightened around yours.

He didn’t say anything and didn’t even blink; he seemed to be holding his breath.

His gaze remained fixed on the monitor, as if trying to memorize every shadow despite not fully understanding them.

The doctor continued explaining a few things about the estimated gestational age, prenatal vitamins, and the tests that would be advisable to perform over the next few weeks.

Her voice reached you like a distant murmur. Neither of you seemed to be processing much; you just nodded.

At one point, the specialist smiled kindly, already accustomed to all kinds of reactions to this news.

“Would you like to hear the heartbeat?”

You turned your head toward Bucky, who remained completely still.

His eyes stayed fixed on the screen, but for the first time since they’d entered the office, he seemed to lose control of his expression.

He looked completely vulnerable.

And, almost imperceptibly, he shook his head before closing his eyes for a moment.

It wasn’t a “no.” It was someone trying to muster enough courage for something he couldn’t bring himself to say because of the weight of the moment and his fear.

“We… We need to talk about this first,” you murmured, your voice strained by the wave of emotions.

The doctor nodded understandingly, printed out some images, and began wiping the gel from your abdomen before walking over to Bucky’s side, where her desk was.

“It seems to be developing as expected for the sixth week,” she explained calmly. “We’ll schedule another checkup in a few weeks and proceed according to your decision.”

You nodded automatically and slowly sat up on the stretcher.

Bucky remained seated where he was, staring at one of the photographs the doctor had just placed on the desk. He seemed unable to take his eyes off that small gray smudge.

Finally, he stood up and slowly let go of your hand to pick up the image between his fingers with an almost absurd delicacy, as if he were afraid of breaking it. He looked at it for a long moment before carefully putting it away in the folder the doctor had given them along with all sorts of recommendations and informational brochures.

He didn't say a word.

He didn't ask any questions.

He just stayed by your side, supporting you when it seemed like the strength in your legs was about to give out.

☆

The days that followed weren't easy.

Both of you tried to cling to a routine that no longer felt entirely your own, as if pretending nothing had changed might delay the moment of facing reality.

You made a conscious effort to carry on with your usual life. You went to work, tidied the apartment, read, replied to messages, and tried to fill every minute with some activity that would keep your mind occupied. There were moments when you even succeeded. For a couple of hours, you forgot the constant fear that had settled in your chest, the uncertainty about the future, and the enormous decision that was still waiting for you.

But those moments of calm never lasted long; something always came along to bring you back to reality, and anxiety would wash over you like a wave.

Things didn’t seem any easier for Bucky either.

He kept taking on missions with Sam, though not as often as before. He started turning down smaller jobs and heading back to the apartment as soon as operations were over.

He didn’t say why—and probably never would—but it was clear he wanted to be close to you, even if he still didn’t know how to be there for you.

Many times he would sit on the couch while you read in silence. Other times you simply shared the same space without exchanging more than a few words, finding a strange sense of calm in each other’s mere presence.

It was his way of saying he was still there.

There were days when the tension seemed to grant you a respite, and you looked like yourselves again.

You’d curl up on the couch under a blanket to watch a movie neither of you paid much attention to, sharing a bowl of popcorn while Bucky complained about the main character and you ended up laughing at his comments.

Other afternoons, you’d cook together. He would chop vegetables with precision while you tried to steal a piece of carrot from him before it made it into the pan, causing him to shake his head and hide a barely perceptible smile before kissing your forehead.

They even resumed their habit of going for walks around the city. They wandered through familiar streets, small cafes, and parks where time seemed to move more slowly.

For a few hours, they managed to forget... Or at least pretend they did.

But the subject of the baby always found a way to come back.

It would surface when you caught yourself imagining how his life would change if you decided to continue with the pregnancy. When you wondered if Bucky could ever feel happy with that possibility. If the two of you could truly become a family.

It also came up during those walks when you passed a pregnant woman absentmindedly stroking her belly, a father pushing a stroller while a baby slept peacefully inside, or a little hand clutching its mother’s tightly as they crossed the street.

Then your steps would slow, your gaze would linger a few seconds longer, and the weight would settle back onto your shoulders.

Bucky never made any comments or asked what you were thinking, but he always noticed the change. He saw how your smile faded little by little, how your fingers unconsciously sought to rest on your abdomen, and how the sparkle in your eyes dimmed.

He could only walk beside you, keeping silent as he felt that familiar tightness settle in his chest.

The words remained trapped inside him.

He had learned to survive without uttering a single word for far too many years, and now, when he needed them most, they wouldn’t come out either.

The nights were the worst.

There were times when the weight of the decision would end up crushing you.

You’d wait until you were sure Bucky was breathing deeply before carefully slipping out of bed, leaving behind the warmth of the sheets and the arms that, even in his sleep, seemed to reach out for you.

Silently, you walked with the folder in your hands to the dining room and opened it once more to reread every brochure and recommendation with obsessive attention.

You read about prenatal vitamins, nutrition, hormonal changes, and medical checkups. Then you turned to the pages that talked about abortion clinics and the procedure.

You set them aside and always ended up doing the same thing: you held the ultrasound photo between your fingers.

The corners were slightly bent, and the paper had lost some of its stiffness from all the times you’d held it in the early hours of the morning.

You slipped out of bed again and again to look at that blurry image where you could barely make out a tiny white dot.

That was all.

A tiny speck.

And yet, it already occupied every corner of your mind.

What you didn’t know was that those worn corners weren’t just your fault.

Many nights, when he woke up and found your spot empty, Bucky would wait a few minutes before getting up and finding you sitting at the table.

He didn’t interrupt.

He simply returned silently to the bedroom, and when you finally fell back asleep, he was the one who left.

He stood in front of the open folder for minutes, sometimes for over an hour, staring at the same photograph without moving, feeling a fear and vulnerability that were completely foreign to him.

A silent terror that no mission, no battlefield, and no enemy had ever managed to awaken in him.

He never told you that he also looked at that ultrasound.

He never confessed that he already had it etched in his memory.

You sighed softly as you held it between your fingers. With the tip of your index finger, you slowly traced the tiny, barely visible figure on the paper.

According to one of the posters in the doctor’s office, when you found out, it was the size of a lentil. Now it was close to the size of a cherry.

It was a tiny difference, and yet, to you, it meant that time was still moving forward.

For days you’d tried to imagine every possible scenario and had made mental lists, thinking about work, money, the future, fear, Bucky, and yourself.

You’d tried to make a decision based solely on reason, but, for the first time since it all began, you stopped trying to convince yourself of an answer and simply listened to the silence.

Slowly, you brought your hand to your belly, which was still flat. Yet you felt a twinge in your chest at the thought of it being empty by your own choice.

You closed your eyes as you realized that the fear was still there, but it was no longer fear that was guiding your thoughts.

It was something else.

A small, fragile, and hard-to-explain feeling that had been growing almost without your noticing over those days.

It was hope.

Your lips trembled before forming a tiny, almost imperceptible smile, and tears slowly rolled down your cheeks.

They weren’t tears of anguish.

Not entirely.

They were the silent relief of someone who, after weeks of doubt, had finally found an answer.

“I want to get to know you…” you whispered, your voice breaking.

The decision was made.

The fear hadn’t disappeared; it had simply stopped being greater than love.

☆

When the first rays of sunlight began to filter through the bedroom curtains, drawing golden lines across the rumpled sheets, you slowly opened your eyes.

The first thing you saw was Bucky, who was already awake.

He lay on his side, his metal arm resting on the mattress and his elbow bent to support his head in the palm of his hand. He’d been watching you in silence for who knows how long, with that almost hypnotic calm and intensity so characteristic of him, as if while you slept he were trying to read all the thoughts you were never able to put into words.

You blinked a couple of times before letting out a sleepy sigh.

The sound snapped him out of his own thoughts, and his lips curved into a faint, discreet smile—so small that anyone could have easily missed it.

“Good morning, sweetheart…” he murmured in his deep, hoarse voice.

He leaned slowly toward you. First he placed a soft kiss on your cheek, then another at the corner of your lips, and finally a slow, gentle kiss on your mouth.

“Good morning, Buck…” you replied, your voice barely audible against his lips.

For a few moments, everything seemed to return to normal.

It was the same tranquility as any Sunday morning. Those mornings when neither of you was in a hurry to get up and you could spend an hour or even two under the sheets, embracing without saying much, stroking each other’s hair, sharing absent-minded kisses, or simply enjoying each other’s warmth while the world kept moving on outside the windows.

A sanctuary that had always belonged only to the two of you.

But something in your expression made him slowly step back to get a full view of your face. His blue eyes scanned every inch of your face, searching for that look he knew so well.

It was the look you had when you’d already made a decision and were gathering the courage to say it.

The faint trace of his smile vanished.

The silence in the bedroom was broken only by the distant traffic beginning to fill the streets and the soft rustle of the sheets as you slowly sat up. Bucky did the same.

“I know what I want to do…” Your voice came out almost as a whisper.

Bucky barely looked up, and there was something in his expression that broke your heart. He looked like a wounded animal trying to stay still so no one would notice how much pain he was in.

Your fingers sought his, and you wanted to intertwine them as you had so many times before, but he remained still, his hand unmoving.

You took a deep breath and spoke.

“I want to continue with the pregnancy.”

Your words came out soft, firm, and without hesitation, and yet they seemed to strike the air with impossible force.

Bucky remained completely still.

He didn’t respond.

He didn’t pull his hand away.

His expression didn’t change.

He simply sat there in front of you, watching you as if he needed several seconds to grasp the meaning of those five words.

Then he slowly lowered his head, and his lips parted slightly as if to say something, but nothing came out. He tried again, and only a muffled sound escaped.

His throat moved with difficulty as he swallowed, and his chest began to rise with deeper breaths than usual.

Fear had suddenly taken hold of his entire body.

It wasn’t fear of the baby or of the decision you’d made. Because during those days, as he walked with you through the city or lay awake staring at the ultrasound in the middle of the night, he’d discovered a truth he’d never wanted to admit.

He wanted to be a father with you and no one else.

He wanted that pregnancy to continue.

He wanted it more than he ever thought possible.

He wanted to meet that little life.

He wanted to hear that tiny heartbeat at the next appointment.

He wanted to be with you as your belly grew little by little.

He wanted to hold your hand during every checkup and for the rest of his life.

He wanted to try to be better for you and for that little boy or girl.

He had even caught himself imagining a messy room with toys on the floor, little footsteps running through the apartment, and a tiny voice calling them “Mom and Dad” while they both laughed as they prepared dinner.

He had allowed himself to imagine a home.

And that was precisely why the fear was unbearable. He had never longed for anything so intensely since regaining his freedom, and he had never felt such terror at the thought of not being up to the task.

The questions began to crowd his mind, giving him no respite.

What if he didn’t know how to be a father?

What if he wasn’t truly free and one day lost control?

What if his past caught up with them?

What if she deserved a simple life, far from someone like him?

What if her children deserved a different father?

He looked down at his own hands—the flesh-and-blood one and the vibranium one—and studied them as if seeing them for the first time.

He remembered the wars, the orders, the HYDRA labs, the lives he had taken, and the names he could never forget.

When his gaze settled on the gleam of the dark, golden metal, all he could think of was the gray metal with the red star. An unbearable shame squeezed his chest.

How could he imagine holding a newborn with hands that had been used to kill for so long?

How could someone who still woke up some nights convinced he was still a weapon promise protection?

The weight of each of his thoughts kept him frozen and unable to speak—that was why he was silent. It wasn’t because he rejected your decision, but because he accepted it so deeply that fear had left him speechless.

He only returned to reality when he felt your trembling hands encircling his face with infinite tenderness. As he looked up, seeing the tears streaming uncontrollably down your cheeks, something inside him snapped, and an unbearable pressure squeezed his chest.

His silence had lasted so long that you began to interpret that absence of words in the worst possible way. You thought he didn’t agree with your decision, that he could never accept that future... That, sooner or later, you would both end up going your separate ways.

That possibility, reflected in the pain in your eyes, was infinitely more terrifying to Bucky than any of the ghosts he carried with him.

For a moment, all the ghosts of his past fell silent.

Now there was only you, crying in front of him, thinking you were going to lose him.

His breath caught.

He raised a hand with obvious hesitation, as if even that gesture cost him an enormous effort, and ended up covering one of yours that you were holding against his cheek.

His fingers held you with desperate strength, as if he feared you were going to pull it away.

He slowly shook his head.

He tried to speak, but his throat kept closing up long before he could utter a single word.

The inability to speak made him feel more helpless than any enemy he had ever faced.

“No…” he finally managed to say, his voice breaking.

He swallowed with difficulty and looked down for just a second before meeting your gaze again.

“Don’t think that.”

His thumb began to absentmindedly stroke the back of your hand. It was a clumsy, instinctive movement, the same one he made every time he tried to calm you down without finding the right words.

“I don’t want… you to leave.” He took a deep breath before continuing. “I want the same thing you do…”

That confession was so quiet it was almost lost amid the noise from outside.

“I’m scared. Really scared.”

He said it plainly, without trying to hide it; it was a brutal honesty that he was finally letting out into the open.

Bucky looked so fragile and vulnerable, until he finally broke down.

His eyes had filled with tears without warning, and a sob welled up from deep within his chest.

His hands wrapped tightly around your waist—but without choking you—as he did his best not to cry like a little child on your shoulder.

You didn’t hesitate for a second to cling to his body as you let yourself cry after all the fear and anxiety that was beginning to dissipate. You could finally feel relief knowing you wouldn’t be alone.

Bucky let out a brief, bitter laugh, filled with disbelief in himself, and shook his head.

“I’ve been imagining it for days,” he confessed, almost ashamed, his voice breaking slightly. “I see you walking around the apartment with the baby in your arms.”

For the first time, a tiny smile appeared on your face through your tears as you heard him.

Bucky looked up fully. His eyes were glistening with small, unshed tears, and there was an obvious, immense fear, but there was also a certainty he was finally ready to voice.

“I want to meet our little one.”

The words hung between you.

Bucky seemed surprised to have said it out loud and without trembling, as if a weight had just been lifted from his shoulders.

“I want to hear his heartbeat at the next appointment.” His lips trembled as a smile full of emotion appeared on his face. “I want to watch him grow…”

His gaze slowly drifted down to your still-flat abdomen, and with reverent slowness, he brought his vibranium hand to rest upon it. The tremor running through his fingers was entirely human.

“And I want to be there when the baby is born.” His voice broke again. “I want to hold him.”

He fell silent for a few seconds to compose himself.

“I still think you deserve better than me.” He admitted in a whisper.

You shook your head quickly. You searched desperately for his gaze as one of your hands reached out to touch his face again, but his metallic fingers gently caught your hand and pressed a kiss against the back of it.

“I’ll probably think that for a while,” he whispered as a tear rolled down his cheek. “But I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to be the man you both deserve.”

You threw yourself at him without thinking, and Bucky barely had time to react before wrapping both arms around you with absolute firmness. You buried your face in his shoulder while he buried his in your hair.

They stayed like that for several long minutes.

Without speaking.

Without moving.

The future remained uncertain, but for the first time since that positive test forgotten in your drawer, the two of you stopped facing it alone.

They would face it together.

“Shit” She darted her eyes back and forth at the two rooms, trying to decide which one to pick. She had no idea why she was being so fussy, she could have just closed the door and moved on if she got it wrong but she felt like she would be rude to invade Tony’s privacy like that, “Whatever, he wouldn’t mind, would he?”

Tony is obviously rich. She had just realized that when she opened a door she was not supposed to. Tony was rich enough to be able to install soundproof rooms in his home and usually the purpose of those rooms is you can never hear what was happening on the inside and Y/N had to be honest, it was one hell of a soundproofed room.

Because she had never expected to see what was happening inside.

Opening the door, Y/N could see a dimly lit room and the air was strangely hotter than outside. On the bed, there were two men on their knees while a woman was on all fours, her head alternating between two cocks as she struggled to put them in her mouth. The two men were facing her and Y/N could obviously recognize who they were.

It was Bucky and Steve, naked, with their heads tilted back as they closed their eyes in bliss. The woman on all fours was sobbing, her cries so loud it was echoing inside the room.

It was so messy and Y/N could see it. The way Steve and Bucky had beads of sweat rolling down their sculpted torsos, the area around their pelvis and abdomen were covered in just spit and slick that was too much for Y/N’s mind. The way the woman gagged so loudly, crying and weeping around their cocks as Bucky would force her head to take both at the same time.

In situations like this you either run or pause and Y/N… she paused.

She was so shocked and startled that she couldn’t stop looking at the scene playing right in front of her. How filthy it was, all of it was almost… captivating.

It took a while for Bucky and Steve to realize Y/N was standing there, watching them in shock but Bucky was the first one to notice. He immediately made eye contact with her but he had no shame. Y/N was beyond terrified but it kept her there, his gaze kept her there.

Bucky wasn’t fazed by her presence, instead, through hooded lids, his plump lips that were once parted out of pleasure turned into a sinful smirk, a smile so sinister that it brought shivers down her spine. Bucky stared directly at her but then he looked down at the woman and let out a breathy laugh, looking at Y/N once again, he tugged on the woman’s hair, shoving two cocks so deep down her throat… All while looking at her. Taunting her, mocking her.

Y/N gasped, closing the door behind her as she ran downstairs and to the room where the others were.

Sam raised his brows at her, confused, “You okay? You look pale. Did you see a ghost or something?”

Y/N didn’t realize how much she was salivating until she gulped. She didn’t know what she was feeling and she wasn’t sure if she liked it or not but once she got back home from the party, she spent the whole night with her thighs clenched and her panties feeling dampened at what she just saw.

Suddenly, her dorm became so hot.

.

Bucky knew who she was. Well, to be fair he knew everyone and anyone. Since he was basically the ’king’ of campus, the name was quite overdramatic if he was being honest but it stroked his ego immensely. Steve was a kid that followed him around, soon enough he became Bucky’s little brother and they did everything together. Literally.

Y/N Y/L/N. Top student, the number two on the dean’s list—after his fellow friend Bruce of course. There was no doubt she was there because Bruce had invited her. A girl like her wouldn’t stumble into that kind of scene alone. Bucky almost wanted to laugh at what she was wearing—albeit a little cute but still. The purest sundress that made her look like she was going to church on Sunday morning, it all fits her good girl image a little too much.

But surprisingly, the good girl was a dirty little voyeur. Oh, he fucking knew one when he sees one and she was definitely it. Bucky can almost imagine her prude little self getting her cute cotton panties soaked while she tried to figure out how to get rid of the itch that settled right on her pure little clit. The innocent little thing probably became not-so-innocent once she found her hands sliding down her body as she fiddled with her swollen cunt. Bucky’s mouth almost watered as he imagined the sight, his cock twitching in his pants as he ignored whatever his professor was mumbling in front of the lecture hall.

Bucky was never the one to have a corruption kink. Prudes were hard to deal with. He would have to teach them shit and it was all a big fuss. He’d prefer sluts. Dirty fucking whores that would just beg to have all their holes to be filled with his cock. Cock-hungry sluts, that’s more like it. He wanted a free-use whore, one he can fuck whenever he wants, wherever he wants.

But Y/N? She might seem like a prude but Bucky had a feeling she wasn’t. Because why else she would just stand there with fucked out eyes as if she was begging for him and Steve to fuck her instead?

When class ended Bucky went to meet up with Steve.

“Steve, do you know who Y/N Y/L/N is?” Bucky questioned as the younger boy cocked his head to the side in confusion. Steve shook his head as he furrowed his brows at Bucky.

“Doesn’t ring any bells, why?” Bucky smirked at him as he pulled up a picture of her on her social media. It was a basic picture and it was the typical student picture that you can see on college promoting sites. Y/N had a wide smile, showing her sets of teeth with her fingers gripping on a pen and multiple books were stacked in front of her, showing the classic studious look.

“I wanna fuck her” Steve almost laughed at Bucky’s statement but with the blank expression on Bucky’s face, Steve indeed knew that he was being serious.

“I-I… Y-you can’t be serious… Her? Since when?”

“Since she watched us fucked Mazy last night” Bucky stated nonchalantly.

“She saw us?” Steve’s eyes widened, he was more shocked at the fact that he himself didn’t notice Y/N was standing there watching them. He was too engulfed in feeling his cock cramped and shoved deep down Mazy’s throat.

“Need you to talk to her, I know where she usually hangs out so it’s easier for you to find her”

Steve suddenly whined out his name, “Why does it have to be me? You’re the one who wants to fuck her”

“So you don’t want to join me then? Fine, I guess I’ll just do it by my—” Bucky started to walk away but Steve was quick to pull him down.

“Alright! Fuck, I’ll do it” Bucky smirked, patting Steve in the back.

“I would talk to her but I got a feeling she’ll run away once she sees me…” Bucky was usually the one who approached the girls they were interested in because the way he has words and his charm was a guarantee, 100% that they will end up in Bucky’s and Steve’s dorm that very night. It wasn’t that Steve’s game was lacking, he was actually quite shy and nervous especially when it comes to talking to the ones that are older than him. Bucky had assured him that he was going to be fine, if anybody was more timid than him, it was Y/N.

After they both hung out, Bucky went to class as he wished Steve good luck and not let him down.

Steve made his way to the library, where she obviously spends her free time next.

.

Steve almost wanted to laugh at himself as he stared at the building in front of him. Never in his life would he thought he would step inside this building. God, he wouldn’t even be here if he was desperate. He sighed as he stepped in, the girl who was working at the front desk widened her eyes when she noticed who came in. Steve threw her a smile and somehow. She must have had all the systems in her body shut down because she didn’t know where to look and was frantically moving around as if she didn’t know where to go. Steve made his way to the back, Bucky had constantly reminded him that she would be in a closed space since she didn’t like being interrupted and that means one thing. Privacy.

Steve was deep inside the library to the point where he didn’t see people anymore. He searched the sittings from all sides, she was quite hard to find. But when he did, she sat in the deafening corner of the library and Steve had to wonder how she is not scared of being alone at a quiet place like this. There could be ghosts for all he cares and he wouldn’t spend a damn minute here.

Y/N sat there quietly with a book in her hands, ‘Sabbath’s Theater’. Steve had no idea what it was about and he didn’t care. He approached with a smirk on his face as he took a seat right next to her.

“Hi” Y/N, who was clearly startled, jumped in her seat as she clutched her chest. She didn’t know who was beside her but as soon as she looked, she almost fell off the chair she was sitting on. Her eyes widened as her heart pounded inside her ribcage. Steve was sitting right next to her with that stupid smirk on his face. Her mind started to wonder what the hell was going on. Why was he next to her? Was it because of last night? No, it couldn’t be, Steve didn’t notice her, “Couldn’t help but see that you’re lonely… Thought I could give you some company… Y/N, right?”

She wanted to act normal. She didn’t want to seem like a kid who got her hands in the cookie jar while getting caught. So she gulped, nodding her head as she tried to divert her attention back to the book. God, the timing was just so bad.

“What you’re reading there, hmm?” Steve pulled his chair closer, his hand was wrapped around her chair and he was so close, too close to the point where she can see the little freckles on his face. “Mind reading me a line?”

It was so inconvenient. Why now? Why only now that he decided to bother her at the library. The comfort in her own element and he managed to disrupt it.

“I-I… No…” She held the book to her chest, shaking her head as she started feeling warm. Well, she was already feeling warm before but this time, it was burning. “Go find your own book…”

“Aww… come on… I’m interested in what you’re reading…” Without a warning, like the asshole he is, Steve took the book forcefully out her hands as she gasped. Steve chuckled as he leaned in his chair, placing his feet on the table. Steve licks his finger as he opens a page, a page which she was on. His eyes scanned through the words as his eyes widened slightly but then the corner of his mouth twitched into a smirk.

“Even dead, Drenka gave him a hard-on; alive or dead, Drenka made him twenty again. Even with temperatures below zero, he would grow hard whenever, from her coffin, she enticed him like this. He had learned to stand with his back to the north so that the icy wind did not blow directly on his dick but still he had to remove one of his gloves to jerk off successfully, and sometimes the gloveless hand would get so cold that he would have to put that glove back on and switch to the other hand. He came to her grave many nights.”

“Bucky was right… you are a freak, aren’t you?” Steve didn’t expect someone like her to be like this. To read something like this - albeit a little fucked up but it almost made him laugh. Y/N was staring at him in shock as she snatched the book away from him.

“I-It’s for r-research…” She stumbled across her words. It was true. It was for her literature class. Steve just caught her at a bad scene.

“Sure it is… sweetheart…” Steve scoffed, “What, are you uncomfortable?”

“Y-You’re sitting too c-close” It was as if she could feel him breathing right next to her, their bodies were touching, Y/N wanted to move away but his hands were still wrapped on her chair.

“Don’t tell me you’re uncomfortable, sweetheart…” Steve almost laughed, “You didn’t seem that uncomfortable when you were watching me and Bucky’s dick shoved inside a girl’s throat… Did you like it?”

It was like he took all of the words out of her mouth. She was speechless.

“We’re curious… You know?” Steve leaned in, his face was so close to hers she could feel his breath hitting her cheeks. She was burning, every part of her burning from embarrassment… and something else. “We wonder… if you touch yourself after...?”

“S-Steve…” She stammered, her breath hitching as Steve started to hover around her neck, “I’m s-sorry…”

“What are you sorry for, baby? I’m not mad… I’m just asking you a question…” Y/N could scream, slap him in the face, tell him to stop if she didn’t like what Steve was trying to do to her but Steve knew she enjoyed this. She knew she enjoyed this, “Or… perhaps…” He suddenly gasps as a fake shock expression wash over his face.

“I… I…” Y/N was struggling to speak, her breathing had gotten heavier and her heart was pounding so hard she feared it might burst, “I d-don’t know… h-how…”

“It doesn’t shock me, baby… Got your nose stuffed in those books all the time your little clit must’ve been deprived hmm?” She whimpered at his filthy words.

“S-Steve…” She called out his name again, “P-please…” Steve smirked, his hands finding her soft thighs as he thanked her silently for wearing a skirt.

“What? You want me to teach you, baby? Here? Such a dirty little girl…” Steve growled in his ear as his voice sent shivers down her spine. His hand caressed her thighs softly as it started to inch higher and higher. Steve parted her legs as she looked down, her shyness getting the best of her, “Look up baby, wanna see your pretty face when I make you feel good…”

She hesitantly stared at him as Steve cursed underneath his breath. Ever since Bucky showed a picture of her, he had always thought Y/N looked quite… basic. But fucking hell, seeing her up close with her eyes all fucked out, with that cute pout on her lips makes him just want to take her in the library. Steve lifted up her skirt, as he spread her legs farther. She was wearing cute grey cotton panties with a little bow in the middle, the centre of her cunt - was soaked.

“Fuck, baby… You got wet because of me or the book, hmm?” Steve pushed her hair out of her neck as he softly kissed the pretty skin. She whimpered, feeling his plush lips starting to nip on the skin, threatening to break it and draw the blood to the surface.

“Y-you… not the b-book”

“Good girl…” Steve merely took his pointing finger and pressed on her swollen clit and it was all it took for her to wince and squirm. He chuckled, rubbing the nub softy, as the sweet little girl started to let out the cutest little whimper. He had never been with a girl like her before. So timid and shy. The girls he had been with were always confident, not afraid to let out their screams no matter where they were. Y/N was cute and he liked it. He understood why Bucky liked her too. Speaking of Bucky, he wonders if he’ll be mad if he started without him. “This is your clit… You know that right?”

“Y-yes”

“Good. When you rub it like this it feels good, doesn’t it?” Steve asked softly as he started to press harder but keep the motion slow and steady. Y/N whined as she nodded, not used to the overwhelming feeling as her hips jerked slightly, “Now, do it yourself, baby… I wanna see if you can do it or not, okay?”

“N-no! I want y-you to do it…” She whined once again, pouting at him, hoping he’ll surrender. Steve cursed once again, it was taking everything in him not to just fuck her right then and there.

“Be a good girl” Steve warned, the sternness of his once sweet voice startling her, “Or I won’t make you cum...”

She flushed, suddenly feeling so small beside him. She felt embarrassed to touch herself in front of Steve. She had never touched herself before. If she wanted to orgasm, her hips would find themselves rocking against her body pillow, her cunt would be grinding on the firm material and soaking them wet. That’s what she did after what she just saw at the party. Though it would never leave her satisfied, she is deprived and she needs this desperately even if it means someone might walk in on them doing this. The irony of the situation.

Timidly, her hand traveled down her body and to her pelvis. She looked at Steve one last time, her eyes pleading as her lips were formed into a small pout, hoping that he would help her instead. Steve kissed his teeth as he motioned for her to continue, his cock would twitch in his pants, feeling excited to see her touch herself for the first time. Her fingers slipped inside her soaked panties as she found her engorged clit, softly rubbing it in circular motions as she shuddered.

“Good girl…” Steve praised softly, whispering into her ears with his deep voice as his hand found the top of her head, softly caressing her hair as if she was a kitten. “I wished Bucky could see how pretty you look, baby…”

“Steve… N-not enough… W-want m-more…” She cried out as her hands started to move frantically on her pussy. Steve could feel his mouth drooling at the sounds that her sopping cunt created, her pussy was so wet with her own slick that every move she made squelched deliciously. “P-please… S-Steve…”

Steve kept quiet as he watched how the pretty girl touched herself. Her head was thrown back and her eyes were closed, she was leaning all the way back in her seat as her legs were spread wide. Steve’s hand lowered down to her thighs, caressing them as he moved her hands away.

“Take off your panties, sweetheart” Obediently, she lifted her hips as she took it off. She was about to place it on her back but Steve snatched it away. Lewdly, Steve brought the damp fabric up to his nose as he inhaled the sweet musky scent from the fabric that touched her little wet cunt, he hummed to himself as he held himself back from licking the wet patch on the fabric. If he wanted to taste her slick, he needed to taste from the source itself. But that was for another time. Y/N was beyond shock but it only made her stomach coil in need. Steve stuffed the panties in his pocket as he smirked at her.

Steve replaced her bare cunt with his fingers, skillfully rubbing her pussy as she bucked her hips up, thighs shaking at the pleasure his fingertips brought her. The whole time he was rubbing her, he kept a close eye on her face, enjoying how blissful she looked for him. Steve had no idea his encounter with Y/N would lead into this and he had to thank Bucky for that.

Steve played at the thought of fingering her. It was obvious that she was a virgin and it might become a discomfort but she was wet enough that Steve was confident his fingers could slide right in and so he did—he teased the entrance, prodding his fingertips in as she suddenly caught his wrist.

“I’ve n-never done t-that…”

“Well, you gotta practice…” Steve reminded me, “How else would you take me and Bucky’s cock? Hmm”

She felt slightly threatened at the remark—maybe a little excited but still. From what she saw that night, the girl was struggling to take their dicks, how does she do that when she’s never even encountered one before?

“Have to stretch you out, baby…” He pushed his fingertip in as she whimpered in shock, “Fuck, you’re so fucking tight… I can’t even put my finger in, sweetheart”

“S-Steve! Hurts!”

“Shh… Shh… Baby… It’ll be okay soon, hmm? It’ll feel so good. Be a good girl, okay?” Steve assured, rubbing her clit once again to ease her pain, “Relax, don’t be too tense or it will hurt so much more…”

“O-okay…” She whispered as she started to take deep breaths for him. She didn’t know how but Steve managed to put his whole finger in, he started to wriggle the digit inside her tight walls and she squirmed in his grasps. Steve then collects a dollop of his saliva as he proceeds to spit on her cunt to act as a lube. He was afraid to hurt her as he moved his finger. The action made her clenched her pussy and it made Steve smirk.

“Such a dirty girl… You love being so wet and messy, don’t you? You love it when I spit on your cunt, wonder how you’ll react if I spit in your mouth hmm?” Every word that comes out of Steve’s mouth never fails to sound like the greatest sin, “Bucky loves to spit too… Hmm, maybe we’ll just make you so wet and messy all with our cum and spit? You’re just gonna be drenched in us, baby…”

Steve was shocked to see how Y/N was twitching and screaming underneath him, her thighs shaking while loud whines escaped her lips as she tried to scoot away from him. Steve had the need to literally tie her down.

Y/N was tortured on the other hand. She had no idea it could be this good, and she had no idea why his pattern changed. He was so attentive and slow but Steve had picked up his pace little by little. Steveq moved his digits differently now. Instead of going in and out, ramming them inside her—he was moving them rapidly up and down, hitting her in spots she didn’t even know existed. Steve was great before but right now he’s just amazing. He’s so amazing that she was crying, wanting him to slow down yet move faster at the same time. Y/N was screaming in his hands, the tears started falling as her hips bucked up violently.

His other hand also moved in sync, rubbing her swollen clit at a fast pace trying to get the good girl to cum as fast as he could and repeat the process over and over again. Steve was going to make her first orgasm memorable and he wanted to leave her wanting more.

Steve could feel her walls clenching on him, restraining his movements and he knew she was close. He went harder and harder, pressing down on her puffy nub as she screamed and Steve had to cover her mouth once again, the tears on the corner of her eyes were evident.

“You gonna cum, aren’t you, baby? Are you gonna be a good girl for me? Hmm? I’m gonna make you feel so good, sweetheart. I bet nobody has ever made you feel this good hmm?” He whispered, enjoying hearing the cry of pleasures escaping her mouth. Y/N could feel it coiling in her lower tummy, it grows bigger and bigger and for a mere second Y/N thought she might have done something else because it felt so familiar

Her back arched as her thighs closed on Steve’s hand as if they were trying to grip on something. Something so unexpected had happened that shocked both of them. Y/N could see the black stars invading her vision as she literally felt like she was knocked out for a second. The next thing Steve knows, he can feel the gush of a stream hitting his hand as she twitches in his grasp, panting rapidly as if Y/N had lost her breath. The clear stream of liquid told its tale and Steve knew exactly what it was.

“Holy fucking shit” He muttered, feeling the sense of pride and amazement grew bigger and bigger inside him. Other things grew bigger too.

“S-Steve… I’m so s-sorry… I’m so e-embarrassed. I don’t know what came over m-me” Y/N on the other hand, thought she had an accident. She didn’t know what exactly that she did but she knew it wasn’t anywhere near normal. “Steve…” She whined out his name, wanting to cry in humiliation.

“Fuck baby that’s so fucking hot…” Steve was still speechless. His eyes admired the literal wet mess before him, a huge puddle in the chair, her thighs and cunt were absolutely drenched and so were his fingers. “Fucking hell, babe”

“Baby, I can’t believe you just squirted…” Y/N, like the angel she was. She obviously didn’t know what it was as she whined again because she had a feeling Steve was going to make fun of her and tell all of his friends about what happened. “Baby… No, no, no, no… You pure thing, you don’t even know what squirting is, do you?”

“All I know is that it’s disgusting…”

“Y/N, it’s completely natural—fuck, I can’t move on from this… We need to try it again…” Steve suggested as Y/N’s eyes widened, “Fuck, if Bucky knew about this…”

He was going to kill him.

.

Steve had given her his number right after what happened. He also claimed that there was no point to lie so he confessed that Bucky had his eyes out for her since she walked in on them the other day. She was still embarrassed but Steve let the topic slip through his mouth like it was nothing. It had been almost a month since they met and Y/N still hadn't called him, she felt anxious and again—embarrassed. Y/N did everything and anything to avoid them, she even stopped going to the library, fearing Steve might look for her there.

But lately, it had been stressful and she needed to unwind.

Her fingers keep hovering on her phone screen, itching to just tap the caller ID and just give in. But how would she even say it? How was she supposed to say to Steve that she desperately wanted to be railed but not sounding like a virgin slut at the same time? It wasn’t ideal, no—to let someone like Steve take her virginity like that, she wanted it to be special but after getting finger-banged in the library she doesn’t really have that much choice does she?

Y/N - Steve?

Steve - Who’s this?

Y/N - It’s… Y/N… Do you remember me?

It would’ve been embarrassing if he didn’t remember her. It was possible though, Steve did have girls lining up to have a go at him apparently.

Steve - How can I forget you, sweetheart?

The pet name never seems to fail, making her blush.

Steve - I can’t believe after so long only now you’ve decided to text me.

Steve - I missed you.

Seen.

She can’t deny it didn’t make her heart flutter just a tiny bit. It seemed like her mind became completely blank as she stared at the screen.

Steve - Baby?

Y/N - I’m sorry, I was cooking some fries.

Cooking some fries? Are you dumb?

Steve - What did you save my contact ID as?

Y/N - Steve. What else would I save it as?

Steve - Aw… :( come one darling. I think I’m special enough to have a nickname right? A pet name? I saved you as a cute baby, don’t you like that?

She wanted to cringe but it was… Kinda cute?

Y/N - I saved you as Stevie, is that alright?

Stevie - much better, baby.

Stevie - now tell me why you’re texting me. I was convinced you didn’t want to see my face anymore since you don’t go to the library nowadays. Have you been avoiding me, sweetheart?

Y/N - I’m studying at my dorm.

Stevie - oh so you lie now?

Stevie - hmm, should I punish you for being a bad girl?

Y/N could suddenly feel her legs shut together as her thighs clenched. Feeling slightly daring, she bit her lips as her nails tapped on her screen.

Y/N - what would you do to me?

Stevie - why don’t you come and find out, sweetheart?

.

“Are you scared of me?” Y/N was sitting so prim and proper on top of his bed, his hands were clasped together and she refused to look him in the eye. The girl was nervous and he knew it but he wasn’t going to do anything that she might now like. Y/N shook her head at Bucky but still not meeting his eyes, “I need a verbal consent, sweetheart”

“I’m not s-scared of you…” She stammered. Bucky took his hand out of his pocket as his finger found her chin, tilting her head up so she would look at him with the pure gaze that he loved so much. “P-please…”

“What exactly do you want, sweetheart?” He whispered softly but loud enough for her to hear his voice. Y/N hesitated for a moment, the words can’t seem to come out of her mouth. “I can’t give you what you want if I don’t know what it is”

Fuck, Bucky knew what he was fucking doing. His voice was deep, deeper than usual. Usually, he had his tone higher up a pitch to sound more friendly but he sounds completely different now. It was doing so many things to her, one of them being her cunt starting to slowly seep with arousal.

Steve decided to let Bucky take the wheel this time as he sits back and watches how the girl mentally crumbles to Bucky’s domineering aura. Bucky had always taken charge whenever they were fucking someone, it made sense that he was older. Steve by no means was a sub, he just followed Bucky’s orders well. Well, that’s what leads to this situation.

“I know I’m a stranger to you baby, and you have never talked to me before… But I know you’re a whore, sweetheart. Drop the good girl act and say what you fucking want before I bend you over and spank the answer out of you” That sentence alone made her whimper. His voice is getting stern and louder and it intimidates her tremendously but in a good way.

“P-please… I… I really…”

“Hmm?” Bucky hummed, urging her to continue. “Go on baby, you can do it. You don’t want your ass to be red and purple for the whole week, do you?”

“P-please f-fuck me…” Just saying it made her want to crawl into a hole and stay there forever. She was so shy she wanted to curl up into a ball, hoping Bucky and Steve wouldn’t laugh at her. Little did she know, it fed them the corruption kink that they never knew they had.

“Such a good girl… You know your manners well, don’t you, doll?” Steve quips.

“I know it’s your first time so we’re gonna be gentle… Alright? We don’t wanna hurt you” Bucky assured her as his large hands petted her hair like she was a kitten, “Safe word is cute, baby…”

Steve scoffed at him but Y/N went and obediently nodded.

“D-don’t want, g-gentle…” She frowned cutely, “W-want it like h-her…”

The statement made both Bucky and Steve widened their eyes in surprise. Bucky chuckled darkly, caressing her soft cheeks.

There’s no surprise what a fucking slut she was.

“Steve… Since you two had too much fun already without me, I think it’s only fair I get my turn… Isn’t that right, baby?”

Bucky was the apex predator in this situation. He was hungry, everything in his mind said so. He wanted to devour Y/N whole because she was his prey. Bucky pushed Y/N on the bed quite roughly as she squealed, making him smirk. His smirk, so sinister and maybe slightly evil and devious it made Y/N want to cower away from him—like predator and prey. Y/N laid in between his knees as he took off his belt to show her the prominent bulge in his boxers and from what she could already tell, Bucky was massive. He took no time pulling it down as his big cock sprung up towards his stomach, all angry and red with veins on his shaft, “You’re our whore tonight right? Our personal whore? You’re only good for serving our cocks, become our cock sleeve, hmm? We’re not going to let you cum, you don’t fucking matter, only we do, is that right? Hmm?” Unexpected Bucky had raised his hands on her face as he started slapping her, not enough to hurt her but enough to let her know his intention, “Dumb fucking slut, so hungry for our fucking cocks hm?”

“Y-yes… I’m a s-slut… I-I want your cock, p-please give it t-to me… P-please” She was in fact a desperate whore, from the way she was crying for his attention, she wanted to be a good girl and warm his cock for him. Bucky ran his fingers through her hair as he gripped on her scalp pulling her head up towards his cock as she yelped.

“Suck it, slut” Bucky forced her mouth onto his cock as she timidly started to suck him, she could only get the tip in and it was starting to make him extremely frustrated, “Tap my thighs, that’s your safe signal”

He then gripped tighter on her hair as he shoved down his cock in her throat, forcing her to take all of his massive shaft down, not bothering when he heard how she struggled and gagged to swallow it all. Tears started to form in the corner of her eyes as she tasted the precum that was smothered on the slit of his tip. Bucky wasn’t shy to make sounds, he was moaning and grunting so hard each time she pushed her head deeper and deeper. Steve cursed as he watched the situation unfold, taking out his cock as he started to jerk off to the sight.

She was being such a good girl, she tried hard to hollow her cheeks making sure Bucky felt good. Beneath her, her panties were soaking wet, if she was naked, if would’ve dripped down the floor.

“F-fuck! Shit!” Bucky pulled her head off his cock, as he panted heavily, throwing his head back as he tried to regain his breath, “F-fuck baby, your mouth is so fucking good. But fuck, I want to feel your pussy first, hmm?”

“W-what about Steve?” Bucky smiled, wiping her glossy face with his thumb as he hummed at her, “Won’t he be a-alone?”

“I have a thing in mind that I want to do with him, but first I’d have to stretch that tight virgin cunt out for you to take my own cock baby…” She whimpered at the statement and she nodded and plopped on her back, Bucky chuckled at how cute she is as he exchanged glances with Steve who had been fairly quiet the entire time Bucky played with the little kitten. Serves him right, the little brat touched his sweet girl before he ever got the chance, “But I don’t know if you can take what we’re going to do to you…. Hmm… Do you think you can take it?” Bucky muttered teasingly as his hands explored the cute pink panties with a little white bow on the center of the garment. Cute, his favorite colors…

His fingers hooked onto the band, pulling her panties down, revealing her plump fat cunt that looks so delicious and enticing. Her pussy lips were so big and swollen that he had to part them away to reveal her equally swollen clit that was all pink from the lack of touch it received. Bucky licks his lips as he starts to play with the slick that it produced, swirling it all around her pussy and she starts whining, begging for him to just touch the parts that mattered.

“Such a desperate fucking slut… You’re drenched just by sucking my cock, did you fucking like it that much, hmm?” When she wasn’t responding, Bucky immediately smacks her clit, earning a moan as she thrashes around. Bucky wasn’t giving her single slaps, he was slapping it so rapidly that her juices were starting to splatter on the bed, “You fucking speak when I fucking tell you to!”

“S-sorry!” She shouted out as she started to cry, she was a sobbing messed and fuck did that turned the both of them on, “Y-yes! I love it! I-I love to s-suck you cock! I’m sorry! I’m s-sorry!”

Bucky laughed at her, wiping the tears off her face, “Such a pathetic little whore for cock”

“Y-yes…”

“Well, I’m going to fucking give you what you want… Hmm?” Bucky lowered his head between her legs as he collected a dollop of saliva in his mouth, he spat aggressively right on her swollen nub, spitting more and more saliva until she was completely drenched. He wanted to make sure she was so wet and slick that she would be able to take his cock.

Well, both of their cocks.

“F-fuck, this is your first time and I’m going to try and be slow… I can’t promise how long I can handle myself, sweetheart…” Bucky stated as he lined his tip on her wet center.

He pushed his cock slowly as he grunted, feeling the warmth of her walls immediately encased on his shaft, Bucky cursed, feeling as if it was already too tight for him to even move, how the fuck was he going to fit two cocks in the tiny little pussy, “S-shit… Stevie… I-I, fuck! She’s too fucking tight, I can’t even push myself in…”

“Fuck, Bucky… Just get on with it alright, I’ve waited long enough”

Underneath the older man, Y/N was trying to relax, or else the pain would become much greater if she was tense. She can’t help but sob at the feeling of being so stuffed and filled just by the tip of Bucky’s cock. She started to whine louder and louder each time he pushed his shaft an inch by inch, forcing himself into her walls. Bucky was so big she could feel him in her tummy.

“S-so… F-full… S-so good… More please more…” She begged for him to move as Bucky complied, slowly moving in and out, fearing that he might hurt her. Bucky threw strings of curses every now and then, indulging in the velvety and warm walls that gripped him like a vice.

“Don’t fucking ask for what you can’t promise baby, you’ll be weeping by the time me and Steve are done with you”

“Please… It feels so good”

“Fuck, he gave you his cock once, and now you’re a braindead slut that only thinks with her cunt hmm?”

“Steve, come here”

Steve stood up with a smile on his face as he licked his lips, now it was finally his time to join in and he was suppressed enough.

“You want cock. You are fucking desperate for it. Well, we’re going to fucking give you our fucking cock” Steve lifted her up as Bucky supported her body so Steve could lay underneath her. Bucky smirked sinisterly as the confused girl, as he laid her back down on Steve’s chest, “I hope you can take both of us at the same time baby”

“No! It’s not going to f-fit!”

“Oh, we’ll fucking make it fit, sweetheart…”

From behind, Steve had placed his cock right underneath Bucky’s as he slowly started to push his length in. Y/N started to scream when she felt the sudden intrusion of Steve’s equally large dick.

“S-so full! No!”

“You keep saying no but I don’t hear your safe word being used hmm? Don’t fucking lie to me you slut, you fucking want this don’t you? Hmm? Answer me when I’m speaking to you!” He smacked her face once again as drools started to escape her mouth, she looked so filthy and worn out but she was far from tired and he knew it.

“I love it! I l-love being stuffed and f-filled by y-your c-cocks!”

“Thank us”

“T-thank you! I—T-thank you!”

Steve had managed to cram his cock inside the tight little space, two cocks stuffing one hole at the same time. At this point, she was so stretched out and they knew she was going to be so fucking loose after this.

“S-shit, Bucky… F-fuck, let’s move” The younger boy grunted as he wraps his arms around his waist. Their hips started to move, their cocks sequentially thrusting in and out of her abused hole, cramming it inside as she sobbed and cry in between them. So engulfed in the pain and the pleasure that she no longer had the ability to speak. Bucky and Steve had literally managed to fuck her dumb.

“Fuck Bucky, I don’t think I can last long like this”

“M-me too, fuck! She’s so fucking tight” Steve’s cock started to twitch inside her walls, Bucky knew he was going to cum soon because he could feel Steve’s dick throbbing underneath him. With a couple more thrusts, Steve spurts his hot cum deep inside her womb, strings, and strings of his seed, planted inside her cunt, “Fuck! Fuck! S-shit!”

“Shit, don’t pull out yet fuck I’m close!” Bucky came shortly after filling her with the same white liquid that filled her so much to the point where her tummy was just bulging with cum. Steve and Bucky pulled out at the same time, her whole gaping so wide that they could see their cums pooling deep inside.

“F-fuck, shit… Look at this” Her cunt started to convulse, her pussy contracting so much to the point where she started to push so much of their cum out, dripping onto the damp sheets.

Y/N’s condition wasn’t the brightest, she was panting quite hard, her mouth was wide open as her eyes were rolled back into her skull. She could no longer comprehend what was happening or if it even ended. All she knew was that she was stuffed so well that it left her feeling so full despite them being done with fucking her.

The atmosphere in the room was also damp and hot, the smell of sex and cum lingered in the air as the three of them laid in the bed, mindblown about what just happened.

Y/N had fallen asleep with two men by her side, her body was red and bruised. Her cunt was abused and gaped. Her face was covered in sweat and spit. She was filthy.