#protective!bucky

It started with movie night.

Wrapped in blankets and candlelight, the soft glow painting your features in angelic tones. You felt the shift under the covers as his metal fingers brushed against your knuckles, just the lightest of touches, wordlessly asking for permission.

Your fingers flexed before reaching out, curling around the tips of his fingers before intertwining your hands completely. Neither of you dared to look at the other for fear of breaking the spell, but Bucky could have sworn he felt a little lighter that evening.

It continued the following week.

The rubble seemed endless, the building collapsing brick by falling brick, cascading down upon you both.

Bucky didn't hesitate. He launched himself at you, tackling you to the ground with immeasurable force, shielding your body completely with his own. Debris continued to fall but his eyes never left yours, blue ocean tides carrying you out to sea, never faltering in their devotion to keeping you safe.

When the walls stopped shaking and the dust settled in the most literal sense, he pushed himself up from the ground, still staring at you all the while.

"You're safe, doll." It wasn't a question. "I promise, you're safe."

His arms stretched down to yours, pulling you up on uncertain legs.

"I had it handled," you rasped, voice cracking on an exhale of empty laughter.

"I just had to be sure," he responded, hand squeezing yours reassuringly. "I'd be lost without you, you know."

It was soft and sincere and whispered like it was meant just for him, but you heard it all the same.

Your hand was still gripped tightly in his warm palm, so much so you could feel his pulse thrumming through his body, the adrenaline hit only just starting wane.

The pad of his thumb traced the back of your knuckles, painting delicate patterns for you to feel, easing the tension from your body one pass at a time.

When the cleanup crew arrived, you were both halfway back to the team's rendezvous point, walking hand in hand all the way.

It ended here, naturally.

You were sprawled out on the bed, sweat beading at your temples, your breasts, your back. Bucky had you laid out like a man come to devour - and devour he did.

Your thighs squeezed his head while his tongue delved deeper, deeper. Feeling the soft pliancy of your walls, licking broad stripes through your folds before swirling your sensitive nub, suckling down your juices as if they were sweeter than honey.

But no matter how you squirmed - how you thrashed your head or jolted your hips or flexed your heels into the muscles of his back - Bucky never released your hand.

The fingers of his left hand, cooler and grounding, splayed out over your stomach, pressing gently against the soft flesh and anchoring you, both to the bed and to him.

By contrast, the fingers of his right hand tangled with those of your left, gripping tightly as if scared to ever let you go. Bucky knew all too well how fleeting moments of peace could be, how easily the things you love could be lost, and he certainly wasn't about to take that chance with you.

And when you came, back bowed and voice crying out, it was with one hand tangled in Bucky's hair and the other hand linked with his. Right where it would always be.

🪻dividers by saradika-graphics <3

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“On the house,” you’d say, tucking a napkin beneath the plate. He’d murmur, “You shouldn’t give things away for free, doll,” but his mouth would curl when you rolled your eyes at him.

And that was how it started—him leaving bigger tips, lingering too long, learning the way you hummed under your breath when you thought no one was listening. He didn’t mean to stay. Didn’t mean to start protecting you from the shadows when men got too close, didn’t mean to have his driver drop a bouquet of lilies at your door after your mom’s funeral, didn’t mean to tell his men your name and make it known that you were off limits.

But the night someone followed you home, he stopped pretending.

You hadn’t seen him come around for a week—said something about business upstate. You didn’t notice the man tailing you until it was too late, until the streetlights blurred through your tears and the sound of footsteps echoed behind you.

Then there was a crash. Tires screeching. A door slamming.

And Bucky was there.

Not the calm man who liked your coffee. Not the one who smiled small and shy when you wiped foam from his upper lip. This one was carved out of fire and fury, his gun already drawn, his eyes black with something feral.

You still remember the sound. The way he pulled you against his chest after. The way he said, “Don’t look, baby. It’s over now.”

And it was.

For you, anyway. The man who followed you didn’t make it to morning.

He should’ve walked away that night. Should’ve left you with nothing but a half-remembered kindness. But instead, he kept showing up—at your door, at your side, in your bed.

He’d touch your cheek with the same hands that broke bones hours earlier. You never flinched. That was how he knew he was ruined.

Because you weren’t afraid of him. You should’ve been.

“You’re dangerous, Barnes.”

You said it one night, soft against his throat, the city lights pouring through the window. His arm was around you, bare skin glowing gold from the lamplight, and he laughed low, almost disbelieving.

“I told you that when we met,” he murmured.

“I thought you were exaggerating.”

“I don’t exaggerate, sweetheart.”

You smiled against his skin. “I think you do. Especially when it comes to me.”

That made him still.

He looked down at you like you were the only real thing in his world. Maybe you were.

“I’d burn the world for you,” he said quietly. “If anyone ever laid a hand on you, I’d turn this whole fucking city to ash.”

You thought he was being dramatic. He wasn’t.

The first time you saw proof, it was over something small. Some rival’s son mouthing off, calling you a pretty decoration on Barnes’ arm. Bucky didn’t yell. Didn’t even blink. Just smiled.

That night, the rival’s club burned to the ground.

You didn’t ask questions. You didn’t have to.

When you came home and saw him sitting in the dark, sleeves rolled to his forearms, smoke still clinging to his shirt, you only said, “You could’ve told me.”

“I didn’t want you to see that part of me.”

You stepped between his knees, cupped his jaw, and said, “Bucky, I see all of you.”

That was the night he told you he loved you. Not with words, but with the kind of kiss that hurt to come back from.

Everyone knew better than to mention your name around him now.

His men called you “the missus,” even though you weren’t married—yet. You had your own guards, your own driver, your own security detail that shadowed you like ghosts. He’d given you keys to the penthouse, filled your closet with things you hadn’t asked for, and built you a life so untouchable it scared you sometimes.

But then he’d come home, shoulders heavy from another war he didn’t talk about, and you’d remember why you stayed.

Because when he laid his gun on the table and his head in your lap, he wasn’t the King of Brooklyn anymore. He was just your Bucky.

“Don’t go soft on me, Barnes,” you teased once, fingers tracing the line of his jaw.

“Too late for that, sweetheart.”

You asked him once if he ever regretted it—the life, the blood, the danger.

He looked out the window for a long time, cigarette glowing between his fingers, city lights reflecting in his eyes.

“Used to,” he said finally. “Used to think I’d crawl my way out someday. That maybe I’d find a way to be clean again.”

“And now?”

“Now?” He smiled, slow and sharp. “Now I just hope you never see me for what I really am.”

You turned his face back toward you, kissed him soft. “I already do.”

Something broke in him then. Something small and final.

Because he realized there was no undoing this. No coming back from you.

He was already gone—lost, devoted, burning alive and happy to do it.

When trouble comes, he doesn’t hesitate. Not anymore.

The call wakes him at 2 a.m.—a whisper of your name, a threat too close to home—and before his men even finish the report, he’s already moving.

It’s not rage. Not really. It’s something colder. Efficient. Absolute.

The men who touched what’s his don’t see sunrise.

And when he comes home, covered in someone else’s blood, you’re waiting for him by the window.

He doesn’t speak. Just pulls you close, buries his face in your hair, breathes you in like absolution.

You whisper, “You didn’t have to.”

“Yeah, I did.” His voice is hoarse. “They looked at you, doll. That’s all it takes.”

You should stop him. You should tell him this isn’t love, it’s obsession. But when he kisses you—slow and aching and endless—you understand.

He didn’t mean to fall. But he did.

So of course, John Walker found it.

You didn’t even realize you’d left it on the coffee table until you came back from the kitchen and saw him holding it, thumb idly fanning the pages.

“What’s this?” he asked, a grin already forming.

Your stomach tightened. “Give it back.”

“Oh-ho,” he said, ignoring you, his eyes scanning a page. “‘His hands are the anchors that drag me into the deep, and I go willingly.’” He let out a low whistle. “Damn, Barnes, you inspire the classics.”

The sound of Bucky’s chair scraping back was sharp. “Put it down, Walker.”

John didn’t. By then, Bob was leaning over the back of the couch, trying to get a look. Yelena raised a brow from across the room. Someone—probably Bob—said, “No way. These are yours? Stoic-as-a-gravestone you?”

You grabbed the notebook and shoved it under your arm, muttering, “It’s nothing.”

But the damage was done.

For the next week, it became… a thing.

It wasn’t malicious at first. Teasing comments over breakfast—Bob reciting lines in an over-the-top dramatic voice, Yelena asking if Bucky had “read today’s sonnet yet.” Ava smirking and saying she didn’t know you were “the candlelit romance type.”

You brushed it off. You weren’t going to give them the satisfaction of acting embarrassed. Still, each time they brought it up, something in your chest tightened just a little more.

Bucky, though, he watched you. Quietly. Like he could feel the way it was starting to press on you.

One night, you were curled up in bed, scrolling aimlessly through your phone while he brushed his teeth. He came out, towel over his shoulder, and leaned against the doorframe.

“You’re never sensitive about anything,” he said.

You looked up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” he said, coming over and sitting on the edge of the bed, “you’ve been letting them take shots all week and you haven’t said a word. But you can. You can be sensitive about this. It’s… it’s not nothing, doll. You put your heart on those pages.”

You shrugged, eyes dropping back to your phone. “It’s just teasing.”

“Teasing’s only fine if you’re laughing too.” His hand found yours, thumb brushing over your knuckles. “Don’t let them make you feel stupid for loving me the way you do. Especially not when it’s that beautiful.”

Your throat felt tight, so you didn’t answer.

The next morning, it happened.

Everyone was in the kitchen—Bob at the stove, Nat with her coffee, Ava slicing fruit. You were pouring tea when John walked in, grinning like he’d been saving something up all night.

“Hey, Barnes,” he called. “Tell me—do her eyes really ‘burn brighter than the Warsaw sunrise,’ or was that just artistic license?”

A ripple of laughter went around the room.

Bucky froze mid-step. “What did you just say?”

John smirked. “Just appreciating the literary genius in our midst—”

“That’s enough.” His voice cut through the air, low and sharp.

The room went quiet.

Bucky took a step closer to John, his jaw tight. “You think you’re being funny, but you’re not. You’re taking something she made—something private—and you’re turning it into a joke because you don’t know what to do with something real.”

John’s smile faltered.

“She doesn’t go around making fun of the way you care about people,” Bucky went on, voice steady but with an edge that made even Yelena glance away. “You don’t get to mock her for the way she loves me. You want to tease someone, tease me. But you leave her out of it.”

No one moved.

Finally, John muttered, “Alright. I didn’t mean—”

“Didn’t mean to what? Humiliate her? Because that’s what you’ve been doing all week.”

There was a beat of silence. Then Bob cleared his throat and said quietly, “Yeah. We took it too far.”

Yelena's voice was softer. “Sorry, Y/N. We didn’t think about it like that.”

You just nodded, not trusting yourself to say anything without cracking something open you’d spent years keeping sealed.

Bucky slipped his hand into yours under the table, squeezing gently.

The apologies kept coming—Ava, Bob, even John with a muttered “sorry” that at least sounded sincere. The rest of the day was quieter. No more sonnet recitations, no sly comments.

Later that night, Bucky found you on the balcony, the city spread out below in gold and silver lights.

“They won’t bring it up again,” he said.

“I know.”

“You okay?”

You looked at him then, at the man you’d written a hundred poems for and never told. “I wasn’t embarrassed about the poetry,” you admitted. “I was embarrassed they found out I could feel that much and never say it.”

His expression softened. “You say it every day, doll. Maybe not with words, but I hear it.”

You let out a quiet laugh. “Still… maybe I should’ve hidden that notebook better.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.” He leaned in, pressing his forehead to yours. “Because now they know just how lucky I am.”

You huffed, but your fingers curled into the front of his shirt, holding him there.

Bucky was two time zones away when it happened. When Sam called, he didn’t even let him finish the sentence. Bucky was already moving, already packing, already shoving knives and ammo into bags. He didn’t eat. Didn’t speak. He flew out with Steve that night, stone-faced and silent, fingers drumming against the grip of his knife the entire flight.

By the time they reached the site, it was ashes.

No body. No trace. No sign of you except for the busted comms unit found in a bloodstained hallway.

They told him the mission was a trap. That Hydra had been waiting. That you’d been the target.

He told them you were still alive.

No one argued. Not because they believed it, but because Bucky Barnes looked like a man who would kill anyone who said otherwise.

The next days blurred. He tore apart the war room trying to trace your location, running on caffeine and fury and gut instinct. No detail was too small. No theory too far-fetched. He didn’t care what rules he broke, what old contacts he had to burn—he would find you. He had to.

The rest of the team tried to help, but they couldn’t reach him. Steve offered quiet support. Sam tried logic. Nat said nothing, but her eyes followed him with worry every time he passed.

He barely noticed.

The nights were worse. That’s when the dreams came—visions of you bleeding out in some freezing cell, your eyes dull and lifeless as you whispered his name and he couldn’t reach you in time. He’d wake up gasping, drenched in sweat, fists clenched so tight he left bruises on his own palms. But you weren’t there to pull him back. You weren’t there to touch his cheek and tell him it was just a dream. You were gone.

The guilt ate him alive.

He’d failed you.

He’d let them take you.

So he worked harder. Days turned to weeks. He stopped shaving. Forgot to eat unless someone physically handed him a protein bar. His knuckles were raw from punching walls when leads went cold. The spiral was vicious. Dark. Dangerous.

He started slipping.

It was Steve who noticed it first—the twitch in Bucky’s jaw, the way his eyes glazed over in moments of silence, as if a colder part of him was surfacing. He didn’t want to believe it. Didn’t want to see the signs.

But the Winter Soldier wasn’t gone.

He was waiting.

And the moment Bucky found what he needed, he let him out.

Three weeks after your disappearance, Bucky found it. A shred of code embedded in an old server they’d recovered from a black-market trader in Latvia. It matched a defunct Hydra division last believed to be dismantled in 1994. One of the scientists linked to it was still alive, operating under a new alias in Smolensk. Bucky went alone.

He came back with blood on his shirt and coordinates burned into the inside of his arm.

Steve tried to stop him. Told him they needed a plan. Reinforcements. Surveillance.

But Bucky looked him dead in the eyes and said, “If she dies while we wait, I will never forgive you.”

And then he was gone.

The compound was buried beneath a forest near the Russian border, surrounded by snow and fog and silence. Bucky made it there by nightfall.

He didn’t wait.

He didn’t sneak.

He descended.

The first guard didn’t see him coming. A blade to the throat. The second got a bullet to the skull. Within minutes, alarms were blaring, red lights spinning, but it didn’t matter—he wanted them to know. He wanted them to fear. He wanted them to understand what they’d done.

They took you.

So he brought hell with him.

The Winter Soldier moved through the compound with terrifying efficiency. Every bullet found its mark. Every bone he broke was precise. The corridors were painted in blood by the time he reached the sublevels.

He tore the last guard’s arm from its socket before demanding access codes. When the man refused, Bucky ripped the panel from the wall instead.

He found you in the last cell.

The door was thick steel, bolted from the outside. There was no window. No light. The air reeked of rot and decay.

And then he heard it.

Your voice.

So faint he thought he imagined it.

“B-Bucky…?”

His vision went white.

He punched through the door like it was paper.

You were huddled in the corner, covered in bruises, eyes swollen, lip split, body shaking. Blood soaked through your shirt. There were fingerprints on your neck. Rope burns on your wrists.

But you were alive.

Alive.

He dropped to his knees beside you, metal hand trembling as he reached out. “Y/N… it’s me. I’m here. I’ve got you.”

Your fingers curled weakly into his collar. “I knew… I knew you’d come.”

He let out a broken sound, somewhere between a sob and a laugh, and pulled you into his chest. You winced, and he cursed himself, adjusting so he held you without pressure.

“I’ve got you. You’re safe now. No one’s ever going to touch you again.”

You nodded against him, breathing in his scent like it was oxygen.

“Let’s go home,” you whispered.

He carried you out of that compound like you weighed nothing, blood soaking into his shirt, your breath warm against his neck. The building burned behind him. Hydra soldiers lay broken at his feet. And he never once looked back.

You spent the next two weeks in the hospital. Internal bleeding. Three fractured ribs. A dislocated shoulder. Malnourished. Sleep-deprived. But you were alive.

Bucky didn’t leave your side.

Not once.

He sat beside your bed every night, head resting on your mattress, hand wrapped around yours like a lifeline. When the nightmares came for you, he was already there. When the pain was too much, he held you through it. He fed you ice chips, brushed your hair, kissed your forehead, and whispered promises you barely remembered.

“I’ll never let you go again.”

“They’ll never find us.”

“You’re safe. You’re safe. You’re safe.”

The doctors said you were strong. That your survival was a miracle. That patients who endured what you did often gave up long before rescue.

But you didn’t.

Because you knew Bucky would come.

And he did.

By the time you were cleared to go home, you could barely walk unassisted, but you refused the wheelchair. Bucky wrapped an arm around your waist and supported your weight like it was nothing. The rain poured down in sheets outside the hospital doors, but he didn’t flinch. He was waiting with your favorite hoodie, your warmest socks, and a blanket tucked under his arm.

You looked at him, trembling, exhausted, but whole.

“Hi,” you said softly.

And he broke.

His lips crashed into yours, hands framing your face so gently you wanted to cry. The kiss tasted like rain and salt and desperate joy. When he pulled back, his forehead rested against yours.

“I thought I lost you,” he whispered.

“You didn’t,” you murmured. “You never will.”

The weeks after weren’t easy. You couldn’t sleep through the night. Certain sounds made you flinch. You hated closed doors, and sometimes you just cried for no reason.

But Bucky never left.

He learned your rhythms. Your silences. The way you needed space but hated being alone. He’d sit at the foot of the bed and read when you couldn’t talk. He cooked you soups and changed your bandages. He helped you shower the first time, fingers gentle as lace, voice steady even when yours cracked.

“I’m right here. I’ve got you.”

He never asked what they did to you. Not once. He never made you relive it. But one night, curled against his chest, you told him anyway. In the dark. Just a whisper.

And when you woke the next morning, a news report aired of a black site explosion in northern Russia.

No survivors.

Bucky never said a word.

Weeks passed. You healed slowly. On the surface, anyway. The bruises faded. Your bones knit back together. You walked more. Slept a little better.

But it was the way Bucky looked at you that healed the most — like you were made of stars. Like you were unbreakable. Like nothing, not even a whole fucking war, could ever make him stop loving you.

One morning, months after it all, you woke before him. The sun was rising through the curtains, pale light pooling across the bed. Bucky’s arm was slung over your hip, his face soft in sleep.

You touched his jaw gently and whispered, “You saved me.”

His eyes blinked open slowly, blue meeting yours.

“You saved me,” he whispered back.

And neither of you had to say the rest.

You weren’t the kind of girl who needed a bodyguard.

Or at least, that’s what you told yourself when your father called from his office and told you the news.

“You’re being watched,” He stated flatly, like it wasn’t even a warning, just a fact. “We’re tightening security. New man starts tomorrow. James Barnes. Don’t argue with me, sweetheart.”

You had tried to argue half-heartedly, but the tension in his voice told you it wouldn’t go anywhere. There had been a few odd things lately. A car that followed you from the studio. Two packages with no return address. Your driver calling out sick and never came back. You’d brushed it all off, but clearly your father hadn’t.

“Isn’t he overkill?” You mumbled, hugging your arms as you stared out the window of your apartment overlooking the park. “Don’t we already have cameras and gates and–”

“Gates don’t stop people like this,” he interrupted. “Barnes will.”

You didn’t ask how your father knew him. You knew better than to ask how your family made their money, or where all the shadows in your life came from.

So instead, you sat in your living room the next day in an oversized sweater, clutching a mug of tea, and pretending not to be nervous while you waited to meet your new shadow.

You knew the moment he arrived by the way he didn’t knocked. Instead, the security panel on your wall buzzed, then clicked. A guard opened the door, nodded once, and stepped aside.

And then he walked in.

James Barnes was taller than you imagined, shoulders tense under a black jacket, jaw sharp and eyes unreadable. His presence filled the room like smoke: quiet, heavy, and lingering. His stare flicked from corner to corner, scanning exits, windows, lines of sight, and then finally, finally, landed on you.

You blinked. He didn’t.

“I’m Barnes,” He said, voice low, clipped. “I’ll be handling your protection detail until the current threat is neutralized.”

You tilted your head. “You don’t look like someone who neutralizes. You look like someone who ends things.”

That got you a blink, barely. He didn’t smile, but something about the way his gaze lingered on you sent a ripple through you. Not fear exactly. Just… awareness.

You didn’t think much of it. He was here to keep you safe after all.

As he settled into your usual routine, things changed.

You weren’t used to rules. Not real ones. Not the kind that came with consequences.

You’d grown up cushioned in luxury from your father’s fortune, your mother’s perfect social masks, and the world softened by assistants and doors held open for you. You didn’t flaunt it. You didn’t really want it. But you were used to having space. To being alone when you wanted to be. To choosing your own schedule and slipping away when the house got too loud, or the walls too stiff.

James Barnes didn’t ask for permission to change that.

The first morning after his arrival, you came down the stairs in your usual routine. Barefoot, still in pajamas, eyes half-shut, heading for the kitchen, only to find him already there. Leaning against the counter with his arms crossed. Gun holstered at his hip like it belonged there more than he ever could in your sunlit apartment.

He didn’t greet you. Didn’t flinch when you stopped short in the doorway. Just handed you a small, black notebook. Inside was a schedule, blocks of time filled with words like “accompanied outings only” and “no unscheduled exits.”

You blinked down at it. “You’re serious?”

He met your gaze with something unreadable. “I don’t do half-assed measures. You stick to this. I keep you alive.”

You opened your mouth, then closed it, letting the silence stretch. “I didn’t ask for you.”

“No. Your father did.” He pushed off the counter. “And I accepted which means I’m in charge.”

You laughed once, dry and disbelieving. “You think I’m going to just follow orders?”

His expression didn’t change. “I think you’re smart, scared, and stubborn. But not stupid enough to test me.”

You didn’t like how steady his voice was. You didn’t like how right he sounded.

So you tried to prove him wrong. You started with little things.

You tried to slip out the back door while he was “on the phone.” (He wasn’t. The line was dead. He was testing you.) You stayed up too late reading in the garden. (He stood in the dark under the trees until 3AM, making sure no one touched you.) You didn’t answer your phone once when he called. (The next time you looked up, he was already inside the café, staring down your barista like he was a threat.)

You pushed. He didn’t snap. He never raised his voice. Never touched you.

But you could feel the leash tightening. Not in violence, but in attention.

His eyes never left you for long. You’d glance up during breakfast and find him watching. Quiet, calculating, and memorizing the way you held your fork or twirled your hair. You started locking the door to your room, even though no one told you to.

Three days later, the lock was disabled. Silently, effortlessly. Nothing was said.

He wasn’t trying to scare you. That was the worst part. He wasn’t trying to hurt you.

He just didn’t believe you were capable of keeping yourself safe. So he did it for you.

You tried confronting him once.

“You’re not my father, you’re a bodyguard.”

He’d looked at you from the armchair by the fireplace, one hand resting on his thigh, muscles relaxed, but his eyes stayed sharp. “You think I want to be here?”

That caught you off guard. He stood slowly, and you backed up before you realized it.

“I didn’t come here to play house,” He said quietly, stepping closer. “I came because someone put a price on your head. Because people don’t just want to scare you, they want to ruin you. And because your father offered me more money than God to make sure they don’t.”

He stopped just short of touching you. His voice dropped to a murmur. “But if you think I’m staying because of him, you’re wrong.”

You looked up at him, heart pounding.

“I’m staying,” He said, “Because now I’ve seen you, and I know you wouldn’t survive long in a world like this.”

After that, you didn’t argue anymore.

Not out loud.

But part of you, the stubborn, lonely part that resented being watched and kept, burned quietly under your skin.

You weren’t his prisoner. You weren’t some doll to protect.

And no matter how warm his voice could sound when you cried in your sleep, or how gently he covered you with a blanket when you passed out on the couch, or how intently he watched the world for danger–

You knew what men like him were.

The shift happened on a Thursday.

A slow, golden morning. You had woken early, not because you meant to but because you’d had another dream. One of those anxious ones that made you sit up sweating, heart pounding, with no memory of what exactly had gone wrong. You didn’t call for anyone. You didn’t want Bucky to know. So you got dressed in silence, tugging a soft sweater over your head, and crept down the stairs to breathe.

The air was cool outside, still damp with mist curling through the hedges.

You weren’t supposed to leave the property without telling him. You knew that. But you weren’t going far, just to the far edge of the garden path, past the statues and the wild roses, where you could sit on the stone bench with a book and be alone for ten minutes.

Ten minutes was all you wanted. But ten minutes is all it took.

The sound came first. Fast heavy footsteps, then a flash of something that was too quick to register. You looked up just as a man stepped out from behind a hedge, black cap low over his face, and a silver flash in his hand.

You froze.

The man didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. Instead, he lunged.

Your scream barely left your throat before the man was yanked backward like a rag doll. You didn’t even hear Bucky approach, but you saw the silent blur of motion and violence. You heard the sound of the attacker’s back hitting the stone wall with a sickening thud. And then another. And another. You could hear the bone break on the fourth one.

“James!” You yelled, voice hoarse. “He’s down–stop!”

But he didn’t stop. Not until the man slumped forward unmoving, blood pooling beneath his cheek. Only then did Bucky step back, chest heaving. His hands were red, but his face was calm. Too calm.

He turned to you.

You didn’t flinch, but your knees wobbled.

His jaw clenched. He crossed to you in two strides, checking your wrists, your arms, your neck. “Did he touch you?”

“No,” You whispered.

He exhaled hard. And then he grabbed you.

It wasn’t the most gentle but not rough. Like his body didn’t know how to be anything but muscle and instinct. He pulled you to him and held you against his chest, arms wrapping around you, your cheek pressed into the place just beneath his collarbone where you could feel the thunder of his pulse.

“I told you not to go out alone.”

His voice was low, shaking slightly.

“I didn’t think–“ You tried to explain, but he cut you off with a whisper.

“You don’t get to think. Not anymore.”

He pulled back just enough to look at you, and the expression on his face terrified you more than the attack.

It wasn’t rage. It was fear. The kind that twisted his features in ways he couldn’t hide.

“You don’t know what it would do to me,” He murmured. “If something happened to you.”

And there it was.

The shift.

Not from professional to personal, because you were never just a job. He had been watching, learning, cataloguing your habits like a scientist watching a rare, soft thing he never thought he’d get close to. You weren’t being protected.

You were being kept.

And now?

Now he wasn’t even trying to pretend otherwise.

He didn’t let you out of his sight after that.

Not for meals. Not for phone calls. Not even for sleep. You woke up two nights later and found him asleep in the armchair across the room, arms crossed, and head tilted back.

He was always watching you now.

He didn’t trust the rest of the world. But more than that, he didn’t trust you anymore.

He never yelled. Never laid a hand on you. But the quiet control grew like ivy, slow and subtle. You started finding your shoes already brought up from the foyer. Your calls answered by someone else. Your plans canceled before you could confirm them.

“I’m trying to live,” You snapped at him once.

He met your eyes. “I’m trying to make sure you still get to.”

And it wasn’t a threat. It wasn’t even cold.

It was just… true.

Later that night, you found your door slightly ajar. He never knocked, just stepped in and stood there, framed in shadow.

“I need you to stop running from me,” He said, voice raw. “I’m not your enemy.”

You looked at him from your bed, heart thudding. “Then what are you?”

He stared at you. And then came the answer. Quiet and final.

“Yours.”

From the beginning, you weren’t supposed to matter to Bucky.

You were just another assignment. A well-protected heiress with too much money and too little awareness of how fragile your world really was. Bucky had handled people like you before. Porcelain girls with high security, shallow problems, and an inflated sense of danger. You were supposed to be one more name, one more paycheck, one more job that ended quietly.

But the second he saw you, he knew something was off.

You were soft.

Not weak. Not stupid. Just open in a way people like him weren’t used to. You said thank you too easily. You smiled at the doormen, asked the names of the guards, made eye contact with people like they hadn’t all learned to look away.

You gave kindness like it cost nothing.

And it made him furious.

Because softness like that? It didn’t survive. It was the first thing people tore apart. The first thing people ruined. And yet there you were, handing it out like sunlight, like you didn’t know the world would swallow it whole and spit you out.

So he watched you.

Closely, quietly, and constantly.

Not because he didn’t trust the threat. But because he didn’t trust you to protect yourself from it. From them. From him.

He memorized your routines. Every careless movement. Every time you stepped too close to a railing, turned your back to a crowd, got distracted by some meaningless thing while someone could have been closing in. He saw your softness, your distraction, your warmth, and he hated how much it hurt to look at you.

Because there was something inside you he had never had. And all he wanted was to keep it, even if he had to cage it.

And the night you were attacked, something in him snapped.

He didn’t remember crossing the garden. Didn’t hear your gasp or the scuffle. He only saw the man, hands reaching for you, and then there was blood, bone, then silence. His hands were red and his vision tunneled, but the only thing he could hear was your breath, sharp and panicked behind him.

He’d nearly killed a man.

And still, his only thought was, Did he touch her?

When he turned to you, he saw it. The fear but not of him, but of the moment. The loss of control. And for the first time, he stepped over the line without hesitation.

He held you. Not because you asked but because he needed to. Because you were shaking and he was shaking, and the thought of you being hurt was something he couldn’t tolerate. Something he couldn’t survive.

And that’s when it changed. You weren’t a job anymore. You were his.

So he stopped pretending after that.

He stayed outside your door, even when you tried to lock it. He started answering your calls, canceling your appointments. Deciding what you wore, where you went, how long you stayed. He didn’t shout nor threaten. He simply… filled in all the spaces you thought were yours.

You noticed it slowly. At first, it felt like care or protection. Someone seeing you, anticipating you. But care becomes control when it never lets you go.

And you were starting to realize you were being caged, controlled. Not because you were in danger anymore.

But because he couldn’t let you go.

As your world became more and more constricting, you resorted to going to the one responsible for it all. Your father.

You’d always known your father dealt in shadows. He wore power like a tailored suit, always sharp, always controlled, and always five steps ahead of anyone who dared threaten his peace. He wasn’t affectionate in the traditional way, but he made sure you were protected, safe, and untouchable.

So when Bucky started taking up too much space in your life by deciding your schedule, answering your calls, dismissing your friends, you didn’t run. You went to the one person who could end it.

You started by waiting until Bucky was gone from the apartment. Or so you thought. You’d been very careful. You left your phone behind, caught a cab with cash, and kept your eyes down.

When you reached the office, your father’s sleek high-rise overlooking the city, you didn’t go through the lobby. You used the old back elevator he’d told you never to use unless it was serious.

This was serious.

Because you weren’t scared of Bucky, not exactly. It wasn’t fear that curled in your gut when he stood too close or tracked your movements with those unreadable eyes. It wasn’t even hatred.

It was something worse.

It was some form of twisted comfort. It was knowing someone was always there, always watching. That you could fall asleep and wake up untouched. That the nightmares stayed far away with him on the other side of the door.

And that’s why you knew you had to stop it.

Before you forgot what it meant to belong to yourself.

Your father looked up from behind his desk when you entered, surprise flickering across his face.

“Sweetheart,” He said, folding his hands. “What’s wrong?”

You sat across from him, heart pounding, words gathering like a storm. You explained everything quickly and shakily, your hands twisting in your lap.

“James is… not right. He’s controlling everything. I think he’s–he’s watching me while I sleep. I think he’s…” You stopped. Swallowed. “He’s not protecting me anymore. He’s controlling me, caging me.”

Your father’s expression didn’t change. He leaned back slowly in his chair. Silent and thoughtful.

Then: “Has he hurt you?”

The question struck you harder than expected. You hesitated. “…No, not physically.”

Your father nodded once. “Has he threatened you?”

“…Well, no. Not really.”

“Has he failed to keep you safe?”

You flinched. “That’s not the point. He–he won’t let me live.”

And still, your father said nothing. Just opened a drawer, pulled out a small folder, and set it on the desk in front of you.

Inside was a photo. Your photo. Taken a few days ago of you smiling politely at a café worker, unaware. There in the background was a man, half-shadowed with a gun tucked into his waistband.

“Do you know who this is?”

Your blood went cold.

Your father closed the folder. “Barnes intercepted him before he got within thirty feet of you.”

“…What?”

“He didn’t tell you, probably didn’t want to scare you. But if he hadn’t followed you that day, hadn’t broken protocol, you wouldn’t be sitting here.”

You sat back in your chair, numb.

“He’s good at what he does,” Your father continued. “And more importantly, he’s loyal to you. Obsessively so it appears.”

You stared at him, throat dry. “That’s the problem.”

He looked at you for a long moment. And then, with no malice, only finality, he said: “Then maybe you shouldn’t have let him care.”

You didn’t remember the elevator ride down.

You didn’t remember the street, or the car, or the fact that somehow, Bucky was waiting at the bottom of your apartment steps when you returned. His gloved hands in his pockets, hair wind-swept, and eyes calm like nothing had changed.

You didn’t say anything. Neither did he.

He just opened the door for you, and you walked inside like nothing had happened.

But everything had. Because you knew now: there was no report to make. No exit plan. No help coming.

Story (not yet edited sorry team I'm sleepy):

Grind the beans. While the grinder’s going, get the milk into a steaming jug. Tap the grounds into a portafilter. Mug under to catch the espresso. Soft hiss of the espresso machine. Finish frothing the milk. Pour. 

You hummed along to the warmth of Ella Fitzgerald’s voice while you worked, the soft glow of the overhead lamps settling a warmth onto the hardwood floors beneath you, basking everything in the kind of light you only see at the end of a rainy day when the sun comes out. You look across the cafe, the wall in front of you lined with new shelves you’d installed earlier that week, all other bookshelves now overflowing with offerings for the little community library you’d set up that wasn’t so ‘little’ anymore. You were just glad that Ned, the owner of the coffee shop, was delighted by the project. The soft scent of cinnamon warmed the air as it mingled with the steam from coffee cups, floating in waves of defiance against the biting winter air outside. 

‘Cappuccino for Fran?’ You called out, finishing the drink off with your signature mix of cinnamon, chocolate and just the tiniest hint of salt sprinkles. As the older woman made her way up to the counter, the bell on the door rang, letting you know someone new had entered the cafe, though whether it was an attempt to hide from the rain or for coffee, you didn’t know. You helped the lady back to her table, insisting on bringing her coffee over for her, sneaking a biscuit onto the side of her saucer as you did so, before standing up straight and turning around to meet your next customer. 

Looking up at the blackboards above your workstation was a tall man, broad-shouldered, with short brown hair and piercing blue eyes. Drops of rain were falling from his figure as he pulled out a copy of Tender is the Night from where he’d presumably hidden it in his jacket. His eyes caught yours and you replied with a soft smile as you moved behind the counter, wiping your hands down on you black apron and unlocking the till again. 

‘Hi! What can I get started for you today?’ You asked, the same lines you repeated day after day coming easily to your mind. ‘I uh…’ the man on the other side of the counter to you trailed off, staring at the boards above you still, clearly overwhelmed with the amount of choice, his hand coming to rest sheepishly on the back of his neck. ‘There’s a lot to choose from,’ you laugh out, ‘it can be overwhelming I know.’ 

‘You can say that again,’ the brunette replied, eyes now coming to look at your own, which softened under his gaze. The sheepish expression on his face only seemed to grow, a hint of blush working it’s way onto his cheeks.

‘Are we thinking coffee or tea?’ You ask, deciding to help him narrow down his options. 

‘Definitely coffee’ the stranger replied, almost letting out a laugh, a little huff of amusement at your eagerness to help. 

‘Let me make you something special? On the house?’ You asked. You’d been meaning to try a new roast of coffee with a custom syrup you’d made, and this felt like the perfect opportunity. A willing guinea pig was all you needed, and this way, you could get some non-biased feedback. The confusion on the man’s face melted slightly at the sight of your hopeful eyes and giddy smile. ‘Sure thing, doll.’ The gruff man eventually responded. 

You smile beamed back at him as with a burst of energy, you replied, ‘Amazing! Go grab a seat and I’ll bring it over when it’s ready.’ Your eyes followed the figure of the man as he wandered aimlessly between tables, as though he wasn’t quite sure where it was appropriate to sit. You chuckled under your breath, before calling softly after him, ‘The armchair in the corner’s pretty cosy, if you wanna carry on reading.’ He turned back to you, his expression one mixed between surprise and embarrassment, but you simply smiled back and nodded in the direction of your favourite spot in the cafe, before turning to make the coffee. At some point your playlist must have changed over, as now you sang along under your breath to It Ain’t Me Babe, taking on Baez’s harmonies as your own as you frothed milk and poured syrups. The man now settled in the arm chair across the room had pulled of his leather jacket, hanging it off the back of the opposite chair and sat upright into the chair. You chuckled softly to yourself as you mixed the coffee and milk; he looked like a soldier sat at attention in the chair, when everyone who ever sat in it before seemed to melt into the chair. ‘Just give it time,’ you thought to yourself, ‘he’ll crumble soon enough’. 

You finished making his coffee, slipping the mug and saucer onto a tray alongside a dark chocolate and raspberry muffin you slipped out of the display case onto a small plate with a fork. He looked like someone who needed cake. Although, you did think that of most people. Cake just made people happy, and who were you to deny people happiness. Picking up the tray you made your way over to the corner armchair. ‘Here we are,’ you said, placing the mug and plate down with practiced ease and smiling at the man, ‘you’ll have to let me know what you think.’ 

‘Thank you,’ the man responds softly, looking up at your, ‘I don’t think I ordered any cake though.’ You let out a little laugh, smiling back at him and replying, ‘I know. Think of it as payment for being my coffee guinea pig. This is a new recipe I’m trying out and you’re my first test subject.’ Suddenly, the smile on the man’s face wavered slightly, before returning, but failing to hide some hidden sadness in his blue eyes. ‘Thanks,’ he spoke, his voice a little strained now. Deciding not to press, you merely replied with a smile of your own, telling him ‘anytime,’ before adding, ‘but you gotta let me know what you think!’

You moved away from the man, deciding not to press. It was always your first reaction to try to help; you hated to see people sad, and made it your mission in life to show kindness towards anyone you saw suffering. But you didn’t know this man, so you stuck to sweet treats, smiles, and hoping that the warmth of the atmosphere in the shop would help ease whatever was going on behind his eyes. The rest of your shift passed relatively simply, with regulars and new customers coming in alike. You made drinks, served cakes, chatted to customers, sang to your playlist and the world ticked on. Between flashes of coffee, the voice of Sinatra and the smiles you gave so freely to customers, your eyes constantly found themselves flicking back to the mysterious man hiding in the corner of the cafe. You were right. Slowly, his stiff posture melted into the comfort of the old leather armchair. The muffin disappeared bite by bite. The coffee cup was drained to the dregs. Pages of his novel turned and his eyes remained fixed to them. Hours passed, yet every time you looked over to the figure, your smile widened slightly. 

Eventually, the sun had set behind the towering skyscrapers of New York, streetlights turned on and cars rushed past, headlights on full beam, offering horizontal sparks of light through the front windows of the cafe. As you were closing down the coffee machine, you heard the sound of a coffee cup coming to rest on the counter behind you. ‘Thank you, dear,’ came the old woman’s voice, as you turned in time to see Fran on her way out of the shop. ‘You sure you’re gonna be okay getting home?’ You asked. ‘You know I am my love,’ she replied. Every time she left, you double-checked. She was yet to take you up on your offer of walking her home, but that didn’t mean you weren’t going to keep asking. She was fiercely independent, and you admired her for it massively, hoping that when you were her age, you would be the same way. You waved her out the door, promising to see her tomorrow, as you turned back to the coffee machine to finish closing it off. 

As you were finishing up, you heard the low, gentle sound of someone clearing their throat, clearly trying to get your attention. You turned around to see the man from earlier standing at the counter, the last customer left in the cafe. He’d brought up his used dishes, and you couldn’t help but smile; chivalry, as it turns out, wasn’t dead. You smiled at him, asking, ‘So, what’d you think?’ The man placed the dishes down, letting out a huff of laughter, ‘definitely sweeter than I’m used to, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing.’ 

‘So, what I’m hearing is the next time you come in, I’ll make you something with a little less sugar.’ 

‘That sounds good,’ he replied. He lingered for a moment, clearly unsure of what to say next. It was becoming clear to you that, whoever he was, the man you’d encountered today felt out of place, unsure of himself. You decided, as a result, not to overwhelm him with your bubbles of joy. He seemed sad, but you knew that if there was anywhere he’d be able to find peace, it would be in here. So you simply smiled back at him when he gave you a simple nod and turned to walk out the door. You carried on your close as you head the bell on the door go off, wondering if you’d see the mystery man in the cafe again. It was only when you turned to add his dishes to the final load of the dishwasher that you noticed the folded-up napkin, with black ink scribbled over it and a $5 note under it. 

‘Didn’t want you to get in trouble. Thanks for the coffee. - James’

The black scrawl was messy, bleeding into the napkin, but it brought a smile to your face nonetheless. So, the mystery man with the old novel and sad eyes was called James. You could work with that. 

The next few days passed much like any other. Your regulars came for their daily caffeinated uplifts, books from your community library were swapped and traded, coffee cups were filled and emptied, and stories were swapped. You kept your eyes out amongst the crowds of customers that came in for James, but he didn’t appear. Maybe you’d scared him off. Maybe he hadn’t liked your coffee. You didn’t think too much of it, carrying on as ever, trying to spread little bits of light into your customers' days. After all, you’d only seen him once, and barely said four words to him, it shouldn’t matter that much that you hadn’t seen him again. 

Then, four days after his first visit, the bell to the cafe announced his entrance with its cheerful chime. You didn’t turn around immediately, didn't realise it was him who the bell had announced. It became clear pretty quickly, though, when you turned around and your eyes caught his own icy blue ones. Your stomach dropped almost immediately when you took in the rest of him. There was a cut on his lip, a black eye, and he was walking with a limp. Your heart had sped up to double speed, your brow pinched into a frown. But you didn’t question it, you didn’t ask. It wasn’t your place to. Instead, you gave him an extra warm smile and a piece of lemon drizzle cake with his coffee. And you didn’t let him pay, insisting that he was now your professional taste tester. James mumbled out a brief ‘thanks’, and you couldn’t help but notice the hoarseness in his voice when he spoke, the slight wince he made as the smile he gave you pulled at the corner of his cut lip. It made something in you ache, a kind of deep-set numb pain that you couldn’t shake for the rest of your shift. 

Customers came and went, but your eyes kept coming back to James, huddled in the same armchair you’d pointed out to him on his first visit. He didn’t have his novel with him this time. Instead, he sat and stared as he slowly drank his coffee and nibbled on the cake. When it became clear he wasn’t planning to leave anytime soon, you decided to try, just try, to do something to make James’s day better. You made your way over to the bookshelves and pulled out one of your favourites, The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien. You quickly pulled a napkin and pen out of your apron, and scribbled onto it: because it always makes me smile and you look like you could use one :) 

Before you could talk yourself out of dropping the book off, you wandered over to James, huddled in the corner of the shop, lemon cake now completely demolished, and dropped the book off on the edge of his table, no words passed, but the napkin placed on top of the book’s cover. You gave him a parting smile as you left the book behind you and carried on working. You felt a small buzz of joy when, ten minutes or so later, you looked back over to see James had not only opened the book, but also seemingly let his body dissolve into the chair beneath him, and a small smile spread across his lips. 

It was near the end of your shift that you realised at some point James had left, snuck out like a spy, and you hadn’t seen him do it. What you found instead was his mug and plate returned to the counter with another napkin of scrawled handwriting. You let out a huff of laughter as you read the new note.

‘I read it, when it first came out in 1937. Still love it. Thanks for the smile -J.B.B’

J.B.B 

James Buchanan Barnes.

Your laughter slowed into stillness. The penny dropped. You stared down at the soft scrawl on the feather-light paper beneath you. Oh. James was that James. Bucky Barnes. Thunderbolt and hero. And someone who, from the looks of it, could really do with a break. It struck you that you never expected a supersoldier to be anything but certain, self-assured, confident. Bucky didn’t seem to be any of those things. He looked tired, like he needed a break from the world. The way his shoulders were almost constantly tensed, the way his jaw was always working, his eyes always scanning the room. He looked like he needed a friend. And you decided that friend would be you. You folded the napkin away, tucking it into your apron as you continued your shift, saying goodbye to Fran, closing down, and locking the door behind you as you left. 

Over the next few weeks, Bucky’s visits to your cafe became more and more regular; he was there almost every day. The notes between you turned slowly from one or two sentences passed on paper, to you spending your lunch break sat in ‘Bucky’s corner’ with him, sometimes talking, sometimes in silence. You let Bucky lead the budding friendship, bubbling over with joy on the occasions you made him laugh or when a smile worked its way up to his eyes. You chatted about anything and everything, how your degree was going, what you wanted to do with your life, what you wanted to be as a kid. Almost always, Bucky steered the conversation to centre on you and not himself, but you didn’t mind. You realised the more you opened up to Bucky, the more of himself he slowly showed you. You spoke of your brother and he mentioned Rebecca, you told him you wanted to be a mad scientist as a kid, he talked of the Stark Expos he went to ‘back then’. 

He didn’t talk about the 40’s a lot, not directly, anyway. He’d drop memories of his past in passing, and you tried not to comment or pry. You’d made that mistake early on in one of your first conversations. You’d been talking about your best friend from school, how you’d once got a detention for giving her bully a black eye. Bucky had said you sounded like a ‘punk’, to which you laughed in response. Then you’d asked about Steve. You’d read somewhere that he’d been victim to bullies a couple of times too, but as soon as the question about ‘your own punk’ came out of your mouth, Bucky had stood up, grabbing his jacket and mumbling something along the lines of ‘I gotta go.’

You hadn’t taken it to heart. Sure, you’d been a little upset, a fair bit confused. You’d only started talking to Bucky properly a week earlier, and you were just trying to balance the conversation. But clearly, something had upset him, so you promised yourself you wouldn’t bring it up again. Instead, you’d headed out back and baked. You made a cherry pie, a hearty slice of which you gave to Bucky the following day when he came in, acting as if nothing had happened, pulling a book off the bookshelf and settling himself into his armchair. He looked you in the eye as you dropped off his usual coffee and cake combination, and he smiled, softly. A smile that acknowledged that he’d walked out, and that he’d come back, and you’d chosen to return to him. You didn’t ice him out; you didn't seek to punish him for his sudden disappearance, as he feared. You just smiled, brought over cake, and joined him on your lunch break. 

‘So, does a fossil like you know how to work a phone?’ You asked one day, as you swallowed a chunk of chocolate brownie. The look that Bucky shot you across the table landed somewhere between amusement and horror - his eyebrows lifted as his eyes bore into yours in a kind of ‘really?’ expression, and his mouth hung open, rendered truly speechless. You took the opportunity to throw a chunk of brownie at his face. Bucky shifted just in time to catch it in his mouth, and as he did he seemed to snap back into real life. ‘Oh yeah, between payphones and yellow pages tech’s really come along doll,’ you smiled at his nickname. The first time he’d called you doll it was clearly a slip, his cheeks grew red and he ducked his head down. When you told him you didn’t mind, he looked surprised, saying most women he met nowadays didn’t appreciate the nickname. You told him you didn’t mind it, and it had stuck since. You pulled your phone out of your pocket before he had the chance to say anything in response to your brownie assault, opening a new contact and handing him your phone. 

Bucky just stared at you blankly. ‘For your number, bionic boy,’ you replied. The look of blankness now just shifted to confusion. You laughed and shook your head slightly. ‘How else am I gonna tell you when I have new coffee recipes perfected if I don’t have your number?’ 

‘I don’t know, how about through the fact that I’m in here every day?’ Bucky quips, hands still hovering over your phone, not quite committed to giving you access to him 24/7 yet. 

You let out a fake gasp, clutching imaginary pearls hanging from your neck. ‘I cannot decide when inspiration will hit me, Mr Barnes, and I am horrified you only want to use me for free coffee when it suits you.’

Bucky lets out a groan of amusement, head tilting to the side slightly as you see his restraint waver, but his hand still doesn’t move. You feel a little pang of anxiety settle in your stomach. Maybe you’d completely misread your chats. It’s not like you were asking him on a date, merely that you wanted to be able to chat with him when you weren’t on shift. You enjoyed his company. But what if he didn’t enjoy yours? What if you’d just been bothering him this whole time? ‘You don’t have to of course, it’s just that I thought we were friends, you know, and friends, they like-’ amidst the ramble you’d set off on, you tried to reach back across the table and snatch your phone from the supersoldier. 

But Bucky had clearly clocked onto your unease and pulled the phone out of your reach, quickly entering a phone number into the new contact, naming it JBB. ‘I was just teasing you doll, you can call me any time, day or night.’ A smile settled onto your face in response to his reply, relief flooding your system. You couldn’t help but always overthink everything. But Bucky put you at ease. ‘Plus as you say,’ he continues, ‘you never know when inspiration will strike. I gotta be ready to do my duty and try your concoctions.’  You laughed, telling him it was the least you expected from the coffee conneseaur himself. Banter passed back and forth for a while, until your lunch break came to a close, and you left Bucky with his book, settled in his corner and headed back to work. 

Days passed amidst your and Bucky’s casual exchanges and conversations. Bucky started leaving books behind for you to read, with little napkins telling you why he picked it, and you left him little reviews after each read. You baked for him, slowly trying to figure out his favourites, and texted him at random hours of the day, usually on your walk home from closing the shop. The themes of the texts bounced around between musings of the day, photos of your cat, and anything else in between. You didn’t always get a text back, but Bucky always opened the messages, and you knew he read them, because he’d drop in his thoughts in conversations the following days. Once or twice, after silence from Bucky, you’d stopped texting him, thinking you were annoying him, that obviously an avenger had better things to do than listen to a random barista ramble on. But then he’d text you a photo of Alpine, his cat, or ask what was on your mind, and you’d fall back to your messages with him. So, you settled into your friendship with Bucky Barnes quite easily. 

Bucky had left a few hours ago. So had Fran. You’d closed up the front of the cafe, switching the lights off, mopping, and closing up the cash register. Any other day, you would have headed home by this point, but you were working on a new apple crumble blondie for Bucky to try, so you’d stayed in the back of the cafe, in the tiny kitchen hidden away from the public. You were in the middle of stewing apples when you heard it. The first thing that assailed your ears was the sound of shattering. The front window of the cafe, scattered into a thousand tiny shards across the floor, followed by a swift thud. A brick, the thing that had shattered the glass, hit the floor. 

The next thing you heard were voices, as you turned off the stove and moved to the back of the kitchenette, grabbing the knife you’d used to chop the apples and taking it with you as you moved. The sound of boots crunching on broken glass filled the silent cafe ‘Hurry the fuck up man, we don’t got all day.’ You pulled your phone out, hands trembling as you tried to steady your breathing and find somewhere to hide. After a second attempt at entering your password, your phone opened up, and your thumb immediately hit the contacts button. The phone rang only once before he picked up. 

‘Doll? That strudle done?’ Came Bucky’s voice on the other end of the line.

‘Buck, someone’s in the cafe’ your voice came out barely above a whisper as you spoke, breath shaking like your hands in fear. 

‘Shit. Okay, have they seen you? Do they know you’re there, doll?’ Your head shook, before you realised Bucky couldn’t see you. 

‘No’ you managed to force out, before a trembling hand came up to your mouth, trying to muffle the sounds of your erratic breathing as a second person entered the cafe. ‘You go check the back’ a second man’s voice ordered. 

‘OK. Ok doll, just stay on the line with me. Have you got something you can defend yourself with?’ A deep urgency now threaded its way through Bucky’s tone as you told him ‘yes.’ You couldn’t stop the little squeak that forced its way out of your mouth when the door to the hallway from the cafe crashed open. That meant he was in the hallway close to you. One door across and he’d find you. Oh my god. You were going to die. This is how you die. ‘They’re gonna find me, Buck’ you cried out, hands shaking uncontrollably. You scampered silently and desperately across the room, tears now falling down your face as you gripped the chef’s knife so tight your knuckles turned white. ‘Doll! Just do whatever they want, okay? Don’t play the hero. I’m on my way. Try and stay on the line.’ You wanted to reply to Bucky, but the door across the room to you burst open, wood splinters flying everywhere from one sharp kick to the handle. You screamed in response, falling over and barely noticing the little bits of wood now embedded in your skin. It was all you could do to pull your mind together enough to hide the phone in your pocket while you held the knife in front of you. 

‘Well, well, well. Hello there, gorgeous.’ Suddenly, the figure of a man, face covered with a balaklava, was towering over you. He had a gun. He had a gun and he was going to shoot you and you were going to die. You yelped out in pain as the man stomped on your hand, crushing bone and easily removing the knife from your grip. His hand grabbed onto your arm like a vice, mercilessly hauling you up off of the floor, leaving bruises in his wake as he pulled your body in front of his, his gun coming to rest on your temple as your whimpered. ‘Please, please don’t shoot me. I - I haven’t even finished school yet, I’

‘Shut up,’ the man above you shouted, slapping you across the face so hard you saw stars and cried out yet again. ‘You be a good girl and do what I ask, and we’ll let you leave here alive? How about that?’ You nodded up at the man, pure fear running through your system. You were half led, half shoved through to the front of the cafe, behind the counter where the cash register was kept. ‘Look what I found, Charlie,’ the man holding you sneered. The feel of his hot breath against your neck made you want to be sick. ‘Hey baby,’ the other man said, coming uncomfortably close to your body, and his fingers tightly gripped your chin, forcing you to look up into his eyes. ‘You’re gonna help us get all the money in this joint.’ You nodded at him through watery eyes, unable to make any sound pass your lips. 

You were unceremoniously shoved towards the cash register, hitting your hip hard against the surface of the counter en route, letting out a small cry, more from shock than pain. Both men let out barks of laughter as more tears fell down your face, and you felt the cold barrel of the gun return to its place on the side of your head. ‘Hurry up bitch,’ a gruff voice above you ordered, as his spare hand found its way around your neck, pinning you once again to his body, ‘we haven’t got all day’. Your shaking hands tried to press your code into the cash register, but slipped on one of the buttons, making the register display an ‘access denied’ sign. You registered the sharp sting across your face before you realised what had happened. ‘Stop wasting time.’ He’d hit you. And you’d bit your lip from the force: you could feel blood, hot and metallic, rising from the small cut. You didn’t dare speak in response, merely turning again to the register, hands still shaking. You forced yourself to take a deep breath as you punched in your code a second time.

‘Get your hands off of her.’ 

Your head whipped round, your terrified, clouded, and red eyes instantly locking onto Bucky’s own, lit with a burning fire of rage behind them. The hand gripping your neck loosened briefly, and as it did, you couldn’t help but let out a strangled sob of both relief and grief in one. Bucky was here. Your knees buckled, and the only reason you didn’t fall to the floor was that the man holding you came back to himself, pulling you back into him, as he turned you both to face Bucky. From the new angle, you could see the second robber, gun now pointed directly at Bucky, who seemingly didn’t care. His eyes were fixed on you. Only you. Scanning your form, as though he were taking an itinerary, checking if you were hurt. His eyes zeroed in on your busted lip, the only reaction coming in the form of his furrowed brow pinching even tighter together, his eyes turning darker. 

‘I won’t ask again.’ Bucky’s eyes finally broke away from yours, turning instead to bare into the soul of the man holding you. ‘Let. Her. Go.’ Bucky’s voice had turned to steel, sharp as the knife he held in one hand, as unbreakable as his vibranium arm which was clenched into a fist, glinting slightly in the light.  

You let out a scream as the knife in Bucky’s hand flew, quick as a bullet, brushing past you and finding its mark in the shoulder of the man behind you, the impact forcing the hand around your throat to disappear as you finally took in a shuddering gulp of air. Now you weren’t being held up by anything, or anyone, your body gave way to the fear you were feeling, dropping to the ground as your heart beat so fast it felt like it would crack your ribs. The crack of a gunshot burst across the room as the second man fired at Bucky. The bullet never found its target, though. Bucky raised his vibranium arm, quickly deflecting the shot as a litany of ‘Shit!’ came from the man with the gun. 

Bucky stalked forward, a hunter headed for his pray. His vibranium hand enclosed the mouth of the gun, forcing it upwards as he yanked it out the hand of the man, simultaneously landing a swift left hook across the man’s cheek. Bucky gave him no time to recover, instead grabbing the man’s head and bringing it down to meet his knee, creating a sickening crack as some bone in the man’s face broke and he slumped unconscious to the ground. At some point you’d backed up to the counter, scrambling across the floor to get as far away from what was happening in front of you as possible. 

Where you had fallen to the floor was a space now occupied by a small puddle of blood coming from the man who had been holding you. Who had been holding a gun to your head. Bucky quickly turned to the second man, shoulders heaving as a minor layer of sweat cast a sheen on his brow. You’d never seen him like this before. His jaw was set, a vein in his neck was pulsing, and he looked like he was filled with so much anger. If you hadn’t known Bucky better, you would have been scared. He was a storm. He reached the man in two long strides, kneeling down beside him. What Bucky did next surprised you. He leant down to the figure on the floor, grabbing his top with his metal fist and pulling him close. He whispered something into his ear. You had no idea what. You didn’t want to know. You looked away as Bucky stood again, only hearing a grotesque crack as Bucky’s boot connected with the man’s head.

Bucky descended on you almost immediately, his expression changing in an instant from one of fury to one of terror. He reached you in two steps, crouching down immediately in front of you. You couldn’t move. Couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t thank him. Couldn’t fall into him and tell him how scared you were and how grateful you were he came. 

’Hey! Hey, are you okay? I need you to look at me doll.’ The sound of one of the men groaning in pain behind Bucky briefly drew your attention, before gentle hands came to your face, forcing you to look at Bucky. His blue eyes bore into your soul directly ‘Are you hurt? Did they hurt you?’ You shook your head, a subtle action, but clear enough for Bucky to recognise it and breathe out a sigh of relief. He had been Atlas holding up the world out of fear for your safety. Now he could breathe again. He pulled your trembling form into a hug, his hand coming to rest on the back of your head, you burying your face in his chest, finally feeling safe. At some point you’d stopped crying. But now, enveloped in the arms of the man who had just saved you, everything crumbled. You sobbed into him, your tears staining his henley whilst he whispered to you over and over again that you were safe now. 

After what felt like an eternity, you heard the sound of sirens pull up outside the cafe, the sound attacking your ears now there was no glass in the window. As you heard the crunch of boots on shattered glass, you pulled away from Bucky with a shuddering breath, red colouring your cheeks with embarrassment.  ‘Sorry,’ you mumble out, your watery eyes meeting his own. Bucky’s hand found its place back on your cheek as though it belonged there, his thumb tracing the line of blood running down your chin that had now mostly dried. ‘Don’t apologise. You never gotta apologise to me.’ You took another deep breath, grimacing a little as the small smile you gave Bucky pulled at your torn lip. ‘I’m gonna go talk to the cops quickly, then how about we get out of here?’ You nod to Bucky, and he gets up, walking over to the officer and explaining, in hushed tones just quiet enough that you couldn’t hear, what had happened. All you registered was the lack of warmth now at your side from Bucky’s absence. That quickly resolved itself, though, when Bucky returned, all but scooping you up into his arms, one arm wrapping around your waist as he pulled you into his side, steadying you as you stumbled slightly. In standing, you now saw the shards of broken glass that had embedded themselves in your knee. You winced slightly as you walked, but despite Bucky noticing, he didn’t say anything, only shifted his body slightly so he was taking more of your weight. 

‘Let’s get you home, yeah?’ he asked, soft eyes looking at you like you were some injured deer he had rescued off of the streets. You hummed in agreement as you told him your address. Mercifully, you didn’t live too far away from the shop. You didn’t register much of the walk home. You could feel the vibrations of Bucky’s rumbling speech from where your head rested on his chest, but you quickly tuned out most of what he was saying after realising he was mostly speaking simply to provide you with some kind of normalcy for your walk home. When the pair of you finally arrived back at your apartment block, you realised that your hands were still shaking when you tried to put your key into the lock. Come to think of it, you couldn’t really feel your body, and only a tingling in your hands. You felt like you were floating. Like you weren’t really in your body. 

Bucky’s flesh hand came to rest on top of yours. You looked up at him, and he was looking down at you with kind eyes as he helped you open the door to your home. Soft lighting bathed your apartment from the lamp you’d accidentally left on during the day. Bucky guided you to the coach that nestled against the postered wall of your apartment, helping you sit down onto the soft surface. 

He crouched down in front of you, and before your brain could process what was happening to even ask him what he was doing, the laces on your shoes had been undone, the boots slipped off your feet, and your feet replaced on the floor, burying themselves into the fluffy rug now underneath them. You simply sat staring at the wall in front of you until Bucky reappeared in your vision, somehow holding your favourite mug filled with some kind of steaming liquid. He manoeuvred it into your hands only letting go once he was sure you weren’t going to drop it. The couch next to you dipped and you heard Bucky let out a soft sigh, but you still couldn’t bring yourself to look at anything other than the wall. 

Slowly, you felt the warmth from the mug creep into your fingers, the tingling finally subsiding as you eventually became aware of the rest of your body. Blinking once, twice, you suddenly seemed to become aware of yourself again. You felt yourself return to your body as you turned your head, once again to find Bucky’s bright blue eyes looking down at you, concern slowly melting away as you said a small ‘hi.’ 

‘Hi to you too,’ he said in soft tones, ‘good to see you’re back with us.’ 

‘That was, that was awful.’ You heard Bucky take a small, sharp breath in at your words as a look of guilt briefly flashed over his face. ‘I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have seen that. If I thought I coulda got you out of there before the fight I would have, but they had guns and-’

‘No,’ you shook your head, horror briefly filling you as you recognised the guilt that Bucky was blaming himself for how he rescued you. For taking those guys out in front of you. ‘No Buck. I mean what they did. What happened. I don’t, I would never mean you. You saved me. I called for you and you saved me. I…’ you trailed off, deciding instead that a hug would have to suffice for communicating how grateful you were to him. You snaked your arms around him, shifting slightly so you were now sitting cross-legged, facing him as you held onto him. ‘Thank you so much.’

‘Anytime. Always.’ Bucky’s own arms came to encircle you once again, his chin resting on your head. The pair of you sat like that for a while, lost in each other’s embrace as the tension of the day slowly bled out of your body. Eventually, Bucky pulled away from you, saying, ‘I think you went into shock, hun, which makes a lotta sense. But I gotta take a look at those knees okay? We don’t wanna leave the glass in there any longer.’ 

You nodded in response, giving Bucky the directions to find the first aid kit you kept in your flat. You’d never had to use it before. But now you were glad it was there. Bucky returned in moments, settling on his knees in front of you as he pulled out gauze, saline, tweezers and a few plasters from the kit. ‘I’m gonna start by getting any glass that's stuck in there out okay? It might sting a bit, so if you need to take a break, just let me know.’ 

‘It’s okay, Bucky, I trust you,’ you replied, adding with a little laugh, ‘we can view this as paying me back for my expert coffee-making skills. I get you to patch me up.’ Bucky let out a little huff of laughter as he started working on your right knee, holding the back of it with one hand to steady you, while his other hand worked. You let out a little hiss of pain, which caused Bucky to pause briefly, his eyes looking up at you, questioning. ‘It’s okay, I’m okay,’ you respond before he even has the chance to check in. So he gets back to work, adding, ‘you should try that hot chocolate. It won’t be as good as yours, but the sugar should help. Plus the secret ingredient.’ 

‘Ooo, a secret ingredient. You’re turning into me,’ you laugh, picking up the mug and taking a sip before your eyes widen. ‘Oh my god, did you put some Baileys in this?’ You ask, surprised and slightly incredulous. Bucky looked up at you, cheeky grin on his face and explained with a laugh, ‘They taught us that trick in the army. Admittedly, it’s probably not medically advised now, but it always helped soldiers in shock back then.’ You wiggled your eyebrows back at Bucky, taking another sip as you two settled into silence while Bucky worked. You’d nearly finished your boozy hot chocolate when a yawn worked its way out of your body. ‘All done,’ Bucky announced at the same time. ‘You gonna kiss it better?’ You asked. Bucky chuckled, doing as you asked, before coming to his feet. ‘I’m sorry to ask doll, but did you get hurt anywhere else? I promise I’ll let you sleep soon, but I need to know you’re okay.’ Something warm in your chest bloomed as he asked. ’Just some bruises, I promise.’ 

‘Okay then,’ he replied, ‘let's get you to bed,’ before sweeping your body up in one fell swoop into his arms as you let out a little shriek. You suddenly realised just how tired you were as you gave Bucky the directions to your room and he settled you on the bed. After helping you slip into a hoodie he’d found in your closet, Bucky pulled the duvet over you and switched the light off. From the doorway he said, ‘you’ve got my number if you need anything. And I mean anything. Don’t hesitate, okay? I’m a dial away.’ 

You spoke before your exhausted brain could talk you out of it. ‘Will you stay?’ 

Bucky looked at you from the doorway, surprise colouring his features. ‘It’s just,’ you carried on, ‘I feel safe around you, and I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep otherwise.’

Story:

You dropped to the floor, kicking your legs into the stomach of the Hydra agent opposite you, sending him sprawling to the floor with a loud grunt, while you twisted at the last minute, landing on your front as you wrapped a tight grip around a second agent’s ankle, pulling it out from under him and rolling on top of him in one fluid motion. As you straddled his chest, you lifted the but of your gun high, bringing it down forcefully onto his head and sending him into unconsciousness.

“Exactly how many more of these fuckers should I be expecting Barnes!” you yelled out into your comm as you lifted yourself from the floor, briefly catching your breath while readying yourself for another attack. You raised your gun as you rounded the corner, turning down yet another long hallway of the Hydra facility that you and Bucky were supposed to be sweeping. The Hydra facility that was supposed to be abandoned. 

“You got the same intel as me doll,” You heard Bucky let out a grunt as he sent another Hydra agent flying across the corridor he was in. “How the hell am I supposed to know?” You were nearing another turn in the corridor now, red lights blaring above you, sirens pounding in your ear, and a deep cut along the back of your shoulder pulsing in pain, which was getting worse by the minute. You froze as you heard the sound of boots hitting the floor and echoing off the concrete around the next corner. Eying the corridor around you, you quickly realised there was nowhere to hide, so you steeled yourself with a breath before rounding the corner in one quick motion, gun raised and a lethal look in your eye. You were met by a gun pointed at your forehead. Thankfully, behind the gun was a pair of steel blue eyes you would recognise anywhere. Bucky quickly lowered his gun, as you did yours, while each of you scanned the other's body, without any words, checking that the other was okay. Bucky’s brow creased when he saw the droop in your right shoulder, the tension in your neck just above it and the sheen of sweat across your forehead. Your eyes immediately picked up the cut on his forehead, the way he was favouring his left leg, and the minor bruises and cuts that littered his body. Neither of you were happy, but you were satisfied that, at least for now, the other was okay. You nodded at Bucky, a small, quick movement that anyone else would have missed. He nodded back. It was a signal you’d developed after working in the field together for so many years. A reassurance, a promise between you that the other was okay. 

“I don’t know,” you carry on, breaking the tension and striding past Bucky down the corridor he had just cleared, “maybe you have some Hydra super sense or something.”

“Oh yeah, and that’s exactly why I let us walk into a full facility of tactical agents”, he levelled back at you, quickly overtaking you to lead the way down the hall. He always did this on missions. Wherever he could, when you two were teamed up together, he would put himself between the line of fire and you. Always. Without fail. It wasn’t because he thought you were weak; hell, he thought you were stronger than he was. But it brought him some peace that he would be between you and any danger, and who were you to take that from him? In this case, it didn’t matter anyway.

 As you two rounded the next corner, the last one, you both hoped, between you and an exit, you were faced with six more Hydra agents to deal with. Both of you sprang into action, Bucky raising his metal arm, blocking the rain of bullets fired at him, as he barreled forward into combat with the first agent. Behind him, you threw one of your knives into the chest of a second agent, running and flipping over the group, landing a sharp kick to the back of the head of one of the agents as you descended. Bucky was all about brute force when he fought, seemingly wanting to prove the point as he headbutted a soldier in front of him, but when you fight, it looked like a dance, a dance to which you were the choreographer and performer, perfectly executed. A cry of pain broke its way out of your lips as your next opponent caught you off-guard, landing a blow to your ribs before you pivoted from your new position on the floor to swipe out his legs from under him, hearing a sickening crack as you twisted his head sharply to the left. Behind you, Bucky’s metal fist connected with another soldier’s face with a sickening crack, before putting a bullet in the agent's chest. With two soldiers left, Bucky’s brashness and your elegance created the perfect balance in a tactical pair, swapping between partners almost as if it were fun. The final two agents were quickly dispatched, and you both turned towards the door at the end of the corridor, ready to leave this nightmarish facility behind, get extracted, and go home. “So, no evil spidey sense then” you quipped, ‘Good to know’. 

Bucky’s retort died on his lips at the sound of a gunshot behind you both. Before you had even registered what had happened, Bucky had grabbed your arm, moving his body between yourself and the line of fire from the gun, yelling a brash ‘shit’ as he did so, turning to place a final bullet into the soldier. But Bucky hadn’t moved in time. White hot pain shot through your leg, as you lost any ability to stand upright, the pain of the cut on your shoulder paling in comparison to the burning sensation now overpowering your body. You let out a sharp cry as you felt Bucky’s hand immediately move to your waist to support you before your legs had even had a second to wobble. He held you close to him, but although you looked up at his lips, the pain was blocking any of his words from reaching your ears. Instead, you focused on his eyes, letting their steel blue pull you back to reality with a few deep breaths.

‘I- I’m fine’ you ground out between clenched teeth, ‘I’m okay Buck’.  Bucky simply looked down at you, concern creasing his brow as his eyes flickered down to your thigh, blood now leaking out of the bullet hole and soaking the leg of your trousers. “I’m sorry Doll, we gotta keep moving, we need you get out of here.’ You looked at Bucky, giving him one sharp nod and gritting your teeth through the tears that were threatening to spill over. Without another word, Bucky slung one of your arms over his shoulder, taking some of your weight as his left arm encircled your waist, helping to keep you moving, as he all but dragged you through the door to the facility. 

As the door clattered open, the biting cold of the wind assaulted both of you, as something between snow and rain poured unrelentingly down from the heavens. ‘We’re,’ you steeled yourself as your voice wobbled, ‘we’re never getting extraction in this weather.’ Bucky was, despite his own injuries, taking almost all of your weight now, as he continued to half drag you towards the treeline. ‘I know a safe house’ his gruff voice called down to you over the wind, and so, with pain racking your body and with eyelids that seemed to be getting heavier by the second, the pair of you trudged onwards to the trees, rain battering your bodies, washing away dried and fresh blood as it fell. 

You continued your movements through the woods, thoroughly soaked to the bone, shaking and teeth chattering. Once you’d made it a mile away from the Hydra facility, Bucky slowly came to a stop, lowering you briefly to sit on the trunk of a fallen tree as he tore the bottom of his tactical shirt off, his eyes communicating the apology he couldn’t say as he tied it tightly above the gunshot wound on your leg. You couldn’t help the whimper of pain that left your lips as he tied the tournequet, quickly following it with an ‘I’m okay’ and for just a moment, you and Bucky rested, foreheads pressed to each other, feeling the other breathe in a second of comfort. ‘We’re gonna be okay’ he whispered to you, saying it more for himself than to comfort you. ‘I know Buck, I trust you.’ And with that Bucky helped you back to your feet and you continued your trek.

. After nearly an hour of battling blood loss, pain, and the weather, both you and Bucky were near ready to pass out when you reached the tiny cabin in the woods. It was basic to say the least. Bucky placed you down onto another tree stump, telling you under his breath, ‘I’m gonna sweep the place, then I’ll come back for you.’ He wouldn’t say it, but at some point you’d stopped shivering, and your face had turned so pale it was scaring him. The thought of you potentially ending up in more danger if someone had found the safehouse made him feel sick. So he barrelled on ahead, ready to do anything to protect you. With his gun raised, Bucky circled the outside of the structure before making his way inside, sweeping each room in complete darkness and with the stealth of the Winter Soldier. 

You didn’t know how long the sweep had taken him, but the next thing you registered was his flesh hand warm against your cheek. ‘Come on, doll. We gotta get you inside. We’ll warm you up and look at that leg, yeh?’ Bucky asked, his soft eyes looking down at you with concern. Before you could move, he had picked you up in his arms, walking you, at last, out of the rain and the wind. ‘Ok Doll, I’m gonna sit you in front of the fireplace and go get some logs. But you gotta stay awake for me while I do, ok? Talk to me hun, anything. I don’t care what, but I need you to stay awake.’ Bucky placed you down with so much care you could have been made of porcelain. All you wanted was to shut your eyes. The cold and the pain were starting to take their toll, but Bucky needed you to talk. So you were gonna talk. As Bucky slowly worked to remove your sodden tactical jacket off of you, you let your mind turn to happier memories, a distraction from the pain. ’I remember the night I realised I love you,’ you offered over your shoulder, seeing the concern in Bucky’s face mix with something softer as he moved around, turning on the light and bringing a few logs to the fireplace along with a blanket he wrapped gently around your shoulders. 

‘You took me to Coney Island. We were sat at the top of the Ferris wheel, and I thought everything was so perfect we would never come down.’ Bucky was now beside you, setting the logs in the fireplace and scrunching up some newspaper for kindling, his eyes meeting yours as you carried on. ‘You’d won me that bear, and the stars were out. It was the first time you told me about your ma, and Rebecca, and as I looked at you, at the happiness and sadness that mixed in your eyes, I knew I wanted to be with you forever.’ Next to you, Bucky had a small fire going. He turned to you, placing a gentle hand on your cheek, as he leaned in and his lips brushed against yours. A gentle kiss, fleeting and quick, as his low voice rumbled out, ‘I thought my heart was gonna explode out of my chest that night doll. I always knew it was you, and when you said you wanted it to be us forever, I couldn’t believe it.’ 

The tender moment ended as quickly as it had started. Bucky shifted his body so he was kneeling in front of you, the softness in his eyes replaced with something more serious: ‘I need to look at your thigh doll.’ You nodded back at him, not trusting your voice not to wobble with a response. ‘It’s not gonna be pleasant. I’ll try and be quick. Once it’s done, we can get some sleep, okay?’ You lifted your head to meet his, ‘I know Buck. I trust you. Let’s just get it done with.’ He nodded at you, qucikly pulling off the outer layer of his own dripping tactical suit, before standing and moving to the kitchen counter to retrieve the medkit that was stocked in each safehouse. 

It only contained the basics, but it would be enough to patch you up. Bucky just wished it had something to help you with the pain. His stomach flipped at the thought of what he was about to put you through, a hatred burning through him for Hydra more severe than anything he had ever felt for his own torture. Now they had hurt you. And for that, he would end them. But not right now. Right now, he needed to stay focused on keeping you alive. He lifted up the kit and brought it over to you, knowing that the alternative, the possibility of infection, or you bleeding out, would be much worse. ‘I’m gonna cut the leg off of your tac suit’ Bucky said, pulling out some scissors from the kit. You’d started shivering now, a reassuring sign to Bucky that you were warming up, as you joked ‘Jesus, sarge, at least take a girl to dinner first.’ A huff of a laugh left Bucky’s lips, and you felt a little better as he pressed a chaste kiss to your lips, whispering back ‘The second we get out of here doll’. Getting shot wasn’t exactly pleasant, but seeing the frown on Bucky’s face, knowing he was blaming himself for your pain, was worse, and you’d do anything you could to alleviate it. Quickly, the leg of your trousers was gone, revealing to you both your blood-stained thigh and the bullet hole with no exit wound. A growl eminated from Bucky as his face filled with anger at seeing the injury up close. He wanted to revive the soldier who did this to you, just so he could kill him again. But again, he focused himself in the moment, squeezing your hand as he gently wiped off some of the excess blood.

When that was done, he picked up the sterile tweezers from the kit, looking to your eyes for permission to continue. ‘You’re gonna need to hold my leg down Buck,’ you spoke, and he grimaced, but placed his metal arm just above your knee, pinning your leg to the floor so that you couldn’t writhe around when the pain hit. You gave him the nod he was waiting for, and searing pain shot up your whole body. You couldn’t stop the scream of pain that tore its way out of your chest no matter how hard you tried, and your hand gripped onto Bucky’s metal arm, desperate to find somewhere to channel the pain you were feeling. The world around you was blurring, waves of pain rolling ceaselessly over you as your muscles tensed of their own accord. But Bucky was whispering ‘I’m sorry doll, god I’m sorry’ over and over again like it was a prayer, anchoring you to the room you were in. The sound of metal hitting metal soon told you that Bucky had retrieved the piece of metal that was causing you so much pain, but you barely registered it as your body fell limp against the floor, no longer able to hold itself up. You barely felt the sting of the needle entering you skin as Bucky stitched the wound up, reminding you ‘You did so good love, so good for me. Nearly done.’

It wasnt the ceasing of the pain that you recognised next, but instead a soft hand resting on your cheek, a thumb wiping away the stray tears that had fallen from your eyes. “Hey doll,’ Bucky whispered above you, as he moved himself into your eyeline, a gentle smile on his lips, mixing with the concern in his eyes. ‘Hey Bucky’ you replied, as you sat up, his metal arm supporting your back. ‘You good?’ He asked, eyes questioning but not demanding. There was no need to lie to Bucky, no pressure. Never any pressure. ‘I’m good,’ you replied, your words allowing his brow to soften slightly as you scanned his body once more. ‘Bring me the kit?’ You asked from your position on the floor in front of the fire. ‘Doll, you don’t need to-’ Bucky began his reply, but you cut him off, turning your question into a statement as you repeated ‘bring me the kit.’ With a slight huff, Bucky went to retrieve it before sitting down in front of you, knowing he would eventually loose any fight with you. You pulled out an alcohol wipe, resting you hand on his cheek. Bucky’s hand met it, holding your hand on his face, as he turned and pressed a kiss into your palm while you gently wiped the blood from his forehead. ‘You know Doll,’ Bucky gently laughed out, ‘I am actually a supersoldier. This’ll heal before we wake up in the morning, you don’t gotta glue it back together.’ 

You just shook your head, laughing softly too. ‘I know. But it makes me happy to take care of you Buck, you went too long without anyone. I want to, so let me?’ Bucky hummed his consent back at you while you placed butterfly strips across the cut, holding it closed. He looked at you with such a tenderness in his eyes while you worked. Your shivering had stopped now, and while you were clearly still in pain from the new hole in your leg, you being well enough to look after him meant you were okay, so he submitted to your ministrations. As far as you were concerned, it was the least Bucky deserved, to be shown through actions how much you loved him, how cherished he was. 

You worked in a comfortable silence, Bucky only moving once to add more wood to the crackling fire beside you both. ‘There’s just one more thing to do,’ you said. Bucky looked up at you just quickly enough for his lips to be captured by your own. You both melted into the kiss as his hand came up to cup the back of your head, his metal arm encircling your back, always supporting you, always holding you close. As you broke apart, Bucky whispered to your lips, ‘I love you so much, doll.’ You couldn’t keep the grin off of your face as you replied, ‘I love you too, Buck’.  He quickly scooped you up into his arms, moving you from the sitting room into the small bedroom of the cabin. He assessed your shoulder injury quickly after setting you down on the bed, deciding it wasn’t severe enough to need stitches, placing a few strips across it as he kissed your forehead, your own head resting against his chest as he worked, tiredness now taking over you. When he was done, he lifted your legs onto the bed, pulling you out of the remaining half of your trousers, leaving you in your underwear and top. Two gentle hands came to rest on your shoulders, as Bucky gently pushed you back in the bed, placing another kiss on your forehead as he pulled piles of blankets over you. ‘Rest, love. I’ll keep watch.’