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He doesn’t even look up at you, simply turning another page of his copy of an entertainment magazine. He’s treating you like an insolent brat throwing a tantrum and, suddenly, you’re fifteen again, begging your dad to pack your entire life to move to the city of angels for the sake of your dream. It took months of convincing before he relented — and look where you are today.

However, he knows what he’s doing, thumbing another page and leaning back into the private plane’s cushy leather seat, raising the magazine a fraction higher to match your line of sight. The front page is one you cannot miss, considering it features you and your latest… incident.

Your lips twist. It’s not fair; this one wasn’t even your fault.

The last few headlines before that are a different story: a high-definition photograph of your underwear when you accidentally flashed some sleazy pap who snuck into a very private party while you were blackout drunk, a tell-all from a PA who had gotten a pissed-off tirade after he fucked up your coffee order — after he spilled the first one all over, not one, but two of your photoshoot outfits, and your ongoing feud with international supermodel Natasha Romanoff who had won a part in a Spielberg blockbuster despite zero acting experience and only because she’s good pals with the main sponsor, Tony Stark.

You’re not entirely, solely to blame for these clickbait stories. Your life and actions have been under a microscope twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. You’d be lucky if you could take a piss without someone hiding inside your toilet. Paparazzi are constantly camped outside of your apartment building, so much so that management has had to bump maintenance fees for more extensive security measures. Some days, you think you should just move to the peace and quiet of a Hollywood gated community.

But that’s never been you — there’s a reason why you moved away from your hometown, why you wanted to chase bigger and brighter dreams. What’s the point if you end up isolating yourself again from the rest of the world?

Unfortunately, this life under scrutiny — combined with the fact that the deadline for your next album is coming up quick — is not one for the weak of heart. You think you’ve trained yourself enough to survive the criticism of strangers, but your patience and limited kindness have worn particularly thin as of late. Your record label, your stylist, and your manager are all hounding you for updates, wondering if they could start preparing for your single. Your little (big) flare-ups are no excuse, but you were hoping that your dad, of all people, as your parent and your manager, would understand.

Now he’s committed the biggest betrayal of all.

You should be on your way to New York. A monthlong schedule filled with fall Fashion Week preparations, meetings with casting directors for movies with guaranteed Oscar nominations, and lots and lots of aperol spritzes to distract you from your thoughts. Anything but write another mindless album of pop hits that the general masses enjoy.

Instead of fun-in-the-sun in the big apple, you hear the pilot announce after you’re in the air that you’re on the way to bumfuck Tennessee.

The stewardess looks anxiously between the two of you, lips quivering and hands flying like she can do anything to ease your rising temper.

“I paid for this private charter,” you growl, “I can turn it back around if I want to.”

“Booking’s under my name, darling.”

“Paid for with money that I earned. I have people I have to meet, things I have to do. You can’t just drag me away for a trip down memory lane. These are insane opportunities that won’t come twice. What kind of manager are you?”

“The kind that is your dad first,” he gives you a pointed look. 

“Is this because of what happened? You know that one isn’t my fault!”

He doesn’t say anything. 

“You know it isn’t.” 

“Regardless of what happened, this break should do you some good. A little bit of grass, a lot more fresh air—”

You deadpan, “It smells like literal horse shit everyday.”

“Let’s not get into the technicality of things. The point is you could use a break.”

“You don’t get to decide that for me.”

“I’m your manager, so I get to decide it for your career. You keep going down this path and who knows where you end up? Trust me, honey, rock bottom is a long, hard fall.”

“You would know,” you mutter under your breath.

The moment those words leave your lips, remorse floods your system. Your eyes flick up to meet his. It’s not hurt, it’s not disappointment. It’s sympathy. You’ve just insulted your own father and he’s pitying you.

Perhaps rock bottom isn’t a long way down after all.

“I’m sorry,” you quickly sigh, “I didn’t mean that.”

“I know you didn’t.” He gets to his feet, pulls you close to press a reassuring kiss on your forehead. “But this is how I know you need this. Trust me on this one, the weeks will fly by.”

You jerk back. “Weeks?!”

Your childhood bedroom feels like a breeding ground for anxiety.

With your bags with New York-esque clothes tucked away into a corner, you stand there with the door closed as your eyes travel around the space. Posters of pop icons that you’ve now befriended and adopted as mentors, aging floral wallpaper that’s peeling in some corners from the years of humidity, a vanity that looks like it belongs in an antique shop from the seventeenth century.

Music filters muffled through the gap underneath your door, a sound that you haven’t heard in quite some time but still echoes like a distant memory. It’s one of your grandma’s favorites, and she’s no doubt leading the charge with the rest of the family and friends who live nearby. They tried to keep your welcome party small, trusted confidantes who wouldn’t breathe a word to the press.

The only thing that’s drowning out the noise downstairs is your publicist and best friend, Yelena, who has somehow worked through every expletive in the Russian dictionary until she came up with more creative and colorful ones of her own.

“You better tell your dad to drive your ass back to New York right now. I don’t care if you have to use a beat-up pick-up truck from the barn next door but we have people waiting for you. We need to get some damage control done before it all goes to shit.”

You sigh. Yelena gives a little uh-oh. “That’s not going to happen. You know my dad; when he’s got his mind made up like this, nothing’s going to change it. He thinks I need a break.”

She says something else in her mother tongue, one that you’ve learned over time translates to something along the lines of I’ll break something else of theirs. “Do you need me to book you a new flight right now? We can literally land in the cornfields in like two hours and bring you to New York. I promise you I’ll make it happen.”

Do you want to be disowned and be shown your father’s look of utter disappointment that will stick in your people-pleasing brain for the rest of your life? No. 

Sighing, you glance out the window again. Endless stretches of open fields, green on green on green. You haven’t seen this much green since you face planted during rehearsal for a summer show in Central Park. 

“No, I’ll be fine. If I behave and play along, then maybe he’ll let me come back earlier. Two weeks is a long—”

“Two weeks?! Do you know how long it took me to get on Nolan’s calendar? That man is booked and busy, more so than the mayor of New York.”

Wincing, you bite down on another upset noise. “I know. I’m trying to get out of here earlier, but we’ll see how it goes.”

“I can come visit you, you know. Try and talk to him.”

It’s tempting. Yelena has a way of convincing people to do her bidding, even if it means doing a bit of arm-twisting. Literally. You’ll spare your dad from that today. She’s loyal to a fault and the last thing you want is a broken arm on his body.

“No, don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

Silence settles on the other end. A brief pause before you can practically hear Yelena’s voice melt, the rough curl of her tongue unfurling into concern. “Will you?”

You can’t say for certain. You haven’t been back here since you packed up your entire life and moved. This place feels familiar, but it’s no longer your home. Nothing here feels like you anymore; it’s like being in the mind of a stranger. A stranger who knows exactly what bone to pick with you.

You hate to admit it but being back here feels as if you’re back in square one. The place where it all started. You can still hear the ghost of your songs, scribbled messy into a songbook that you haven’t touched in years, because that isn’t what the world wants. Your fingertips tingle with the memory of learning how to play the guitar for the first time, testing out your dad’s old songs on his very first guitar that he gifted you for your tenth birthday.

Then you started making some of your own, the kind of music you’ve always loved and ones that touched the heart. Call it bias but your family always thought you had the talent to make it out there. It’s the whole reason you had the confidence to make the move.

But the world has a way of chewing you up and spitting you out. You learned how to toughen your shell, block out all the negative so that you can keep pushing through. Because when you’re at the bottom, the only way to go is up.

Now that you’re at the top, you don’t want to find out if you’ve reached the ceiling.

This is a part of your life you don’t like to dwell on, anxiety attached to the fear of failure painted onto the decor every time you look at these four walls.

“I will be,” you murmur.

“Maybe your dad is right. This is a good chance for you to get away from all the drama. The cameras. Unplug for a little bit.”

“Alert the media, I think Yelena Belova might have lost her darn marbles.”

“Darn marbles? The countryside has changed you, little one.”

A giggle slips past your lips. “Alright, diva.”

“Let me get your schedule sorted and I’ll check back in with you. In the meantime, try to have fun?”

Fun and this bumfuck town are complete opposites. You know from firsthand experience.

“You’re cute when you’re being funny,” you drawl.

“Love you.”

“Love you more.”

Then you’re left in the silence once more.

There are very few things in life that can faze you nowadays. Being raised in a tough, soul-sucking industry will do that to you. Your days have been one thing after another, a schedule packed to the brim that insomnia has become a welcome friend.

You’ve gotten used to drowning and choking on the sea that you can’t taste the difference between clean air and saltwater anymore. You adapt. You learned what it means to come up for air when you need to and swallow that intense, briny ocean when your head is being dunked into it.

Still, things have always happened within your control.

This situation right here is out of your control.

It’s fazing you.

You’re not talking about your dad being progressive and caring more about his baby girl’s mental health, placing it above her career that’s paid off the mortgage on this Tennessee home plus a few others scattered throughout the world.

No, you’re talking about these damn chickens.

You really should’ve just kept your mouth shut and stayed in your room for the next two weeks. If you could convince your dad that you’re sane enough to survive that, he’ll surely let you go free. But you got impatient, you figured that if you could make friends with nature once more, he would release you into the wilderness again.

Here you are now having a staredown with five chickens who have been eyeing you like feed. They know an easy target when they see one and a pop star who hasn’t touched a pail in decades, nor has seen a real-life chicken outside of television segments recently, is definitely one.

They’ve squawked. They’ve pecked. They’ve chased you around this coop, turning you into a headless chicken.

There’s about to be more than one headless chicken if these little shits don’t let you get their eggs.

You now learn that there are only three things that can stand up to you — your dad, Yelena, and these damn chickens. They let out another battle cry before rampaging towards you again, yanking a yelp from your lips as the bucket clangs in your hands.

Fifteen minutes later and you’re flat on your ass for the second time that morning, straw entwined into your hair and probably chicken shit stuck to your sequined denim shorts. Still no eggs. It isn’t the most ideal farming outfit, but you packed for a city, not for a tiny town.

It’s only when you’re this close to giving up that you hear the deep rumble from the door.

“Need some help?”

A snarky “you think?” sits on the tip of your tongue as you whirl around from your spot in the ground. That response dies fast when your eyes land on the six-foot man before you.

Your mouth dries when you first notice the cowboy hat. God, you’ve always been a sucker for a good cowboy. It’s the country girl in you that never left. Regardless of how many polished and shiny men you’ve met in Hollywood, nothing beats a rugged cowboy with dirty hands and broad shoulders and–

He tips his hat back slightly to get a better look at you. Blue eyes. Bluer than the late morning sun outside. Bluer than the sapphires you have in your safebox back in your penthouse. His pink lips are curled into an amused smile as he appraises the state of you on the floor.

Fuck, he’s hot.

He looks like your biggest mistake waiting to happen. He looks like he belongs on the front page of Vogue rather than on a farm. He’s got a coil of rope hanging from his shoulders and the filthy image that invades your mind should put you in the asylum.

High risk, high reward, your brain and the heat between your legs whisper traitorously. 

But then you remember the “incident” and you remember how many times you’ve had people approach you for their fifteen seconds of fame, and an irritated glare descends on your face. He doesn’t look affected by the quick change of emotions; in fact, he looks even more delighted that he’s put that look on your face.

“If you could murder some chickens for me, that would be great.”

“We try not to eat our friends here, we usually get ours from old man Jenkins down the road.”

God, even his stupid voice is hot. This is not going to go well for your undomesticated libido. Clearly, you haven’t learned your lesson with sex and men.

“Alright, then a few eggs should do the trick. Enough for breakfast for three.”

“Four.”

You cock an eyebrow.

“I’m joinin’ for breakfast so it’ll be breakfast for four. Why don’t you go on back up to the house? I can handle things here.”

I’d like you to try and handle me. Preferably naked in five different positions in bed.

What you need is a vibrator, the mental image of this man, and ten minutes alone in your room. That should do the trick.

(You’re lying to yourself because you know that wouldn’t be enough but it may be sufficient to sate some of your curiosity and this hungry little thing between your legs.)

“And who are you again?”

The corners of his lips tip up higher. “Don’t remember me?”

“I’ve met a lot of people. I don’t remember everyone.”

“I’d think you would remember the boy you tortured more than the chickens are doing to you now.”

Your brows pinch in a confused frown. “Who?”

“You pick on all boys, princess? Or am I special?”

Fuck. Warmth creeps up your cheeks at the insulting pet name, and his stupid flirty tone, and you find yourself glaring at him again. “Only the ones that clearly deserve it.”

“I can’t say I’m not disappointed that I’m not the only one then.”

If there’s anything worse than a man, it’s a man who knows exactly what to say to have you twirling your hair in your fingers like a schoolgirl.

“Well, he-who-must-not-be-named, I don’t really want to hear an I-told-you-so from my dad so how about you get me a few eggs and we can go our separate ways?”

The man smiles. It’s not a smile you trust. “Anyone ever teach you to say please and thank you or did the city take all your southern manners?”

“Please,” you grit out, caving far too quickly — but you prefer not to have your dad come out to check on you and realize you really have lost your roots.

His eyes twinkle with the kind of mischief that makes your stomach flip. He looks like he’s about to say something else, lips parting in preparation but then he shakes his head with a low chuckle before he easily navigates towards the nesting boxes. The chickens flock around him eagerly, none of them attacking him the same way they’ve been coming at you. 

With ease, he nabs a few fresh eggs. He places them into a basket, one that he then hands over to you. 

“Thanks,” you mutter.

Your fingers brush over his as you take the basket from his hand, a spark crackling between your fingertips that zings straight through your core. It’s unexpected and you jump back slightly at the feeling. His eyes flick up to meet yours — there’s something unnerving about them. Too blue, too earnest. Too knowing. Like he knows something you don’t. 

You ignore that feeling, kicking it to the curb before it can take root inside your vulnerable mind. 

He makes a gesture towards the door. “Shall we?”

The man doesn’t try to make any more conversation as the two of you venture back towards your house — no, your grandma’s house. In fact, he seems deep in thought; mouth pressed into a firm line and brows slightly furrowed. He’s even taken off his hat, holding it to his chest as his fingers rake through his thick brunette hair. 

Seriously, frustratingly hot.

You force your eyes away from him for the remainder of the walk. When you come through the kitchen doors, your dad and grandma are right where you left them. They look mildly surprised to see you, probably in one piece. “Farm-fresh eggs ready for breakfast! How would you like ‘em? Scrambled? Sunny side up?”

The two look at each other then at the man hovering close behind you. 

“Oh, I see you’ve met Bucky!”

Only Buc-ee you know is down Route 40. Who the hell is Bucky?

“Ma’am. Sir. Morning.”

“What a lovely day of reunions,” she chirps.

Reunions? You don’t get a chance to ask when your father holds up the perfectly-intact eggs. “You didn’t have any trouble with the chickens, darlin’? They can be nasty. Been a while since you’ve done it.”

You can hear Bucky’s cocky grin. You ignore it and opt for a bright smile at your family. “Of course not. Who do you think you’re talking to?”

As they turn away to begin cooking, you feel a tickle in your ear. 

“They teach you to lie in those acting classes, princess?” Bucky’s voice is close — too close. He’s ducked his head behind you, lips grazing the shell of your ear with his whisper. 

You swiftly leap away from him with a glare. “Yeah, same place they teach me to stay the fuck away from condescending, attractive men.”

His lips twitch. “Attractive, huh?”

“Don’t act surprised. You know what you are. I know what you are and I know what not to trust.”

“You don’t know me, princess.”

Your expression goes ice cold, a hiss slipping between your teeth. “I’m not a princess.”

“Five-time Grammy winner, America’s pop princess,” he recites and you nearly get whiplash.

That was your introduction for a recent awards show you attended as a presenter. The fact that he knows it— you didn’t trust him before, you trust him even less now.

“Stalker much?”

“Your grandma was watching it, I was helping her fix the kitchen faucet.”

You didn’t even know your grandma kept up with your activities, last you heard she was struggling to even work the new television upgrade you got her. It was a gift of part love and part apology for not making it home for Christmas. She always sends quick texts whenever you release a new song or win an award. The last few months have been turbulent. You haven’t had the time to respond to her texts, let alone check in over a phone call, when you’re prioritizing work opportunity emails.

Even when you do get the chance, video calls mask most of the fine lines on her face. Only now do you see how much she’s aged.

A piece of your heart breaks with guilt. You’ve been so focused on your own life and your own work that you haven’t had the chance to pause and look back at everyone else who’s supported you. Your grandma has been your biggest cheerleader from day one, arguing against your dad to support your dreams. 

After all, she’s constantly calling you her favorite granddaughter (her only one, mind you). 

Bucky must sense your mood because he then tries to remedy the situation, “She’s doing fine. She misses you a lot, takes every chance she gets to talk about everything you’re doing. God forbid anyone try to badmouth you in this town; with her influence, that person is shunned within seconds.”

A laugh bubbles up your throat at the thought. She’s always been a firecracker, it’s where you inherited your temper and energy from. 

“It’s been a busy few months,” is all your manage to say. Your throat tightens and you blink away the tears. The last thing you want to do is cry in front of this man who looks like he feeds on girls’ tears. 

“I didn’t say anything.”

Your lips pinch as you turn to him with an annoyed look. “You didn’t have to.”

“This is gonna be a fun two weeks, princess.” He throws you one last smile over his shoulder before he joins your family.

The next few days don’t get any better. Your grandma’s been so busy with an issue in town that you’re been mostly left to your own devices.

By that, you mean you’ve been left at the beck and call of one Bucky Barnes.

Bucky Barnes who you learn is the farmhand who’s been tasked to keep all of the animals alive, including your horse that you haven’t seen in some time. She’s one of the only good things left in this place, one of the things you regret leaving behind. Winter is a little antsy when you first approach her. 

“She doesn’t do well with strangers.”

Your lovely homecoming is quashed when you hear that familiar voice interject. “I know that. She’s mine.”

“I know,” Bucky echoes with a small smile. “Wanna ride her?”

For a second, you’re embarrassed that you feel a spark of fear. It’s been a while since you’ve been on a horse, trading for a different kind of horsepower that’s much safer and faster. You would hate for Bucky — your new arch nemesis — to see you fail. 

“Maybe later.”

He looks at you like he knows, that ghost of a smile dancing on his lips.

You learned that the two of you were raised together, despite having no recollection of it. Apparently you had gone through all of grade school together but you’ve met enough people that you can’t seem to remember the children you spent time with — no matter how many times they try to slide into your DM’s with “Oh my god, we went to school together! Can I get some tickets?” 

Somehow, you doubt Bucky is the type to slide into anyone’s messages. He probably doesn’t even have social media; the man acts like a dinosaur sometimes when you mention your popularity on certain apps as reason why you shouldn’t be getting your hands dirty and he simply blinks and congratulates you. Then he hands you a shovel to help him with the horses. 

That history seems to matter as much to you as it does to him. He still calls you princess with that patronizing tone; sometimes you think there’s a soft tinge to his voice but that thought evaporates the moment he rolls his eyes when you can’t seem to do anything to help around the house.

He also seems to have a problem with the way you dress.

“Really? You’re going to town in that?”

You look down at your silk lace top complemented by the cutest denim skirt tailored to your shape, a pair of low black heels on your feet. “What’s wrong with this?”

Bucky’s gaze traces the length of you. When blue sweeps over you, warmth sinks into your bones again. He looks at you like you’re a piece of meat — and you apparently seem to like it.

“I packed for New York, this is as casual as it gets.”

He stares are you for a brief second again before he shrugs off his flannel, draping it over your shoulders. You’re too stunned to move. He takes this moment to wrangle your arms through the sleeves. 

“I’m not wearing this,” you deadpan, raising your arms to find that the sleeves droop lower than your fingertips.

“It looks nice.”

It certainly does, but it smells like him and that scent — masculine, earthy, and a touch of cocky — seems to rouse that inappropriate beast inside of you from its slumber. The one that growls possessively whenever someone comes too close to Bucky or one that salivates over the sight of his exposed arms whenever he’s lifting bales of hay. 

Instead of acknowledging his compliment, you roll your eyes. “Whatever.”

“I think this would help with your whole effort of going incognito in town.”

“I have some glasses and a hat to go undercover. It usually works. I’m this generation’s Clark Kent. But, hey, if I get recognized, I want to make sure I look good.”

Bucky blinks at you. “You always look good.”

And you’re not sure what to say to that. 

But when you do get spotted by two teenage girls later that day and they fawn over how good you look, you can’t help but shoot him a smug smile. 

The two of you disagree on most things; you can probably count on one hand how many things you do agree on, including the fact that you disagree on a lot of things. That and how your grandma is the most awesome person in this city, but that’s not news. 

She worries about the two of you being at each other’s throats, biting remarks flung across the room until she has to tell the two of you to shut up and sit down for dinner — which is a whole other question because why is he always here?

While Bucky pokes fun at you all the time for your incompetence, you also take your shots at him. Harmless ones. 

One time you found him asleep on the couch downstairs after you finish doing your nails, so you decided to do his. He ends up with neon pink on his toes and blood red on his fingers. You snicker to yourself thinking you’ve just done something to get on his nerves.

Except, it doesn’t. Instead, he walks around proudly. Nails gleaming in the sun whenever he’s doing work and he doesn’t break a sweat. He even gets compliments on them. 

It sours your mood — partly because your ruse didn’t work, but mainly because that confidence is stupidly hot. You don’t need another reason to find him attractive when you’ve already got a list longer than the Nile. 

When your grandma tells you to be nicer to him, you’re extra prickly because— “Why do I have to be nicer to him when he’s the one being annoying with me? Aren’t I supposed to be resting? Manual labor is not part of that agenda.”

“You did all this when you were younger, sweetheart. It’s like riding a bike.”

“Riding a bike didn’t have me breaking my fresh manicure,” you say pointedly. “And I didn’t have anyone bossing me around. Being told what to do by someone my age versus by my dad are two completely different things.”

Your grandma only laughs, stroking your cheek like she finds this little tantrum endearing. You lean into her touch, her fingers softened by the years. “He’s just a kid pulling on his crush’s pigtails.”

His crush. You would find it cute (you do find it cute) if you weren’t so miffed after you chipped your index finger trying to lift a bag of feed for the horses. When you told Bucky, he only quirked his eyebrow at you before returning to his own duties.

So no, he doesn’t have a crush on you. In fact, you’re convinced that he hates you. In his mind, you’re probably this diva who lost her roots and whines about every single thing in her life — which isn’t incorrect per se, but he has no right to dislike you for that. He doesn’t even know you. He doesn’t know the shit you’ve been through to make it in the industry, how many times you’ve had to grit out a smile at shitty producers, even shittier paparazzi, and everyone in between.

If he really does have a crush on you, he sure as hell has a crap way of showing it.

“Well, we’re not kids anymore,” you huff, “and I don’t like bullies.”

Your grandma gives you a look as she leafs through her farm ledger. The numbers look alright from where you’re sitting, nothing in the red, which is a good sign. Part of the reason why you’re so adamant about being and staying successful is for her; you never want her to want for anything.

“You do know you were the one who had him crying growing up. Poor boy put up a lot with you forcing bugs onto him and teasing him for falling off a horse lord knows how many times.”

Oh. Your cheeks warm at the thought. Maybe you do have some vague memory of a gangly kid who wouldn’t stop weeping no matter how many times you tried to coo him to quiet down, lest you risk the wrath of your father. Again.

“Maybe he shouldn’t have been such a crybaby then,” you shrug instead with a huff.

Your grandma’s grin stretches a little wider. “I think you even made him play house once. We thought it was adorable. You had him stay at home with the baby while you went off to work. Singing your silly heart out to the rest of us before coming back to him.”

Oh god. You’ll never live this down. So maybe Bucky does have some right to abusing his power for the sake of tormenting you. From what your grandma’s shared, it sounds like you’ve put him through the wringer.

Then again, Bucky has grown — and he’s grown a lot. His shoulders have filled out, hair darker than his horse’s mane, thighs thicker than a tree trunk—

You put the brakes on those thoughts. You really need to get yourself a fix. Or get yourself fixed at this rate.

What you need is one really good dick. A good fuck to wipe all of these thoughts from your mind. The only problem with being so famous is the need to keep your private life private. You don’t need any more scandals on the front page and you certainly don’t know Bucky well enough to trust him — no matter how good his dick looks in the imprint of his jeans.

“He’s a good one, you know,” your grandma smiles softly. “Been with the family for years. Always around to help whenever needed.”

You hate to point out the obvious but— “That’s his job, grandma.”

“He’s also one of your biggest supporters,” she says with a look. “Has all of your albums in his house. Sits right here next to me in front of the TV whenever you’re on it.”

Your jaw practically drops to the ground. “That’s ridiculous,” you sputter, “there’s no way.” 

“Yes, you should ask to see his place sometime. He’s quite proud of the collection, even said that he’s going to ask you to sign them one day.” 

You have a feeling he’s burned down his collection after meeting you again and realizing what a raging bitch you are. Plus, the thought of asking to come over to Bucky’s place feels a touch too desperate for your personality, even if there is nothing you want more. Imagine yourself getting bent over backwards on his kitchen island with your album covers staring right back at you. 

“All I’m saying is, give him a chance. He’s not a bad fella.”

You try. You really do, but Bucky somehow always finds a way to push your buttons. Like today, he decides to reward your hard work with lunch in town at Sal’s Diner. It’s the best diner here — arguably the only diner here. 

“No, I’ve been coming here since I was a baby. Pretty sure my dad fed me the French toast here to help me teeth,” you argue, cutting a fat slice of your dish. 

You caved into ordering this meal that would give your nutritionist a stroke. Deep fried, juicy toast dripping with maple syrup and topped off with a dollop of house whipped cream and slices of fresh strawberries and blueberries. You’ll allow yourself this cheat meal if it means proving Bucky wrong.

That and you’ve been on a strict diet of certain vegetables and proteins for your Fashion Week fittings, so this is a welcome change. Think of it as a form of protest against your father bringing you here unwillingly. 

“You’re out of your mind,” Bucky chuckles. “Everyone knows that Sal’s crown jewel is his waffles.”

Said waffles sit before him. A stack of perfectly crispy, doughy goodness. The perfect burn on the outside complemented by the soft chew on the insides. Topped off with the same maple syrup and cream and fruits, the only difference rests in the vessel for the brunch dessert.

You can’t tell what you want to eat more — your toast, his waffles, or him. 

He looks even more delectable today with his hair disheveled from the sun and sweat. His beard has grown out a little more to frame those pink, kissable lips that Hollywood wishes they could naturally have. 

“Alright, try yours then try mine. We’ll decide here and now.”

You’ve never once backed down from a challenge so you eat yours first. Delicious, the flavor is nostalgic and the toast is tender and sweet. You recall all the times your dad brought you here, you with snot in your nose after a kid picked on you. You vaguely remember another boy next to you, blue-eyed and a dark ring around his eye, fists with red scrapes clenched next to his stack of waffles. 

Based on your grandmother’s stories, said boy must be Bucky. He doesn’t seem like a troublemaker but you wouldn’t be surprised if he was the type to pick fights with other people. That’s what he’s been doing with you all this time. 

“Now mine,” he says and swaps your plates, smirking a little too wide as he watches you grudgingly slice into his waffle. You lift it into your mouth, your teeth sink in, and— fuck.

It’s perfect. It’s absolutely perfect. The texture, the flavor, the balance. The combination of the crunch and the soft give of the waffle against your teeth. The square gaps filled with the perfect amount of cream and syrup, serving as a ship to carry the sweetness onto your tongue. The french toast soaks it in a little too much and the texture is all around too soft now that you’ve had a taste of this. 

The waffles are Sal’s masterpiece. 

Your eyes flick up to Bucky, he catches your gaze immediately. His lips tug up a little higher.

You quickly school your expression. 

You’d never admit this. You’d never admit that Bucky’s right. Over your dead body.

“It’s fine,” you shrug nonchalantly.

“Bullshit,” he laughs, leaning back against the booth chair with arms crossed. His biceps flex and your teeth tingle with the urge to sink into them. “You like it better.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you respond, reaching over to switch your plates around again. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to finish my lunch now.”

When you take another bite of your dish, it no longer tastes the same. The magic has faded and now you can’t stop comparing how mushy it is compared to Bucky’s mindblowingly scrumptious pick. You bite back a cringe when your teeth clack together, overestimating how much effort it would take to break through the food. 

“You don’t have to pretend with me, princess,” he grins, “I can see right through you. If you ask nicely, I’ll take your toast and you can have my waffles.”

“I’m fine,” you grit out again. 

“You sure? Do you really want to die on this hill?” 

“This is the best dish here and you can take your opinion and shove it up your—” the waitress gives you a look from behind the counter and you quickly shut your mouth. 

Bucky tilts forward this time with a glint in his eye, arms propped up on the table. You don’t like where this is going. “I think I know what the problem is.” You cock an eyebrow. “Maybe you just don’t know what good food is anymore. All those fancy, tiny, overpriced tasting menus have altered your tastebuds.”

A scoff falls from your lips. “They have not! Those are incredibly refined and curated dishes that the chefs dedicate their entire lives to. It’s definitely different from a diner that serves greasy food that only you can enjoy.”

His lips twist, tongue pressing against the inside of his cheek. “Yeah, well then maybe you’ve just forgotten your roots, princess. All those years in the city and suddenly you think you’re too good for everyone else here, including your family.”

The words knock the breath right out of your lungs. It grips your heart and rips it from your chest. As if your own guilt isn’t enough, having Bucky of all people dogpile on what a terrible granddaughter you’ve been isn’t exactly ideal. Between losing quality time with your grandma and the sound you’ve nurtured here that brought you your success, one feeling crawls over your skin.

Fear. 

Fear that you no longer know who you are anymore, a cog in the machine so desperate to keep turning. Fear that you’ve become what you hate: fake, pretentious, disgustingly greedy for wealth that you don’t even need. Fear that, if you lose all you have now, when you’ve already lost everything you had, what would be left for you?

Because that’s the thing they don’t tell you about making it to the top — to get there, you have to make plenty of sacrifices. One you convince yourself are worth taking, until you’re looking down at what you’ve left behind and you realize that nothing will ever be enough to make up for it. 

Perhaps your dad is right. The fall to rock bottom is a long and arduous journey, a path where you’re forced to reckon with everything you’ve lost and everything you have to lose. 

A warm hand covers yours on the table, dragging you out of your reverie. Bucky’s no longer looking at you with disdain or arrogance. Worry is now carved into the furrow of his brows as he squeezes your hand. “Hey, sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

You jerk your hand away from him, lips pressed into a thin line as you swallow the lump in your throat. You know how to stop yourself from crying, you know how to not show your weakness. You’ve done it countless times before to survive; you can do it again with him. 

“I’m sorry,” he repeats.

“It’s whatever,” you mutter.

“No, it’s not whatever. I crossed a line.”

You don’t appreciate the look on his face. It’s an expression akin to pity. You’ve gotten enough of those looks your entire life, you don’t need it from him. It makes you sick to your stomach. You’re a strong, successful woman who’s achieved everything you’ve ever wanted; there is no reason to pity you. 

In lieu of responding, you grab a few bills from your purse and toss it onto the table. “I’m full. I’m going to head out first.” 

Ignoring Bucky’s shit, wait, hold on, you’re slipping out of the booth and stomping out into the streets. The breeze outside is helpful against the heat flaming your cheeks as you bite back tears. 

Deep down, you know that it isn’t Bucky you’re upset with; nothing he said was untrue. In fact, you hate that it hits a little too close to home. 

You start walking — somewhere, anywhere — just away from there. You need space, you need room to breathe and digest what this means for you. It’s one thing to think about how much you’ve lost, circling the issue without calling it out directly, it’s another for someone to point it out so blatantly to you. 

“Wait,” Bucky’s voice reaches you before you feel the hand around yours. “Don’t go.”

“Let me go, Bucky.”

“How are you going to head home?”

“I’ll hitchhike if I have to,” you snap.

Bucky looks conflicted again, baby blues darker than usual. “Don’t do that, that’s not safe,” he murmurs, “please. You can be mad at me, I deserve it, but let me take you back. I’ll drive you home.”

“I don’t need your help.”

He licks his lips. “I know you don’t need it. You’re perfectly fine on your own. I get it. But I want to help, so please just take the offer.”

You yank your wrist away from him. “I’m good. Seriously. You don’t need to worry about me.”

“I don’t need to do anything. I can’t do anything but worry when it comes to you,” he practically spits out, “I wish I could stop worrying, but I can’t. Not when you look like you’ve lost everything good in your life. Not when you don’t smile the way you used to.”

That stops you, your movements halting. 

“It’s not just your grandma who’s concerned about you. Do you think I don’t notice how distant you sound in interviews? Or all that shit in the papers?”

“Go fuck off your high horse, Barnes.”

“I’m not on my goddamn high horse,” he defends, “I’m just saying it all sounds like a cry for help, okay.”

“Oh, so you think you know me now?”

“I know you. I’ve always known you. I was there defending you from those stupid kids growing up. I was there for you to pick on whenever you wanted to destress. I was there to support you and your dreams because I believed in you.”

Your breath hitches in your throat. There’s a lump lodged there that has your lungs constricting. The next words that come out of your mouth are a feeble attempt to hold your ground. “I’m not a kid anymore. I’m not the person you knew.” 

“Jesus, you think I don’t know that?” He whispers, “I know you’re perfectly capable of taking care of yourself. I’m saying that you don’t have to do it all alone. You have so many people who love you — your grandmother, your dad, m—” He stops himself, seeming to bite his tongue. “All I’m saying is that you’re not alone. You don’t have to be.”

“I—” you find yourself at a loss for words for the first time in a very long time. 

Before you can find the right response, you hear your name followed by a blinding flash in your eyes. It takes you a second to register that there is a camera in your face and the grating noise in your ears is this man bombarding you with questions.

“Is this your new man? Have you moved on already? Tell us who you are, man!” More flashes. More questions.

Your blood runs cold.

You should’ve known that trouble would follow you here. You’re quick to turn around, ready to remove yourself from the situation and avoid giving him the content he wants.

The man lets out a low whistle, smirking. “Oh come on, sweetheart, give me a smile. Your fans miss you back home. Everyone thinks you got kidnapped.”

Don’t give in. Don’t respond to this fucking moron. 

“Aw, you’re always so sweet in front of the press. Now that it’s just me, you won’t even give me one smile? What kind of celebrity are you? You want everyone to think you’re a fucking bitch?”

Gritting your teeth, you continue brushing past people, Bucky close on your tail, and the guy still hot on your heels. He’s still lobbing words at you, ridiculous comments like just one smile, baby and don’t be a stuckup bitch. 

You don’t respond. You’ve been taught better. If you give them the time of day, they’ll keep coming back for more. Ignore them long enough and they’ll label you a cunt and move on with their lives. 

However, it’s only when he brings Bucky into it that you stop dead in your tracks. “This your new man? I can give him that publicity he wants right now. How’s she in bed? Did you make a video too? Come on, give me a quote and I’ll even put your face on the paper.”

“Will you piss the fuck off?” You snap. 

His lips curl into a smirk far too proud for a man of his occupation. “Pop princess has claws. You wanna curse for the camera too? Bet your kiddie fans will love that.”

“I am here on vacation. Leave us alone.”

“It comes with the territory, honey. Now that I have you, why don’t you tell me about this stud, huh? What’s your name, man? You give me a tell-all on how good she looks in bed and I’ll pay you. Triple if you’ve got a video like the last one.”

Bucky steps forward, clearly ready to be your knight in shining armor, but you move faster to put a hand on his chest. As much as you dislike Bucky, you don’t want him to be subjected to the bullshit that these tabloids publish. He doesn’t need his face splashed on the front page just because he’s doing a good thing and taking you out to lunch. 

Shaking your head, you signal him to back down. He doesn’t seem to like that idea, frowning until you pin him with a glare that has him pursing his lips. 

“Just ignore him. He’s not worth it.”

“Whatever she’s offering you, I’ll give you more! Name your price.”

His jaw clenches, blue eyes sparking with the kind of rage you’ve never seen with him. “Leave it alone, Buck.”

His eyes melt, if only a fraction. 

You don’t try to decipher that look. Instead, you turn around and point your finger at this man. “You leave me alone or I’ll sick the cops on your ass.”

“Public space, sweetheart. I can do whatever I want.”

“And when I get you barred from every press event I attend? I’m about to file a restraining order if you keep harassing me like this — with plenty of witnesses at that. Think about what you’re doing before you keep running your mouth like that.”

With that, you shove Bucky forward and back into his truck. The two of you peel off before the man can chase you back down again. 

It is only in the quiet of the vehicle that you finally hear the thundering in your chest. Your heart hammering in your veins like it’s about to jump out of your chest. With a hand over your heart, you try to take in what shaky breaths you manage. You pull your phone out of your pocket to text your dad, but your fingers are trembling too much for you to type properly.

Cursing under your breath, you type, backspace, type, backspace, until you’re frustrated and flinging the device onto the dashboard with a loud clatter. 

“Shit, sorry,” you wince. 

“Hey, you’re good. You’re safe,” Bucky whispers next to you, his voice calm as it slips between the crevices of your palpitating heart. 

His hand reaches out to close around yours on your thigh. He squeezes, thumb brushing over the back of it in circular motions. You’re momentarily distracted by the act, eyes following the repetitive movement until your heartbeat matches its rhythm. The ringing in your ears quiets, fading into a light buzz before it eventually ceases to let you focus on the rumble of the truck over dirt roads instead. 

Bucky pulls to a stop outside the house. Your house. Your grandma’s house. 

His hand is still on yours. 

You pull it away quickly. Habit. You’re always alert, never sure if there are any more cameras waiting to catch you slipping. 

“You’re fine. He didn’t follow us. I did a few reroutes to make sure,” he murmurs. 

“Thank you,” you exhale slowly. “I’m sorry. Shit, this whole thing is so stupid.”

Bucky tilts his head. “Why are you sorry?” 

You open your mouth, only to realize that you don’t have an easy answer. “Um, well, he wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me.”

“His own actions are his responsibility. You do not need to apologize on his behalf.” 

He’s not wrong. It’s annoying. All this guilt that you shouldn’t even be feeling. 

“I guess,” you mutter.

“Are you okay?” Bucky asks, an eyebrow raised. “I hope you know that none of this is your fault — him showing up, the crap in the papers, all the bullshit around you.”

With a grunt, you press your lips together. “I know that. It’s just… unfortunate circumstances.”

“That’s one way to put it,” he smiles, “though, I should also apologize again. I am sorry. I crossed a line, it won’t happen again.”

You can’t even find it in you to come up with a snappy retort. Instead, you shift your gaze away. He seems to understand, letting out a low chuckle. Your lips thin. “I’m not a fan of the word princess.”

That seems to surprise him, a twinkle in his widened eyes. “That so? You used to make me call you that all the time.” 

“What were you then? The prince?” You drawl sarcastically.

“Actually, you designated me court jester.”

A laugh bubbles up your throat — probably the first sincere one since you got here, maybe in years. The thought of you acting all high and mighty, making Bucky perform for your entertainment is comical, especially when you consider how massive he is now. 

“Find it funny, do you?”

“A little bit.”

“I should send you the bill for my decades of mental anguish.”

Your lips curl into a smile of part amusement, part foul delight. “You could sell all of those childhood stories for a pretty penny.” 

“I think your grandma has a few pictures of you in the bathtub.” A gasp falls from your lips. “I was helping her clean the attic. She’s got quite the collection.”

Your cheeks warm. “Haven’t you heard? If you wanted to see me naked, all you have to do is go online.”

You’re not entirely sure why you prompted the idea of you being naked to Bucky, it hardly seems appropriate but Bucky then appraises you with those eyes. Blue drowned out by his blown pupils. You see the indent on his cheek where he’s pushing his tongue against the walls, likely biting back an equally inappropriate comment to respond to yours. 

“I’d prefer to experience the real thing for myself.” 

All of a sudden, your throat feels like sandpaper and Bucky’s looking you up and down in a way that has your entire body tingling with need. 

This can’t be happening. Not right now. Not when you’re supposed to have a clean slate. 

Not with Bucky of all people. 

However, your grandma’s in your ears, whispering, He’s not a bad fella, is he? He’s not. He’s a good one — perhaps the only one left — but he’s still a man at the end of the day and can you really bring yourself to trust another? 

“Too much too soon?” He asks gently. 

“No,” you choke out. “Not at all.”

Bucky’s tongue darts out to wet his lips and you’re momentarily distracted by the way his bottom lip glistens. His voice drops a pitch— “Don’t tempt me, princess.”

Your heart stutters between your ribs. Heat snakes between your thighs and you’re forced to bite your tongue before you can let out a sound that would embarrass the both of you. 

“I’ll check in on you later, yeah?” Bucky tips his hat with a charming smile before wandering towards the barn. 

Leaving you and the timber of his voice echoing in your ears. 

Something shifts between the two of you after that. It’s nothing monumental but you no longer dread the hours you have to spend with him out with Bucky. Laughter comes a little easier when you’re not viewing him as the enemy. He still teases you but you match that energy right back, with significantly less animosity. 

The first time you jump back on Winter, you nearly fall flat on your face. You half-expect Bucky to make another jab about how you’ve lost your skills. However, you’re pleasantly surprised when all he says is “easy there” before he’s encouraging you back on the saddle. 

The two of you start taking rides into the mountains. With the wind in your ear and the scent of wild grass, you can’t help but feel like you’re finally home. 

However, even when the two of you are sharing picnic lunches that he packs at the top of your hike and he’s tugged off his t-shirt after he gets drenched under a waterfall, Bucky doesn’t do anything more or less. 

He keeps a comfortable distance — close enough that you find yourself leaning in, far enough that he finds the excuse to pull away. 

As someone who’s always, always gotten whoever you wanted whenever you wanted, you almost want to grab him by the collar and kiss him senseless just to make it a done deal. But as someone with a little bit of pride left, you want him to make the first move. 

Unfortunately for you, none of your usual tricks have worked. You’ve spritzed on a little bit more perfume. You’ve worn your lowest cut tops without your tits spilling out. You’ve even given him enough sultry looks that you’re starting to get a twitch in your eye. 

Your final tactic, which has never failed you, requires a third participant. A third participant that you didn’t have until today. 

You and Bucky are helping your grandma at the farmer’s market. Bucky as the pack mule, hoisting crates of jam onto the vegetable stall that she runs with all of her prized produce. You’re cutting up samples of watermelon and, of course, your presence draws a big enough crowd that your grandma sells out quickly.

“If business can be this good with you around, maybe you should move home,” she beams. 

“Good to know that I’m only useful for marketing,” you drawl with a teasing lilt.

“Oh, honey, what can I say? You’re not much help around the farm.”

You feign a gasp and turn to Bucky who’s chuckling to himself on the sidelines. “You’re not gonna defend my honor? After all I did for you this week?”

“Was that before or after you broke the new stepladder we got?” Bucky prompts.

With a roll of your eyes, you wave the two of them off and continue to slice up the fruits. “Two traitors, that’s what the two of you are.”

Before either could respond, a man comes up to your booth. He’s tall. He’s blonde. He’s rather handsome, if you liked the all-American sort of thing. He’s got blue eyes like Bucky but not even half as bright or kind. “That looks like a good one, sweetheart. How about cutting me up a slice?”

The sweetheart is like ice rolling down your spine. You force out a trained smile. “‘Course. I can even give you a bigger one if you promise to buy a whole watermelon from us.”

He strokes his chin thoughtfully. “You drive a hard bargain but you have yourself a deal.”

You flash your prettiest grin at him; you know exactly what men like him need. A little stroke of his ego and you’ve got a hook, line, and sinker. As you’re pushing the knife into the fruit, you feel a sudden warmth next to you.

Bucky. His shoulders are squared, eyes partially narrowed. “John.”

“Bucky,” the man — John — smiles easily in response to Bucky’s tight lip curl. “It’s been a while, man. How’s the farm?”

“Good.”

Curt. Terse. Very unlike Bucky who you’ve grown to understand is very talkative. “Good to hear,” John responds, voice light, “I see you’ve got yourself a pretty new helper. A famous one at that. Bet you’re the reason the stall’s doing extra well today, sweetheart.”

You open your mouth to respond but Bucky beats you to it. “She’s great. Why don’t you run along now? I’m sure there are other people you can pester today.”

“Pester? Now, am I being a bother to you, sweetheart?”

Yes, but you’re not going to give Bucky that satisfaction. Something about this man irks Bucky. Not a lot of things can get under his skin, which only piques your interest further. So you slap on a saccharine-sweet smile. “No, definitely not. He’s a customer, Bucky. Play nice. He’s buying a whole watermelon and two squashes today.”

“Am I?” A flicker of surprise crosses his eyes, fading into a humored sparkle.

“You are, sir.”

“Well, if the lady says so, then it must be true.”

You let out a giggle, one that you know will grate on Bucky’s nerves. The two of you continue to make light conversation as you offer John a sample and John seems to take his time nibbling on the slice while he looks you up and down. You don’t like his look, but you do like the color on Bucky’s face right now. The perfect shade of green that you’ve been waiting for.

Because of that, you can’t help yourself. You up the ante a little bit — giggling a little more, flicking your hair over your shoulder, batting your eyelashes at him. Throughout your entire conversation, you can practically hear Bucky’s blood rushing in his veins. Jealousy is a good look on him.

Still, he doesn’t say a thing — at least, not until John finally, finally walks away. You didn’t know how much longer you could’ve pretended to find him entertaining; stale jokes were never your foreplay of choice.

“He’s bad news, you know,” Bucky utters next to you.

You’re busy cutting up the last of the samples as you reply with a light, “Sometimes I like bad news.”

He frowns. “You can’t be serious. Him of all people?”

“If not him, then who?” You deadpan, turning to look at him.

Bucky’s mouth opens then promptly slams shut. He once again appears to want to say something but he’s holding back, biting his tongue. Coward.

“Hey, kids, I’m just going to check on Mr. Oliver over there. He’s been getting harassed by that developer I told you about, James. Start cleaning up, we should be good to head back soon.” Your grandma ducks out of the stall and disappears.

You raise an eyebrow at Bucky. “James?”

“My first name,” Bucky shrugs.

“James,” you repeat — then it clicks, “James the Jester! I remember now. Oh, you were such a crybaby.”

At that, a deep scarlet blush sprawls across his face, up to the tips of his ears. “I was not. You were just evil. Instead of princess, I used to call you the wicked witch of the west.”

You bark out a laugh. “Yeah, I bet you did. Grandma told me you’d let me do whatever I wanted.”

“You were a spoiled princess after all.”

Ignoring that comment, you choose to ask, “What’s going on with Mr. Oliver?”

“Developers have been coming around these parts to try and turn it into something more modern. They’ve been offering hefty amounts to buy out property owners in the area. Talks about luxury apartments and a shopping mall.”

“Who in the world would pay for luxury apartments around here?” You crinkle your nose.

Bucky shrugs, his hat tipping forward. “Who knows? Guess they found a market for it.”

“That kind of sucks.”

“Yeah, the town’s been trying to fundraise to help support a lot of these small businesses to make sure they can stay afloat. Otherwise, they’ll get priced out and before you know it, everyone’s going to be gone.”

While the idea of a shopping mall does appeal to you, you hate the thought of losing this place. Neighbors who know each other by name. People who come from near and far, spanning generations and building relationships for years to come. All the lush greenery, soft sunlight filtering through the leaves, the crisp fresh air. The idea of all of that replaced by a concrete jungle is a nightmare.

“How much have y’all raised so far?”

Bucky rubs the back of his neck. “Not a lot. It’s tough to get funds out here when folks barely make anything for themselves. We need some outside help but it’s not easy, not many care about a small place like this.”

But you do. You care. This is your home. No matter how many times you’ve avoided coming back, or how much you try to deny the past, this is where you came from. If you lose this place, who would you be?

“Why don’t we throw a fundraiser? I could do something. I don’t need to be the main attraction but I could help bring people out. We could sell tickets, do a little open mic night.”

“You’d do that?” His eyebrows practically jump to his hairline.

You give him a look. “You think that lowly of me?”

“No, not that I don’t think you’d do it,” Bucky quickly clarifies, “It’s just— it’s obviously a lot to ask when you’re trying to stay incognito here.”

“I just have to convince my dad.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Dad!” You say at the same time your grandma scolds her eldest son with his full government name.

“I didn’t come here so you could be the center of attention,” he brushes off, “again.”

“This is different.”

“This is going to attract unwanted press.”

“This is the kind of press we want.”

The two of you are locked in a stare-down with your grandma and Bucky standing on the sidelines, waiting for one of you to be the first to break.

“In all fairness, she is doing it for a good cause,” your grandma chimes in the hopes of alleviating your father’s wrath.

“Sounds to me like she’s trying to get back in the spotlight. What if the press says this is all pretense to clean up her act? What if it brings unneeded scrutiny to our small town?”

You let a heavy exhale escape. Your eyes fly to the ceiling only for the briefest of seconds before you redirect your gaze to your dad. “Honestly, they can say what they want. At this point, they’ll pick on anything I do. It doesn’t matter if I have good intentions — or even if I don’t do anything at all, they’re going to find something to be upset about. They’ll twist everything I do to fit their narrative because that’s what they do. It shouldn’t stop me from living my life — or supporting things that I care about.”

Three pairs of eyes land on you. You try not to squirm but the weight of their attention is enough to make you shift. You look at Bucky first — his eyes are soft, understanding almost. He saw firsthand what it’s like to be in the spotlight, chased after in the middle of the most menial activities. Friendship twisted into a scandal.

These people are vultures and, while there’s nothing you can ultimately do to stop them, you have control in the way you respond and behave. In this case, perhaps the only correct response is to stop caring.

Your life is yours and you need to stop listening to these assholes who think that they know you, who think that they can shape your reputation to the image of you they have in their heads.

Your father looks thoughtful, almost surprised by your words. He’s silent, mulling over it for a moment before he looks at you. He’s searching your eyes — for any doubt or uncertainty — but he finds none of it. Because you haven’t been this sure of anything in a long time.

“Alright, fine. We’ll make it a community event. We won’t use your name because we don’t need a frenzy; this may be a small town but you’re not a small name, darling. I don’t need to hire security for a fundraiser. However, we can sell tickets to a live stream that will ultimately go to supporting this town. Hopefully that helps alleviate the traffic.”

You’re throwing your arms around him before he even finishes his sentence. “Thank you! Thank you!”

He chuckles, “You’ve got a lot of work ahead of you. I’m expecting you to do a lot of the planning.”

“Wait, what?” You balk, jerking back.

“You proposed this so you need to see it through.”

A pout forms on your lips. “But—”

“I’ll help,” Bucky cuts in, mouth stretched into a proud grin. “You’re doing enough already. Just get yourself ready. I can help organize the live feed.”

“You can set up a livestream?” You ask, doubt creeping into your voice.

He smirks, “Such little faith. I know my way around technology. Trust me on this, princess.”

You’re not one to argue with him so you can only nod. “Okay then, let’s do this.”

Things come together relatively quickly in the next couple of days. You spend most of your time figuring out how to make your extremely pop songs acoustic with minimal support from a local band. True to his word, Bucky does eventually set up the live stream and even does a little test to make sure it works.

“Smile.”

You force out a grin before it’s quickly wiped away from your face. “Are we good?”

“You’ve got something on your face. I think it’s the whipped cream from the waffles earlier.”

Your hand immediately flies to the corner of your mouth. Clearly it doesn’t work because then Bucky’s coming up to you. His hand reaches up, thumb brushing gently over the corner of your lips, swiping along the bottom. As if possessed, he sticks his thumb in his mouth and sucks it clean.

His eyes don’t leave you once.

Your heart slams against your ribs, core squeezing. You don’t get a chance to question him before he’s clearing his throat and pulling away with a quiet “got it.”

With all the marketing up, the event comes together fast. In a blink of an eye, you’re in this large backyard space with fairy lights strung across trees, tables for the buffet that your grandma has cooked up, and a makeshift stage where the band has set up. It’s beautiful and cozy. Perfect.

Instead of wearing one of your usual concert getups, the bedazzled bodysuits with matching rhinestoned boots, you opt for something more casual. A find from a thrift store and Bucky’s flannel layered over you; the latter isn’t by choice, he took one look at how much skin you were revealing and insisted you would be too chilly.

With your guitar propped up on your well-worn sneaker, you take a deep breath.

“Ready?” Your dad asks, bumping his shoulder against yours.

“Yeah. Of course. I do this all the time.”

The corner of his lips quirk up. “It’s alright to be nervous, you know.”

You worry your bottom lip, turning to look at him. “I’ve done this a billion times before. Why am I so worried?”

“Because it matters this time, because you care, and that’s a good thing,” he soothes, placing a hand on your shoulder. “I’ll be right there with you.”

“What if nobody else wants to perform? I’m only singing at the end. What if nobody participates?”

“Darling, you know your grandmother. She’d get up there and start the macarena if she has to get the party going.” A giggle rises from your chest. “You’ve got good people here and everyone’s here for a good cause.”

“If it’s dead silent, maybe I can get Bucky to get up there,” you snort softly, “he apparently had been my court jester in the past.”

Your dad lets out a tiny grunt. It’s one that most people won’t blink twice at, but you know him better than that. 

“What’s with that sound?”

“Nothing.”

“It’s not nothing. That’s the sound you make when the spare ribs don’t fall off the bone. So what gives?”

“I don’t like that boy.”

You shoot him a look. “You don’t like any boy.”

“That’s also true.”

“Grandma says he’s one of the good ones.”

It’s your dad’s turn to give you a look. “He’s a boy. There are no good ones.”

Your lips curl into a smirk. “I haven’t seen you go all protective in a while.”

“Well, none of them were serious before. This one — this one looks like the type who can break your heart.”

Both your glances wander over to Bucky who’s helping your grandma set up the food table. It’s still early enough that nobody’s filtered in but you expect a good showing. Tickets are basically close to selling out, the space will hopefully be at capacity. You’ve raised a good amount of money already and that doesn’t even include the massive success of the live stream sales.

But Bucky — heaven-sent Bucky. He really is a good one. In your world, that usually means that he is too good to be true. Someone always wants something. Whether it’s fame or fortune — or both, you’re merely a gateway to it. You’ve lost most of your trust in humanity since you started succeeding; your industry mentors tell you that’s how you know you’ve made it.

However, you’re not in your world right now. Not fully at least. So maybe you’re allowed to hold onto that tiny piece of hope that things may just work out with him.

“I know,” you murmur. “Let’s hope he doesn’t.”

Your dad wraps an arm around you, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. “I’m going to check on your grandma. Break a leg out there. You did good, kid. I’m proud of you.”

“Thanks, Dad,” you smile softly up at him. “For trusting me this and… for bringing me back here.”

“Anytime, darling.”

Just as your dad said, the party comes into full swing in the next thiry minutes. There’s no shortage of people wanting to perform — anything from singing to dancing and even standup comedy (though this last one is a little bit questionable when you hear the awkward filtering of laughter through the crowd).

People hop onto the makeshift dance floor for the next performer. An upbeat number that has everyone twirling and shimmying all over. You glance at Bucky only to find that he’s already looking right back at you.

Ask me to dance, you idiot. You raise an eyebrow and Bucky only coughs and shifts his eyes away.

You roll your eyes. If he doesn’t do something soon, you may end up taking matters into your own hands.

“Now, what’s a pretty lady like you doing all alone here?” The familiar voice interrupts your irritation. John. He’s got that boyish smile on his face again. “Would you care to join me for a dance?”

You look to Bucky again, finding him already looking at the both of you with stone-cold eyes. Well, if he’s not going to do anything about this, then you might as well find another form of entertainment.

Sliding your hand over John’s outstretched one, you nod. “I’d be delighted.”

John’s a decent dancer. He spins you around, matches your rhythm, and still manages to make conversation throughout. He asks you about life in California, if you have anything exciting coming up soon. You give him noncommital answers about how you’re working on your next album.

“I sure hope you’d save me a backstage pass for your next tour.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” you force out a smile.

On top of that, he’s too handsy for your taste. His grip starts safe on your hips before they drift a little too low like he’s trying to reach for your ass. You have to carefully navigate away from him every time he does that.

“Anything going on between you and Barnes?” John asks.

You look at Bucky again. His gaze has been burning a hole through your skull and probably John’s. As much as the two of you try to ignore it, it’s near impossible to not feel the weight of his impressively intense stare.

“No, nothing,” you answer honestly.

“He looks like he wants to cut off my head,” he chuckles.

“That’s just his normal face,” you brush off brusquely.

“If you say so.”

However, when this song ends, you feel another pair of hands on your waist that quickly manhandles you to land with an oof against a firm chest. You look up to find Bucky who’s now holding your hand and your waist for a spin around the floor. When you glance back at John, he looks none too pleased and stomps off in another direction.

“You don’t like to share your toys, do you?” You smirk.

“I don’t share, period,” he mutters.

“Then you should’ve claimed your prize from the start.”

Bucky’s brows meet in the middle. “You’re not… a prize,” he begins, “you’re more than that. I didn’t— I didn’t know how to even begin to approach you.”

“You had no problem berating the shit out of me when I fucked up the horse and chicken feed.”

His shoulders shake with laughter. “That’s different. That’s my area of expertise.”

“And this isn’t?”

His lips thin. “I’m not… experienced with all this.” He clears his throat, “Romance. Women.”

“You’re kidding,” you blurt out before you can stop it. He shakes his head. “You look like this and you’re telling me you don’t have experience with people?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I mean you’re hot, Barnes.” Bucky jolts back in surprise. “Come on, that is not news to you. I’ve seen at least five girls come up to you in the time John and I danced.”

His fingers tighten on your waist. “They wanted me to introduce them to you.”

“That’s an excuse to approach you. They probably wanted a dance.”

“That’s not true.”

“Yeah, it is.”

Bucky huffs, “How would you know?”

“Because that’s what I would do. You’re a catch, Bucky.”

“High compliment coming from you.”

You swat his chest playfully. “Playing humility when you are anything but isn’t a good look, Mr. Barnes.”

“I’ve only got eyes for one. Always have,” Bucky mumbles, hand squeezing yours.

“Yeah? How long has that been? Since we were kids?” You tease lightly, fully expecting him to scoff and call you ludicrious.

However, the sheepish look that settles on his face has you gaping.

Before you can question it further, your dad is announcing your performance next. Bucky nudges you towards the front with a small smile. “Go get ‘em, princess.”

It’s a bit of a blur of you getting up there and preparing yourself for your first performance in a while. It’s one thing to be on a stage with hundreds of thousands silhouettes watching you, it’s another to be able to see every single face in the crowd waiting for you with bated breath.

Your fingers circle the neck of your guitar, fingertips pressed firm against the strings. The steel bites into your skin but your focus is really only on the people before you.

“Hi, everyone. I just wanted to say a very big thank you again for coming out tonight. I hope everyone’s havin’ a good time!” The crowd explodes in cheers and applause. “We’re all here because we love this town and I’m happy that I have the opportunity to contribute to saving it. There’s no other place like home. A big shoutout to all the viewers watching from the comfort of their houses as well, we couldn’t have done it without you. Without further ado, I hope you all enjoy this last segment of the evening.”

The rapid beating inside your chest is a drum against your ribs. Your eyes trawl over the crowd, over strangers’ faces and familiar ones. Your dad who shoots you a proud grin, your grandma who’s waving her fist in encouragement, and Bucky — Bucky who smiles soft and nods at you.

The rest of the evening passes in a blur of motions. Once you finish your set, you’re greeted by a round of congratulations when you step off stage. Your hand hasn’t cramped from signing autographs in a bit but you relish in the attention. Whenever you look up, you catch Bucky watching from the sidelines.

I’ve only got eyes for one. Always have.

The echo of his words have your ears burning.

By the time you finally make it back to him, the crowd has thinned, with only a smattering of close friends and family still chattering over food.

“Sometimes I forget how good you are live,” Bucky says, a tinge of awe in his voice.

“Please, when was the last time you heard me live?”

His teeth catches his bottom lip for a second before he clears his throat. “Your Nashville show last year.”

You can hear your jaw land on the floor. “You went?” He shrugs. “Why didn’t you tell me? I invited grandma but she couldn’t make it out.”

“You didn’t know me, princess,” Bucky chuckles.

Well, he’s not entirely strong. But still. “Grandma could’ve told me. You shouldn’t have to pay.”

“Why not? I’m supporting a good cause, aren’t I?”

You exhale a laugh. “So I’m a charity case now?”

“I can neither confirm nor deny—” Your punch on his arm gets you a laugh, it probably felt like a tingle. “I didn’t want to be one of those people who pulled that card. We haven’t spoken in years and I would’ve gone anyway even without the free ticket.”

Bucky needs to stop giving your heart reasons to shift towards him. You haven’t been in love in a very long time, and you’re not sure you’re ready for it yet — especially not with a man as good as him, one you cannot bring into your world.

“Plus, I was talking Madeline. Her mom’s our foreman.”

“Playing chaperone, cute,” you murmur. “Next time, just shoot me a text. You have my number. My dad or someone else can arrange something.”

“Noted, appreciated.”

You wring your fingers behind your back, hiding evidence of your nerves. “So, I sound good? I’m not sure how the music would play out without the usual production, acoustic felt more fitting here—”

“It was great, seriously. I was reading the comments from the stream and everybody loved it. A lot of them seemed to have been fans for a while and they were happy to see you perform like this again.”

It reminds you of the smaller gigs you used to play — coffee shops and dive bars before you were promoted to opening for bigger artists and then going into your own sold-out world tour. Part of what you were missing in your work is that connection with the fans, doing more intimate engagement for your more loyal listeners.

“Yeah, I think it would be fun to do something like this once in a while,” you smile.

“Well, if you need a tech guy, you know where to find me.”

You roll your eyes but your lips twitch into an amused smile. “Come on, let’s go help my grandma clean up.”

“Hey,” Bucky catches your hand just as you turn, drawing your attention back to him. You cock an eyebrow in question. He scratches his cheek, looking almost… nervous? “Are you doing anything tomorrow? I thought we could go for a ride. A picnic maybe.”

“We’ve done that before,” you say slowly, puzzled, “but I’m down.”

“Okay, yeah, sounds good.”

That’s when it hits you. “Bucky Barnes, are you trying to ask me out on a date?” The laugh that slips past your lips has Bucky tinting red as he swallows and pulls away from you. You realize then that he may think you’re poking fun at him. “Wait, no, don’t do that. I wasn’t— I wasn’t teasing you, promise. I think it’s cute.”

Bucky’s mouth twists a little. If you didn’t know him so well, you wouldn’t have known that he was sulking. It’s such a tiny reaction that you could miss it if you blinked.

“Bucky, come on. I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Yeah, I know.” Does he? “I know I’m probably not as… I don’t know, cool as all the guys you’ve dated before but—”

You take his hand in yours and squeeze. “No, that’s not it at all. I’ve just— I’ve been waiting for a bit for you to make your move. Even now, you’re still beating around the bush. Just ask me out, Buck.”

He chuckles, ears still red. “Alright, will you go on a date with me?”

“Yes, yes, I will,” you grin, “now, was that so hard?”

“Might be harder than getting back on a horse after a decade.”

You gasp, “That’s uncalled for.” He beams sweetly right back at you, turning your hands so that he’s holding yours now. It’s your turn to warm to the tips of your toes. “Okay, let’s go help grandma, casanova.”

The ride shouldn’t be any different. You’ve done this route a million times before. You’ve done this ride and this picnic thing with Bucky before. You shouldn’t feel like your heart is about to burst out of your chest any second now. Maybe it’s time to summon your on-call doctor to make sure it’s not a seizure.

“You’re fine, you’re just nervous,” Yelena says from your laptop. “I think you should go for the lace top, it makes your tits look great.”

You pick up the flimsy piece of fabric. “I’m not nervous. I don’t get nervous for dates. I definitely do not get nervous for a man.”

As you tug the shirt over your head, Yelena laughs, “Nobody knows that I’m getting a strip tease from a five-time Grammy winner.”

Tossing a withering look over your shoulder, you shrug on the top. “I’m serious, Yelena. This isn’t cool. I’m not being cool.”

“No, you’re being a girl with a crush.”

“I’m this nation’s favorite pop performer. I don’t get crushes.”

“Sweetheart, you’ve been there a little over a week and I’ve never seen you smile this much.” That explains why your cheeks are aching. “Face it, you’re head over heels for this man.”

You rub your face furiously. “God, this is so uncool. What if he’s making me uncool?”

“Then you guys can be uncool together.”

“That’s not an option,” you grumble, “what do you think?” You do a few turns in front of the floor-length mirror.

“Perfect. They grow up so fast,” Yelena mocks a tear.

“You’re a terrible friend.”

“I’m the bestest friend. Seriously though, you deserve to have a bit of fun. I think he’s good for you.”

“You’ve never met him.”

She gives you a look, one that is both chiding and soft. “But I know you and you haven’t been like this in a long time.”

Instead of acknowleding her words and potentially the gravity of your feelings, you instead choose to tease her. “Since when are you such a lovergirl?”

“Since I realized it makes you less of an asshole.”

“Rude.”

“You love me.”

“I do,” you grin.

“Have fun, kiddo.”

You’ve heard Bucky hustling and bustling outside since this morning. You, on the other hand, take your sweet time getting ready. Makeup light and pristine, nothing that would smudge even if you dunked your head underwater. Not a hair out of place. You’ve tested a few perfumes and there’s one that Bucky always leans towards so you spray a little on your neck and your wrists.

By the time you come downstairs ten minutes before the time he promised, you find him in the kitchen cooking with your grandma. Your dad is giving him dirty looks from the dining table.

“Morning, sunshine,” your grandma smiles, “don’t you look lovely today?”

“You’re saying I don’t look lovely everyday?”

“You have your days,” she jests with a pat on your cheek.

Bucky slides up next to you next, an appropriate amount of distance in front of your family. “Morning,” he murmurs, “you look beautiful.”

“I know,” you try to play it off but your heart feels just about ready to combust. “You ready?”

“Packed and ready to roll.”

You roll your eyes but can’t bite down on your smile in time. “You’re so lame.”

He only chuckles.

“I don’t need to give you the talk, do I?” Your dad chimes in next, glare darting between the two of you, before landing solidly on Bucky. “No funny business. I expect you to be on your best behavior. Curfew is at—”

“Oh my god, Dad!” You snap with your own scowl at him. “We’re not kids. We’ll be back whenever we’re back.”

“Still living under my roof, darling.”

“Technically my roof,” your grandma chirps and gives her son a scalding look. She turns to the two of you with a gentle smile. “Take your time. Have fun. Be safe.”

“But—”

Your dad’s full government name rolls off her tongue again and he immediately clamps his mouth shut. You’re pushing Bucky out of there before he can interrupt again.

“I’m so sorry,” you grouse, “he’s so overprotective sometimes.”

“He means well. I can see why he would be,” Bucky says as he leads you towards your horses.

“He’s overbearing is what he is,” you mutter as you hop on your horse. He makes sure that you’re settled safely before he climbs on his own horse.

The both of you set out on your usual route, your horses galloping deep into the woods as far as they can go. You take it all in — the fresh hair, the abundance of nature, the untouched beauty. It’s hard to imagine that you’ve been privileged enough to experience this life for the past week, let alone remember how this had been your life growing up. It’s even harder to imagine losing all of this. The nature in your gated apartment complex doesn’t feel natural. It feels necessary. 

Out here, it just… exists.

Sometimes, you miss that — simply existing. If anything, this trip has become a reminder for you to come home more often and visit your grandma — and now, Bucky.

“You seem deep in thought.” Speak of the devil, he’s unpacking the lunch he’s tucked into his backpack. A selection of sandwiches in ziploc bags, fruits perfectly sliced and peeled, and pastries to top it all off. The food is simple but delicious and you can tell a lot of care has been placed into the prep — crusts off the bread, lightly toasted, fruits fresh and ripe, and pastries sweet.

Your stylist is going to tear you a new one when she realizes you no longer fit into your usual sizing. However, right here, right now, you can’t bring yourself to care.

“Thinking about how nice it is out here,” you sigh, gaze wandering to the world around you.

The two of you are perched on a rock at the base of a waterfall after a casual stride on your horses and a quick hike down to the stream. The symphony of water pouring down from the cliff mixed in with the sounds of birds singing in the distance and the rush of a coursing river — all of this brings you some semblance of peace. It reminds you of the quiet, the isolation. Things you could never have in the big, urban city you now call home.

Bucky laughs. “It’s always going to be here, you know. You just need to come back more often.”

“My schedule is crazy enough as is,” you stomp down on the urge to whinge like a child, “I’d love to pre-book my vacations but when opportunities come up, I have to prioritize that. I have to stay relevant. Things change so much in this day and age. In a blink of an eye and I could be rendered a has-been.”

“Have faith in your most loyal fans, you have plenty of those.”

Your eyes track the movement of the clouds above as they trail across the bright blue sky. “Maybe,” you sigh, “I’m just tired.”

Bucky tucks in close next to you, bumping your shoulder with his as he plucks a grape from the vine for you. You take it gratefully and pop it into your mouth, the sweetness bursting on your tongue.

“Maybe, what you need is to cool off.” You frown at him. He nods his head towards the waterfall. “There’s an old rope some kids put up a while back.” He points in the direction of the trees. “The water’s deep enough to break the fall.”

Aghast, you make your dismay very, very clear. “You want me to jump in there? Wearing this?”

“Unless you prefer to strip down, which I think only one of us would mind.”

Your fist lands a punch on his bicep. “Perv,” you mutter.

“Live a little,” he encourages as he jumps to his feet. He begins the short trek up the stairs, towards a small landing where a thick chord of rope hangs from a tree. His fingers curl around it tight, then he’s launching himself off and crashing straight into the water.

Your heart jerks in your chest as you peer over the rock into the water, waiting for him to surface. Bucky comes up for air with a huge splash, grinning as he slicks his hair back with his hand.

“The water’s fantastic.”

“You’re insane,” you deadpan. “I’m absolutely not doing that.”

“Man, here I thought you were finally free of the stick up your ass—” you gasp, he laughs, “—but I guess I was wrong.”

“I do not have a stick up my ass. Sue me for not wanting to get soaking wet in a Prada top.”

Bucky leans back, hands reaching up to wipe the water from his face again. It’s then you notice his t-shirt clinging onto his arms — like second skin that does nothing to mask the thick muscles that could probably lift you with a finger. “You can always buy more Prada. You can’t buy another day like today.”

“Think I’ll take my chances.”

“Alright, princess. I didn’t know you forgot how to have fun. You used to be the one who took me out here, would be the first one to jump in too before you dragged me in with you.”

That ticks you off. Your jaw clenches and you finally rise to your feet. Screw him for thinking you’d ruin your perfectly nice outfit for this. Your fingers catch the hem of your shirt before you’re tugging it over your head, then you shimmy out of your shorts.

“Wait, you’re really—”

“What? Never seen a girl in her underwear before?” You smirk, climbing up to where he stood only moments ago. Bucky looks even redder in contrast against the pool of blue.

You look at the rope and take a deep breath. You’ve done this before. You can do this. It’s just a swing and a jump. After that, you black out and by the time you come to, you’re already soaked from head to toe, coming up for air with a gasp as the water laps cool against your skin. You still hear the echo of your scream before you crashed into the pool.

“Shit, it’s freezing. You didn’t warn me.”

Bucky chuckles as he swims closer towards you. “Doesn’t it feel nice?”

“Feels like I’m about to catch a cold.”

The two of you splash around for a little while, Bucky even coming out only to jump back in and drench you in another wave. Your screech echoes in the quiet of the forest, muffled only by the waterfall behind you.

He looks at you when he comes up, grinning as he approaches you. His hand reaches up to drag the wet strands of your hair away from your face, fingertips brushing your cheek. His touch is cool but your entire body feels like it’s been set on fire.

You’re well aware of how little you’re wearing, even more so when the thin fabric sticks to your wet skin. Your nipples are stiff in the chill, pushing against the material, and you can feel your panties squeezing between your cheeks.

Your arms wrap around yourself, partly because of the cold, but mostly because Bucky’s watching you a little too closely. His eyes travel down your neck where strands of your hair are clinging to your skin, to your collarbones, down to the valley of your breasts that peek up from above the water.

You see his throat move as he swallows. Blue finds you. The color a shade or two darker as he assesses you, drinks the sight of you in. Instead of addressing it, he begins to move towards the surface where he manages to stand, water kissing his calves. You follow after him slowly.

He turns around then, looking at you when you come close enough. There’s a depth to his gaze that you can’t read, but you’re almost too scared to ask.

“What?” You try to play off.

“You’re beautiful,” he murmurs. Gentle. Honest.

“You’re just saying that because I’m practically naked,” you taunt, fully aware of how much you’re showing now that you’re out of the water.

“I’m saying that because you look incredibly tempting right now and I think I’ll have a hard time keeping my hands off you. For both our sakes, I recommend that you put on some clothes right now.”

Your breath catches, snagging in your lungs. The words that depart your lips are one born from days of frustration and longing. An honest, desperate question. “What makes you think you have to?”

Bucky inhales sharp, deep. “Do you know what you’re saying right now, princess?”

“I am,” you respond calmly, though your voice wavers.

He takes a step closer and suddenly you’re backing up against a large boulder, the cold surface kissing the swell of your ass.

His hand stretches out. His touch ghosts over your skin, hand trailing lightly over your hip where the hem of your panties rests, traveling up to your waist, right beneath the wiring of your bra, fingertips brushing over your exposed torso. Your breath hitches in your throat, chest rising as your lungs expand. Bucky’s blue eyes, warm where they’re focused on how his large palm moves over your stomach, flicks up to meet yours.

“This okay?” He whispers.

You only manage a nod.

“You’re gorgeous, princess.”

The pet name crawls up your spine and grips your lungs. You’re too busy looking at how Bucky’s lips look, the way they part, and his eyes, pupils blowing up to swallow the blue, to notice how his hand is slowly creeping up your bare stomach. His hand leaves a trail of fire where it crawls up to your chest, burning through your skin when he cups you gently.

He lets out a garbled sound. “Fuck, you’re so soft.”

“Generally how tits are, Barnes,” you try to tease.

A flush sprawls across his neck. “You’re such a brat. I should really shut you up.”

“Why don’t you try?”

Bucky doesn’t hesitate before he seals his lips over yours, drinking in the surprised little gasp you let out. He gulps down your whimper as you arch your back into his touch. His touch grows bolder, stronger, as he squeezes your breast over the fabric. His hand wanders to the space between the rock and your back, fingers deft as they quickly work to unbutton your bra.

“I don’t like how you did that so quickly,” you mumble against his lips. “Have you been practicing with other girls?”

“Just good with my fingers,” he chuckles.

“Good answer,” you grin.

He slides the material off your body, leaving you open for the taking. A low growl rises up his throat as he gropes your breasts harder, fingers finding your nipples, and relishes in the small moans you make. He takes his time with it, kneading your tits to the shape of his hand, kissing you warm and slow — all the while heat accumulates between your legs and you’re reduced into a quivering puddle in his hands.

But he doesn’t let you slip; he presses you back against the stone, his touch cool and warm, a chemical reaction against your skin. He distracts you from the chill, moving his mouth languidly against yours. God, kissing him feels like the first touch of summer after a long winter. He tastes like the icing on the cake he brought, sweetness that melts on your tongue. His hand — a working man’s hands — are rough where his palms are calloused, creating delicious friction with the way it rubs up against your delicate skin.

“Bucky, come on,” you whine.

“Patience,” he only says as his lips trail to the corner of your lips to imprint kisses that leave you wanting more. Much, much more.

“Move it along, Barnes, or I’m gonna have to find someone to do the job for you.”

Bucky pulls back abruptly, your stomach sinks. His eyes are dark as they look at you, lips set into a firm, irritated line. “You’ve really got such a mouth on you,” he snarls, “been wantin’ to put you in your place, princess. You keep running your mouth, just waiting for someone to tell you to behave.”

Oh. Oh, you shouldn’t like that this much. But you do. And Bucky knows you do.

His lips curl into a smirk. “Is that it? You need someone to teach you some manners again?” Bucky’s nose brushes over the pulse in your neck, feeling it stutter beneath him. “I can do that for you — all you have to do is listen.”

An expletive slips past your lips and Bucky brushes his lips over yours again, teeth nipping on your bottom lip.

“Language, princess.”

A whimper climbs out your throat. “I want you.”

“I know you do,” he says, voice gliding over your skin like silk, “but you need to be patient. Can you be a good girl for me? Can you listen to me?”

You nod, your entire vocabulary flaking into ashes as he smooths his palm back down your body. You don’t register when he slides it over your hip, you barely register his hand cupping the warmth of your pussy, your ass raising to give him access. It’s only when his index finger traces the line on your panties where the fabric sinks into you does your gasp wake you from your stupor.

“I can tell you’re so wet already,” he whispers, disbelief clinging to his syllables, “is this all for me?” Your breathing stammers an uneven staccato in your chest. “Tell me it’s for me.”

“‘S for you,” you choke out.

“Good girl,” he breathes out, “shit, you’re so wet. I can feel you through this lace.”

Your hands instinctively fly to cover yourself up as much as you can, cheeks flaming and it’s not from the heat.

“Gettin’ shy on me?”

“What if someone sees?” You hiss, but the sound melts into a whimper when Bucky starts to trail his finger up and down your slit over the mesh that barely hides you.

“Nobody comes out this way. Just you and me, princess.”

Your protest dies when Bucky tugs your panties to the side, sliding his finger along your slick folds, brushing over your clit until your voice splits into a long groan. He peppers your face with kisses, enough to sear a mark onto your skin that you’ll feel for weeks. All the while, his fingers tease you open slowly, coaxing moans from your lips as he dips his fingers in only to leave you in the cold. He repeats the movement over and over until you’re squirming, your fingers catching his wrist to keep him going.

“Come on, Buck.”

“What is it?” He feigns confusion.

“Touch me.”

“I am touching you.”

Through gritted teeth, you manage to say, “Properly. Touch me like a man, you fucking coward.”

“I need to teach this mouth of yours some manners. Need you to ask me one more time.” Your lips stubbornly sew shut. “Come on, you can do it,” he coos.

It’s patronizing. It’s demeaning. You shouldn’t let him speak to you this way. You are a five-time Grammy winner, the nation’s favorite pop star, you don’t need a man to—

“I’ll finger you open properly if you ask me nicely. I’ll make sure you’re good and ready for my cock. I promise.”

Fuck. Your mouth moves before your brain can catch up. “Please.” The plea escapes you. “Please finger me, Bucky.”

“That’s a good girl,” he beams, “that’s my girl.”

Your insides positively melt. My girl. It shouldn’t be so easy to get to you. You’ve had your fair share of men who know what sweet nothings to whisper in your ear, so you shouldn’t be fazed by such a simple phrase.

But it’s different — because this is Bucky and the thing about Bucky is that he always means it.

When he calls you his girl, that means you’re his, and that’s that.

Your thighs fall apart as his finger finally pushes in, thick and intrusive to spark the fire in your core. He curls it inside of you, brushing up against your walls and you’re curling into him. He kisses you again, taking in the gasp that bubbles up your throat.

“My pretty girl,” he murmurs sweetly, “look at you. So easy for me when you’ve got something in this pussy of yours.”

The fuck you stops cold on your tongue when Bucky adds another finger in, stretching you out with a delicious burn that has you spilling needy little noises into his mouth.

“Such a good girl when you’re filled up. Who knew I could stop you from acting like such a brat just by stretching this gorgeous cunt open? I should’ve done this that first day. Should’ve made you spread your legs for me if you wanted my help.”

His name forms on your tongue, like his fingers are forcing you to say it out loud. To beg him.

“I can’t wait to have you wrapped around my cock. Bet you’d feel so tight, fit around me like a glove. I know you’ve had others before me, but I promise you none of them can make you feel as good as me. None of them will worship you the same way I will.”

“God, Bucky, please.”

“I know, I know,” he utters tenderly, “I’m here, princess. I’ll take good care of you. Tell me what you want.” His fingers spread inside of you, urging you to open up real good for him. “I need you to use your words for me.”

“You know what I want,” you whine, fingers clawing at his chest.

“I know, but we talked about this. I need you to be good for me and ask me nicely.”

Your eyes burn with embarrassment, chest blazing with the warmth of a thousand suns. “Bucky, please. I need you.”

He cocks an eyebrow as he fingers you open again, pumping his fingers in and out of you as he teases you with a third. His thumb finds your clit, finds the surprised, wanton-filled sound from your chest. He rubs you slowly, gentle as he once again asks you to pose your request.

“I want your cock. Please. Please,” you whine, “I want you to fuck me open.”

Bucky lets out a guttural moan as he covers your lips with his again, kissing you senseless, stealing every single breath from your lungs until you’re gasping for air as he finger-fucks you open. You’re soaking him, you can feel yourself leaking all over. You’d be more ashamed if you weren’t so caught up in the delirium of pleasure.

“Attagirl,” Bucky chuckles, kissing the top of your head. He moves fast — fingers ripping off your panties so you’re exposed to him. You don’t get the chance to complain about losing a very nice pair of underwear, not when he takes a second here, admiring the way your pussy glistens in the sunlight. You’re suddenly shy, hands moving to shield yourself again, but he moves faster, gripping them and pinning them down above your head. “Don’t hide from me. You look sweet like this. So vulnerable.”

He uses one hand to pin both of yours above your head, all the while he’s nudging your legs to open up further with his knee. Bucky looks bigger from your vantage point, height towering over you, blocking the sun until your line of sight is completely consumed by him. You hear hiz zipper being undone, but your focus is entirely on him.

“I’ve got a condom,” Bucky exhales, tugging at the seams of your consciousness and rational thought. “In the bag.”

“You brought a condom? Were you expecting this to happen?”

“Expect, no. Hope? Always,” he offers a wry smile.

“Fuck a lot of girls in the woods, Barnes?”

Bucky stifles a laugh. “No, just the one,” he smiles, “just you.” For a second, the two of you simply stand with each other, stewing in the tension that hangs heavy in the air between you. “I should go get it first,” he says, making his move to pull away.

You aren’t sure what possesses you but then you find yourself grabbing him by the soaked collar of his shirt. He halts, eyes wide. “I’m clean,” you mumble, “I don’t want to wait.”

“Princess,” Bucky says slowly.

“Please, Buck.”

“Are you sure about this?”

“I’m clean, I promise you, I got tested after—”

“That’s not my concern,” he interrupts cautiously, “I’m asking if you’re sure about this. With me.”

You give a small nod. “I trust you.”

“Shit,” he hisses, “can’t say things like that and expect me not to fuck you stupid, princess.”

“Again, what makes you think you can’t?”

Bucky lets out a low roar that fuels the heat coiling tight inside your belly. Your eyes finally drift down to his cock in his hand and, like you’ve been unknowingly trained, you begin to salivate. Your mouth waters at the sight of the thick length, tip red and leaking. It twitches with need, moving towards you like it’s drawn.

He’s big. Bigger than anyone you’ve had before.

“I—” you start only for the words to choke out. Bucky raises a questioning brow.

“Did you change your mind? We can stop right now. Say the word.”

“No, that’s not it— I’m just—” you look at it for a heartbeat then two. “You’re really big,” you blurt out. “I don’t know if I can fit you.”

His lips twitch up into a smile, a mix of cocky confidence and amusement. “I’ll ease into you, princess. Promise it won’t hurt,” he says then pauses, “it might hurt a bit but you let me know if it gets too much, yeah?”

Your own giggle fizzles out when Bucky props up one of your legs, closing in on you with your folded thigh against his chest, and notches the head in your entrance. It’s a bit of a stretch, you can feel a slight sting, but your greedy pussy has other ideas. It opens up to him with the second nudge in, caving under the pressure much too quickly. You hate to admit how good he feels.

For a man who claims to have limited experience, Bucky seems to know exactly what to do. A vein on his forehead pulses as he slowly inches himself inside you, sweat beading his skin. His neck strains as he slowly sinks himself inside you, fucking up to bury himself deep inside your aching pussy.

A desperate whimper climbs out your throat. His name on your lips.

Bucky throws his head back, breathing in harshly through his nose. “You keep saying my name like that and I’m going to cum right now,” he rasps.

And because you can’t help yourslef, you do. You say his name again in a needy little cry that has him lifting you up with a growl, your legs wrapping around his torso as he shoves himself all the way inside you.

You’ve never felt so full before, inner thighs burning with his cock inflating inside you. His length stretches you open as he presses you back against the rock, leaning you back so he can properly fuck into you with deep, intentional thrusts.

“Look at this pretty pussy spread open for me,” Bucky groans, “you’re fuckin’ perfect. I’m gonna feed her my cock, gonna make sure she’s full.” His fingers bury in the flesh of your thighs as he drives himself deep inside you.

His other hand wanders to your neck, squeezing around the outside just enough to have your mind dizzy. His eyes search yours, vision glazed over as the pleasure slips through every crevice of your brain. Once he confirms that you’re okay, he tightens his grip enough to limit the airflow into your lungs, your breath hitching in your chest as he does so.

Bucky’s name leaves your lips in a hoarse whisper and he groans when he feels your core tighten around him. “My perfect girl, squeezing my cock like you’re tryin’ to milk me. You feel like you haven’t been touched in so long, princess. Was this all you needed to stop acting like a brat? If only people knew that the only way to get you to behave was to put a cock inside this pretty little cunt.” 

He reaches down between your legs and circles your clit until your moans pierce through the waterfall raining down behind you. You say his name over and over again, like a prayer. Like a plea. Your entire body shakes every time he thrusts deep inside you. Your heart stutters in your chest when you hear an unknown sound, your eyes flying to see if anyone’s witnessing the debauchery occurring out in the open. 

“Shit, princess, look at you,” he hisses when he looks down where the two of you are joined, “you’re creamin’ all over my cock. Soakin’ my cock so easy.”

“Bucky, please,” you manage to rasp, chest tight as the burning between your legs intensifies. 

You can feel it. It’s been a while, but it also has never been like this. A mind-numbing concoction of breathtaking pain and pleasure. Bucky’s cock opens you up, your folds swallowing him in like you’re desperate for more, like you need to fit as much of him in as possible.

The tip brushes up against the deepest parts of you and yet somehow it’s not nearly enough. Bucky mutters about how tight your pussy feels, how there’s no way anyone has been in here before.

“Not with how your cunt is choking me, princess,” he groans, fingers sinking deeper into your hip now. “She’s so sweet for me, practically sucking me in. I can’t wait to cum inside you.”

That has your panic flaring again, only for a second because then your stomach twists with the desire for exactly that — to be filled to the brim with him. 

“I’ve never—” you gasp, “I’ve never let anyone cum inside me.”

Bucky chuckles softly, leaning forward to kiss you again. It’s hypnotic how easily he has you putty in his hands. “Won’t you let me be the first?”

Your heart beats a little faster. You’ve never been good at saying no to him. Especially not when you want him as much as he does you.

“Yes,” you whimper, “please, cum inside me.”

Another deep groan resonates from his belly. “You’re going to be the death of me, princess. Spoilin’ me rotten like this, you’re gonna get me used to cummin’ inside this gorgeous cunt. I’m gonna have to be inside you everyday, never be able to sate myself unless my cock’s buried in this pussy.”

“Fuck, Bucky, I can’t—” oxygen is punched out of your lungs with every thrust, “I can’t hold it— I’m going to cum.”

“Cum for me, princess. Cum around my cock, need to feel you pulse around me,” Bucky groans.

Like the obedient girl that you are, you do. The orgasm wracks through your entire being, zapping through every nerve in your body. Your back lifts off the stone as you gasp, straight into Bucky’s touch. He buries his face into your neck as his body shudders, spilling liquid heat into you. 

The stickiness clings to your skin but the waterfall is cooling on your skin as you come down from your high. Bucky slumps on top of you, wet t-shirt between the two of you. You giggle breathlessly against his skin and feel him shake with laughter against you too, all the while his cock is still buried deep inside you. Twitching. 

“You’re a bad influence,” you mutter, smiling. 

“You’re one to talk, practically jumped me first chance you got,” Bucky chuckles and you hit him with a solid smack to his arm. “Let’s get out of here before you catch a cold.”

He pulls out of you slowly and you can feel his cum trickling down your leg. It stirs warmth inside of you again and, before you could think about quashing how good it feels, you watch as he moves towards the rocks to push himself up and out.

It certainly doesn’t help your still overeager libido to see how his back muscles move, traps flexing, as he lifts himself out before he turns to extend a hand to you. You take it and he looks away as you climb out of the water. He hands you his dry button-up, once again without looking back at you.

“Figured this would be warmer,” he clarifies.

“Thanks,” you mumble and slip your goosebump-riddled arms through the sleeves. The fabric is quick to absorb the water and your fingers make quick work to scrunch up and squeeze out water from your hair. Your hard work, down the drain.

Well, down to the bottom of the pool at least.

“Are you okay? Was I too—”

“Stop,” you wave a hand to halt him, “I’m fine. I’m not made of glass.” 

He murmurs an okay but still looks at you with that look in his face. For a moment, you think it’s some form of sympathy, but you quickly realize that it’s awe. He’s looking at you with the kind of adoration that has your heart doing somersaults in your chest. 

As fast as that feeling came, the one that follows is from your years of experience: fear. Trust is a fickle mistress in this industry. The last time you slept with someone, you ended up on the front pages of every entertainment site on the planet. Who’s to say this isn’t the same? It’s a quick money grab. Who doesn’t want another scandal with one of the most famous celebrities on the planet? Though, the payout is probably less now that you’ve already had one of these—

“Hey, what’re you thinking about?” Bucky’s hand is warm as it takes yours. His hair is still dripping, droplets landing on the blanket and your thigh as he leans closer. You open your mouth to deny his question, but he’s already shaking his head. “I can tell something’s goin’ on, princess. Tell me so I can fix it.”

You can’t help the laugh that escapes. It’s a sweet thought. “It’s a personal thing, don’t worry,” you insist, but he’s not letting you go. His hand squeezing. Your teeth catch your bottom lip before you relent. “Trust. It’s not an easy thing when you’re in the spotlight. I’m tired of constantly second guessing people’s intentions, why they do what they do with me. I’m scared of being the subject of another public issue — mostly because it creates a massive headache for my team, including my dad. I just— I hate that I’m putting those around me in an uncomfortable position of having to defend my actions, even if I’m fully aware some of them are completely defensible, but the general public always has to have a witch on the stands right? It’s just the way the world works. Regardless of whether you’re a real villain or not, you’re put at the stake and subjected to the constant judgment.”

Bucky stiffens, lips tightening. He holds your hands closer to him. “You are not responsible for these shitty people and their behavior. None of this is your fault. You’re living your life, you’re defending yourself. You should never apologize for any of that,” he adds sternly. His hand trembles and his jaw stiffens. The fury rolls off him in waves and your heart liquifies at the sight. “Need you to know that you got a lot of people here — and out there — who love you and will protect you. We don’t give a shit what they say because we know you, yeah?” 

“Yeah,” you whisper.

“So as long as you have us around, we won’t let anything happen to you. It’s not because we have to, but because we want to.” Your throat closes and the salt in your tears prick your eyes. Bucky throws an arm around you, pulling you close to kiss the top of your head. “We got you, princess.”

You would think that your unmeasurable need and curiosity would be satisfied from that one time with Bucky Barnes. You’ve never been more wrong. If anything, your desire for him has only grown — you can’t help how distracted you are by his hands, remembering how they feel on your hips, or his eyes that are icy when he’s irritated but thaw when they turn to you, or his cock—

“Are you okay?” Bucky asks, drawing you out of your own thoughts. 

It is then you realize that you’ve been staring at his lap for far too long to be subtle. His question isn’t innocent. It’s a prompt. An invitation. Safe to say, when you find yourself with your back pressed against the barn walls and Bucky bullying his cock into you as he muffles his moans into your neck, fingers sinking into your ass firm enough to bruise, you accepted that invitation. 

Then you stare at his fingers a little too long when the two of you are at the bar for a night out with a few of his friends (who knew that this man even had friends?) and he takes you out the back door and presses his fingers inside you until you’re gasping for air, legs clenching together as he curls them in and whispers how you’re so fuckin’ wet out here in the open where anyone can walk out and see America’s favorite princess getting finger-fucked in an alleyway. 

And then again in your childhood bedroom with your creaky bed when your grandma and dad were out. And one more time by the waterfall, this time with your tits pressed against the rocks. And finally in his truck when the two of you don’t quite make it to the drive-in theater he promised. 

For once, you’re not thinking too far into the future. Bucky keeps you grounded in the moment. Between the times he spends kissing you, you manage to also get some writing done. Affection bleeding into your melody and lyrics as you pluck the strings to your guitar. Once, Bucky hears you playing a new one in the morning and tells you that that one’s going to be his new favorite song. He tells you that it sounds honest, more… you.

He doesn’t know that it’s inspired by him. 

In your last few days, you refuse to worry too much about what this all means once you leave. For all you know, this is an easy, temporary thing for Bucky. You’re a blip, a shooting star that’ll fizzle out the moment you leave. 

The thought hurts more than you expect. 

However, you at least wake up feeling rejuvenated. Maybe the world hasn’t completely destroyed every piece of you, maybe you can still find her somewhere inside of you. Your phone blares with a shrill noise and you are roused in irritation for the first time in a while.

“What?”

“Lovely way to greet your friend slash fierce protector,” Yelena snaps. You grumble about how early it is and how on earth are you awake right now. She hesitates briefly, which has you peeking an eye open from where your face is mushed against your pillow. “Have you checked your notifications?”

That’s never a good sign. 

You push yourself up and lean against your headboard, thumb immediately scrolling through the barrage of messages and news alerts on your screen. Your blood runs cold. The last time this happened—

“I’m sure it’s different,” Yelena chimes in first but your eyes are scanning through every word.

Your name. Bucky’s. Evidence. Sources close to the pair. Another sex scandal. Pictures and pictures and more pictures. Every single news outlet has published grainy pictures of the two of you, photos that look like they’ve been taken from behind bushes and trees. An absolute obliteration of your privacy.

Shame settles firmly in your gut. This is exactly why your dad brought you here — and yet here you are again. Fuck.

“I need to—” your breath catches in your throat. What do you need to do? What can you even do? The damage is done. It’s more red on your ledger and you’re running out of ways to wipe your slate clean. 

“Listen,” she interrupts softly, “I don’t want to add more to your plate but I talked to one of the reporters. They were apologetic but they had to report it. It seems like it came from someone who knows what you’ve been up to very well.”

“It’s a small town. Everyone knows what I’ve been doing,” you hiss, “better yet, who I’ve been doing. I just didn’t think anyone would sell me out after the shit I did.”

“You don’t think there’s a chance it could be— no, it couldn’t possibly.” She’s quiet, waiting for you to deny it, but the thickness in your throat doesn’t allow you to. “Right?”

“I don’t know,” you whisper. “I’ve known him two weeks, Yelena. Maybe more if you count the memories I can barely remember but—”

What if this was his plan all along? All those years of tormenting him. All the shitty things you’ve said to him. You acting up— 

Been wantin’ to put you in your place, princess.

You shake your head. There’s absolutely no way. He said it in the moment, a comment meant to stir heat between your legs. 

But the voice inside your head, the one that insists that you doubt, is louder. It questions everything. Every interaction you’ve had with Bucky. Every touch, every kiss. It burns uncertainty into your skin until you see the creeping skepticism on the back of your hands. Because, at the end of the day, you don’t really know Bucky Barnes. Regardless of how much time you’ve spent with him the last couple of weeks, you’ve learned the hard way that anyone could put on an act, even — no, especially — ones as charming as him.

“You should talk to him first. I doubt he’s the one who spilled.”

You also doubt that you can say for certain that he isn’t. Swallowing thickly, you try to ignore how your heart feels like it’s been ripped out of your chest, beating bloody in the palm of his hand. His smile, one you always picture to be soft and sincere, twists into something ugly, something sinister. 

You spend the morning scrolling through the articles. Countless pictures of the two of you, all of them similar so you at least know they were captured by one invasive individual. However, the articles are where the meat sits — criticisms of your promiscuity, accusations of being a terrible role model, and even comments on Bucky’s worth as your partner. 

It doesn’t sit right with you. Why would Bucky bad mouth himself to the press if he wants to get his fame? To throw the scent of him. Even so, it paints him in a negative light. Any press is good press. Why would he even need the press? Maybe, just like you, he’s trying to make it out of here.

Both the angel and devil on your shoulder are working overtime, stitching doubt and questions into what you thought was a healthy relationship with Bucky. Now the dark clouds are sewn into every memory you’ve had with him.

Coming down for breakfast, you’re sufficiently pissed off. All that hurt has simmered into a rage that you’re ready to channel towards the one person you think deserves it. Luckily for you, he’s standing in the kitchen. Cooking breakfast.

He smiles wide when he sees you, “Hey, I’m making some french— what’s wrong?” The joy wipes off his face to make room for confusion. 

“You’re fucking kidding me right,” you snap, arms crossed over your chest. You don’t bother cleaning yourself up, hair in a tangled mess and pajamas rumpled from your deep sleep. You don’t bother paying attention to the way Bucky’s eyes had softened when he saw you in this state.

“Gonna have to give me more than that, princess. I’m not followin’.”

You turn your phone to face him with the article with the headline: America’s Favorite Pop Princess Caught Rolling in the Hay with Local Farmhand. It’s a disgusting piece but all the details are there — censored pictures, firsthand accounts from the source, and the scandalization of it all. 

“Maybe I should’ve made you sign an NDA like everyone else. I’m an idiot.”

It takes him a second before he’s whipping his gaze up to you, disbelief scratched into his irises. “What? You think I did this? That I would tell the press about us? That I would do this to you?” 

“I don’t know what to think! It doesn’t matter what I think or what I do. This is the shit that I have to deal with and—” and I would never want to put you through this. You swallow that bitter realization. No matter what you do, even if it wasn’t him, it would be someone else. God knows what else the press will do to him. “And it doesn’t matter,” you say, defeated. “It doesn’t matter. I can’t do this.”

Bucky says your name and the sound knicks your heart. 

“I should’ve known better,” you mutter, “this shit just isn’t worth dealing with. I should be focused on my next album, focused on writing those songs and getting them to chart. What’s the point of putting myself out there when all I do is end up in the news?”

“Because it’s worth it,” he insists, hands catching your arms. “Please. You gotta believe me, princess. I didn’t do this. I would never do this to you.”

You offer him a wry smile. “That’s what the last guy said too.” Tugging yourself away from him, you rub the places where his touch has burned. “I can’t do this, Buck. I’m leaving in a couple of days anyway and I can’t risk anymore of my career. Every time this shit happens, I cause trouble for the rest of my team, my family.”

“That’s not on you—”

“I know that!” You snap, pinching the bridge of your nose. “I’m well aware that these are circumstances outside my control. I’m aware that I cannot control people whose entire livelihood depends on me losing mine. It doesn’t change the facts. Even if we keep whatever this thing is going, you and I are going to be dragged through the mud and neither of us will recover.”

Bucky’s jaw clenches, tongue digging into his cheek. “So, what? You’re just going to give up every shot you have at happiness? Life beyond whatever the fuck they’re putting you through? You’re going to let them win?”

“No, I’m playing their game. I don’t have to like it but what choice do I have?”

“Stand up for yourself. Don’t let this shit derail you from what you can do. You have the world at your fingertips, millions who love you — including the very people in this house.” 

It’s easier said than done. It’s too tempting to fall into this myth of falling in love, of being allowed to fall in love. Your life isn’t one that permits it. You’ve seen the making and breaking of one too many relationships to believe that it’s possible for someone in your life. The rare few that succeed are lucky — lucky to have found someone in the right time, the right place. 

“Appreciate the vote of confidence, but this won’t work, Bucky.” 

He looks like he’s about to interrupt again and, for a second, you wish that he does. However, he keeps his lips sealed — and that’s the end of it. 

On your last evening, the dinner table is quiet. It’s just you, your dad, and your grandma. A small family affair. When your grandma asks if you’ve invited Bucky, you tell that that you’d rather keep it to a small, intimate dinner. She gives you a suspicious look but doesn’t press further. 

As you’re doing the dishes after, your grandma makes sure that your dad is out of earshot when she finally questions you. That is when you tell her everything — the scandal, the media, the pictures. She doesn’t shame you for engaging in extramarital affairs, god knows that’s the least of your problems. 

“He wouldn’t do that,” she whispers as you tuck herself into her side. 

“I know,” you murmur, “I know you believe in him. I want to believe in him. It’s just hard to draw lines between those you can trust and those you can’t, and I’d rather… not trust anyone at all if those are the two choices I have.”

She flicks your forehead gently. “That’s not the way to live, honey. As hard as it may be, taking those risks are a part of life and — yes, you’ve gotten hurt, but you always bounce back. Always. The people that love you know who you are, they know who’s in the wrong, and it is not you.”

“Thanks, grandma,” you smile, “but it wouldn’t have worked anyway. We live different lives now. He probably wants nothing to do with a girl like me. This life isn’t for everyone — your every move scrutinized and published for everyone to see. It’s a lot to ask of someone.”

Her laugh tinkles through the air. “You’d be surprised.”

Then you’re heading home. The plane rumbles as you climb the stairs up. You take one last look at the land before you, at your grandma who stands at the base of the plane waving. You take a deep breath and then you take your seat. 

Los Angeles is the same as you left it. The only difference now is that the paparazzi has been made aware of your arrival at this airport, your flight manifest leaked somehow. You arrive to blinding flashes and questions about your latest tryst, one too many of them asking where this guy is. You grit your teeth and let your dad push through the crowd into the car. 

Life is the same. Busier than ever. Now that you’re working on your album full time, it’s hard to find time for anything else — which is ideal because, if you were left alone with your thoughts, you tend to wander to that small town and a certain not-so-small man. The last guy who you had been with already milked his fame and you worry that the media is now hounding Bucky for more details. Guilt carves itself into your bones. These are the days you’re tempted to reach for your phone, to call him and ask him how he’s doing, but you stomp down on that urge. 

It’s better this way.

The paparazzi hasn’t let up. They’re at your door, they’re outside the studio, they’re camping out the restaurant that you’re at with Yelena. She gives them the stinkeye and a proper middle finger as the two of you enter. 

“So, that’s it then?” She asks when you give her the full rundown of what’s transpired. “You have hot sex with a cowboy and then you go home? You’re really living the Hollywood life.” You give her a look as you take a sip of your third glass of wine. It’s that kind of night. “Your dad seems to like him, which is surprising because he doesn’t like anyone.”

That has you stopping. “What? How do you know that?”

“He told me,” she shrugs, “we were catching up on your schedule for the next couple of months and he mentioned that, despite him wishing you would stay single for the rest of your life, if he had to choose one man for you, that one isn’t a bad choice. I saw the pictures, I’m sure he’s more than enough.” Her wiggling eyebrows has you flinging a fry her way.

“I didn’t know he said that,” you mumble. “Bucky is a good guy. He just… deserves better. He doesn’t want this life.” You gesture to the flashing lights and the men still lingering around the entrance, waiting for your exit. “And I am tired of figuring out who to trust. I don’t want to play this game of roulette and being made a fool. Again.”

“Better a fool that got played once than be wise enough to never fall in love.” 

You bark out a laugh. “Just made that up?” She states that it’s a Yelena original. “It’s a nice thought in theory. I don’t know. He hasn’t reached out again since our last conversation. Maybe he’s realized that I’m also not worth all this. It’s a fair assessment, I wouldn’t wish this life on anyone.”

“One day, you’ll realize that you’re worth it all, sweetheart. If anyone knew what it meant to have you love them, they would do anything for you.”

The one thing you did take away from your time in Tennessee is that you do need to stop taking everything they do on the chin. You stand up for yourself when the paparazzi become too demanding and entitled, snapping at them to be more polite at red carpets and telling them off whenever they’re absolutely crossing the line on invading your privacy. While you received backlash for the incident, you also received an outpouring of love. Fans who defend your stance, industry peers who echo your sentiment. It’s one weight off your chest. 

But you go home at the end of the evening to your penthouse and the place is much too quiet. Sometimes you can hear Bucky whispering reassurances in your ear and that hallucination is the only thing that keeps you tethered to this life. 

When you hear him say your name, a little too clearly this time, you think you may be losing it. 

When you see him standing in the middle of your living room, you think your imagination has gone too far. 

The second emotion that lands is panic. You’re immediately reaching for your phone. Your grandma can say that he’s a good guy all she wants but when you find this man standing in the middle of your apartment looking every bit as delicious as ever, you should be calling security. 

It’s even worse when he takes the phone from your hand before you can ring up your ex-military doorman downstairs. He catches the flash of fear in your eyes and immediately backs up, even seeming a little hurt by that minute reaction. 

“Not here to hurt you, princess. Promise. Your dad let me in.”

“My dad? Since when do you talk to my dad?”

“I figured you wouldn’t take my calls so I reached out to him,” Bucky clears his throat. “Hope that’s okay.”

“Sure, that’s what most people do anyway. It doesn’t matter what I want, they always figure out a workaround,” you snip a little too bitterly. A flicker of regret crosses his eyes and that claws at your chest. You take a deep breath. “Sorry, that wasn’t fair. It’s fine. He’s met you,” you relent, “what’re you doing here?”

“To set the record straight.” He tells you about how he spent the last few days asking around, investigating on who would be sharing such intimate details about your life with the press. “Everyone there loves you, especially after what you did with the fundraiser. I knew it had to be someone who had an issue with you. That led me to John.”

John… isn’t he the—

“Yeah, that guy,” Bucky drawls out in annoyance. “Apparently he felt jilted that you flirted with him when he caught us one night. He reached out to a tabloid and realized he could get paid, so he started telling every single one of them.”

“Fucker,” you spit out venomously. 

“Tell me about it.”

“You could’ve told me all this over the phone.”

He cocks an eyebrow, “Would you really have picked up?”

“An email would’ve sufficed too.”

“I wanted to make sure you couldn’t avoid me.”

Blue washes over you and you can’t help but give into the pull of the water. “I’m sorry for thinking it was you,” you murmur, “I knew — I knew that deep down it wasn’t.”

“You couldn’t have known for certain,” he shakes his head, “you’ve been burned before and you had the right to doubt me. I get that.” His teeth catches his bottom lip, his attempt to hide his sheepish smile. “Plus, if I’m being honest, I’m out here because I missed you.”

Your jaw practically drops to the floor. You manage to rasp, “What?”

He chances a step towards you, cautious. When you don’t move, he takes another. He reaches for your hand, thumb brushing over the back of it. “Didn’t realize how much I missed you until I saw you walk through those doors. How much I wanted you.”

“Wanted?” You squeak, pain bleeding into your voice.

“Want,” he emphasizes, “Present. Always.”

“You think I’m a bitch,” you choke out.

“No, I think you’ve put up walls around your heart and this picture-perfect image of yours because you know what you have to do to protect your dream,” he smiles softly, “I think you’re smart, funny, incredible. You know exactly how to push my buttons and I don’t want to imagine you doing that with anyone else.” 

Your heart soars, climbing to cloud nine and — for a moment, it levitates. For a moment, you have hope. But the realization of where you are, who you are quickly sinks in. “Bucky… this could never work.”

“Why not?”

“First of all, we live in different places.”

“Planes exist.”

“For how long? I’m never— I’m never gonna leave this place and you have your house there and the animals and the town.”

The corners of his lips quirk up. “There are farms everywhere. But you do also realize I can do a lot of things. I’m a certified mechanic and a city like this could always use another one.” His name leaves your lips, but he cuts you off. “I’m laying it all out on the table. I’m ready to make this work because I want you. I want you. The question is do you?”

A whimper crawls out your throat. “It’s going to be a pain to deal with me. Everyone follows me everywhere.”

“I’m one of them. Next question.”

“Paparazzi will be hounding you.”

“I know ten different ways to say fuck off.” You’re scrambling to find more excuses, but all of them die on the tip of your tongue. You don’t want him to leave. You don’t want to scare him away. This is it. “What do you say, princess? Want to take a chance with me?”

He holds out his palm out, fingers stretched out. You look at his hand, one that you’re used to having wrapped around yours. You look at him, those honest blue eyes that never seem to stray far away from you. “Yes,” you whisper. 

“Good girl,” he grins as he brushes his lips against yours. “Now, let me take my time showing you what you’ve been missing out on.”

“Better make it worth my time, Barnes,” you laugh breathlessly. 

“Always will, princess.”

+ sam: thank you for reading if you've made it this far!!! longest bucky fic to date but holy heck, glad i finally finished a wip ha. shoutout to @singulartoast for being my farm x city lover too with her fic!!!

bucky is kissing (taglist): @superbassbuck @earthsmightiestbenders @houseofhyde @its-in-the-woods @flockoff-featherface @winterdecember18 @chateaubarnes @54nboo @phoenix-in-writing @tofuonfaiya @avengersfan25 @miraclediviner @averyhotchner @hailmary-yramliah @catclaw1 @heldbybarnes @blowingbarnes @stanmarvelous @pinksplace @lunexiax @54nboo @it-is-rebel-owl-ma-dudes @esunarint @captain-shannon-becker @lunaryoongie @sergeantsebastian @alli0-0 @amoremarveloustime @natskisses @sarah1barnes @parker-barnes-af @sarah1barnes @onecojg @/iamthatonefangirl @stegosaurussims @angelryex @evelynstanmarvel @lokisgirlie @mathcat345 @flippedccc @lynnidc @winnichu173 @/singulartoast @zhaixiaowen @c3liaaaaa @buckysdecaflove @epiphanyrogers @itsmadamehydra @cutttteeee @macbaetwo @blobfishlol @biaswreckedbybuckybarnes @erina00 @idkbeautiful @goobers-mcgee @globetrotter28 @rach2602 @star-yawnznn @my-drvidess @deeninadream @fruitypebsworld @ella-rowen @smorgasbrods @ruptureedspleen @awkwardgiraffe726 @a-very-fictional-girl @misswhiddless @femmewithmommyissues2001 @onyx8514 @pandasslol @eiaf4uwn @wickedfun9 @nbhrhn @w1nchesterfiles @ae1szn @umm-ok-fine @its-pomegranite @67-angelofthelordme-67 @dontputyourfckingdrinkonmytable @wowitsafemale @shoutingcardinal @theyluvreynira27 @sunnliqht @victoriuhmm @obsidianwidow @micnicmabel

Saturday means the same coffee stand on the corner where the barista with the chipped purple nail polish starts making his drink the second she sees him coming. It means the farmer’s market under the green-striped awnings in the square, where he buys a loaf of crusty sourdough from the old Polish couple in stall fourteen and fresh eggs from the woman who always insists the yolks are brighter in spring. It means peaches if they’re in season, because one summer in Wakanda he had bitten into one so ripe it had run down his wrist and made him laugh out loud in the middle of a field, and ever since then peaches have felt like proof of life. It means flowers some3times, too, if the apartment feels especially bare. Something cheap and cheerful in a mason jar on the kitchen counter. Something that says a man can make a home even if he was taught for years he did not deserve one.

It is a good routine. A hard-won one. Bucky likes the honesty of it, the way these small rituals ask nothing of him except that he show up.

This morning, June sun already warming the pavement, his paper cup of coffee hot in his hand, he feels almost light. The market is crowded enough to buzz but not so packed he gets hemmed in. A violinist near the fountain is playing something bright and quick. Someone’s kid is trying to pet every dog within reach. The air smells like basil and strawberries and the faint yeasty sweetness of fresh bread.

Bucky buys his loaf first. Then tomatoes. Then a bunch of green onions. He pauses at the peach stand, testing one for give with his thumb, and decides they need another week.

By the time he reaches the citrus table, the vendor is rearranging pyramids of lemons in rough wooden crates, their skins bright and dimpled in the morning light. Bucky reaches automatically, already picturing chicken piccata for dinner, and another hand reaches at the same exact moment.

Your fingers brush his.

The world splits open.

One second he is standing in the farmer’s market with coffee on his breath and sunlight on the back of his neck, and the next—

Neon. Laughter. Chapel bells tinny through cheap speakers. Your mouth, painted the color of a ripe cherry, open on a breathless laugh. White satin clinging to your hips. A fake Elvis in a rhinestone jumpsuit grinning around too-big teeth beneath a plastic crucifix bolted crooked over the altar.

Bucky gasps.

The bag of lemons slips from both your hands and tumbles to the pavement, yellow fruit rolling in wild directions as if they’ve been startled too.

The vision doesn’t stop there. Visions of different lifetimes flash through his eyes like he’s watching the life of ten different couples all at once. 

A steering wheel under his palms, worn smooth with use. Summer wind through open windows. You in cutoff shorts, feet on the dashboard, singing badly and loudly while the road curls ahead of you like a dare.

White sheets. Lace curtains breathing in a warm midnight breeze. Gold band on your finger catching moonlight where your hand presses against his chest. Your mouth moving against his throat with a broken little sound that is half laughter, half prayer.

A rough cabin wall. Splintered pine under his palm. You in a wool shift with your hair braided down your back, cheeks wind-burned, smiling over your shoulder as foxes cry somewhere out in the dark and a baby sleeps in a cradle by the fire.

Smoke and jazz and blackout curtains. East London. Silk black as sin against your skin. Your hand catching his by the wrist before he can disappear back into the war.

A beach. Bright afternoon. Children shrieking at the tide. Orange drinks sweating in glass pitchers while he kneels in the sand with his sleeves rolled up, helping a little girl press shell fragments into the turret of a sandcastle, and you walk toward him laughing, sunlight at your back so fierce it turns you to gold.

Then all of it is gone.

The market snaps back into focus so suddenly it hurts. Sound crashes in—vendors shouting prices, stroller wheels rattling, the violinist sawing away by the fountain. Bucky stumbles backward a step. Across from him, you catch yourself on the edge of the citrus crate, looking exactly as wrecked as he feels.

Your eyes lock on his.

“Oh my God,” you whisper.

Bucky’s heart is pounding hard enough to bruise. “You saw that too.”

It isn’t a question.

In this world, everybody knows about soulmarks and first-flashes. Knows that when you meet the person your soul is tied to, memory can strike like lightning. Some people get a single image. A porch swing. A train platform. A hand in a hospital room. Some get a rush of several lives at once, enough to leave them reeling for days. Most people dream of it when they’re young. Spend adolescence looking at every stranger a little too long. Wondering when it will happen, if it will happen, whether the person on the other end of them is alive or halfway across the planet or just around the corner.

Bucky stopped wondering a long time ago.

HYDRA did not leave much room for destiny.

You swallow. “That was not normal.”

“No,” he says, voice rough. “No, that was… not.”

The lemon vendor is gathering the fallen fruit with admirable indifference, the kind that says he has seen stranger things at this market and will see stranger still. “You two need a minute?” he asks.

You make a sound that could be a laugh or a near-sob. “Maybe five.”

Bucky buys the entire bag of lemons because it feels like the least insane thing he can do, then follows you blindly toward the edge of the square where there’s a row of benches under a sycamore tree. The shade dapples your face when you sit, and for one unmoored second he knows the pattern of it. Not from now. From somewhere else.

He stays standing until you glance up at him and pat the spot beside you with a shaky hand.

“You’re real?” you ask once he sits.

He almost laughs. “I was about to ask you that.”

You rub your palms over your knees as if trying to ground yourself. You’re wearing denim shorts and a white tank top and sunglasses pushed up into your hair, and you look like someone who belongs to summer. Not delicate exactly, but bright. Alive in a way that makes Bucky’s ribs ache. “I know this is a weird question,” you say, “but are you going to tell me your name, or am I just supposed to keep calling you fake-Elvis-groom in my head?”

“Bucky,” he says automatically. Then, because he has spent years relearning how to offer the softer pieces of himself without flinching, he adds, “James. But people call me Bucky.”

Your mouth curves, the first real smile since the vision hit. “I’m glad to know at least one of us looked better in Vegas.”

He huffs out a breath that is almost a laugh. “I looked good.”

“You looked reckless.”

“That too.”

You tell him your name, and the moment it lands between you something in his chest settles with a frightening kind of certainty. Not because fate says so. Not because the universe stamped your names together in some cosmic ledger. Because the sound of it moves through him like recognition. Like stepping into a room he did not realize he had been trying to get back to his whole life.

For a while neither of you says anything. The market hums on around you. Somewhere nearby, a dog sneezes. Someone drops a crate. Bucky stares at the paper sleeve around his cooling coffee and tries to swallow around the strange thickness in his throat.

“I’ve heard of people getting strong first-flashes,” you say at last, quieter now. “But not like that. That was… a lot.”

“A lot,” he agrees.

You tilt your head toward him. “How many do you remember already?”

He thinks of the chapel. The truck. The bed with the lace curtains. The cabin. The club in London. The beach. “Six,” he says. “You?”

“Same.”

A breeze stirs the leaves overhead. It smells like sun-warmed bark and citrus oil.

“I don’t know what to do now,” you admit.

That, strangely, is what steadies him.

Because Bucky knows that feeling. Knows what it is to be handed something overwhelming and not know where to put it. Knows that survival sometimes looks like doing the next smallest thing instead of solving the whole impossible shape at once.

He glances toward the coffee stand, then back at you. “You want to start with coffee?”

You look at him for one long beat, then laugh softly, incredulously, like maybe you can’t believe that is the question that just saved you from bolting. “Yeah,” you say. “I think I do.”

So that is how it begins.

Not with thunder. Not with immediate declarations. Not with some cinematic collision that resolves every loneliness in a heartbeat.

With coffee. With your hand wrapped around a paper cup. With the two of you sitting at the edge of the market, dizzy on each other’s borrowed memories, learning the outlines of the present slowly enough to survive it.

He learns that you come to the farmer’s market most Saturdays too, though usually later. That you always buy flowers you don’t strictly need. That you live twenty minutes away in an apartment with bad plumbing and excellent light. That you work in graphic design and keep odd hours and have a weakness for peaches even when they’re underripe. You learn that he is in therapy. That he likes routine because sometimes routine is the difference between drifting and staying. That his apartment in Brooklyn is small but his windows face west and the light there in the evening is good. That he cooks. That he bakes bread when the weather turns cold because kneading something until it rises feels like a miracle he can participate in.

He does not tell you everything that morning. Not about HYDRA, not about the winter that lasted decades, not about the names he no longer answers to. But you do not push. Maybe because you can feel, in the strange echoing chambers of whatever ties the two of you together, that he has already been dragged open too many times to count.

When you part, it is almost noon.

You both hover awkwardly by the fountain, neither one wanting to be the first to say goodbye.

“So,” you say, shifting the bouquet of daisies and feverfew you bought somewhere along the way into one hand. “Do soulmate rules say we’re supposed to immediately move in together now, or is there like a grace period?”

Bucky smiles before he can stop himself. “I think there’s paperwork.”

“Tragic.”

He glances at the lemons peeking out of your canvas bag. “You still owe me half of these.”

You grin then, bright and quick and devastating. “That sounds fake.”

“Maybe,” he says. “But it’s a reason to see you again.”

Something softens in your expression. “Okay,” you say. “Then I’ll take the fake reason.”

He gives you his number. You type your own into his phone and hand it back, your fingers brushing his again. No flash this time. Just warmth. Just the sharp, impossible awareness of skin.

“All right, Bucky Barnes,” you say. “Text me when you want to split custody of the lemons.”

He watches you walk away.

At the corner, you turn and look back.

The city seems to hold its breath.

Then you smile at him one more time and disappear into the crowd.

Jesus Christ on a plastic sign

The Vegas lifetime comes back first.

Not all at once. In drips. In flashes that catch Bucky at strange moments over the next few days, as if the memory has been jarred loose and is still deciding how much of itself to reveal.

He is washing dishes on Tuesday night when he looks down at a ring of soap suds circling the drain and suddenly he is twenty-six—or thirty, or some other age in some other body—and the air smells like desert heat trapped in asphalt. He can hear slot machines from the lobby below the motel balcony and your laugh from inside the room, where the air conditioner is fighting a losing battle and you are standing in front of the cracked mirror pinning your hair up with bobby pins you bought from the gift shop downstairs.

“Tell me again,” you say, smiling at him through the mirror, “why exactly we’re doing this.”

Because you had met forty-eight hours earlier in line for dollar margaritas and spent the night talking until sunrise on the motel roof. Because you had missed your flight on purpose. Because he had looked at you over watery eggs in a diner the next morning and known, with the same bone-deep certainty he feels now on a Brooklyn Tuesday in a kitchen lit by one warm overhead bulb, that life was sometimes simplest when it was ridiculous.

Because you had asked if he wanted to get married as a joke and then kept grinning at him after he said yes.

“Tax benefits,” he answers solemnly, sitting on the end of the bed in his borrowed suit jacket.

You laugh. “Romantic.”

“Practical.”

“Liar.”

You cross the room barefoot, white dress swishing around your thighs. It is not really a wedding dress. It is a satin slip from a resale shop with a tiny champagne stain at the hem and thin straps that make him forget his own name every time he looks at you. You stop between his knees and hook your fingers in the lapels of his jacket.

“Tell me not to do it,” you whisper. There is laughter in your voice but something trembling under it too, a softness that asks to be taken seriously. “Tell me we’re being insane and I’ll call it off.”

He looks up at you and feels his whole impossible life narrow into one clean, brilliant line. “I think,” he says, resting his hands on your hips, “that if we don’t do this, I’m gonna spend the rest of my life wondering why I let the best idea I ever had walk out of a motel in Vegas.”

Your expression cracks open into something so nakedly happy it almost undoes him.

The chapel is tiny and tacky and perfect. The plastic crucifix is screwed above a velvet curtain backdrop. The fake Elvis officiant keeps winking like he personally invented love. You say your vows through laughter because your bouquet is made of silk roses that smell faintly like dust and the minister’s sideburn is half detached. Bucky can barely get the ring onto your finger because his hands won’t stop shaking.

Afterward, you run into the sun with your shoes in one hand, your new husband’s name in your mouth as if you were born to say it.

On the sidewalk outside the chapel, there’s a sign for a twenty-four-hour wedding package with JESUS CHRIST LOVES YOU printed above a blinking arrow in red bulbs, and the whole thing is so absurd that you double over laughing. Bucky catches you around the waist before you can fall.

“Mrs. Barnes,” he says into your hair, tasting the words.

You lift your face to his, eyes wet from laughing. “That sounds made up.”

“Probably is.”

You kiss him anyway.

In the present, water runs cold over Bucky’s hands in the sink. He blinks hard and finds himself staring at a plate gone slippery in his grip.

He dries his hands, sits on the edge of the counter, and texts you before he can think better of it.

Got another one. Vegas.

The reply comes so fast it is almost a breath.

me too

Then, after a beat:

did we really get married because the line for margaritas was too long and we needed something else to do?

Bucky smiles helplessly at his phone.

we were committed to the bit

You start texting every day after that.

At first it is practical. Did you remember this detail? Did the chapel carpet have stars on it or was that just me? Do you think the fake Elvis was secretly judging us? 

But the practical gives way to easy almost before either of you notices. He sends you a picture of a dog in a raincoat outside the bodega. You send him a photo of the flowers you bought even though your rational brain said you didn’t need them. He tells you when therapy goes badly. You tell him when work is making your eyes cross. By Friday, your name on his screen feels less like a surprise and more like the continuation of something that was already in motion long before lemons hit pavement.

The next Saturday, he finds you at the market before he reaches the citrus stand.

You are standing at the peach table, frowning at a fruit in your hand with the seriousness of someone evaluating a gemstone.

“You know those need another week,” he says.

You glance up and smile in a way that makes his whole body wake up. “I know. I’m being optimistic.”

“Reckless.”

“Wow. You meet one man in Vegas and suddenly he thinks he knows you.”

He laughs, and there is no fear in it this time.

You spend the morning together again. Coffee, bread, flowers. At the tomato stall your shoulder brushes his and warmth skates down his spine, but no memory comes. At the herb table he tucks a stray basil stem behind your ear and your breath catches, but still nothing.

It hits later, when the two of you are leaving the market and pass an old pickup truck parked crooked by the curb, windows down, classic rock spilling tinny from the speakers. You stop dead. So does he.

Your head turns toward him.

His chest caves in around a heartbeat that is no longer entirely his own.

Winding roads, doing manual drive

In that life, you are eighteen and everything feels enormous.

Summer stretches in front of you like a dare. The town is small enough to suffocate if you stay still too long, so you never do. Bucky has a beat-up blue truck with a sticky clutch and a radio that only works when you slap the dashboard in exactly the right place. He teaches you how to drive manual in the abandoned church parking lot at the edge of town, laughing every time the engine stalls because you keep popping the clutch too fast.

“You’re mean,” you tell him, gripping the steering wheel.

“I’m helpful.”

“You’re laughing at me.”

“Because you cuss like my grandpa.”

You cut him a glare so ineffective it makes him grin wider. He reaches across the bench seat to guide your hand to the gearshift, his palm warm over your knuckles.

“Slow,” he says. “Feel it catch. Don’t force it.”

Outside, cicadas scream in the heat. The sun is dropping behind the trees, turning the windshield gold.

You try again. This time the truck lurches, shudders, then rolls forward smooth as breath.

“Oh my God,” you say, startled into laughter. “I did it.”

Bucky looks at you the way boys in movies are always supposed to look but almost never do in real life—like the sight of you happy is enough to rearrange his whole future. “Yeah,” he says softly. “You did.”

Once you know how, you drive everywhere with no destination at all. Back roads. County lines. Winding stretches of blacktop between soybean fields and creeks and gas stations with flickering signs. You drive because gas is cheap and the cab of the truck is a world no one else can enter. You drive because Bucky’s knee pressed against yours feels better than anything either of you have a name for yet. You drive because being young and in love can make movement feel holy.

Sometimes you pull over on the shoulder just to watch the sky bruise purple over the fields. Sometimes you kiss at red lights until the truck behind you honks. Sometimes you park at the overlook above the quarry and share a bag of gas station peanuts while Bucky tells you all the places he wants to see one day, voice gone soft with wanting.

“Anywhere specific?” you ask.

He shrugs one shoulder. “As long as you’re there.”

You laugh because you think he is teasing. Then you look at him and realize he is not.

The air changes.

He reaches up, pushes a strand of hair behind your ear with trembling fingers. “I know we’re eighteen,” he says, trying for casual and failing spectacularly. “I know people say that means we don’t know anything. But I know this.”

Your breath catches.

Behind you, the truck ticks and cools in the dusk.

“I know,” he says again, “that I could drive with you forever and never get tired of the road.”

Then he kisses you, and the whole wide summer tilts.

The memory drops away while a bus sighs to the curb and someone nearby curses over a jammed stroller wheel.

You are breathing hard. So is Bucky.

“That one hurt,” you say quietly.

He knows what you mean. Not because it was bad. Because it was good in the simple devastating way only youth can be. Because watching some other version of yourself love with that much unguarded certainty feels like pressing a bruise you didn’t know you had.

“You drove stick,” he says.

“I was bad at it.”

“You were terrible.”

You laugh then, startled and watery, and he thinks he would do almost anything to keep hearing that sound.

There is a diner half a block away with cracked vinyl booths and a waitress who calls everyone honey. He nods toward it. “Come on.”

“Is this where we process our cosmic psychic episodes now?”

“Pancakes seem medically necessary.”

So you sit across from each other in a booth smelling faintly of syrup and coffee grounds while the waitress tops off your mugs and pretends not to notice that the two of you keep staring. The market bag rests by Bucky’s boots. Your flowers lie across the seat beside you like a witness.

“You ever think about what it means?” you ask after a while.

He traces a thumb over the seam of his coffee cup. “The past lives?”

“The soulmate thing. Any of it.” Your gaze is steady on his. “Like… are we supposed to just trust that because we loved each other before, we automatically will now?”

Bucky is quiet for so long, the waitress comes by to ask if he wants more bacon.

When she leaves, he exhales. “I don’t know,” he says honestly. “I think maybe it’d scare me if it worked like that.”

You nod once. “Me too.”

Because obligation is not love. Because destiny without choice starts to look too much like a cage.

Bucky leans forward, forearms on the table. “I don’t want this to be automatic,” he says, surprising himself with the urgency in his own voice. “I don’t want you because of… cosmic paperwork.” Your mouth twitches at that. He presses on. “I want to know you. Now. Here. I want whatever this is to be because we choose it.”

Something in your face softens so completely it leaves him winded.

“Okay,” you say.

“Okay?”

“Okay,” you repeat. “Then we do it the hard way.”

His mouth curves. “Dating?”

“Scandalous, I know.”

He looks at you across the table, sunlight striping the booth through the blinds, and feels a piece of his life click gently into place.

“Yeah,” he says. “Dating.”

The smile you give him then follows him home and waits with him through the week and sits with him at the edge of sleep. It is still there when he picks you up for your first actual date on Thursday, when you buzz him into your apartment building wearing jeans and a green top that makes your eyes look unfair, when he spends ten whole seconds forgetting why he came.

You cook together in his kitchen because restaurants feel like too much too soon. Lemon chicken. Roasted potatoes. Salad with too much parmesan because you insist there is no such thing.

It is simple. It is easy in the kind of way Bucky once would have distrusted on principle. You move around his kitchen as if you’ve already learned its shape. You lean against the counter and steal bites from the pan. You laugh when he pretends to guard the sauce from you and do not look startled when he laughs back.

After dinner, you help him wash dishes. After dishes, you stand by the open window drinking wine while the city breathes warm and loud below.

“I had a nice time,” you say, glancing at him over the rim of your glass.

His pulse kicks. “Good.”

“I’m serious. For a man who hoards lemons as a manipulation tactic, you clean up pretty well.”

He snorts. “I’ll put that on my dating profile.”

“You should. Honest branding.”

He smiles, and you smile back, and the air between you changes.

It is not sudden. Not violent. Just the slow, unmistakable tightening of a thread.

He sets his glass down first.

You do the same.

When he steps closer, you do not move away.

“Can I kiss you?” he asks, because in every life he has ever loved you there has been want in it, but in this one he wants the shape of your yes more than he wants air.

Your eyes go soft. “Please.”

He kisses you carefully at first, because he is not eighteen in a truck anymore and he is not some reckless fool in Vegas with rings in his pocket and a grin too wide for his face. He is a man who has taken years to learn how to touch gently. Who knows what damage carelessness can do.

But then your hand lifts to his cheek and your mouth opens beneath his and the careful part of him turns molten.

The flash hits so hard he breaks the kiss with a gasp.

You are hit by it too. He sees it in the way your pupils blow wide, the way your hand clutches the front of his shirt.

“Oh,” you breathe.

The apartment falls away.

Early nights in white sheets with lace curtains

The room is small and gold with lamplight.

In that life, you have been married for six hours.

Your shoes are by the door. Your veil lies in a pearly heap over the chair back. Somewhere downstairs the last of the wedding guests are still laughing over cake and champagne, but up here the inn is quiet except for the tick of rain against the lace-curtained window and your own uneven breathing.

You stand with your back to Bucky near the bed, fingers trembling where they rest at your throat. The silk of your nightdress skims the backs of your knees. Your wedding band glints like a promise.

He has never seen anything more beautiful.

You are not delicate. Nor candlelight that makes you look like something painted. You are real in all the ways that matter most—nervous and wanting and trying to be brave.

You glance at him over your shoulder, and the vulnerability in your face brings him to his knees faster than reverence ever could.

“We don’t have to,” he says softly.

Your brows draw together. “I want to.”

“I know.” He steps closer, slow enough to stop if you need it. “But I want you to know we don’t have to do anything tonight except be married.”

Something in you loosens. Relief. Love. A tenderness so intense it almost aches to look at.

“I want to be married,” you whisper.

He smiles, cupping your jaw. “You already are.”

“No,” you say, eyes luminous. “I mean like this. Here. With you.” Your breath shakes. “I want tonight.”

He kisses you then, gentle enough to ask, deep enough to answer.

The nightdress slips from your shoulders a little at a time. He learns your skin by lamplight and fingertips, by the soft sounds you make when he touches somewhere that matters, by the way you cling to him when pleasure finally starts to outrun nerves. The white sheets twist around your legs. The lace curtains stir in the open window. Rain cools the room, but your bodies are all heat.

You are not shy for long.

He kisses his way down the column of your throat, your collarbones, the slope of your breast. Your fingers knot in his hair when his mouth finds your nipple and he sucks gently, then harder at the sound that tears from you. By the time he lowers you onto the bed your hair is loose around your shoulders and your face is flushed and he is so hard it hurts.

“Bucky,” you whisper, reaching for him.

“Tell me what you need.”

You laugh softly, dazed with wanting. “You. Obviously.”

He smiles against your mouth, then works two fingers between your thighs and nearly loses his mind at how wet you are for him already. Your hips jerk. Your eyes flutter shut.

“That’s it,” he murmurs. “There you go.”

He takes his time because he can. Because there is no war waiting outside this room, no clock to race. Because after the vows and the music and the endless hands grabbing at you all day, he wants this moment to belong only to the two of you. He strokes you until your body learns the shape of pleasure under his hands. He brings you apart once with his fingers, your back arching off the bed, then again with his mouth until you are clutching the sheets and crying his name into the rain-soft dark.

When he finally settles between your thighs, braced on one forearm, your gaze on his is wrecked and certain all at once.

“You still sure?” he asks, voice gone rough as gravel.

You wrap a hand around the back of his neck and pull him down until your foreheads touch. “I have never been more sure of anything.”

He pushes into you slowly, giving you every inch with a care that feels like worship. The stretch of you around him steals the breath from his lungs. Your mouth opens on a gasp. He stills.

“Okay?” he whispers.

You nod, biting your lip. “Move.”

So he does.

Slow at first. Then deeper when your nails dig into his shoulders and you lift to meet him. The bed creaks softly. Rain taps the window. He kisses you whenever your face crumples with feeling, every thrust turning more desperate as your body opens for him. You cling to him, legs wrapped around his hips, whispering his name like a secret you intend to keep forever.

When you come, it is with your mouth against his throat and tears bright at the corners of your eyes.

He follows with his forehead pressed to yours, his whole body shaking with it.

Afterward, you lie tangled in white sheets gone warm and wrinkled around you, the lace curtains stirring like breath. He draws lazy circles over your stomach while you trace the line of his mouth with one sleepy fingertip.

“This counts as a successful wedding night,” you murmur.

He laughs softly. “Good. I was hoping.”

You turn into him, already half asleep. “Anywhere is home,” you whisper, the words blurred at the edges with exhaustion, “if you’re in the bed.”

He never forgets them.

When the memory releases you both, Bucky is still standing in his apartment with his chest heaving and your hands fisted in his shirt.

The kitchen light is too bright. The city outside the window too loud. He can taste you without ever having had you in this life.

Your face is flushed all the way down your neck.

“Well,” you say after a stunned second, voice frayed. “That was wildly inconvenient timing.”

He laughs once, brokenly, because if he does not laugh he might combust.

“You okay?” he asks.

Your gaze lifts to his, honest and heated. “Ask me in five minutes.”

He brushes his knuckles over your cheek, a touch so careful it is almost absurd after what you both just saw. “I mean it.”

“I know.” Your hand slides down to cover his where it rests against your face. “Yeah. I’m okay. A little overwhelmed. A lot turned on. But okay.”

Heat hits him hard and immediate. He closes his eyes for a second.

You laugh softly. “Right. Sorry. That was—”

“Don’t apologize.”

When he opens his eyes again, your expression has gentled. “Bucky.”

He knows what you are asking. Not just whether he wants you. That is almost insultingly obvious. You are asking whether he can separate memory from present. Whether he can stand in this kitchen and want what is in front of him without letting the weight of every before crush what could be now.

He answers by leaning down and resting his forehead against yours.

“I want this,” he says quietly. “But I want our first time in this life to be ours.”

Your breath leaves you in a rush. So does some tightness in his chest he hadn’t fully realized he was carrying.

“Okay,” you whisper.

He kisses you once more, soft and lingering. Then he walks you home because if you stay the night he is not sure either of you will survive your own restraint, and because there is something holy in wanting badly and still choosing patience.

At your door, you touch his wrist before he can step back.

“For the record,” you murmur, eyes warm, “that other us had very good taste.”

He grins helplessly. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. I get it now.”

Then you kiss him quick and disappear inside with a smile that haunts him for days.

The weeks that follow feel like being built from the inside out.

The flashbacks do not stop, but they become less like ambushes and more like weather—still sudden, still powerful, but no longer catastrophic. A scent, a sound, a patch of light can call one up. Sometimes you text each other in the middle of the workday with fragments: did you remember the red truck in the mountain life had one broken taillight? or I think Bucharest-you stole that robe from the hotel. Sometimes a memory arrives whole when you are together and leaves both of you laughing or aching or red-faced in its wake.

In between, you date.

Real dates. Present-tense ones.

You go to a bookstore in Cobble Hill and accidentally spend two hours arguing about whether people who dog-ear paperbacks can be trusted. You sit in the park eating takeout and watch a wedding party take photos under the arch. You make pasta in your kitchen and burn the garlic because you are too busy kissing against the fridge. You let him meet your friends, who like him immediately and try not to look too smug about it. He tells Sam about you over beers and gets stared at for a full ten seconds before Sam breaks into the kind of grin that means Bucky will never hear the end of this.

And slowly, because slowness is another name for mercy, you get used to the fact of each other.

One night in late July, you fall asleep on Bucky’s couch halfway through a movie. Your head ends up in his lap, your bare feet tucked under his thigh, the credits rolling blue light over the room. He does not move for an hour because the weight of you there feels too precious to disturb.

When you wake, drowsy and disoriented, you blink up at him and smile.

“There you are,” he says before he can stop himself.

The words do something strange to the air.

You sit up slowly, blanket slipping down your shoulders. “What?”

He swallows. “Nothing. I just—”

But then the memory comes, not violent this time. Gentle as smoke.

You see it in each other’s faces as it arrives.

Sleepyhead ’cause all the fucking foxes kept me awake last night

The cabin is barely more than one room and a stubborn prayer.

In that life, winter has a vendetta against you. The land is raw and half-finished around you—trees felled and stacked, fields only partly cleared, the nearest neighbors hours away by horse. Everything aches. Your hands, your backs, your hope.

And still, you build.

By day Bucky swings an axe until his shoulders burn and your tiny patch of earth starts, slowly, to look like something that might feed you come spring. By day you mend, cook, scrub, carry water, keep accounts in a little ledger with cramped neat writing, and somehow still find the energy to laugh when the hen gets loose again and wreaks havoc under the table.

By night you sit by the fire mending his shirts while he carves handles for tools and the baby—your daughter, round-cheeked and solemn—sleeps in a cradle made from wood Bucky planed himself.

It is not easy. God, it is not easy. There are weeks when the roof leaks and the wind gets through the chinks in the walls and your flour goes sour and the loneliness of so much open land makes your chest feel flayed raw. There are days Bucky comes in from the field looking so worn you have to bite the inside of your cheek not to cry.

But there is you. There is him. There is the little sleeping weight of your child and the fire and the bed you built with your own hands.

Sometimes that is enough to make hardship look almost like devotion.

One night in early autumn, the foxes scream outside the cabin so long and loud that neither of you gets any real sleep. By dawn you are cross and bleary-eyed, hair half falling from its braid as you stand over the hearth trying to stir cornmeal mush that refuses to thicken.

“Sleepyhead,” Bucky says softly when he comes up behind you.

You elbow him weakly. “I’ll kill you.”

He laughs into your hair and wraps his arms around your waist anyway, his chin settling on your shoulder. Outside, the new fence leans and the world is still cold and demanding. Inside, his body is warm all along your back.

“We’re doing it,” he murmurs after a while.

You blink at the pot. “Doing what?”

“Building it.” He turns his face into your temple. “A life.”

The words are simple. They hit with the force of revelation.

You tip your head back against his shoulder and close your eyes. In the other room your daughter stirs. The foxes have gone quiet. Morning light pushes pale and stubborn through the little window above the table.

“We are,” you whisper.

He kisses your cheek. “Told you I’d build you something.”

You smile, tired and full to aching. “You built me everything.”

The memory fades with the warm dim glow of Bucky’s living room around you.

You are still on his couch, the television a muted wash of menu screens no one bothered to turn off. For a while neither of you says anything.

Then you reach out and lace your fingers through his.

“That one felt different,” you say.

He nods. “Yeah.”

Not youthful. Not fevered. Not all heat and spark and want. That life had been built plank by plank. Through work. Through weather. Through choosing each other when the choosing was made of practical things—fences, soup, babies, roofs, morning fires.

It lands in him heavier than some of the others. Maybe because recovery has taught him what it means to build anything worth having by hand.

“I liked them,” you say quietly. “That version of us.”

He rubs his thumb over your knuckles. “Me too.”

You glance around his apartment then, at the bookshelf he assembled crooked and fixed himself, at the herb pot on the windowsill, at the loaf of bread cooling under a dish towel on the counter.

“You’re doing it too, you know,” you murmur.

He looks at you. “Doing what?”

“Building a life.”

The thing in his chest, scarred and careful and too often braced for loss, goes very still.

You squeeze his hand. “It’s a good one.”

He kisses you then because there is no other answer big enough.

By August, you keep a toothbrush at his place.

By September, there is a sweater of yours folded over the back of one of his dining chairs, two hair ties on his bathroom sink, a half-used bottle of your fancy conditioner in his shower that he is under strict orders not to touch. None of it is dramatic. None of it is announced. The shape of your presence simply grows until it feels absurd to remember the apartment before it.

The flash that takes you next comes in early October, on a rainy Thursday when you duck with him into a jazz bar in the West Village to escape a downpour.

The room is all amber light and low ceilings and cigarette-scarred booths preserved from another era. A singer in a black dress stands by the piano, crooning into a microphone. Bucky goes still before you even make it to the bar.

You know before the memory hits what it will be.

The note hangs in the air.

Then London rushes in.

late nights in black silk in east london

The war has made everything look dimmer around the edges.

Bucky is young in the way only war can make a man young—old enough to be exhausted by it, young enough to still be surprised by beauty. He is stationed overseas for too long in a city stitched with blackout curtains and ration books and the bruise-colored exhaustion of people trying very hard to act as if life is still ordinary.

Then one wet December night, a fellow soldier drags him down a narrow stairwell off an alley in East London and the whole world changes shape.

The club is hidden beneath a tailor’s shop with no sign out front. Music seeps through the floorboards before the door even opens. Inside, the room glows low and gold around the edges, tables crowded close, voices pitched just above the band. Women in silk and men in uniform and civilians with danger in their smiles. Someone is laughing at the bar like the war has never existed. Someone else is dancing with one shoe off.

And there you are.

You should not stick out. You’re not center stage or demanding attention. You’re leaning one hip against the bar in black silk gloves and a slip dress that gleams when you move, listening to the pianist with your head tilted slightly as if you know a secret about the song.

Bucky sees you and forgets how war works.

Maybe he forgets how breathing works too.

“Careful,” his friend  mutters, following his line of sight. “That one looks expensive.”

Bucky barely hears him.

When you look over and catch him staring, you smile. Not coy. Curious, amused, entirely too direct. Then you lift your glass in a tiny salute.

He is doomed.

Later, after he has found enough courage or foolishness to cross the room, you tell him your brother runs supplies out of the docks and your mother thinks this place is scandalous and your favorite thing in the world is men who look like they’d fall apart if a woman in black silk talked to them too long.

“I am not falling apart,” he says, already half gone.

You laugh, low and delighted. “No? That’s a shame. You’d be awfully handsome doing it.”

You dance with him before midnight. Then again after. The band slows, the room blurs, and you fit against him so easily it feels less like meeting and more like remembering a step he somehow learned before birth.

Outside, the rain has stopped. The alley smells like wet brick and smoke.

“Are you always this easy?” you ask when he walks you to the corner.

“Only in London.”

“Convenient.”

You stop beneath a streetlamp draped in wartime dimming paint. Your lipstick has worn soft at the edges. His gloves are damp. Somewhere far off, a siren starts and then dies.

“I don’t know how long I’m here,” he says, because war steals the illusion of endless time from a man pretty quick.

You look at him with that same level, fearless steadiness you will carry in every life. “Then don’t waste the nights you’ve got.”

So he doesn’t.

He spends every free hour he can find with you in that black silk East London life. Dancing in hidden clubs. Eating chips from newspaper parcels by the river. Kissing in doorways while the city holds its breath between bombings. Falling in love so fast it would look irresponsible to anyone not living under the same shadow.

On his last night before shipping out again, this time to Bucharest, he finds you in the club after closing, curled barefoot on the stage in your black dress with your knees drawn up, humming to yourself while the pianist smokes by the door.

He sits beside you. The stage creaks.

You do not ask him if he is leaving. You already know.

For a long moment you just lean into him shoulder to shoulder, breathing in the dark.

Then you take his hand and lace your fingers with his as if you have always had the right.

“I hate war,” you say flatly.

“Yeah.”

“I hate that it teaches people to love in a hurry.”

He turns to look at you, but your face is tipped toward the empty room. “Maybe,” he says after a while, “it just teaches people not to waste time pretending they don’t.”

That makes you smile a little, though your eyes shine.

When you finally kiss him, it feels like grief and promise all tangled together.

“I’d have found you anyway,” you whisper against his mouth.

He believes you.

Presently, the jazz bar swims back around you in amber and brass.

Your hand is flat over your heart. Bucky is gripping the edge of the bar hard enough his knuckles ache.

“You were terrifying in that one,” he murmurs.

You blink at him. “Terrifying?”

“You had me done in about twelve seconds.”

Your laugh spills out warm and bright enough to make nearby heads turn. “Good.”

He stares at you, at the woman in front of him and the woman in black silk and the impossible thread between them, and something old in him loosens. That London memory is the first one that brushes directly up against the era he remembers in his bones. The first one that lets him feel, without the cold hand of history around its throat, that he once had youth. Flirtation. A version of himself that existed before damage became the loudest fact in the room.

Later, walking you home under a shared umbrella, he tells you more.

Not everything. Not all at once. But more.

About Brooklyn in the forties. About enlisted men and too much bravado and the way the world sharpened at the edges when war started circling. About the years after, in pieces, with pauses long enough to breathe in between. You listen without interrupting except to ask where it hurts. Not where it happened. Where it hurts. The difference matters so much he nearly stops in the middle of the sidewalk.

At your building, rain dripping from the umbrella’s edges, you cup his face and kiss him like he is something to return to, not something to be rescued.

That night he sleeps six straight hours for the first time in weeks.

The last of the big memories comes in November.

By then, the market has become yours together. Saturday mornings are no longer Bucky’s alone. They are yours in the plural, so natural now he sometimes forgets to be startled by it. Coffee for two. Bread for two. Peaches finally back in season for a heartbeat before the weather turns. Your fingers hooked through one of the canvas bag straps while he carries the heavier side.

At the stall with the glass-bottled lemonades and orange sodas, you reach for a bright neon-orange drink at the same time he does.

The glass knocks against his ring finger.

Sunlight slams through him.

Neon orange drinks on the beach

Salt lives in the walls of that house.

Here, you and Bucky live in a little coastal town where everyone knows everybody’s business and no one minds much as long as you bring enough food to the potluck. The house is white clapboard with a porch swing and chipped blue shutters. Sand collects in the doorway no matter how often you sweep. Wind rattles the windows in winter and smells like sunscreen in summer.

You have children in that life. Three of them.

A girl with your laugh and Bucky’s serious eyes. A boy who climbs everything he’s told not to. A baby still soft at the wrists who rides your hip with one fist full of your shirt.

The beach is five minutes from your front door. On hot afternoons you walk there loaded like pack animals—blankets, towels, snacks, toys, a cooler that bumps against Bucky’s leg every other step, the toddler already whining for the ocean before you’ve even crossed the dune grass.

It is a beautiful chaos. Your favorite kind.

The day memory gives you is bright enough to ache.

The sky is clear blue from edge to edge. Your youngest is asleep under the shade tent with one plump foot sticking free of the blanket. Your son is digging a moat around a sandcastle with all the focus of a man handling explosives. Your daughter, solemn with purpose, is handing Bucky shell fragments one by one so he can decorate the towers properly.

“No, Daddy,” she says with immense patience. “That one goes there.”

Bucky, thirty-something and sun-browned and already half buried in sand because the children have no respect for rank, nods gravely. “My mistake.”

You come down from the boardwalk carrying a tray of neon-orange lemonades in plastic cups, ice clinking. Condensation slicks your fingers. The sun catches on the rims of the cups until they glow like tiny lanterns.

Bucky looks up when your shadow falls across the sand.

Even after years, even with sunscreen on your nose and beach hair whipping your cheeks, he looks at you like there has never been anyone else worth the trouble of sight.

“You’re my favorite person,” he says as you hand him a drink.

You arch a brow. “Even over the tiny tyrants?”

“Depends. Are they giving me lemonade?”

Your daughter takes her cup in both hands and squints up at you. “Mama, Daddy made the castle wrong.”

You laugh. “I’m shocked.”

“It was sabotage,” Bucky says.

The children shout over each other. The baby wakes and starts fussing. A gull swoops dangerously low near the pretzel bag. The tide inches closer. Everything is loud and sandy and sticky and imperfect.

It is paradise.

Later, when the children are collapsing in a sugar crash on towels striped green and white, Bucky stretches out beside you and tugs you down until your head rests on his chest. The ocean hisses and folds itself a few yards away.

“You think,” he says after a while, fingers combing absently through your damp hair, “we’ll ever get tired of this?”

You tip your face up. “The beach?”

“This.”

The life. The family. The ordinary miracle of it.

You can feel the answer in him before he says it. In the steady beat under your ear. In the salt-warmed skin of him. In the children making sleepy, disgruntled sounds nearby because even paradise requires snacks and naps and somebody always getting sunscreen in their eye.

“No,” you say softly. “I don’t think so.”

His mouth brushes your forehead. “Good.”

Because in every lifetime, it turns out, what the two of you build is not grandeur.

It is a table. A bed. A road. A cabin. A dance floor. A beach towel in the sun. A thousand tiny places where love gets to put its shoes by the door and stay awhile.

When the memory loosens its grip, you are back at the market with cold glass sweating in your hand.

You are crying.

So is Bucky, though he only realizes it when you reach up and wipe at his cheek with your thumb.

“That one was rude,” you say thickly.

He laughs through the ache in his throat. “Yeah.”

It isn’t the children, not really. Though that got him. It’s the ordinariness of it. The ease. The way love in that life had settled into the bones of things so thoroughly that joy looked almost plain. A beach day. Lemonade. Sand. A family.

A future.

You look at him with tears still bright in your eyes. “Do you ever think maybe that’s why it keeps happening?”

“What?”

“Us.” You glance down at the bottle in your hand, the impossible orange brightness of it. “Not because we’re destined in some giant dramatic way. Maybe just because every time the universe throws us somewhere new, we keep making the same choice.”

The market blurs around the edges.

Bucky takes the bottle from your hand and sets both your drinks down on the stall so he can hold your face in both palms.

“I think,” he says, voice low and unsteady, “that no matter where I find you, you keep teaching me that a life doesn’t have to be extraordinary to matter.”

You inhale sharply.

He goes on because he has spent too much of his existence losing time, losing names, losing chances to say what needed saying. Because he will not waste this one.

“I loved you in a chapel with a plastic sign. In a truck on back roads. In a bed with lace curtains. In a cabin when we had almost nothing. In London when the whole world was on fire. On a beach with kids climbing all over me and sand in places there should never be sand.” Your mouth trembles around a laugh. His thumbs catch the tears on your cheeks. “And every time, it wasn’t because things were perfect. It was because it was you.”

Your hand covers one of his. “Bucky—”

“In this life,” he says, holding your gaze, “I don’t care what fate says. I don’t care what we were before unless it helps me be better to you now. I just…” He exhales, helpless in it. “I just know I am more myself when you’re in the room. And I want to keep choosing that. For however long I get.”

Something breaks open in your face.

Then you are kissing him in the middle of the farmer’s market, November wind cold around your ears and strangers surely staring and lemons probably within a three-yard radius somehow, and Bucky does not care about any of it.

When you finally pull back, you rest your forehead to his and laugh wetly.

“You took forever to say that,” you whisper.

He blinks. “I did?”

“Yes.” You kiss him once, quick and smiling. “It’s okay. I was going to let you.”

That night you come home with him.

Home, because that is what it is now no matter how recently he learned to say it.

The apartment smells like the rosemary chicken you cooked together and the bread he baked that morning and the cold air that followed you in when he opened the door. Your overnight bag sits by the couch. Your laughter is still in the walls from where you nearly dropped the oranges while making cocktails because he kissed your neck and ruined your concentration on purpose.

There are no visions this time.

No past lives pouring through the cracks.

Just the two of you in the warm gold hush of his bedroom, lamplight soft on the sheets, your sweater slipping from one shoulder as you sit on the edge of the mattress and look up at him.

“This is ours,” you say quietly.

He nods. “Yeah.”

You reach for him.

The first time you make love in this life is not a reenactment of any before. There are echoes, maybe. The same reverence. The same hunger braided with tenderness. But this is its own living thing, shaped by who you are now—older in different ways, scarred in different places, more careful and more certain all at once.

He undresses you slowly, like unwrapping something he intends to keep. You do the same for him, kissing each mark on his body as if introducing yourself to every chapter. When your fingers brush the long scars at his shoulder and side, you do not hesitate. You just look at him for permission and then kiss them too.

His throat goes tight.

On the bed, he takes his time. He is afraid this time, rather he wants to feel every second of being chosen with full knowledge. Your skin under his mouth. Your breath hitching when he drags his thumb over your clit. The way you smile against his lips when he says your name like a marvel. He works you open with his hands first, then his mouth, until you are clutching the sheets and half laughing, half sobbing because pleasure in this body, in this life, feels new and familiar all at once.

“Bucky,” you whisper when he comes back up over you, eyes dark and wrecked.

“I’ve got you.”

You nod, hands framing his face. “I know.”

When he pushes into you, slow and careful, your mouths are open against each other. He feels your body welcome him in inch by inch, feels your legs tighten around his hips, feels the tremor that runs through you when he finally settles deep. It is overwhelming in the simplest way. Not because of memory. Because of presence. Because you are here. Because he is too.

He moves. You move with him.

Outside, the city keeps being itself. A siren in the distance. Somebody laughing on the street. Heat clanking faintly through old pipes. Inside, his bedroom narrows to breath and skin and the soft wreck of your voice. You scratch lightly through his hair and murmur yes against his mouth and he nearly comes from the sound alone. He holds himself back long enough to watch the exact moment pleasure overtakes you, the way your eyes go bright and your body arches up into his with a cry he feels all the way to his ribs.

He follows soon after, buried deep, forehead pressed to yours, your names tangled together in the dark.

Afterward you lie under the sheets while the room cools around you. Your head rests on his chest. His hand drifts up and down your bare spine. The curtains are plain cotton, not lace. The sheets are soft gray, not white. The city outside is Brooklyn and not some inn in another century. It does not matter.

You draw lazy circles over his sternum.

“You know,” you murmur sleepily, “I think I liked every version of you.”

His fingers still for a second. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” You tilt your chin to look at him. “But this one might be my favorite.”

Emotion catches him so hard it almost hurts.

He bends and kisses your forehead because if he tries to speak right then, he will probably embarrass himself beyond repair.

Months later, when winter gives way to spring and then, at last, to summer again, Saturday morning finds the two of you at the farmer’s market under the same green-striped awnings where everything began.

Bucky has two coffees in a cardboard carrier. You have a bouquet of sunflowers tucked under one arm. The bread guy waves. The peach stand is finally, gloriously in season. The lemon vendor clocks you both and grins like he has been expecting to see how this turns out.

“Need a bag today?” he asks.

You glance at Bucky. Bucky glances at you.

Then, smiling, you both reach for the same lemon on purpose.

No flash comes.

There is no need.

Your fingers lace together instead, easy as breath.

The square is bright with morning. The violinist by the fountain is playing something warm and sweet. Coffee steams between you. Peaches perfume the air. Beside you, your soulmate—your chosen person, your present-tense miracle—squeezes your hand.

And because love, in the end, is often this simple, you walk the market together like you have done it all your life.

Maybe you have.

Maybe you will again.

Either way, the peaches are ripe, the bread is warm, and Bucky Barnes is laughing at something you said with his whole face open to the sun.

It is not a dramatic ending.

It is better.

It is a life.

And every ordinary second of it feels, impossibly, like falling in love again and again.

Deep and guttural, dragged up from somewhere starved. His hands clamp around your waist, fingers digging into your ass as he hauls you flush against him. Denim rasps against the inside of your thighs when he rolls his hips up, grinding into you.

That thick, heavy bulge makes itself known, humiliatingly honest.

Blood in his mouth. Dirt under his nails and the sour, rotten tang of that other place still caked in his hair. 

And he’s hard.

Something in him is broken that way.

Years of surviving by the skin of his teeth—beaten and concussed and tortured and choked and drowned and devoured—it’s fucked up the wiring in Steve Harrington’s brain.

Pain tolerance shot to hell. Fear braided with dopamine until his nervous system can’t tell the difference anymore.

Getting hurt no longer scares him.

Now, agony comes hardwired with clarity. That split second before impact, when adrenaline screams through his veins and he’s teetering on that razor-sharp edge of death, that’s when he feels most alive.

Your thumb presses into the fresh cut on his lip, smearing his blood back into it. His lashes flutter. His hips jerk up, rutting against you like you’re fucking him.

You grab his jaw, fingers digging into the sharp hinge to force his gaze down to yours. His pupils are blown impossibly wide; barely any color left, drowned beneath an endless wash of black.

“Yeah?” you whisper, venom-sweet. You drag your thumb down his throat, feel the jut of his Adam’s apple jump under your touch. “Does that feel good?”

He nods.

Doesn’t even have the decency to look ashamed. Whatever scrap of self-preservation he’d once possessed hollowed out by hunger—by that sick, reckless void inside him that only ever seems to ignite after he’s survived something that should have killed him.

A cruel cosmic coin toss that keeps landing in his favor—and instead of gratitude, it leaves him burning for more.

You lift your knee and press your thigh into the seam of his pants. He sucks in a sharp breath through blood-slick lips, head tipping back, throat bared.

You despise it.

You despise that this is the language his body understands. That he can shove you out of the way without a second thought—dangle over two hundred feet of empty air because he decided your life was worth more than his—and still get hard when you hurt him for it.

You drag your bloody thumb to your mouth and suck it clean, eyes never leaving his.

He watches you do it, watches your lips wrap around the pad of your finger to taste, to swallow—swallow his blood like it’s yours, like he’s yours, like the world could never take him from you.  

Like he hasn’t already tried to give himself away.

Only this time... it was for you, wasn’t it?

Hurled himself into the abyss without hesitation, fingers scraping at metal while the yawning darkness waited below.

One second slower. One fraction of a heartbeat, and—

Your palms slam into his shoulders.

Just like his had slammed into yours.

Bile surges up your throat as you claw at muscle and bone, shoving and shoving until his balance falters.

He stumbles back, heel catching on the edge of the bed. Momentum betrays him for a second time and he falls back onto the mattress with a startled grunt.  

Your stomach falls with him. Phantom vertigo clawing up your spine, even now.

And the moment you close your eyes—

You’re standing on top of that tower.

You remember the look on his face.

That awful, quiet resolve of someone who had already made peace with his fate.

You remember his hands on your shoulders. The firm press of his fingers, the way he held on just long enough to make sure you were steady, to make sure you were far enough away.

Far enough that you couldn’t reach him.

Far enough that you would live.

And then he let go.

You remember the force of it careening you backward, your boots scraping against the metal platform as you fought for balance. You remember the cold bite of the railing against your back. You remember watching him move in the opposite direction, his own momentum carrying him toward the open edge.

You remember his hand shooting out on instinct, searching for anything that would keep him there. His palm scraping against rusted steel, leaving streaks of red behind as his fingers curled desperately around the railing.

The same hands that had pushed you away.

The same hands that had held yours on the way up, guiding you over every rung of that ladder when the height made your stomach twist.

You remember his mouth opening like he might say something—your name, maybe—a goodbye, something he needed you to know—but all that came out was a broken, ragged breath.

You remember the color draining from his face as he looked down, the terrible understanding settling in his eyes.

You remember lunging for him without thought.

You remember Robin’s arms locking around your waist, holding you back so tightly it bruised, her grip the only thing keeping you from following him over the edge.

And then his fingers slipped.

You stalk toward him now, trying to outrun the memory, fists clenched so tight your nails carve crescents into your palms.

He’s sprawled across the sheets, chest heaving, arms flung wide in surrender.

“Why?” you demand, climbing over him, straddling him with an anger so raw it shakes your whole body. “Why the fuck would you do that?”

He lets out a quick breath through his nose, incredulous. Raises his brows like you’re the insane one.

“Seriously? You’re seriously asking me that.”

He’s smiling.

A crooked, boyish thing, manic brightness behind the eyes, adrenaline still lighting him up from the inside out.  

It detonates something in you.

You slam your weight down on him, knees digging hard into his sides. The mattress groans, the air punching out of his lungs in a sharp grunt.

You fist the hem of his shirt and yank it up.

The sight underneath steals your air right back.

It never gets easier to see.

Bruises bloom fresh and vicious across his ribs, inky purples bleeding into sick reds. New hurt swallowed by old hurt, skin that never gets the chance to heal clean before something tears it open again.

Jagged crescents from teeth, ropes of pale, warped ridges that split the tan of his skin like fault lines, ready to crack him open. That chunk of puckered flesh on his right side that never healed right—and it never will.  

Your fingers drag down the center of his chest, shaking.

“What was the plan this time, hm?” you spit, nails scraping over the soft plane of his stomach, catching on one of the scars. “What was the fucking plan, Steve?”

You hook your fingers into his belt buckle and rip it loose, hard enough that the metal clangs against itself.

“Answer me. What would you have done if—if Jonathan didn’t catch you? If you slipped?”

His head falls back, exposing the flushed column of his throat, pulse hammering wild and alive under skin you’ve kissed a hundred times.

“What the hell was I supposed to do?” he pants. “Let you fall?”

“You didn’t know I was gonna fall!”

“Well I wasn’t gonna fucking wait to find out, alright?”  

The mattress groans when he pushes himself upright too fast, pain flashing across his face before he buries it immediately, one hand flying to his ribs on instinct.

“I can’t... I’m not gonna just stand there and wait for something to happen to you.”

Your body goes still.  

The bright sting behind your eyes arrives right on cue, the fury choking off in your throat until all that’s left is grief.

“You know,” you whisper, quieter now. “You know I’m not just talking about the tower.”

There’s a moment of recognition in his eyes as the words sink in, a flash of something that might be guilt if he ever let it sit long enough.

He knows exactly what you mean.

Then, just as fast, he shutters himself. Lets the feeling die before it can root.

His gaze slides away toward the ceiling.

“No, don’t... don’t do that,” he mutters. “Don’t make this into some... suicidal thing. It wasn’t.”

“Wasn’t it?”

“No.”

“You could’ve died tonight.”

“But I didn’t.”

“That’s not the fucking point!”

“Well what do you want me to say?” he fires back suddenly, frustration cracking his voice. “That I’m sorry I stopped you from falling?”

“I want you to stop acting like your life means less than mine!”

He clamps his mouth shut, an audible click of his molars as he frowns, incredulity settling behind his wide eyes. His brows pulling together as he stares at you like he can’t understand why you could possibly be saying this.

Steve doesn’t consciously believe his life matters less.

He would never say that.

But somewhere deep down—in the ugly marrow of him, in the abandoned, lonely places built inside him when he was a kid—he believes it instinctively.

You’ve known that for a long time now.

Steve grew up starving.

Not for food.

For affection.   

A reason to believe he mattered even when there was nothing he could offer except himself.

Love, in the Harrington house, was conditional.

And at Hawkins High, he traded one kind of emptiness for another.

Built himself a throne out of borrowed attention and hollow praise.

Then the world ended, and suddenly everybody needed him.

Needed his fists, his strength. Needed the frightening way he could take hit after hit after hit and still stand back up bleeding.

Steve latched onto that feeling with both hands.

And his body became a type of offering.

A thing to spend.

You’ve lost count of how many nights ended exactly like this.

Both of you stumbling back home, adrenaline clawing through your veins, slick with sweat and blood—yours or his, it doesn’t matter anymore. Shaking so hard your teeth chatter while you scream at him, fists slamming into his chest.

Screaming and shoving and crying and kissing and begging—begging him to please, please stop being so fucking careless with your life. What’s the point of any of this shit if you’re dead, Steve?      

It always ends the same way. Your anger dissolving into something wetter as Steve reaches for your waist with bruised hands, dragging you against him, mouthing apologies into your throat he’ll never say aloud. Fucking you on top of bloodstained sheets while the smell of iron hangs thick in the room, face buried in your neck, every thrust a word he won't say.

Sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

You stare at him now, chest heaving, lungs scraping for air that won’t come.

Then you reach down and pull his wrists together.

The leather creaks when you thread his belt around them.

Loop, thread, pull, cinch.

Survival knots perfected in the dead of night, in basements and back rooms, hands slick with sweat while you practiced until it stuck. So when the time came, you could hold down something thrashing and dangerous.

Because hesitation is what gets people killed.

It makes sickness crawl up your throat, how naturally your body remembers.

How this world has taught you to restrain someone you love—and taught you well.

You yank his arms above his head, the strap biting into his skin, pulling tight until the leather creaks and his skin pales underneath.

Steve doesn’t fight it, doesn’t even try. Just lets his head fall back against the pillows, wrists falling limp over dark linens.

Has the fucking audacity to smile.

“What,” he breathes, wrecked in an entirely different way now. “You gonna punish me?”

You yank the belt tighter.

He hisses softly through his teeth, brows creasing in a fake show of pain, hips stirring in anticipation.

“Okay, easy, easy,” he mutters breathlessly, grin crooked. “Jesus—easy, honey.”

“Oh, so now I’m honey?”

You shove his wrists harder into the pillow, then drop your hands to his pants, fingers rough and impatient. The button fights you before snapping loose, his zipper dragged down with a harsh metallic rasp. He sucks in a breath, back arching as the pressure eases off his swollen cock.

“Baby...” he tries, a soft laugh in his voice. “C’mon, you don’t have to, just—”

“Shut up.”

You shove him back into the mattress, gaze burning furiously through him.

He just stares back, that reckless, adrenaline-drunk smile still clinging to him like he hasn’t learned a single fucking thing.

So you wrap your hand around his throat.

Four fingers digging into warm, sweat-slick skin. Your thumb presses into the hollow beside his windpipe until you can feel it.

The frantic thump-thump-thump of life.

Life he throws around like loose change.

“S-shit, babe...” he chokes softly, lashes fluttering, eyes rolling back, the fucked-up wires in his brain firing off all at once. He uses what little leverage he has to lift his hips, grinding against your ass until you tighten your grip, a crease of real strain forming between his brows as his breath snags under your palm.

But even then, he doesn’t push you away. His bound hands strain downward, fingers grasping uselessly at your wrist, tugging you forward so he can get you closer, grind up harder.

You hate him.

You love him so much it makes you violent.

And he’s still fucking bleeding.

Face covered all over in fresh cuts and bruises, illuminated by the soft blue glow of the dinosaur nightlight in the corner—same one he’s had since he was five.

This bed once held your first kiss.

Your first time.

Steve laughing breathlessly into your mouth at sixteen years old because he kept fumbling the condom wrapper with nervous hands.

Whispered promises under blankets about senior year and college.

A hundred different somedays and maybes.

About a future that didn’t look like this—didn’t include gates or monsters or watching the boy you love come within inches of disappearing, over and over again.

Now you’re choking him in it.  

Straddling him with your hand around his throat because you don’t know how else to make him understand that you cannot survive loving somebody who keeps choosing death.

It won’t leave you alone, the image of his face on top of that tower.

Not an inch of hesitation.

Like it wouldn’t have mattered, either way.

Your other hand comes up, circling his throat fully now, pressing in. 

Your eyes sting as you narrow them, forcing yourself to hold his gaze.

Barely a whisper, the words cut you on their way out.

“Fuck you.”

Some days you think about killing him yourself.

Ending it before the world gets to.

Precipitate the inevitable doom that is loving a man who would bleed for you, break for you, die for you—

But won’t live for you.    

At least it would be quick, then.

At least you wouldn’t spend the rest of your life waiting for the inevitable moment where his luck finally runs out.

It’s unbearable.

Loving someone who would move mountains to keep you alive, but cannot understand why you’d want the same for him.

Calm in the face of oblivion, martyrdom fits him like a second skin. 

That’s what terrifies you most.

Because somewhere deep down, you know he doesn’t fear death the way he should. The way a normal person would.

Sometimes, you think a part of him finds peace in the idea of going out useful.

And it’s all so completely, irreparably fucked, because you don’t love him despite it.

You love him because of it.

Loving Steve Harrington feels like standing on a fault line, waiting for the ground to split wide and swallow you whole.

It’s a special, exquisite kind of torture, to be so in love with a man who throws himself at death like it’s a dare.  

And it is love, undeniably and irrevocably so.

You love him.

By god, you love him.  

Because his martyr complex is just a twisted language for devotion. When he throws himself into danger, you know it isn’t bravado—it’s instinct. A reflex burned into his bones, older than logic, older than fear.

Love is the only language Steve Harrington has ever been fluent in, and he speaks it with his whole body.  

It turns his skin into armor, his heart into a blade. Sharp enough to carve permanent lines inside you—wounds that might close, someday, but never fade.

And he really does believe it.

That this is what it looks like, loving somebody.

But what good is devotion if it buries you?

What good is love from someone six feet under?

Your hand loosens around his throat, just enough for him to drag in a ragged breath. His chest heaves under you, pulse still racing against your palm.

His Adam’s apple bobs, sending ripples of light over the pale rings circling his neck, thin and white against his flushed skin. Scars that still have him jerking awake some nights, clawing at his own throat, gasping like he’s still back there.

Nightmares that leave him staring at the ceiling until four in the morning because every time he closes his eyes, he sees vines threading around broken bodies. Migraines that get so bad after trips to the Upside Down he has to sit alone in dark bathrooms, forehead pressed against cool tile, breathing through the nausea until the room stops tilting.

His hands still reach for a nail bat when the house creaks at night, before he's even fully awake.

Fear has never made him run. It only ever taught him to step forward.

And the tear you've been holding back all night finally slips free, landing on his bare stomach with a soft, awful plop.

Steve flinches like it’s acid, muscles clenching underneath you.

“Baby...”

You let go of his neck fully as you sink back onto his thighs, fingers gone numb, teeth digging into your lip until copper floods your mouth.

“You didn’t even hesitate.”

You watch as his expression immediately sobers, brows drawing together, eyes flicking between yours.

“Y-you never do. You never fucking hesitate,” your breath starts coming in tight hitches, catching in your chest. “And it’s like—it’s like—”

The rest of the words slip free, torn loose now that everything’s exposed, out there in the open, your handprint around his throat and his wrists bound in leather.    

“...It’s like you don’t even care if you leave me here.”

Steve goes silent for a moment, shoulders slumping with a quiet breath.    

You watch—eyes burning, body trembling—as he slowly reaches for you. The leather belt creaks as his wrists slide down until his fingers brush yours.  

You feel the metal burns on his palms against the back of your hand—his skin split from gripping the railing so hard he tore himself open just to keep from falling.   

He whispers your name on a soft breath.

“Baby, if I ever lost you?” He shakes his head faintly. “That’d be it for me.”

You sniff hard, refusing to blink.

“I mean it.” Light pools in his eyes, trembling along the lower lashes until they glimmer like wet glass. “I’d never… I’d never leave you behind. How could I?”

He closes his fingers gently around your wrist, thumb brushing over your pulse.

“I love you. More than... more than anything. You know that.”

You lift your gaze slowly to meet his.

“Do I?”

Two words, but it’s the ugliest thing you’ve said all night.

It's suffocating, the silence that follows.

“Do you ever think about us? About me?”

Because that’s what this is really about, isn’t it?

For all the names you’ve thrown at him in your worst moments—reckless, stubborn, idiot, a selfish asshole with a death wish—

It’s you who feel selfish.

For wanting him to stay.

For wanting to keep him in a world that seems determined to take him first.

For wanting him to choose you over the next disaster that crawls out of the dark.

Because you’re terrified that when the moment comes, when it’s you or the world, he won’t have to think about it. That the world will always reach for him first—and that one day, it’ll win.

Or worse, that he’ll choose you instead.

That he’ll stop running toward danger because of you. That loving you will make him hesitate.

And you’ll be the reason he changes.  

The reason the world breaks.

Steve’s expression changes in a flash.

The belt creaks as he tries to sit up, a real wince cutting across his brow when his bruised ribs take the pressure. He sucks in a breath through clenched teeth, dragging himself upright.

“Look at me.”

You turn your head instinctively, but he follows.

“Hey. C’mon. Look at me.”

Hazel burns molten in the dim light, the shine in them trembling.

“Of course I think about you,” he whispers, breathless. “You don’t think I think about you? Hey, hey, look at me—you’re all I think about. You’re in my head, all the time. Every fucking second.”

Your tears spill harder, falling freely now, dripping from your chin onto the dark brown fabric of his cargo pants, leaving small damp spots that bloom between you.

“Every time something goes wrong, or—or I’m thinking about doing something stupid, you’re there. First thing. Your face, your voice. Telling me to stop being an idiot, telling me to think—"

You shake your head, a broken sound catching in your throat.

“And if I just stood there tonight,” he presses on, eyes locked on yours, brimming with tears but never flinching, “If there was even a chance you could fall, and I didn’t do anything?”

He swallows.

“I couldn’t live with that. I mean it, honey. I couldn’t.”    

A tear slips loose and slides down his own cheek. He doesn’t wipe it away.

“Baby, I... I wasn’t trying to die. I was trying to end this. All of it. So we don’t have to keep doing this forever.”

His mouth twitches faintly.

“You remember what we talked about? About college? That stupid road trip idea I had with the camper van?” He shakes his head, letting out a quiet laugh. “Six kids, right? Or... whatever insane number I said.”

His hands come up as much as the belt allows, clumsy from the strain in his shoulders, and cradle your face. His thumbs drag across the wet heat beneath your eyes, catching tears as fast as they fall, rubbing salt into flushed skin. 

“That’s the goal. That’s always been the goal.”

He leans forward until his forehead presses against yours.

For a long moment, he says nothing. His hands stay on your face, thumbs brushing softly over your skin, his breathing uneven in the small space between you.

Then, almost too quietly to hear:

“I would’ve jumped with you.”

You recoil immediately, shaking your head hard, eyes squeezing shut.

“Don’t. Don’t fucking say that.”

Steve pushes on, voice low and terrifyingly calm.

“If you’d fallen off that tower tonight, I would’ve followed you.”

His thumb brushes under your eye again, catching another tear before it reaches your jaw.

“Wouldn’t even think about it. I’d just go.”

“Steve—”

“I’d go.”

Your eyes snap open.

Those big, stupid hazel eyes bore into yours.

That stupid nose. Those stupid thick lashes and those stupid moles and those stupid lips.

And underneath all of it, that huge, catastrophic, stupid heart crammed inside a body that keeps throwing itself into danger like it doesn’t belong to him.

Your chest aches just looking at him.

You’ve spent countless nights staring at Steve Harrington while he slept beside you, wondering if loving him would always feel like standing barefoot on train tracks.

Waiting.

Feeling the vibrations underneath your feet before the impact ever comes. Knowing that something massive and merciless will come racing toward you and there won’t be a damn thing you can do to stop it. 

Sometimes you’d trace the slope of his nose with the back of your finger. Follow the shape of his eyebrows. The tiny scar under his chin from a T-ball game when he was six.

You’d study the dip of his cupid’s bow, the soft curve of his lips as he breathed into his pillow, completely unaware of how thoroughly he’d ruined your life for anyone else.

And you’d torture yourself with the same impossible question.

If someone had stopped you before all of this, taken your face in both hands and said:

Here, this boy is going to become the center of your entire world.

He's going to make you laugh so hard your ribs hurt.

He’s going to kiss you like you’re the last person on earth, and he's going to love you so completely you'll forget there was ever a version of yourself that existed before him.

He's going to look at you like you're the only thing worth finding at the end of the world.

Then one day, he’ll start throwing himself in front of monsters and nightmares beyond comprehension. 

He's going to throw himself off a tower without hesitating if it means you get to live.

Would you still choose him?

Would you still let him in, knowing one day he might not make it back?

Would you willingly hand your heart to someone who would protect it with his life—

But never his own?

And even in the quiet space of that hypothetical, the answer had never changed.

You would.

Every fucking time. 

“I love you,” the boy in front of you whispers.

The words slice straight through you, scraping against everything frayed raw inside your chest.

“Shut up,” you breathe, eyes squeezing shut.

Because if he loved you, wouldn’t he try?

Wouldn’t he try?

“I love you.”

“Steve, s-stop.”

“I love you. There’s nothing—nothing—that matters to me more than you.”

“Steve, I swear to god—”

“You’re it for me. And if it came down to it again—”

“Please, stop—”

“—I’d choose to jump. Every time.”

It feels like a seam is splitting inside your chest.

Your breath caves first—a sharp, stuttering inhale that catches in your lungs hard enough to hurt—before your body moves on instinct.

You surge forward, the mattress groaning beneath the force of it as you crash into him, fists tangling in the front of his shirt.

“Fuck you,” you sob.

Steve sucks in a breath as you pound weakly at his chest, his restrained hands jerking uselessly between your bodies.

He can’t hold you properly. Can’t wrap his arms around you the way he wants to.

Still, he tries.  

He shifts forward on the mattress, pulling you between his thighs. The leather around his wrists creaks when he strains to hook his arms around your waist.

You bury your face against his neck.

His entire body folds around yours, chest pressed flush against you so tightly you can feel the frantic hammer of his heartbeat through his sternum, the uneven rise and fall of his lungs where your bodies are crushed together. He presses his cheek against your temple, breathing hard through his nose.

“I know,” he murmurs hoarsely into your hair. “I know, baby. I know.”

“N-no, y-you don’t,” you choke out.

Your hands claw at his shoulders hard enough to bunch the fabric beneath your fists. You need him closer. Closer than skin, closer than bone. If you could unzip his ribs and crawl inside his chest just to keep his heart beating yourself, you would.

“You don’t know,” you sob against his throat. “You d-don’t know what it f-feels like—”

“Hey,” Steve whispers shakily. “Hey, c’mon. Breathe for me, baby. Please.”

You curl tighter against him, fists twisting in the soft cotton of his shirt until your knuckles throb from the effort. The tears don't stop. They soak into the warm skin at the base of his neck, your breath catching against him in broken, uneven pulls until your throat burns and your ribs ache with every desperate inhale.

Steve gathers you as close as his battered body will allow. Every so often, he presses another lingering kiss into your hairline, your temple, the crown of your head, each one quiet enough to say what words can't.

“I’ve got you, baby,” he murmurs into your hair. “M'right here, I got you. Not going anywhere.”  

You let his words settle over you, one shaky breath at a time. The sobs begin to lose their violence, splintering into uneven hiccups that leave your chest sore and hollow.

When you finally pull back, it's only far enough to see him. 

Your hand trembles when you lift it to his face.

Steve goes still as your fingertips ghost over the scrape on his cheek, tracing down the line of his jaw. He doesn’t so much as flinch when your thumb brushes over the split in his lip, featherlight over the broken skin there.

The first kiss is soft.

Nothing like the frantic, bruising collision from earlier.  

But it’s worse like this, somehow.

Wet with tears, with blood, salt and iron passed between soft, shaking kisses. Steve sighs into it, a trembling sound that vibrates against your lips as he tilts his head and follows you deeper. His nose nudges against your cheek, his kisses careful, almost hesitant in how tender he’s being with you.

And it’s funny, really.

How grief can change shape in the span of a heartbeat.

One moment it's lodged beneath your ribs like broken glass, your body still trapped on that radio tower, watching Steve disappear over the edge.

The next, it's here.

In the careful way he kisses you, the warmth of his breath against your mouth.

In the slow, wet drag of his tongue against yours, your fingers hooking into the open button of his pants. The zipper presses cold against the side of your hand before you push deeper, slipping beneath the elastic of his briefs.

He’s already half-hard. Heavy and thick and burning hot against your palm, velvety-soft skin twitching when you wrap your fingers around him. The soft curl of hair at his base brushes against your knuckles when you adjust your grip.

He pants openly into your mouth as you slide your other hand into his hair, gripping tight, yanking his head back at the angle you want it.  

Nose to nose, lips brushing even as you’re not kissing—only sharing air and spit, slick between swollen mouths.

And your eyes stay open, watching him.

Darkened hazels and helplessly fluttering lashes, his is a face that will haunt every version of your future. The one you almost lost, the one you’re still begging the universe to let you keep.

“Show me.”

He blinks at your words, lips parted in soft pants.

“Show me how much you love me.”

He swears under his breath, eyes clenching shut.  

“Fuck…” he groans, shaking his head slowly, side to side, grunting when you drag your thumb across the sensitive tip. “Baby, please... just untie me,” he pleads, straining against his binds again. “Please—fuck—let me touch you—”

“No.”

“Please, baby—”

“No,” you repeat, wrist rolling as you start to stroke him harder, feeling him swell fully in your grip.

He grunts, brows creased in pleasure as you continue to squeeze and glide your palm up and down his length, lips parted to keep kissing you in this obscene way, tongues sliding together in slow, wet strokes.

“God, you’re so... so pretty when you’re mad, you know that?” He huffs against your mouth, almost a laugh, throat gone hoarse and dry from how hard he’s been panting.

“You get this look like you’re—ah, fuck—like you might actually kill me.”

You squeeze your grip around his cock, dangerously tight.

“Maybe I should.”

Something catches in those soft hazel eyes, then.

Pinning you in place with nothing but their unblinking stare, almost unnervingly steady.

You watch, helpless, as he lifts his own hands up toward his mouth. He spits lewdly into the hollow of his right palm, shoving his waistband down just enough to free his cock, replacing your hand with his own.  

Wrists still bound, he slicks himself in slow, wet strokes, eyes never leaving yours.

"Yeah?" he asks quietly. "You gonna punish me?"

He tips his chin up toward you, lashes nearly brushing your skin when he blinks.

“You gonna use this cock, baby? Take it out on me?”

He uses what little range of motion he has to rub his tip up and down your glistening slit, obscene schlicks that fill the space between your breaths, spurred by the impatient grinds of your hips.

And the moment he pushes inside you, he breathes the words against your skin.

“I love you.”

His mouth swallowing your whimpers at the stretch of taking him this way—no prep, no lube, just spit—yours, his, it doesn’t matter anymore.

“I love you. I love you. We’re... we’re gonna be okay, baby, I promise. We’re gonna be okay.”

Your hands shake as you reach for the belt around his wrists, the buckle catching under your fingertips before releasing with a muted clink. He cups your cheeks as soon as it does, cradling your face, pressing his lips against yours. 

“I love you,” he repeats against your mouth, over and over. “I love you. I love you.”

Grief really is a funny thing.   

It burns until there's nothing left to consume

And the anger that had kept you upright for hours—the frantic, desperate need to make him understand how terrified you'd been—begins to crumble beneath the weight of what you almost lost.

Your strength gives out in increments. Your fingers slowly uncurl from his biceps, the crescents your nails pressed into his skin easing away. Your forehead finds the warm slope of his shoulder instead, eyes slipping shut as the last of the fight drains from your body.

You sag forward, soft whimpers and low groans exchanged between your lips as you rock back and forth on his cock, letting it fill up the hollowed-out places inside you.

And when you get too tired to do even that—when your strength gives out, thighs trembling with the effort of lifting yourself up and sinking back down—he’s there to catch you.

One arm sliding securely around you as he eases you onto your back, the muscles in his shoulders rippling under your fingertips as you wind your arms around his neck. You cling to him as he kisses you hard and deep, exchanging punched-out breaths as he starts up his thrusts with newfound fervor.

"Gonna marry you," he pants suddenly, stealing what little breath you have left.

You gasp against his mouth, caught between a disbelieving laugh and another sob. “Steve—”

“I mean it,” he insists, hips snapping into the mattress, barely pulling out before burying himself back in. “I-I want all of it. That house with the... the porch. That trip we keep talking about, in the camper van, and—”

His face screws up and he has to stop moving for a second, drawing in a shuddering breath.

“I’m gonna marry you and—fuck—gonna give you a baby.”   

You choke on the words, a helpless sound catching in your throat as you cling to him, bruisingly tight.

“Yeah?” He strokes your hair back, cupping the crown of your head with his palm. Smoothing the sweat-slick strands away from your face, thumb lingering at your temple as his eyes search yours. “You want me to give you a baby?”  

You nod into him, unable to find the words.

“How many?”

His pace is unrelenting—thrusts hard enough that the bedframe is thudding repeatedly against the wall, hard enough that you know the wallpaper’s going to show it tomorrow.  

“Tell me,” he grunts, voice rough with emotion, like he needs to hear you say it out loud. “How many?”

Sweat shining along his skin, hair a damp mess across his forehead, but he never once looks away.

“F-fuck, I don’t...” you break on another sob, eyes clenching shut. “Two. Maybe... maybe three.”

“Three,” he repeats to himself, and his hips snap a little sharper. “What about... what about four? Make it a—mm, fuck—make it an even number.”

And it’s hardly new—the kind of bullshit he spouts when you’re both this far gone, when adrenaline has burned through every last nerve and neither of you are thinking straight anymore. He’s always been prone to making wild promises in the heat of the moment—spinning out impossible futures and reckless dreams, building an entire lifetime in the space of a few breathless minutes—just to get you both off.     

But tonight, they don’t feel like a fantasy at all. 

“You’d look so... so fucking pretty,” he pants, voice breaking. “Pregnant with my kid. Jesus.”

“Mm, close...” you whisper weakly, face scrunched at the unbearably mounting pressure in your lower stomach.  

“Yeah? You’re close? You gonna come for me?”

You nod, burying yourself closer, clinging to him harder. “T-tell me again.”

“Tell you what, baby?”

“That you... that you love me.”

“Fuck,” he groans, thrusts turning sloppy as he buries a loud groan against your lips. “I love you. Love you so fucking much. I don’t even know what I’d do without you. I—shit, a-are you coming? Oh, fuck, that’s—that’s it. That’s my girl.”

Your orgasm hits hard and blinding. A broken groan ripping out of you as you clamp your thighs around his waist, mewling into his skin. You blink your eyes open just in time to see his gaze fixed on you—expression reverent, chest heaving as he watches you shake underneath him.

And as you go to kiss him, feeling the labored grunts of his mounting pleasure against your lips, the weight of his breaths and the slick drag of his cock against your heat—

When you press your lips to his and whisper for him to come inside you, make me yours Steve, get me pregnant, keep me, love me, stay with me, stay, stay, please fucking stay—

When he presses inside all the way to the hilt and lets his own pleasure overtake him—

You finally whisper the words back.

Three syllables against the enormity of what lives inside your chest.

Three syllables trying to hold every sleepless night and every quiet morning, every time you pressed your lips to the places on his body that hurt and wished that love alone could take his pain away.

They cannot carry it all.

They never could.

But when he closes his eyes and tips his forehead to yours—his weight melting against you as he presses an exhausted, dazed smile against your lips—you realize maybe the words don’t have to hold it all.

Maybe he can feel the rest.

· · ·

The seal breaks with a sharp snap, the plastic ring splitting loose and skittering across the bathroom floor.

You turn the bottle over in your hand, staring at it for a moment.

It’s the good kind—the expensive kind stored in heavy glass, the label still clean. You haven’t touched it since the day Steve brought it home months ago, back when you could still ask for things like Epsom salt and a box of chocolates at the general store without anyone looking at you like you’d lost your mind.

He’d shown up at your door that afternoon grinning like an idiot, grocery store roses tucked under one arm and a paper bag in his other hand that clinked when he lifted it.

“Thought we deserved something nice,” he’d said, holding up the bag with that stupid, proud little grin. “We haven’t done a proper date night in a while, right?”

But you hadn't used the bottle then.

You'd saved it.

For a night that felt right.

For a night where you weren’t just surviving long enough to see morning.

Your hands shake a little as you tip the bottle now.

Pouring more than you should, watching the pale liquid ribbon into the rushing stream of water, swallowed by the force of it before slowly blooming back to the surface in soft, frothy bubbles.

The smell hits a second later. Sweet, heavy lavender that clings to the back of your throat, swirling with the clean heat of the water.

For a moment, you let yourself go back.

Back to the day Steve bought this because he wanted to take care of you. Because he wanted one normal night where you could both pretend the world hadn’t changed.

A night where the biggest problem was what movie to put on.

Then, the sink creaks behind you.

You turn immediately, heart jumping.  

Steve’s reflection is blurred in the mirror—shoulders slumped, chin dipping toward his chest. He’s got one hand braced against the counter, knuckles pale from how tightly he’s holding on. The other fumbles with an orange pill bottle.

“You okay? You need help?”

He shakes his head. “Nah, I got it.”

The words are automatic. Steve’s favorite answer to anything that worries you.

He tips a couple pills into his palm, fills the glass beside the sink, and swallows them down.

You watch his face tighten afterward, eyes squeezing shut as he waits for it to pass. His throat works hard, his whole body briefly tensing, muscles bracing against something that should have been painless.

You step closer, hands settling carefully on his arms as you turn him toward you. 

He doesn’t argue when you crouch in front of him.

You start with his shoes.

Fingers working at the laces, easing them loose before pulling them off one at a time. They hit the tile with a quiet thud. His socks peel off next. Then his pants, the buttons still undone. His briefs.

He stays silent through all of it, one hand resting lightly on your shoulder.

It’s not much pressure, but you feel the way his weight leans into you, the slight sway when you shift back, like he’s having to constantly correct himself just to stay upright.

Helping him into the tub takes time. You stay close while he steps over the edge, one hand gripping your arm, the other braced against the wall.

Slowly, carefully, he lowers himself into the water.

The second it reaches his ribs, he hisses.

“Shit—”

His head falls back against the tile, eyes squeezing shut as a sharp breath slips between his teeth. His hand tightens reflexively around your wrist.

Foamy water laps against his chest, darkening the hair across his sternum, rising and falling with each careful breath.

“Too hot?” you ask quickly, already reaching for the faucet.

He cracks his eyes open, shaking his head.

“’S perfect.”

You keep watching him, searching his face for the slightest sign that he's only saying it to spare you.

Then, little by little, the strain begins to loosen its grip.

The hard line of his jaw softens first, his fingers easing around your wrist. His shoulders sink another inch beneath the warm water, the tension slowly melting out of them as the heat works its way into his muscles.

His next breath comes easier. Then another.

After a long moment, his eyes drift open again.

They're hazy with fatigue, heavy-lidded and unfocused, but they find you where you're perched beside the tub, knees tucked against your chest.

He squints, mouth twisting into a petulant frown.

“What?” he murmurs. “You’re not getting in?” 

A smile tugs at your lips. “You want me to?”

He gives you a slow, incredulous look—the classic Steve Harrington stare.

“Uh, yeah,” he mumbles, like it’s obvious. “How else am I supposed to feel better?”

You roll your eyes, but you’re smiling as you stand.

Your hands aren’t as steady as you’d like; you notice it more now, with nothing else to focus on.

You pull your shirt over your head, and immediately hear the quiet shift of water beside you, a soft slosh.

By the time you glance up, he’s already looking at you.

Sitting a little straighter than he was a moment ago, chin lifted despite the exhaustion pulling at him. Steam curls between you, softening the edges of his face, but his eyes never leave yours. They follow every movement with boyish concentration, fixed on you in a way that’s not even pretending to be subtle.

You huff a quiet breath through your nose, fighting a smile as you tug the rest of your clothes off.  

“Seriously?”

The corner of his mouth quirks, all innocence.

“What? Sue me.”  

He shifts deeper into the tub, water rolling around him as he eases back, making room between his legs before patting the space in front of him.

You step in carefully, goosebumps prickling as the heat climbs slowly over your ankles, your calves, your thighs. The water embraces you inch by inch until you're lowering yourself fully beneath the surface, warmth wrapping around you like a heavy blanket scented with lavender.

The moment your back brushes his chest, his arms find you.

They slide around your waist with familiar certainty, one settling securely across your middle to draw you closer.  Your hand rises on instinct, covering his forearm where it rests across your stomach. His skin is warm and damp beneath your fingertips, the fine hairs catching against your palm as your thumb strokes absent circles over his wrist.

His chin grazes your shoulder as he nestles closer, his next breath warming the side of your neck.

“This is nice,” he hums, body growing heavier where it rests against yours.

You let out a slow breath. “Yeah.”

You let your weight settle back into him completely. He answers by tightening his arm around your waist, one hand gliding up to squeeze your side as he draws you a fraction closer.

You take the other one for you to keep.

Turning it over slowly, relearning it by touch. The familiar roughness of his skin, the broad span of his palm, completely swallowing yours whenever he laces your fingers together. Your thumb glides over the callus at the base of his index finger, the thickened patch of skin from years of gripping weapons he never should have had to hold.

You rub over it absentmindedly, once, twice, then again.

“How do you know?”

The words come so quietly you're not even sure you've said them aloud.

“Hm? Know what?”

“How do you know...” You swallow, unable to lift your eyes from where the water laps gently over your joined hands, pale violet opalescence that ripples around you both. “How do you know this is real?”  

He goes still at that, the only sound between you the soft ripple of water and the rush of your own thoughts filling the space.

“We could still be down there,” you whisper, the words gathering speed the longer you speak.

“Maybe... maybe we never got out. Maybe Vecna just made us think we won by giving us...” You gesture around the room. “...this.”

The lavender.

The warm water.

Him.

“What if none of it's real? What if he just—what if he made us think we were safe because it'd hurt more when he took it away? I mean, how would we even know?”    

Your chest feels tighter with every word.

“What if we're still—"

“Hey.”

Steve's voice is so soft that you almost miss it.

“Hey. Look at me.”

His face is drawn with exhaustion, pain lingering in the tightness around his eyes, in the careful way he holds himself, like every breath reminds him of another bruise.

But they’re still his.

Still that same warm hazel you've spent so many nights memorizing, never daring to believe you'd get a lifetime of looking into them.

“You know how I know?”

Your throat goes tight. “How?”

“Because you’re scared.”

Your brows pull together, fingers tightening around his. He squeezes your hand back, gentle but certain.

“That’s how I know. Because you’re sitting here trying to figure out if this is real instead of just being happy that we’re okay.”

Steve watches you for a moment before looking down between you, at the lavender bubbles drifting around your joined hands.

A bead of water clings to his lashes before he blinks it away.

“I mean…” He draws out a slow breath. “I don’t know if I can prove it. How could anyone, right? After everything that happened? I don’t think any of us are supposed to just wake up the next day and be like, ‘Cool. Guess that’s over.’”

He pauses, a small smile pulling at his mouth.

“But then I look at you and… and I just see you doing that thing.”

You blink. “What thing?”

He lifts your joined hands from the water, droplets sliding down your wrists as the surface ripples around you.

“This.”

He gives your hand a little squeeze, lacing your fingers together more securely. 

“You always start messing with my hand when you’re freaking out.”

Your brows pull together. “What?”

He lets out a soft laugh, reaching up with his free hand to gently tuck a damp strand of hair away from your face.

“Yeah, you grab my hand and then you start doing this weird little... I don’t know. Thing. Like you’re inspecting it or something.”

Only then do you realize your thumb has been moving back and forth over the same callus on his palm, tracing the same small patch of rough skin.

“...Oh.”

“Yeah.”

There’s something teasing about his voice now, his smile.

The same Steve who’d make an absolute idiot of himself just to get you to roll your eyes. Who could make you laugh in the middle of the worst days of your life.

His smile softens as he looks down at the water, where your fingers are still tangled together.

His thumb brushes slowly over the back of your hand.

“I guess… I guess that’s how I know.”

The steam curls around you both, blurring the edges of the room until there’s nothing left but this.

His hand in yours.

His heartbeat steady against your back and his voice low and certain beside your ear.

“Because I know you.”

He tightens his fingers around yours.

“I know you.”

· · ·

Eventually, the warmth of the bath starts to fade.

The water isn’t quite as hot as it was when you first climbed in, the lavender bubbles breaking apart into a faint, delicate layer.

You’re still holding his hand.

Neither of you has let go.

“Hey,” he murmurs after a while, giving your fingers a small tug.

“Hm?”

He lifts your joined hands out of the water, turning his palm toward himself.

Then he starts tracing something, slow and awkward, brow furrowed as he studies the lines crossing his palm.

You can tell he’s searching for something—squinting at the grooves in his hand, trying to remember a detail you’ve explained to him once or twice before, maybe more.

You watch him for a second, then mumble:

“You’re doing it wrong.”

“I’m doing it wrong?”

“Yes.”

He turns to look at you, eyebrows raised, genuinely offended in that exaggerated way he does when he knows he’s being teased.

“How can I be doing it wrong? It’s my hand.”

You give him a look.

“Because you don’t know what you’re looking for.”

He glances back down at his palm, then back at you.

“Okay, fine, genius,” he huffs, holding his hand out toward you. “What’s this one mean?”

You smile faintly.

“You don’t remember?”  

“No, I do. Just... tell me again? I remember you said mine was good.”

You did. Sitting cross-legged on the couch years ago, his hand stretched across your lap while you traced the lines in his palm. You’d laughed the whole time because you didn’t actually believe in any of it. But Steve had listened like it mattered, eyes serious, hanging onto every word.

You adjust your grip now, turning his hand so you can see it properly. Then you take his index finger between yours and guide it slowly along the deepest line on his palm.

“Here,” you murmur.

His finger follows where you lead it, brushing over the groove that starts just beneath his pinky and curves upward across his hand.

“This is your heart line.”

Steve doesn’t look at his hand.

He looks at you.

“It’s deep, and it doesn’t break. That means you feel things deeply. You lead with your heart.”

He hums softly, leaning forward to press a soft kiss to the top of your shoulder.

You keep tracing, guiding his finger toward the end of the line where it curves upward.

“And here, it turns up.”

You press lightly into the space beneath his index finger.

“See that spot?”

“Mm.”

“That’s called the Mount of Jupiter. And when your heart line curves up like that, it kinda means you’re... a hopeless romantic.”

You don’t even have to see his face to know he’s smiling. You feel it in the small twitch of his fingers around yours, in the quiet huff of amusement against your shoulder.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

You follow the line with your own thumb, pretending to study the grooves of his skin like they might reveal something you don’t already know.

But the truth is, you're not really reading his hand.

“It also says you don’t know how to love halfway.” Your thumb follows the line one last time. “When you care about someone… you give them every part of yourself.”

When you glance back over your shoulder, he's already watching you.

Something achingly fragile settled over his expression, a quiet wonder in his eyes as though he's seeing himself the way you always have.

“Yeah?” he whispers.

You nod.

“Yeah.”

You lean in to close the small space between you, brushing your lips against the uninjured corner of his mouth.

It’s a delicate thing, more of a press than a kiss.  

His fingers tighten around yours beneath the water.

“Tell me what else.”

You smile, looking back down at his palm.

“You want me to read everything?”

“Yeah. Obviously.”

You turn his hand back toward you, guiding his finger to another line.

“Okay. This one is your head line.”

Steve settles back against the tub, his arm tightening around you as you continue tracing the little grooves and curves in his palm, explaining what they’re supposed to mean.

The truth is, none of this is anything you don’t already know.

You don’t need the lines in his hand to tell you who he is. 

You’ve known for a long time.

So you tell him what you've been carrying in your heart for longer than you can remember.

That he’s stubborn.

That he’s brave.

That he loves harder than he knows what to do with.

That he’s always seen himself as ordinary when he’s anything but.

And Steve listens.

· · ·

You stay there together until the water goes cold around you.

And though the lavender fades from the bath, the scent still clings to your skin, lingering long after the warmth has left.

Outside this room, there will still be reminders.

Things neither of you can outrun.

Memories that return without warning, scars that ache long after the wounds have closed.

Maybe some things never fully leave.

Maybe they don’t have to.

Because the bad things are not the only things that get to stay.

And when the first light of dawn slips through the bedroom window the next morning, washing everything in soft gold, Steve is still there.

Beside you.

His hand wrapped around yours.

The law has a simpler system still. 

One that decrees who is a man and who is a wanted man. It prints the latter on paper and nails it somewhere decent folk can see. Ink drawings of men with shadowed eyes and a jaw made harsher by the hand that drew it. Beneath that is the list of wrongs they have done, and a number in dollars that someone is willing to pay to see him answer for them.

Fifty dollars for a fool. Five hundred for a danger. Five thousand for a dead man walking.

Women, of course, have their own sorting. Just like bad men, women have a value. Only women are rarely granted the dignity of being weighed by their own choices. Instead, they too are valued by a bad man’s wrongdoings. 

What he has done to her. Or what he is rumoured to have done with her. Or what he wanted badly enough to lie about. That is how a town makes its ladies. That is how it makes its whores, too.

There are no other kinds of women. Not in this town, or anywhere else for that matter. A third kind would require people to admit women have lives beyond the reach of men’s hands, and no one is in any hurry to go inviting that sort of trouble.

By all accounts, the town had decided kindly on you. A credit to the schoolhouse and a blessing to the children you teach. They would say that you are a fine young lady, and that any good man would be lucky to have you.

No good man, so far, has come and asked. Perhaps that should worry you more than it did. After all, a woman could only remain a fine young lady for so long before the title began to sour on her. A woman in your position was expected to want a steady hand, a clean name,and a ring bought with honest wages. A good man, by the town’s binary judgement.

Your heart, unfortunately, had never shown much interest in good men.

So that’s why tonight, like every other night, your walk home is made alone. Save for the company of crickets keeping up their endless racket, and the watchful hum of a town that likes to sleep with one eye open.

Your skirts hush against the dry grass as you walk further beyond the last few houses, where the town thins to prairie. There waits your little house at the edge of it all, porch sunk crooked in the middle and windows dark as shut eyes. Except the window over the washstand that’s still open; it never sits quite right in its frame. It swells in the summer heat, shrinks in the winter cold, and no matter the season, refuses to latch unless you lean your weight against it. 

You’ve been putting off fixing it for months. A respectable man might have fixed it for you by now, had one ever made himself useful.

By the time you step through your front door, the night has drawn close around the house. Moonlight slips through the narrow gap in the curtains, laying a soft glow across the floorboards. Enough to not bother with a lamp.

The schoolbooks go on the table. You set your hat beside them. Your boots are worked off by the bed, left where they fall. Then your fingers find the buttons of your dress.

The first slips free at your throat, then the second follows. The dress loosens by degrees, surrendering the shape of the schoolteacher the town knows so well, until all that remains is the woman beneath it. You drag in a deeper breath, eyes falling shut for a moment as the pressure eases. There is no sweeter mercy than taking off the day. No greater pleasure than unlacing yourself from what the world expected you to be.

With one hand still at your bodice, you turn towards the washstand. 

Your eyes catch on a shadow in the chair by your bed. A shocked gasp leaves your lips before you can stop it, sharp and uselessly small in the dark of your room. 

At first, he is only a shape amongst shapes. 

But the shadow is too still for a drunk, too quiet for a fool, and too comfortable for any man with honest business in a woman’s bedroom after dark. The chair complains beneath the size of him. One boot is planted flat against the floorboards, the other stretches lazily before him. A hand rests on his thigh, and something metallic in it glints in the moonlight.

It points straight at you.

Your breath stalls somewhere high in your chest, trapped behind the open buttons at your throat as your vision adjusts slowly to the dim light. His coat hangs open over a shirt that used to be white, now marked with trail dust and the stain of something you hope is mud.

The gunman tilts his head, and only then does the dark give up the glinting blue of his eyes - fixed on you with the possessive satisfaction of a man finding what he came for. They drop slowly to where your dress has come loose at your throat, exposing the delicate slope beneath your collarbone, and the first soft swell of your chest. Enough skin to make a decent man look away and a worse one very glad he didn’t.

An appreciative rumble hums low from his lips, before his thumb draws back the hammer of his gun with a pointed click.

“Don’t stop on my account, sweetheart.”

For a moment, you’re frozen. Just standing there with your fingers still curled in the loosened front of your dress, breath held tight beneath your ribs. The room narrows to the man in your chair and the gun pointed steady in his hand. He watches you without speaking, patient as a hunter, until he gives an expectant nod of the head.

Slowly, your fingers move again, buttons slipping free beneath your touch. His eyes fixate on the reveal, tongue dipping out the wet his bottom lip in anticipation.

By any measure the town would use, he is a bad man. By the sheriff’s ledger, or by the schoolmaster’s careful catechism about the sorts of men a young lady ought to avoid, the man in your chair is exactly the kind of ruin women are warned against.

You have never much cared for the schoolmaster’s catechism.

Instead your gaze drags over him in return, less innocent than the gasp you might have given. Over the breadth of his shoulders where his shirt pulls tight beneath his open coat. Over the narrowness of his waist and the careless sprawl of his body in your chair, as though he belongs there. Over the powerful thighs spread wide as he sat, revealing the hard, unmistakable bulge pressing against the front of his trousers. Indecent in its honesty and all the more shameless for the way he makes no attempt to hide it.

He watches you notice it, too. Watches your eyes catch and linger, watches your throat work around the breath you have not quite managed to take.

The last button slips free.

Your dress gives way, sliding from your shoulders and falling in a soft heap around your feet. It leaves you in your chemise, though the thin cotton does such a poor job of covering you that the word feels generous. Moonlight passes through it almost cleanly, turning the fabric pale and sheer over the shape of your body: the curve of your waist, the shadow between your thighs, the soft weight of your breasts barely hidden beneath it. 

Your nipples tighten into hard little points against the cloth, visible enough that you know he must see them. The knowledge makes your skin burn hotter than any shame ought to allow.

A deep, pleased groan escapes his chest.

The gun stays steady in his hand, but the other shifts against his thigh, fingers flexing into the worn fabric before his palm slides higher. He presses over himself through his trousers, just enough to ease some of the ache there. Just enough to make no secret of what the sight of you has done to him.

“Good girl,” he drawls, “prettiest damn thing I’ve seen in weeks.”

Your stomach pulls tight at the praise, and your thighs press together beneath the thin fall of your chemise before you can think better of giving him any satisfaction.

But the satisfaction arrives in the slight curve of his mouth before he rises from the chair. God, he’s tall, taller than he looks sitting down. And broader too.

If the dark had made a threat of him, the moonlight makes something worse. It loves him. There’s no other word for the way it lingers on him as he steps closer. 

It slips first over the dirty blond hair that has fallen loose beneath the brim of his hat. Then it catches on his face, and there’s no mercy for you in how gently it treats him. Long lashes cast low shadows under his eyes, and whatever blue hasn’t been swallowed by desire or the dark gleams too bright. His mouth is plusher than it ought to be on a man with a gun in his hand. Soft in a way the beard can’t rough out, though it tries.

It decorates his jaw, dragging a little danger back over a face that might have been too pretty without it.

The kind of face you know.

It’s nailed up outside the mercantile for decent folk to study and condemn. Some sheriff’s artist had done his best to make a villain of him in ink, darkening the eyes, sharpening the jaw, flattening the mouth into something easier to fear. Anything, perhaps, to keep a lady from looking too long and noticing what the moonlight gives away in your bedroom. 

Better, then, to look beneath his name at the hefty four figure sum printed there. And remember what kind of man earns a price like that.

A careful one, you would think.

A man worth that much should know better than to stand so close. And he should definitely know better than to let his defences drop. Most of all, he should know better than to let desire soften the hand with the gun in it. 

You move quickly. A sharp twist, a shift of your weight, and the revolver is in your hand instead of his. Then your palm hits the centre of his chest and you shove your weight against his chest.

He falls a little too easily back onto the bed with a rough laugh, his hat knocked loose and tumbling somewhere behind him. You follow before he can sit up, climbing over him with one knee pressed into the mattress on either side of his hips. The chemise rides high on your thighs as you settle your weight over him, and his hands instantly find a home there. 

You the press barrel up under his jaw with enough pressure to make him tilt his head back against the quilt, exposing the long line of his throat. All that arrogant ease goes still beneath you. Then his Adam's apple bobs beneath the rough gold of his beard, and the ridiculous blue of his eyes go wide.

He looks stunned. Worse, even, he looks delighted, as though some wicked part of him had been hoping all along that you would do exactly this.

You lean down until only inches remain between you, close enough to see the way his pupils dilate further, close enough to feel the warmth of his breath.

“You’re late, Rogers.”

He doesn’t reply straightaway. Instead, his eyes move over your face as though the rest of the room has fallen away, as though the weeks and the miles have all narrowed done to this - to you. Sat above him in the moonlight, furious and half-naked and close enough to touch. There’s something in his expression far too soft for the size of him, too tender for the outlaw laid out beneath you with a revolver pressed to his throat.

Something that looks almost like disbelief, as if he had spent the whole ride dreaming of you and even still, you looked sweeter than his dreams. Like he can’t quite believe the world has been kind enough to put you in front of him again, and now that he’s here, he means to drink down every inch of you before it can change its mind.

Then the tension eases out of him all at once.

His body goes loose beneath yours, the last of the game slipping from his shoulders as his hands slide higher up your thighs. They wrap around your ass, warm and possessive. The corner of his mouth curves, slow and devastatingly boyish beneath the ruggedness of his beard. Entirely too pleased for a man currently pinned beneath his own gun.

“Missed me?” he drawls, already sure of the answer

You press the gun harder into the soft skin beneath his jaw in answer. His fingers tighten on your thighs, as his hips shift beneath yours. It’s only a small, helpless grind, but it’s enough for you to feel the hard line of his cock twitch against the heat between your legs. The satisfaction of feeling his need for you is almost enough to make you forget you’re angry. 

Almost.

“You were supposed to be here three days ago,” you remind him, intending to be stern, but not convinced you achieved it.

“Train was delayed,” Steve replies, his blue eyes bright with the kind of trouble men get hanged for.

Your eyes narrow. He has the decency to look a little sheepish.

“Fine,” he concedes. “Train was delayed ‘cause I robbed it.”

His thumbs trace slow circles over your hipbones, familiar and possessive, like he has any right to soothe you after being the source of your concern. “You worried about me, sweetheart?”

You scoff, “I was debating whether, if the bounty hunters didn’t put a bullet in you, I ought to do it myself.”

It would’ve sounded better if your voice hadn’t come out breathier than you intended. If his body were not so solid and warm beneath you, his thighs hard muscle under your spread legs, his hands moving against your skin as though he had been starving for the feel of it.

“Gun’s not loaded,” His voice goes quieter there, the teasing easing at the edges. “Never is. You think I’d point a loaded gun at you?”

You hate him a little for that. For the empty gun. For the fact that some stubborn, tender part of him had crossed God knows how many miles with a bounty on his head and still remembered to make his filthy little performance safe. 

You hate him more for making you care enough to count the days. For making the nights stretch mean when he doesn’t come when he’s meant to. For making you understand, with an anger that burns too hot to be good, what sort of woman waits on a bad man.

“Don’t mean I’m not angry with you,” you whisper, though there’s no bite in your voice.

His gaze drops to your mouth.

“Yeah?” His hands slide back along your thighs, slow enough to make your stomach tighten, high enough to make the thin cotton of your chemise feel like no barrier at all. “Want to show me how angry?”

Your throat tightens. The revolver drops from your hand onto the quilt beside his head. Steve’s eyes lift to yours, and there he is beneath the outlaw. Tired, alive, and yours for the few hours he has no right to give you.

You kiss him hard, pouring all that fear and anger and need into his mouth.

Steve takes it with a groan, his head dropping back against the quilt again. One hand leaves your thigh to catch the back of your neck and drag you closer. This isn't a careful reunion. He bites your lip and the sound you make against his mouth ruins whatever patience he had left.

His tongue pushes possessively into your mouth, licking into you until your fingers twist in the front of his shirt just to have something to hold. When you rock down against him, grinding the damp heat of your pussy over the hard line of his cock through too much fabric, his answering sound catches high and helpless in his throat.

“I ought to punish you for makin’ me wait,” you breathe against his mouth, though the threat loses some of its dignity when your hips roll down again and your own breath breaks at the friction.

Steve’s hand tightens on your neck, keeping you close enough that his lips brush yours when he answers. “You ought to.”

Your hands shove at his coat, dragging it off his shoulders with more force than grace. Steve only helps enough to get free, too busy chasing your mouth again, greedy and open, his tongue sweeping against yours like he’s trying to taste every desperate sound he’s pulled from you. You tug at the buttons of his shirt next, fingers clumsy on the open collar before patience fails you entirely and you pull hard enough to strain the buttons.

You need skin. Need the warmth of him under your palms and the pulse of him beneath your mouth.

“I ought to send you back out the window you came in.”

His grin returns at that, mischief bright in his eyes despite the way his cock twitches under you. “You ought to get that fixed,” he rumbles, one hand sliding possessive over your waist. “Who knows what kind of bad men could get in?”

You punish him for the clever little comment with another roll of your hips. Steve’s fingers clamp around your waist and the sound he makes is almost a whine, mouth falling open against yours.

His chest rises hard beneath your hands, broad and golden in the moonlight, warm muscle shifting under your palms with every rough breath he takes. Scars litter his skin - some you know the stories of and some he has never given you. You touch them anyway, touch him anyway, needing the proof of him beneath your palms. Then your hips grind down again, and his stomach flexes, abs pulling tight as he lets out a rough groan.

“I ought to make you beg,” you whisper, mouth dragging down over his jaw, his beard rough against your lips as you kiss the place where his heartbeat pounds beneath his skin.

“Yes, ma’am,” Steve breathes, hands holding you tight over the thick, straining shape of him. “You ought to.”

Your chemise has ridden high over your thighs, and every drag of your body over his makes the ache in you sharper.

“Start with sorry,” you instruct.

Steve’s breath catches when you slow the roll of your hips, turning the grind into something almost cruel. His hands flex at your waist, big enough to move you if he wanted, strong enough that he could flip you easily. But instead he lies there beneath you, shirt open and cock hard under your weight, letting you make him wait. Letting you have this dizzying power over him and looking up at you like he would let you ruin him if you asked sweetly enough.

His throat works beneath your mouth.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” he murmurs.

You lift your head just enough to look at him, raising an expectant brow. His thumbs stroke once over your hips, softernow.

Steve’s eyes flick over your face, softening at whatever he finds there. “I’m sorry I worried you.”

Satisfied with his obedience, you lean down to kiss him again in reward. But Steve catches the breath between your mouths, his lips brushing yours when he adds, quieter, “I’m sorry I have to leave again at dawn.”

You still completely. Steve’s eyes find yours beneath his mussed hair, and there is and ache there so open it makes your chest hurt. Too honest for a man who’s worth more dead than most men will ever be alive. You can’t bare it for long. Your mouth finds his again, harder this time, before the feeling can name itself. That foolish hope of keeping a man who only ever comes to you with one foot already out the door.

“Then don’t waste my night, cowboy,” you breathe against his lips, rolling your hips down until his cock jerks beneath you. “You’ve got a lot to make up for.”

Steve answers with his hands. A sudden greed of them at your waist, then sliding further up beneath your chemise. His thumbs brush the underside of your breasts with just enough pressure to make you gasp into his mouth. Then he’s tugging the fabric higher, impatient now, and you lift your arms before he has to ask. 

He drags the cotton over your head, tossing it aside with the rest of your clothes until the night air has you bare above him.

His gaze rakes over you with such naked want that your stomach clenches. Over the tight peaks of your nipples, and lower still till to where you are spread over him in nothing but your drawers and stockings, already damp enough that the fabric clings between your thighs.

Steve’s hands tighten at your hips, his thumbs dragging once over the bare skin above your drawers. 

“You missed me somethin’ awful, didn’t you?” he teases, the corner of his mouth twitching, though his voice comes out rougher than the smile deserves.

You should scold him for that. You mean to, truly. But then his mouth closes over your breast, and the words break apart in your throat.

His beard scrapes over your skin as he sucks your nipple between his lips, tongue dragging over the tight peak before his teeth catch, sharp enough to make you dry out. Your hands fly to his hair, and you tug - meaner than you intend - but Steve groans against your tit, delighted.

“Love it when you’re mean,” he pants against your skin, mouth moving to the other breast, leaving the first wet with his spit in the moonlight.

His head tips beneath your grip, golden hair sliding through your fingers. He lets you guide him, all that size and strength beautiful under your hands. Because for all his sins, Steve is clever enough to know there’s power in obedience when it comes to the right woman.

His hands shove your drawers down over your hips, hurried and clumsy for the first time all night. They catch at your knees before you kick them away, leaving you naked above him, trembling with the kind of want no decent woman was ever supposed to admit by name.

Your fingers go to his trousers, but the buttons take too long. You curse them for it, and Steve gives a breathless little laugh that dies the second your hand slips inside and wraps around him. His cock springs free, slapping heavy against your thigh, already leaking at the tip. Precum smears against your skin as he twitches there, hard enough to make your mouth go dry.

It’s like you forget just how big he is until he’s in your hand again, fat and veined and heavy enough to make you wonder if he’ll still fit. But your cunt clenches desperately around nothing like it already knows the answer.

You sink your teeth into your lower lip and drag yourself over him, sliding the wet heat of your pussy along the length of his cock. He groans at the first slick pass, at the way your folds part around him, coating him in creamy white wetness until every rock of your hips makes an obscene, sticky sound between you.

The fat head catches against your clit with each pass, enough to make your hips stutter and your head tip back with a needy little whine. But Steve’s arms clamp over your hips, muscles flexing as he keeps you humping his cock. His precum mixes with the mess dripping from your needy hole, smearing over his shaft and down onto the golden muscle of his stomach under you.

“Fuck, ‘atta girl,” he rasps, head falling back against the quilt. “Get my cock nice and wet. Make yourself feel good, use me.”

So you grind down harder, slicking his cock with the mess he’s made of you, feeling his abs flex beneath your hands every time his tip nudges your tight entrance.

“Steve,” you whine, nails digging into this skin hard enough to leave marks. “I want it. I want your cock in me.”

“Yeah?” he breathes, and the little edge of a grin he tries for doesn’t last. Not when you reach between you, wrap your hand around the thick, wet length of him. “Then take it, ma’am. It’s yours.”

You push up on your knees, thighs trembling on either side of him, the thick muscle of Steve’s biceps bunching as he holds you steady. His cock pulses with anticipation in your grip, veins standing out beneath your palm as you line him up with your entrance. 

You’re both wet enough that it should be easy, your cream smeared down his shaft, his precum sticky on your fingers. But the first push of the mushroom tip stretches you open with a burn so sweet and full it feels like being split in half. Your mouth falls open the same moment his does, both of you moaning at the sensation after weeks without each other. 

Your pussy flutters around him, tight and greedy, sucking him in with little needy clenches that make his hands dig harder into your hips. 

“Missed this,” he groans, every muscle in him straining with the effort not to thrust up and take more than you give. “Missed your tight cunt so bad I damn near wore out my own fist thinkin’ about it.”

The filthy praise goes straight to your cunt, sending a fresh wave of arousal dripping around him as you sink lower. Your head tips back, his name spilling from your lips in broken little sounds as you take him inch by inch.

Steve’s eyes fix on where you’re joined, watching the slow, wet slide of himself disappearing inside you. His jaw clenches beneath his beard, every muscle in him pulled taut like the sight of your tight pussy struggling around him might make him spill inside you before you’ve even taken all of him. 

When your hips finally meet his, the fat tip of his cock kisses your cervix and it empties your head clean of any coherent though. You feel him twitch inside you as your walls give a wet squeeze around him, your cunt clinging tight like it needs a second to believe it’s taken all of him. 

“Fuck, Steve,” you whine, nails dragging over his chest. “You’re so big.”

You slowly try and find a rhythm, rolling your hips down until the tip of his cock hits deep enough to make your whole body jolt. The first few strokes are messy, your thighs trembling as you lift and sink. But Steve’s palms stay firm at your hips, helping you find the rhythm, holding you steady while you fuck yourself down onto him.

“But you’re takin’ it, sweet girl,” he groans, helping you down harder, pulling you into each stroke until your tits bounce and the room fills with the slick slap of your body meeting his. “Takin’ my cock so pretty. Always do.”

The bed complains beneath you, wood knocking softly against the wall, but it’s nothing compared to the wet, shameless sound of your pussy taking him over and over. 

“Steve—” Your voice breaks into a cry when he hits that deep spot again, “Need—fuck—”

Your pace turns desperate, hips rolling and lifting, chasing the thick slide of him inside you. Every time you sink down, your cunt grips him tighter, cream slicking the base of his cock in a white ring that smears against his skin and drips lower, making a filthy mess of his heavy balls.

Steve’s eye’s darken at the sight. “Pretty cunt’s makin’ such a mess on my cock, can feel her squeezin’ me. Feel you gettin’ close.”

You nod, pathetic and needy. “I need you,” you gasp, “Steve, please, I’m—”

His hand leaves your hip and slips between you, thumb finding your swollen clit. Your rhythm breaks, hips jerking as a needy moan catches in your throat. You try to keep riding him, but it turns sloppy fast, more grinding than bouncing now, your body chasing his hand while his cock stays buried deep inside you.

“That’s what you needed, sweetheart?” Steve rasps, watching you fall apart above him. “Then let me feel that tight pussy come on my cock.”

The pressure snaps tight in your belly, sharp enough to steal the air from you. One more stroke of his thumb, one more dirty grind down on his cock, and your orgasm crashes through you.

Your cunt strangles his cock, pulsing around him in tight, wet flutters. “Fuck,” he grunts out, hands grabbing for hips as his restraint finally snaps. “Fuck, ma’am, can’t—”

One second you’re on top of him, shaking through it, and the next his strength is under you and around you, flipping you onto your back like you weigh nothing at all. Steve settles between your thighs with a groan as he drives back into your soaked cunt in one deep thrust that punches the breath from your lungs.

“Steve!” You sob his name, oversensitive and helpless under him, but your legs hook around his waist anyway. Steve fucks into you harder, deeper, mouth catching yours in a messy kiss.

“There you go,” he grits out, one hand braced beside your head, the other gripping your thigh high against his hip. “‘Atta girl. Fuck, you feel too good, this cunt’s tryin’ to keep me.”

You can’t answer, not properly. Not with him pounding into you like this, all that leashed strength finally let loose, his cock dragging over your oversensitive walls while your legs shake around him. All you can do is cling to him and babble his name, too ruined to do anything but take it.

His thrusts turn rougher as his cock throbs inside you. At the last second, Steve pulls out with a broken groan, his hand wrapping around his slick cock as he spills hot over your stomach. Hot white ropes spill across your skin while his hips jerk into his fist, eyes fixed on the mess he’s making of you like it’s the prettiest thing he’s seen in weeks.

Steve’s strokes slow, his fist still wrapped around himself as the last of his release spills over your belly. His eyes drag from the mess on your skin to your face, and his expression softens instantly. 

“Good girl,” he rumbles, thumb smearing through the mess he’s made before he seems to remember himself. His mouth finds yours once, beards scratching softly over your skin as you make a tired little sound against his mouth. “Took me so good, sweets. So fuckin’ good for me.”

His lips move over your cheek, your jaw, the corner of your mouth, murmuring praise between each kiss, until the words sink under your skin. Then he forces himself away with a rough breath, tugging his shirt the rest of the way off before shoving his trousers down his hips. His boots hit the floor with a dull thud, followed by the rest of his clothes.

Naked, he crosses to the washstand with all that golden muscle and road-worn swagger, shoulders broad in the moonlight, hair mussed from your hands. He comes back with a damp cloth and cleans you himself. 

One big hand rests tenderly at your hip while the other wipes his come from your stomach. His gaze flicks up to yours once when you shiver, mouth curving beneath his beard, but he doesn’t tease. He only drags the cloth lower, gentle between your thighs, cleaning the sticky mess from your skin.

“So perfect,” he whispers, pressing a kiss just beneath your ribs when he’s done. “My best girl.”

Tossing the cloth aside, he climbs into bed beside you, greedy for your warmth. His arm hooks around you waist instantly, dragging you back against him like even the few inches between your bodies are more than he can spare. His chest presses warm against your back, his thigh slides between yours, and his mouth finds your shoulder before you’ve even settled.

For a while, neither of you says anything.

Steve keeps kissing you anyway, and his hand rests heavy over your stomach, fingers spread wide like he means to keep you against him forever. But his thumb moves gently. Back and forth. Back and forth. A quiet apology against your skin. You’re half asleep by the time your voice finds him again.

“Missed you Stevie,” you mumble, so low he might have missed it if he hadn’t been listening for every breath. “Was worried.”

Steve goes still behind you for a moment, then his thumb starts moving again, slow over the bare skin of your stomach like he can soothe the ache he put there. “I know,” he murmurs into your hair. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. Didn’t mean to leave you countin’ days.”

“What really happened?”

Steve exhales slowly behind you, mouth pressing to your shoulder before he answers, like he can feel the tightness gathering there already. “Train job got messy. Payroll car was heavier than we heard, and the guard had more friends than sense. Had to ride south after, lose a posse near the creekbed.” His hand tightens when your brow pinches in worry, though your eyes stay closed. “No, honey. Not like that. They got a shot off, but it only grazed me.”

Your eyes crack open. “Only?”

“I’m here, ain’t I?” he breathes, trying for that crooked little arrogance and not quite managing it. “Takes more than that to put me down.”

You make a sleepy, displeased sound and press back harder into him, grumbling something unkind into the pillow

Steve huffs a quiet laugh and presses his smile to your shoulder. “Mean little thing,” he whispers, but his arm tightens around you, and his lips linger. “I’m alright. Truly. Just took longer than I wanted.”

After that, the room settles around you. His hand stays where it is, warm and broad over your middle, and his breathing slows behind you.You’re almost asleep when the thought slips out of you, small and wounded.

“Don’t wake me when you leave.”

His chest stops moving against your back.

“I mean it,” you add, fingers finding his where they rest over your stomach. “I can’t watch you choose the door.”

That one hurts him. You feel his arm curl tighter around your waist like some selfish part of him wants to promise he won’t go at all. For a second, you think he might argue. But Steve Rogers has never been cruel enough to promise something so foolish.

“Alright,” he whispers, voice rough. “I’ll leave quiet.”

You nod once, already drifting, but your fingers tighten around his. Steve turns his hand beneath yours and holds on. “But I’m here now,” he murmurs, mouth brushing your skin. “Sleep, honey. I’ve got you.”

Morning doesn’t wake you kindly.

One moment you’re warm enough to feel the man behind you, and the next your hand is sliding across the mattress, reaching for a body that is no longer there. Still, you lie with your hand pressed to the place where Steve had been, as if there might still be enough of him left in the sheets to count for something.

The scrape of his beard still burns faintly along your shoulder. Your thighs ache when you shift. Proof everywhere, and still no man beside you.

The day doesn’t care. It waits for no woman, least of all one foolish enough to miss a man with four figures under his name. So you get up.There is no use in grieving a man who is not dead, and no sense in missing a man who warned you he would go.

You go about your morning routine and pull on your dress, fastening every button back into place until the schoolteacher returns piece by piece. Nothing to suggest what an outlaw had done to her in the dark. By the time your books are gathered, your hands have almost stopped shaking.

You check the stove before you leave. The door latch. The chair by the bed, sitting innocent in the morning light, as if it hadn’t held an outlaw the night before. Last, out of habit more than thought, you cross to the window over the washstand.

Your hand is already braced to force it closed when you freeze. The window is shut.

Not forced down, not wedged in crooked, not sitting stubborn in its swollen frame. Shut. Properly shut. The latch sits clean in its catch, holding firm beneath the careful press of your fingers.

It’s silly, really, to stand there with your throat gone tight over a fixed window. But it’s what almost does you in. Your bad man, making sure no worse men can get in.

Weeks pass with no word from your outlaw.

You tell yourself that’s likely for the best. Good news rarely travels fast where men like Steve Rogers are concerned; bad news, however, travels like wildfire. Still, each morning you find yourself scanning the newspaper columns with a sour twist in your stomach, looking for his name with morbid compulsion and praying not to find it. It’s the same grim, self-torturous routine every day, waiting for the one where some column out west reports Steve Rogers and the Winter Kid dead, captured, or hanged.

By night, the worry is worse. It follows you into bed and slips into your dreams, filling up the space Steve left empty. You sleep poorly when sleep comes at all, one ear tuned toward the road like a fool, listening for hoofbeats you’ve no good reason to expect, yet hope for all the same.

But it isn’t hoofbeats that pull you from slumber tonight.

It’s the violent thud of a fist hammering on your front door, hard enough to shake the frame and send you bolting upright with your heat already halfway up your throat.

“Hello?!” a man shouts through the door, breathless and frantic. “Miss! For God’s sake, tell me you’re in there!”

He swears under his breath, his voice comes again, but lower this time. “Goddammit, Rogers, if you gave me the wrong damn house—”

His fist hits the door again, harder now, rattling the latch in its frame.

“Open up! Please, open the door!” he yells. “Name’s Barnes—Bucky Barnes—I’ve got Rogers with me, and he’s shot real bad!”

Steve. Shot badly.

The words make your blood run cold, but fear is not enough to make you foolish. Graveyards are full of women who opened up because they believed bad men with good stories.

“Miss!” Barnes shouts, followed by a strained grunt and the scrape of boots dragging over your porch boards. “Please! I ain’t got time to stand here proper, he’s slippin’!”

Steve had spoken of a Bucky Barnes before, of course he had - Buck, usually, said with the kind of rough fondness he tried to hide and never quite managed - but knowing a name isn’t the same as knowing a voice through the door in the middle of the night.

You move for the shotgun. A lady might have felt shame keeping such a thing so close to her bed. A woman who lives alone knows better.

You cock it loud enough for the sound to carry through the door.

The knocking stops. When you speak, your voice is steadier than the rest of you feels. “If you’re lyin’, Mr. Barnes, you ought to know I’ve got a shotgun pointed at this door.”

“Lady, you can shoot me after if you’re still of a mind to,” he shouts back. “Right now I need you to open the damn door before Rogers bleeds out on your porch!”

Before you can answer, a low groan drags from the other side of the door, followed by Bucky swearing under his breath. Then you recognise Steve’s voice, frailer than you’ve ever heard it, trying to make your name out of what little strength he has left. It makes the shotgun feel useless in your hands.

You flip the latch up before you can think better of it, though you keep one hand on the shotgun as you pull the door open - barrel tipped down but ready. 

Bucky Barnes is braced on your porch, with Steve Rogers sagging against him.

His jaw is clenched from the strain of the weight, one shoulder shoved beneath Steve’s arm, with his own locked tight around Steve’s waist. Steve’s boots scrape uselessly over the boards when Bucky shifts him higher. It is clear, terribly clear, that Steve is only standing because Bucky has decided he will.

He’s bent nearly double, folded into the wound, hanging off Bucky with no strength of his own. His head dips heavy towards his chest, and he might almost look drunk if his skin were not so pale beneath the dirt, or if every breath didn’t seem to pull through him with effort. 

One hand rests low on his abdomen, fingers spread over a blooming red patch that has soaked through his shirt and keeps smearing beneath his palm. But the hand is slack. His arm trembles with the effort of keeping it over the wound, slipping through the blood rather than stopping it. Every breath drags through him shallow and uneven as though his body has begun bargaining over what it can afford.

“Steve!”

The shotgun clatters to the floor in an instant, forgotten in your panic. You reach for him instantly, palms cupping his face because you need to see his eyes. Need some proof behind the boneless sag of him. His skin is damp beneath your hands and it’s too cold for a man sweating so badly. When you lift his head, it comes slowly, with too much weight in it, his neck offering almost no help at all.

He looks worse than any newspaper ever managed to make him.

His mouth hangs open around each thin pull of breath, lips dry and parted beneath the rough gold of his beard. Dirt clings to the sweat along his hairline. There is a smear of blood near his lip, and his jaw has gone loose under your hands, all that stubborn Rogers grit worn down to something frighteningly human.

His eyes slide over you without settling, and that scares you more than the blood.

“Steve,” you repeat, thumb brushing his cheek. “Look at me. Please, look at me.”

Recognition gathers slowly, blue eyes dragging themselves back from somewhere far away. Then the worry comes with it, because even like this, Steve Rogers is sorry. His brows draw together as if he has been carrying one thought all the way to your porch and means to set it down before his body gives out beneath him.

“Told Buck not to wake you,” he slurs, stopping after it to drag in another shallow breath. “Told him you needed sleep.”

Bucky grunts a disbelieving laugh next to you. 

“Alright, Romeo, that’s real touching,” he snaps, shifting Steve’s weight higher with a grunt, “but you’re bleeding on the lady’s porch. Miss, I need him flat, I need light, and I need clean cloths. Now.”

The kitchen table is where Bucky wants him. There’s no time to argue about the indecency of it, or the blood, or how Bucky’s supposed to get him up there without injuring Steve further. 

Bucky pulls Steve through the door with one brutal shift of his weight, dragging him over the threshold whilst Steve’s boots scrape and stumble over your floor. The wound pulls with the movement, wrenching a raw, bitten-off sound deep from his chest.

“Clear it,” Bucky orders, jerking his chin toward the oak table. 

And you move only because your body takes over. A book hits the floor. Then the bowl you left out after supper, shattering somewhere near your feet. You don’t hear it over the rush of blood in your ears.

Bucky gets one hand under Steve’s arm and the other braced hard at his back. “Alright, Stevie,” he mutters, more to himself than to Steve. “Up we go.”

The lift tears a brutal cry out of Steve.

You’ve never heard that sound from him before. Pain has pulled groans from him, curses too, all stubbornly swallowed before anyone could make much of them. But Steve’s too far gone to care about that now.

“I know,” Bucky says at once, voice gone tight as he arranges Steve onto the table. “I know, I know. M’sorry, Stevie. I’m sorry.”

Steve is too far under to hear him properly. His head rolls against the wood, lashes fluttering, mouth open around another broken sound when Bucky drags his legs up after him. The table creaks beneath his weight. Blood smears across the pale grain in a dark, ugly sweep. Then Bucky plants one hand low on Steve’s abdomen and presses down hard.

Steve’s whole body jerks.

“Shit,” Bucky grunts out, leaning his weight into it when Steve tries to curl away from the pressure. “I know, pal. Ain’t got a choice.”

You just stand there, frozen.

That’s the shame in it. You stand there with your hands curled uselessly at your sides and your bare feet near broken crockery, staring at your outlaw bleeding out across your kitchen table. There is some part of you, in the back of your head, that understands the urgency of the scene, begging you to move. But the rest of you is somewhere else entirely, watching from a distance as the biggest, most capable man you have ever known lies pale as linen and fights for the next breath.

“Lady,” Bucky snaps. “I need you with me.”

But you don’t answer, eyes fixed on the slow rile and fall of Steve’s chest. The terrible wait between each shallow pull of air and the next. The horrible stillness after every breath, when your heart seems to stop with his and only starts again when his chest moves.

Bucky’s bloody hand slams against the table. “Miss!”

Your eyes jerk to him, though the rest of you stays frozen in place. He looks furious - terrified too, but masked beneath the practical need to keep moving. His jaw is set, his breathing hard, one hand still pressed down over Steve’s wound while the other points at you like he can drag sense back into you by force.

“You can stare at him dead or you can help me keep him livin’,” he says. “Pick quick.”

The words snap you back to reality. Your throat tightens, and you take a steadying breath, “What do you need?”

You scramble through your own house, trying to remember everything Bucky lists as fast as he names it. 

Lamps first, hands shaking hard enough that the chimney glass knocks against the metal. Then cloths from the press. The clean sheet from your bed, yanked free with one sharp pull and bundled under your arm. Thread from the sewing box. Needle. Whiskey from the cupboard that you only keep in for Steve. You put water on the stove and nearly drop the pot before you get it settled.

Behind you, Bucky cuts Steve’s shirt open. The sound of Steve groaning under the movement turns your stomach, but Bucky only mutters a low apology and keeps working, dragging ruined cloth away from ruined skin before reaching for the whiskey and one of the clean rags you brought him. He wipes around the wound with brisk, careful pressure, until the blood smears thinner and the shape of the damage begins to show.

You wish at once that he hadn’t. 

It looks smaller than it should for all the red it has made, one ugly hole low on Steve’s abdomen, close to his hip, and swollen angry at the edges. Blood keeps welling steadily no matter how quickly Bucky clears it. Steve’s stomach jumps beneath every touch, muscle pulling tight before giving out again.

“Bullet’s still in,” Bucky confirms, mouth grim. “Ain’t deep. That’s the good news. Bad news is you’re takin’ it out and sewin’ him up.”

“No!” You’re shaking your head before the word has even finished leaving your mouth. “You crazy, mister? I can’t do that!”

Steve makes a rough sound, half breath, half pain, and Bucky glances down long enough for something scared to flash over his face.

“Well, little lady, unless you reckon you can hold down two hundred pounds of half-delirious cowboy when he starts thrashin’ while I go fishin’ through his guts, then yes, you can.” Bucky’s hand clamps harder over Steve’s middle when Steve shifts with a broken sound, his shoulders lifting from the table before the strength goes out of him again. “Because if he comes off this table, he’ll tear himself up worse than he already is, and I can’t hold him and dig the bullet out at the same time.”

Your mouth opens, but nothing follows.

The lamp catches the sweat on Steve’s throat and the red glistening on Bucky’s hands. Too much of it. Too much on the table, too much soaked into Steve’s shirt, too much slipping between Bucky’s fingers no matter how hard he presses.

You nod once, firm, forcing the fear down into something more useful. Some of the harshness leaves Bucky’s face, not enough to soften him completely, but enough for you to see the man Steve must have trusted with all the worst parts of himself. 

“Good girl, I’ll talk you through it,” Bucky says, already reaching for the whiskey. “Steady hands is all I need from you”

So you give him steady hands. Or try to.

You wash them until the water in the basin clouds pink from blood. Bucky talks all the while, voice firm enough to keep you moving from one instruction to the next. He pours a splash of whiskey over the wound and Steve flinches from the table with a staggered cry, only for Bucky to catch him hard across the chest and shove him back down.

“I know, I’m sorry, pal,” Bucky murmurs, hands firm at Steve’s shoulders. “But you gotta try and stay still Stevie, please.”

The softness in his voice does nothing to gentle his grip. If anything, that’s what makes it worse: the way he bends close to Steve’s ear and coaxes him like a wounded horse whilst holding him down with enough strength to bruise. He gets the belt from his own waist and folds the leather between Steve’s teeth, fingers careful at his jaw.

“Bite down,” he instructs. “Before you break your damn teeth trying not to make noise.”

Steve’s lashes flutter, eyes too glassy to find either of you properly, but his teeth close around the leather. Bucky’s hand lingers one second at the side of Steve’s face before he reaches into his coat and pulls out a small roll of oilcloth, the kind of thing only carried by men on the wrong side of the law with no doctor waiting.

Inside is a short knife, and a pair of narrow steel forceps. He snatches those up first and presses them into your palm.

You take a steadying breath. It doesn’t help much

The first touch of metal to torn flesh makes Steve cry out around the belt, the sound muffled and awful. His hand slams against the table hard enough to rattle the bowl, but Bucky catches his wrist and pins it down without looking away from the wound. He murmurs something too low for you to catch.

Apology, prayer, curse; with men like them, there may not be much difference.

Under Bucky’s instruction, you search for the bullet, stopping every time Steve’s body bucks beneath Bucky’s hold. It feels endless, a handful of seconds stretched cruel by the sound of Steve’s breathing and the red shining over your fingers. Then the forceps catch on something hard, something that does not belong inside a man, and Bucky’s voice cuts through the room at once.

“That’s it. Easy now. Pull straight.”

The bullet comes free slick with blood and drops into the bowl with a dull little clink. For all the damage it has done, it looks far too small.

Bucky lets out a breath, but he doesn’t let go of Steve. “Good,” he praises, rough. “That’s real good, darlin’. Now stitch him.”

Threading the needle takes three tries and a muttered curse before the thread finally slips through. Cloth never prepared you for this - it stays put under your hands. Flesh has a give to it that turns your stomach, but you swallow it down and focus on the path of the needle, in one side and out the other, the thread slowly drawing the wound closed.

Bucky watches the first one go through, then the second, and whatever he sees must satisfy him enough to turn more of his attention back to Steve.

“Doin’ good, Stevie,” he murmurs. “Stay with me. There you go. Tough bastard like you don’t get to die in a schoolteacher’s kitchen.”

Steve makes a sound around the belt, weak now, worn down by pain and blood loss until even agony seems to cost too much effort. Then the needle catches wrong, just enough to make his body twitch beneath Bucky’s grip.

“Fuck—I’m sorry Steve,” you whisper before you can stop yourself, pulling the stitch through with a shaking hand. “I’m nearly done, promise.”

Bucky glances at you, then back down at him. “Hear that, Rogers? Lady’s apologisin’ to you while saving your sorry hide. You better live long enough to thank her proper.”

By the time you tie off the final stitch, your back aches, your hands are cramped, and your nightdress is ruined past saving. Bucky binds the wound tight with strips torn from your clean sheet, wrapping them firm while you hold Steve’s hand and try not to notice how loosely his fingers curl around yours now.

When Bucky finally steps away, the room seems to take its first full breath since two outlaws crashed into your evening. He wipes his hands on the edge of the sheet, eyes tracking over Steve, watching for any fresh red spilling through the bandage. He nods once to himself when none does.

“Alright,” Bucky says at last. “Now we keep him warm, and thank God he’s a stubborn son of a bitch.”

With the worst of the work done, the night settles into a long, sleepless vigil.

Steve is covered with every blanket you own, and neither of you can tear your eyes away from him long enough to do much beyond tend to him. His body has finally given itself over the exhaustion, sleeping so deeply you watch for his breaths to make sure he’s still alive. You clean what you can from him with a wet cloth - the dirt on his cheek, the sweat from his brow, the blood on his hands.

Bucky stays in the chair by Steve’s head.

He looks half-dead himself, shoulders bowed beneath exhaustion, eyes shadowed, jaw slackening each time sleep nearly takes him before he drags himself back from it. Every time Steve’s breathing changes, Bucky’s head lifts. Every time Steve shifts, Bucky’s hand is already there, soothing him back to stillness. Small, tender brushes of his hand through damp blond strands. He does it without thinking, with the ease of habit, and you get the feeling you’re seeing something usually kept from view.

It’s a strange thing to witness from a man with his name on a wanted poster. It’s a strange thing to witness from a man at all, really.

‘The Winter Kid’ the papers call him - always printed near Steve’s name like one shadow following another. He’s younger than the posters make him look, or maybe just more human. Handsome too, though that thought feels poorly timed and unwelcome. But true all the same.

Maybe he can feel you looking, because his eyes lift to yours a moment later. They’re unfairly blue against the tan of his skin and the dark fall of his hair,and for one strange second you feel caught in them the way you do in Steve’s.

“What?” he asks, tilting his head.

You shrug, a little embarrassed, but you hold his gaze. “You don’t look much like your picture.”

“Yeah, well.” The corner of his mouth twitches, and for the first time you feel that charm Steve warned you about, battered but not dead. “They charge extra for likeness.”

A small laugh slips out of you before you can stop it. Bucky hears it, and the corner of his mouth seems to twitch a fraction further up, pleased with himself. The air between you seems a little lighter after that, still ruled by Steve’s breathing, but less like two strangers keeping watch over a dying man and more like two people bound, against all better judgement, to the same stubborn fool. “I expected you shorter,” you admit, causing Bucky to raise a brow. “You know, from the name.”

Bucky groans like this is a wound all its own, head tipping back against the chair for half a second. “Christ. Not you too.”

“Well, it does give a certain impression,” you add, just to goad.

“It gives me a headache is what it gives me.” He drags a tired hand down his face, though the shape of a smile keeps threatening at his mouth. “You know how hard it is to be taken serious by women when half of ’em start grinnin’ soon as they hear Kid?”

“From what Steve tells me,” you say, glancing down at the man asleep between you, “you seem to manage just fine.”

His expression shifts slightly at that. Surprise first, then something warmer he tries to hide by leaning back in his chair and letting the charm crawl into the corner of his mouth. Worse now you know to look for it.

“Oh yeah?” he drawls, voice smoother than it should be after all his shouting. “And what exactly has Rogers told you about how I treat a lady, darlin’?”

You reach for the damp cloth beside you and wring it out over the basin, refusing to give him the satisfaction of looking flustered. “Careful, Mr. Barnes. I’ve still a mind to pick my shotgun back up.”

Bucky seems more pleased by your threat than scared, but lifts his hands in surrender all the same, “Of course, Miss. I’ll behave.”

After that, the conversation drifts into exchanging stories about Steve. It feels odd to speak of him like this whilst he lies pale beneath your blankets, yet necessary too, as if each foolish little detail sets another small weight on the side of the scale that says living.

Eventually, though, you can’t avoid the question anymore.

“What happened?”

Bucky’s smile disappears instantly, replaced by a grimace. “Rumlow.” 

Just the name is enough to fill the room with dread.

Brock Rumlow has a reputation that travels ahead of him. Bounty hunter, most folk call him. Brutal killer, if folk were feeling honest. But a good man by the town’s measure because he kills with the sheriff’s blessing. 

“He caught our trail two days west,” he explains. “We thought we’d shaken him after the river crossin’. But Steve said the tracks were too clean, and of course he just had to be right.”

His mouth twists, though there’s no humour in it now.

“Rumlow had men waitin’ by the ridge. More than we counted on. First shot took my horse out from under me, and Steve came back for me like the damned fool he is.” Bucky’s hand goes to Steve’s hair again before he seems to notice it, fingers combing once through the damp strands before he pulls away. “I told him to ride. He didn’t.”

Of course he didn’t.

That is what hurts most, perhaps. Not the recklessness - you made your peace with that, or tried to. No, it’s the unfortunate fact that no part of you can imagine him doing anything else because you know by now that Steve has never had much sense when someone he cares for is in danger. He might be a wanted man, but he’s good down to the marrow.

“He drew their fire long enough for me to get my rifle,” Bucky continues. “I managed to drop one man, maybe two. Then Rumlow put a bullet in him from the rocks. Steve stayed in the saddle after, somehow. Long enough to swear at me for fussin’.”

“That sounds like him,” you say quietly, reaching for Steve’s hand beneath the blankets. His fingers are cool when you fold them into yours and loose in a way that makes your throat tighten.

“Yeah.” Bucky huffs through his nose. “Stubborn bastard made it near six miles telling me it was only a graze. Then he went white as flour and damn near pitched off the horse.”

Your hand tightens around Steve’s before you can stop it. Bucky’s eyes catch it - for all his exhaustion, there is very little the man seems to miss.

“Kept off the road after that, muddied the trial in the creek too.” Bucky says. “Lost ’em for tonight, I reckon.”

“For tonight?”

His eyes lift to yours, and they give you the answer before his mouth does. “Rumlow’s still breathin’, ain’t he?”

That answers enough.

Bucky leans forward and peels the edge of the blanket back just far enough to check the bandage. With gentle fingers, he presses near your stitches, watching for fresh blood, and you find yourself holding your breath until he lets the blanket fall back into place.

“Stitches are holding,” he confirms. “You did good, darlin’, real good.”

Then his gaze drops to Steve, hand resting on his shoulder.

“Course,” he adds, murmuring almost to himself. “Rogers always did know how to pick good people.”

That makes you look back up at him, at the two of them together. And for a second you see it all playing out: Steve riding back into gunfire, Bucky dragging him through the dark, the two of them printed side by side on every wanted paper like the world has always known they come together.

“Yeah,” you reply softly, holding his gaze. “He does.”

The corner of Bucky’s mouth lifts without any of the charm from before. This smile is smaller, more honest. Grateful in a way neither of you can bear to acknowledge. 

The next couple of days pass in pieces for Steve.

Pain consumes most of it, sharp enough to drag him sleep sometimes. But he always wakes to company and the cool drag of a cloth over his face when fever leaves him damp and restless. Sometimes the hand at his brow is yours. Sometimes it’s Bucky’s calloused palms, not a soft but no less careful for it.

When he shifts too quickly, one of you is always there to press him back down. Your voice comes sweet near his ear, telling him to to rest and stop being difficult. Bucky has less patience about it, muttering, “Quit bein’ a jackass, Rogers,”but the softness in his voice gives him away.

By the second day, he starts catching more of the world around him. Mostly, he catches the two of you speaking over him like he’s some troublesome piece of work you have mutually agreed to keep alive. He hears you show Bucky how to change the sheets without jostling him, and Bucky grumbling that you’re a bossy little thing. Your quiet snicker follows, easy enough by then to tell Steve you’ve already learnt not to be scared of Bucky’s bark. And it settles him enough to fall back into another slumber.

Yet, when Steve wakes properly, the house is quiet. His mind goes straight trouble - you and Bucky hurt, or worse, taken.Then he sees the fresh cloth waiting on the washstand, the cup of water set near the bed, the plate of food left within reach. Someone has even pulled the blanket back from the edge of his bandage so it won’t catch when he moves.

Still, his gaze flicks back to the empty chair, a little more wounded at being left alone than he’d admit. 

But then he hears voices drift in from the window. Yours first, bright enough to pull his eyes open properly. Bucky answers beneath it, rougher and far too pleased with himself, and Steve rolls his eyes fondly at the ceiling. He knows Bucky in that mood, and exactly the kind of trouble he thinks he’s charming his way out of.

The sound of you both laughing together is too sweet to resist, and it pulls at Steve before he can think better of it. So he presses one hand to his side, grits his teeth and pushes himself upright with a low grunt. 

By the time he makes it to the doorway, he’s sweating through his shirt, and lightheaded enough that he has to lean against the frame for support. But when his vision focuses on the two of you, the pain pulsing from his side seems to subside. 

Bucky’s leaning against the fence with his sleeves rolled to his elbows - an unabashed display of his toned forearms if Steve’s ever seen one - hat tipped back and a loose board braced beneath his boot. He must have been fixing it before he got distracted. Or before you distracted him. Either way, he’s smiling at you like he knows just how handsome he is, which, Steve thinks fondly, he does.

“You call that fixed?” you ask, eyeing the board.

“It’s standin’, ain’t it?”

“It was standin’ before.”

“Well, now it’s standin’ better.”

Your mouth opens in disbelief, and Bucky’s grin widens like he has been waiting all morning to earn that exact look from you. He shifts the hammer in his hand, letting it hang loose at his side. “You this particular with all the men who do chores for you?”

“Only the ones who do half a job and then stand there lookin’ pleased with themselves.” You jibe, mouth curving before you can help it. “Steve never gives me cause to complain.”

Bucky presses a hand to his chest, wounded clean through. “Darlin’, I am beginnin’ to think you don’t appreciate the quality of my help.”

Steve watches your face as you say it, the way your smile tugs despite your best efforts to keep stern. You’re standing closer than you need to. Close enough to swat his arm when he mutters something about schoolteachers being as scary as he remembers. Bucky catches your wrist before your hand drops, letting his thumb skim once across the inside of it before he lets it go.

Too friendly, some part of Steve thinks. He should mind that. He knows himself well enough to expect the old ugly twist, the hard little claim in his chest that has no manners and less patience. His girl. His Buck.

“You remember I have a shotgun, right? Any more excuses from you and I’ll get it back out and see if it motivates you proper,” you warn, though there is too much warmth in it to do much harm.

Bucky looks far too pleased by that. “How could I forget?” He dips his head, absolutely unrepentant. “Pretty thing like you pointin’ a gun at me ain’t a picture a man forgets easy.”

He really should mind that. 

Only the longer he watches, the more it just seems… right. That’s the simple answer. The more complicated one is that there’s a want in him he hasn’t allowed himself to acknowledge until now. 

Then Bucky says something softer, and whatever it is makes your expression change. The teasing slips. You step forward and wrap your arms around him, gentle at first, then tighter when Bucky folds around you in return. His hand spreads over your back, yours presses between his shoulders, and he rests his chin on your head.

Something in Steve’s stomach twists hot, and it’s not the bullet wound. 

Oh.

Well.

That explains a few things.

When you pull back, your fingers drag lightly down Bucky’s sleeve before falling away. And then your eyes catch Steve in the doorway.

The smile drops straight off your face.

“Steve!” you chide. “Good lord, you shouldn’t be standin’ up yet!”

Bucky turns fast, all charm gone in an instant. “You stupid son of a—”

“Why aren’t you in bed?” you demand, already crossing the yard towards him. “You’re meant to be resting. You’ll tear the stitches, you’ll—”

“What’re you doin’?” Steve asks.

His voice is rough from sleep and disuse, but it cuts through your panic all the same. You stop a few feet short of him, caught between scolding him like one of your schoolchildren and reaching for him. Bucky has followed you, but that damn mouth of his curves back into his signature smirk.

“Stealin’ your woman?” he replies.

Steve huffs a laugh at that, breath catching a little in his chest from the pull of it. He shakes his head, looking between the two of you with something warm and wry beneath the exhaustion.

“Take her,” he shrugs, turning back towards the house, pretending with little success that every step doesn’t pull at his side.

You both go quiet behind him. Steve pauses at the doorway just long enough to glance back, tired eyes moving between the two of you.

“What?” he says, mouth twitching as he makes his slow way back to bed. “Take her.”

Bucky watches him go, grin crooked and eyes a little too soft. “Well, you’re a romantic bastard, I’ll give you that.”

You climb into bed that night tentatively, careful to keep your distance from Steve so you can’t accidentally hurt him.

He watches you fuss with tired amusement, flat on his back beneath the blankets. He’s been patient all day because he’s had no choice in the matter, but now, with you so close, what little patience he has left wears thin.

His arm reaches for you beneath the quilt. “C’mere.”

“But you need to be careful—”

He tugs you closer before you can finish, stubborn as always, and though the movement pulls a faint wince from him, it also draws a low, pleased rumble from his chest when you end up pressed along his side.

“Steve,” you hiss, braced on one elbow, already trying to take some of your weight off him. “You’re going’ to hurt yourself.”

“Worth it,” he murmurs.

You open your mouth to argue, but his lips find your shoulder first. He kisses over your skin lazily, as if he has all the time in the world and no bounty hunter breathing down the road. Then moves to side of your throat, where his beard scrapes softly enough to make your breath catch. Any protest thins in your mouth and dies there, useless, and the ease with which you melt for him makes Steve smile against your skin.

“Missed you,” he hums, pleased with himself.

The words catch somewhere tender, and before you can stop it, the fear you’ve been holding back for days slips free. “I thought you were going’ to die.”

Steve’s mouth stills against your skin. For a moment, he says nothing, then his jaw sets with all the stubborn bravado of a man determined to make the thing smaller than it was. “Don’t make a big deal out of it.”

You stare at him, eyes burning, and Steve’s bravado doesn’t survive it. His expression softens before he pulls you closer despite the faint wince it costs him, burying his face against your neck.

“No,” he murmurs, voice rough now. “Make a big deal out of it.”

Your fingers tighten in his shirt. Steve kisses your temple and lets you hold him as hard as you need to, though you can feel the care he takes with every breath. 

“You’re a fool,” you grumble against his chest.

“I know,” he agrees easily.

“And stubborn.”

“I know that too,” he adds, the hint of a smile returning to his voice.

You lift your head enough to glare at him through the last sting behind your eyes. “Don’t sound so smug.”

“Can’t help it.” His hand slides from your waist, broad palm warm through the thin cotton of your nightdress. “You get awful sweet when you forget to be cross with me, ma’am.”

You should scold him. You mean to. Instead your head tips, giving him more room, and Steve’s breath warms where your pulse has already started tripping under his mouth. Then his fingers drift lower, gathering your nightdress up slowly so his hand can hand slip between your thighs, and what comes out of you isn’t an answer at all. It’s too soft, too needy, your hips shifting before your pride can stop them.

Steve only hums, like that tells him everything he needs to know.

“Poor thing,” he murmurs. “You’re soaked already.”

You make a small sound of protest, breath catching as your hips shift against his palm. “You should be resting.”

“I am resting,” he counters. “You’re the one making all that noise.”

Heat rushes straight through you. “Steve.”

He grins, because he knows what that tone means. His fingers drag through your pussy, spreading the slick of you over your skin until you can’t hold back the needy little moan that escapes. “Buck been winding you up all day, huh? Flashing those pretty eyes at you, running that mouth, standing too close every chance he got.”

You bite your lip hard, but Steve knows your body too well by now. The little tremor that goes through you when he presses two fingers to your entrance, and the way your knees loosen when he rubs his thumb over your clit.

“Mm. Saw the way you looked at him.” His thumb presses a little firmer, drawing another helpless sound from you as his voice drops rougher by your ear. “Saw the way he looked at you too. Like he was wondering how sweet you’d sound if somebody got a hand under your skirt.”

You turn your face into his shoulder, scandalised and burning, but the heat pooling low in you stomach tells a different story. “You can’t say things like that.”

“Seems I just did.”

His fingers push into you then, thick enough to make you clutch at his shirt, his name leaving you in a soft, broken sound. Steve goes still for a breath, jaw tightening as your pussy clenches around him, warm and slick and greedy enough to make him curse the wound in his side for keeping his cock out of you.

“Atta girl,” he murmurs, voice rough at your ear. “Open up for me, sweetheart.”

Your thighs part around his hand, your body taking him with a helpless little roll of your hips. His cock twitches heavy against your leg, and the moan that slips out of you is louder than you mean it to be, needy enough to make heat rush to your face.

“That’s my girl,” Steve coos. “Been so good taking care of me, haven’t you? Let me take care of you now.”

“Wait—fuck—Stevie, he’ll hear us.” you protest weakly, eyes flicking toward the door, where Bucky is sleeping on the couch on the other side.

Steve’s fingers slow, but they don’t stop. If anything, his touch turns crueller, pumping in and out of your pussy with an unhurried drag as his thumb circles your clit.

“Good,” he says at last.

Your eyes widen.

Steve curls his fingers inside you, pressing just right, and your whole body jerks against him. “Let him.”

Your pussy tightens around him before you can pretend to be scandalised. Steve feels it and smiles, filthy and pleased, as another moan slips out of you. You try to swallow it down, but his thumb keeps stroking your clit and his fingers keep fucking you open, slow enough to make every wet sound feel obscene in the quiet room.

“S’okay, honey,” he encourages, kissing beneath your ear. “I don’t mind. You make those pretty noises for me and let Buck hear what he’s missin’ out on.”

“Steve,” you whimper into his neck, overwhelmed by the heat of it, by the way he says Buck’s name with no jealousy at all. Like it turns him on too. Like he knows exactly what he is doing to you.

His mouth brushes your jaw. “Poor bastard probably spent all afternoon thinkin’ about what you’d sound like if he got his hands on you,” he rumbles, fingers driving deeper until your breath catches sharp. “Now he’s out there listenin’ to me do it.”

Your fingers curl in the front of his shirt, hips moving against his hand now, chasing more. Steve makes a rough sound like the sight of you fucking yourself on his fingers might kill him faster than any bounty hunter ever could.

Then your hand slides lower before you can think better of it, finding the hard line of his cock through his drawers. He curses under his breath, hips twitching once into your palm before pain catches at him and makes his jaw clench.

You pull back instantly. “Steve—”

“Don’t.” His hand tightens on your thigh, stubborn even now, even with sweat at his temple and breath caught in his chest. “I’m fine, pretty girl, promise. Just need your hand on my cock. Need my girl to make it better.”

Your answering moan is too wanton to stifle, and out on the couch, Bucky hears it. 

He’s been awake for a while, one arm thrown over his eyes, every sore port of him arguing with the hard springs beneath the couch cushion. At first, he told himself he was just listening for Steve - that’s reasonable enough. A man has a right to keep an ear out for his best friend when said friend has nearly bled dry on a kitchen table. And if said friend is in bed with his pretty little woman, well, that’s hardly his fault, is it?

He knows should roll over and try to sleep. Or do literally anything other than listen to the needy catch in your breath when Steve’s fingers must find something good. Heat pulls through him before he can talk sense into himself. It’s been crawling under his skin all day. And now Steve’s voice is torturing him in the dark, coaxing the prettiest noises out of you like he means for Bucky to hear everyone.

His hand slides down over the hard ache in his trousers before he can pretend better of himself. His hips jerk into his palm at the first firm press. 

Bucky shuts his eyes as his lips part around a groan of relief. 

He should feel worse about it, probably. A gentleman might. Then again, he’s never made much of a claim to being one, and there’s nothing gentlemanly about Steve is talking to you through the door. Low and rough, sweet in all the wrong places, telling you how good you are for him whilst you make those soft ruined sounds that go straight to Bucky’s cock.

His fingers work the buttons of his trousers open, and he’s so wound up that the first touch to his throbbing length makes his hips jerk up. He’s already hard enough to hurt, thick and hot in his grip, precum slicking the head as he strokes once from base to tip. He has to force himself slower so he doesn’t spill too fast, listening to the shift of the bed in the next room and the wet sound of Steve’s fingers fucking you.

“Don’t hide from me,” Steve rumbles, voice carrying just enough. “Want him to hear how pretty you get when you come”

The needy moan you cry out in response, makes Bucky’s hand tighten and his eyes squeeze shut. He can picture it all wall for a man who hasn’t a right to see any of it. Your thighs spread under Steve’s hand, nightdress pushed up, tucking your face into Steve’s neck as you try and fail to keep quit. Steve, wounded and recovering, still generous enough to make sure Bucky knows what he’s missing. 

“Stevie,” you gasp, and Bucky’s cock jerks in his fist.

He drags his thumb over the swollen head with enough pressure to make his stomach pull tight. The couch springs creak beneath him when his hips jump into his hand, and he freezes momentarily, listening. But neither of you stop. If anything, Steve laughs, low and filthy, like he heard the sound and knows eaxctly what it means. 

“That’s it, sweetheart,” Steve groans. “Bet Buck’s got his hand around his cock right now, listenin’ to you. Bet he can’t help himself.”

Bucky presses his forearm over his mouth, a helpless grin pulling at him even as pleasure burns through his gut. Bastard. Mean, beautiful bastard. He strokes himself harder, giving up on pacing himself, fist slick and tight around his cock as your moans slip through the thin bedroom door and wrap around every filthy picture Steve puts in his head.

“Wish he could see you right now,” Steve goads, and Bucky nearly spills right there. “So wet for me. Sweet little pussy takin’ my fingers so good. He’d lose his fuckin’ mind.”

His hips buck desperately into his first, breath coming harsh through his nose as Steve keeps talking like he knows every dirty place Bucky’s mind has gone and means to walk you through all of them. Your moans pitcher higher, thinner, more desperate.

“Please Stevie—so close,” you whine, and Bucky doesn’t think he’s ever heard anything more beautiful. 

“I’ve got you, sweet girl,” Steve coos. “Come for me. Let him hear.”

The sound you make as you fall apart under Steve’s hand is obscene. You pleasure spills out into the dark as Steve praises you in that honey-deep register like he’s got his fingers buried in the best thing he’s ever touched. Bucky strokes himself harder, cock slick in his fist, teeth digging into his wrist to keep his own noise down.

Then Steve groans low around a curse, and God, Bucky knows that sound. Learnt on cold nights under open sky when bedrolls were laid a polite distance apart and neither of them ever spoke of what they heard in the dark.

But hearing it now, with you, is enough to finish off what your moans started.

His hand works faster, rougher, chasing it until he spills over his own knuckles. He strokes himself through it, hips jerking up into his fist, hot cum slicking his fingers while the last of Steve’s filthy praise drifts through the door.

Head falling back against the couch, he throws his free hand over his eyes again as if that might make a decent man of him after the fact. But the other is still loose around his sensitive, softening cock. From the bedroom, Steve mutters something too low for him too catch, but you laugh in response, breathless.

Bucky smiles up at the ceiling, completely and utterly fucked. Both of you tucked under his skin, deep as a wound and twice as troublesome. 

“Romantic bastard,” he scoffs into the dark.

 You wake reaching for Steve, hands sliding over the sheets in search of the warmth that’s usually gone by the time daylight finds you. For one awful, familiar second, your heat braces for emptiness, and then your fingers meet his chest. Still there.

The joy it brings is so small and foolish it almost hurts. Steve’s still beside you, warm beneath your palm, alive beneath your hand, his breath moving slow and steady. You don’t mean to smile as hard as you do for something that won’t last, but you feel it happen anyway. 

Steve’s eyes crack open, tired blue finding you through the grey morning light. His mouth curves faintly. 

“Mornin’,” he rasps. 

He lifts a hand with more effort than he lets show and brushes his knuckles along your cheek before drawing you close enough to kiss your forehead. It is gentle. Domestic, almost, in a way that feels absurd given the blood dried somewhere in your kitchen and the wanted posters nailed up in town.

But then Steve starts trying to get up. He looks pale enough that you threaten him twice before he gets both feet on the floor. 

“You are pale enough to haunt this house, Steve Rogers. Sit still.”

His brows lift, innocent as sin. “Jus’ thinkin’ about breakfast is all, ma’am, swear.”

He takes your continued scolding with a faint curve to his mouth, one hand shielding the wound slightly, as you get up to help him dress. He even lets you fuss over him, and you breathe a sigh of relief when you see no red blooming on his bandages. 

By the time you get him into the kitchen, his jaw his set hard enough to make you narrow your eyes. Steve takes your silent warning and lowers himself into the chair before bringing your hand to his mouth and kissing the inside of it. Just a brief, warm brush of his lips, eyes lifting to yours in quiet apology for every minute he’s made your heart suffer these last few days.

The door opens before you can say anything soft enough to embarrass you both. Bucky steps inside with a sack under one arm; he’s been gone since first light, having ridden into town for coffee, cartridges, and whatever else two outlaws and one increasingly compromised schoolteacher might need. You’re expecting some crooked remark as he kicks the door shut behind him. Maybe something about Steve looking less like a corpse, or you running the kitchen like a jailhouse.

Instead, his face is grim.

Steve clocks it immediately, and his shoulders straighten. Pain forgotten under the old readiness that lives dormant in him until needed. “What?”

Bucky sets the sack on the table. “You feel well enough to ride?”

Steve frowns. “If I have to.”

“Good.” Bucky’s eyes flick over you, brows tightening, then back to Steve. “Rumlow’s in town, asking questions at the mercantile. Offered coin for anyone who knew anythin’ about Steve Rogers and The Winter Kid.”

Steve face flattens, jaw setting into that hardened mask he uses to cover whatever else he’s feeling. Nodding once, he pushes up from the chair.

“Steve—” you start at once.

He bends and kisses you before you can finish, once hand gentle at the side of your face. It tastes too close to a goodbye kiss for your heart to bare, and the panic rises in your throat.

“We’ll draw him off, honey,” he murmurs, clearly misinterpreting your worry. “He won’t know you had anything to do with us.”

Then he turns to Bucky. “Get the horses ready. We’ll cut south - maybe this time we stop talking about Mexico and actually head there.”

Mexico?

You look from Steve to Bucky, at the silent communication already passing between them, and the speed with which they become men leaving. Men packing their lives into saddlebags. Men deciding what they can carry and what must be left, including, apparently, you. 

“Take me with you.”

Both of them immediately stop.

Steve turns firs,t protest already written across his face. “Sweetheart, you can’t seriously —”

Bucky interrupts, sharper. “Absolutely not.”

“I wasn’t askin’,” you counter firmly, mustering up the same voice you use in the schoolhouse when a child thinks they might try their luck.

Steve’s brows pull together. “You don’t know what you’re suggestin’.”

“I do.”

“You don’t.” Bucky cuts in, which only makes you angrier. “This life ain’t—”

“Ain’t what?” you return. “For a lady?”

That closes his mouth. For once, Bucky Barnes has no clever answer ready, and Steve looks no better. The two of them stand there, each searching for the combination of words least likely to upset you further and finding none fast enough.

“After last night, I think any claim I had to bein’ a lady has been thoroughly mishandled.”

A flush climbs through the rough gold of Steve’s beard at once, and he drops his eyes to the table as if the wood grain has become a matter of deep interest. Bucky looks toward the window with equal dignity, which is to say very little, given what he had so clearly heard through your bedroom door. But you feel a little wild with it now. Freed by the strange relief of having already stepped over the edge in your own mind.

“I’m a schoolteacher in a town that’s been dyin’ for years,” you continue. “Folk still smile at me like I’m still respectable, but every year I stay unmarried, they look a little closer for the rot. And every night I come back to this house alone, and wait to hear news of Steve’s death.”

Steve’s face falls, and he looks at you with such earnest guilt that you have to look away or you’ll lose the nerve to finish. Your eyes sting badly enough that you have to blink hard and focus on staring at the floorboards.

“I’m no fool,” you say. “I know what I’m sayin’. Long days. Cold nights. Men with guns behind us. I know it won’t be some grand adventure out of a penny paper.” You lift your head again. “But I want a life I choose. I want more than waitin’ in this house for grief to come find me. And I want to be with you.”

Bucky looks at Steve then, and Steve returns it. They do that thing again where a whole conversation seems to pass without either of them opening their mouth, and you can already tell this is a feature of them that will get on your nerves. Still, you stand there and wait. You can see them weighing the right choice. You can also see, with a painful twist of hope, that neither of them likes the thought of leaving you behind.

Steve exhales through his nose. “You’d have to listen.”

“To both of us,” Bucky adds. “When it counts. If Steve says run, you run. If I say stay put, you don’t move a muscle.”

“You’ll ride until you ache,” Steve says, eyes searching your face for the first sign of regret. “Sleep under open sky. Eat beans out of a tin when there’s nothing else. Go without a proper bed more often than you’ll have one.”

Bucky leans his hip against the table, arms folding, his expression hard despite the tired edge of him. “And you’ll keep that shotgun close. Learn a pistol too, whether you like it or not. Pretty face won’t do much good if Rumlow catches up.”

“I’ll do it,” you agree, looking at Steve first, then Bucky, making yourself hold both their gazes long enough for them to see there’s fear in you, plenty of it. Just none useful enough to change your mind. “I’ll do it all, I promise.”

They seem satisfied enough to move again, almost. Steve’s hand twitches toward the supplies, Bucky’s eyes flick to the door. But you stop them before the moment can run away from you.

“The only thing I won’t do,” you continue, quieter, “is watch either of you die. I’ll skip that scene, if you don’t mind.”

Steve’s hand closes around yours before you can busy yourself with anything else, or turn away and pretend the words weren’t all too honest.

“Once we go,” his eyes hold steady on yours, “we go.”

There’s warning in it, but there’s promise too. You squeeze his hand in confirmation. 

“Then let’s go.”

You leave before the town has finished waking, with no grand farewell to your little house. Just five minutes to pack the essentials, and everything else left behind for the town to make stories about two bad men and the lady they corrupted.

For the first couple weeks, you ride with Bucky. At first, Steve enjoys watching the two of you grow closer. But a few days pass without your arms around his waist and the man starts acting abandoned. Nothing dramatic, of course. Steve Rogers is far too dignified for that. He only gets quieter, pouts into his coffee, and looks at you from under those ridiculous lashes with his pretty blue eyes, utterly wounded.

But there’s only so much sympathy you can give him when every jolt of his horse leaves his face tight and grey - having you pressed against his side would pull at the wound no matter how carefully you held him, so you sit behind Bucky instead. Your arms wrap around his middle, sometimes resting your cheek between his shoulder blades when the road stretches long.

He’s always warm - despite the nickname - and complains when your cold hands slip under his coat in the mornings, but never makes you move them.

It’s on one such morning that the question slips out before it’s even fully formed in your head. Absent in its curiosity. 

“Bucky?”

He turns his head back slightly, catching your face in the corner of his eye. “Hmm?”

Your chin is hooked over his shoulder, the brim of his hat shading your eyes from the sun. Steve is riding a bit ahead, far enough to pretend he’s not listening and close enough you know he is.

“Do you ever wonder, if I’d met you first, that we’d be the ones the get involved?”

Bucky makes a thoughtful sound, as though this is a matter requiring serious study. “But we are involved, sugar.”

You lift your head. “Are we?”

“You’re ridin’ my horse with me.” His hand covers yours where it rests against his stomach, thumb brushing once over your knuckles. “In some countries, that’s the same as being married.”

Steve glances back over his shoulder. “Name one.”

“Plenty, Stevie,” Bucky shoots back without missing a beat. “Just ‘cause you ain’t a romantic don’t mean it ain’t true.”

“That mean you don’t know any?”

“Means I’m a man of mystery, Rogers. Let me have that.”

You laugh into Bucky’s shoulder, and Steve turns forward again, shaking his head. Even from behind, you can see the curve at the corner of his mouth.

That becomes one of the biggest pleasures of the road, the two of them bickering like an old married couple with loaded guns and a shared talent for pretending they are the sensible one. Steve corrects Bucky’s directions. Bucky mocks Steve’s caution. Steve tells him caution is the reason he’s still alive, and Bucky retorts, “Barely,” with a pointed look at the bandage under his shirt. 

You learn to sit between it and smile into the back of Bucky’s coat, warm with the strange comfort of being folded into something that clearly existed long before you and somehow has made room for you anyway.

The weeks begin to fold into one another after that, measured less by days than by how far Steve can ride before pain makes him stubbornly quiet. He never says when it’s too much - of course he doesn’t. But you both learn the signs, so that when that happens, you or Bucky find an excuse to stop. Steve accepts each excuse with the grateful dignity of a man who knows precisely what you’re doing and lacks the strength to protest.

Some nights you find a town small enough to risk, and the three of you take one room under a false name while Steve lies stiff on the bed and Bucky sleeps in the chair with a gun across his lap. Other nights, there is only open country and the fire between you, Bucky’s coat under your head, Steve’s hand tucked around your waist, pleased now he can finally pull you close.

You learn quickly; you have to. 

How to ride until your thighs ache and keep your complaints mostly to yourself. How to drink bad coffee without making a face. How to keep your hair pinned under a hat when passing through towns where a woman travelling with two men draws more attention than a pair of wanted faces.

Bucky teaches you to shoot a pistol at a row of bottles outside an abandoned line shack, and Steve stands behind you, correcting your grip until Bucky accuses him of distracting you. 

Rumlow stays behind you like bad weather you can’t outride, always somewhere on the edge of the horizon. Some days there’s no sign of him at all. Other days Bucky comes back from a supply run with his jaw tight, or Steve sees something in the dirt that makes both men go quiet. Neither of them likes fear on your face, so you learn how to hide that, too.

By the time Steve’s stitches come out, the three of you have already become a kind of routine.

Steve reads the land ahead. Bucky watches what follows. You keep track of the food, the clean cloth, and all the small human things the two of them would forget in favour of keeping moving. You sleep between them when the nights turn cold, Bucky pressed at your back and Steve careful against your front, one arm laid over your waist like even in sleep he means to keep you safe. Nobody ever says much about it in the morning.

But the trouble with Mexico is that it keeps costing money. By the third month, the coins in Bucky’s purse have started to sound lonely, and Steve has taken to rationing his own portions to make sure you have enough. You always protest that he needs it more, but it falls on deaf ears.

“We need money,” Bucky says one evening, poking at the fire with a stick.

Steve doesn’t look up from the map. “I know.”

“We need quite a bit of money.”

“I know.”

You look between them. “Why do I get the feelin’ neither of you is about to suggest honest work?”

Bucky grins. Steve sighs.

A plan is soon in place, and you quickly realise you aren’t just being given soft work. They aren’t just tucking you safely away and asking you to wait pretty by the horses. No, you’re the distraction. Steve watches your face intently whilst they explain your part, searching for fear, and Bucky watches your hands to see if they shake. They do, a little. You tell him they shake less when people stop staring at them.

“Mean little thing when you’re nervous,” Bucky murmurs.

“You’d know better than to test me, then,” you snap back, much to his delight.

And that’s how you find yourself in your best dress two mornings later, walking into a town that has never heard your name and smiling sweetly at the bank clerk while Steve and Bucky do what Steve Rogers and The Winter Kid apparently do very well.

Soon, there’s a saddle under your hips, stolen money in Steve’s saddle bag and Bucky laughing as the town bell starts clanging behind you. Steve rides quietly beside you, one hand low on his reins, hat pulled low against the flare. He looks more pensive than you’d expect for a man who just planned and executed a successful robbery. 

“You know,” he considers, tilting his head. “When I was a kid, I always figured on bein’ a hero when I grew up.”

“Too late now,” Bucky shoots back instantly.

Steve turns in the saddle, mouth pulled into an exaggerated pout that almost looks genuinely hurt by the insinuation. “You didn’t have to say that—What’d you have to say that for?”

“Because we just robbed a bank and you’re gettin’ wistful about virtue. Felt like someone ought to keep you on track.”

You laugh before you can stop yourself, and Steve looks betrayed for all of half a second before his own mouth gives him away.

“I could still be heroic,” he argues.

“Of course, Stevie,” you soothe, reaching over to squeeze his arm. “And if heroism ever starts includin’ bank robbery, you’ll be the first man I nominate.”

Steve shakes his head, but there’s warmth in it. There’s warmth amongst all three of you now. The money will carry you further south. Rumlow, for the moment, is behind you. And for one bright stretch of road, with the sun high and the horses steady beneath you, the three of you ride easy.

When you reach the next town just before dark, it’s mercifully large enough to have a hotel, though only just. The main building fronts the street, while a handful of squat lodging cabins stand behind it beside the stable yard, each containing little more than a bed, a washstand and a door that locks.

You’ve already separated from Bucky two streets over - two men and a woman trying to book one cabin would draw eyes. A man and his wife, tired from the road and keen to be left alone, draw far fewer.

Bucky will return after dark with supplies and come through the open window like any decent outlaw.

By now, the routine is well worn. Steve keeps his hat low and asks for a room for himself and his wife. Your stomach gives a foolish little turn at the word, which is unhelpful given the circumstances, so you tuck yourself closer into his side and play your part.

The clerk turns the ledger around. “Name?”

Steve takes the pen and writes one of the names agreed between the three of you, this time settling on Mr. and Mrs. Drysdale.

The clerks eyes move over Steve as he writes, a little too closely for your liking. Steve’s hat shadows most of his face, though there is only so much a brim can do against a jaw like his. Then the clerk’s gaze drops to you, lingering on the plain dress, the tired hem, the cheap ring on your finger where your hand rests neatly against Steve’s sleeve.

“Long road?” he asks.

“Long enough,” you answer before Steve can, sweet and harmless. “My husband’s been poor company since noon.”

The clerk’s mouth twitches. “That so?”

“I get hungry,” Steve says.

“He gets sulky,” you correct.

The clerk looks amused now, his suspicion giving way to the easier pleasure of watching a married couple prod at each other. He reaches for a key from the row behind him.

“Cabin four,” he says. “Out and to the right.”

Steve takes the key with a polite nod, your hand still tucked around his arm, and the two of you make your way to the cabin to wait for Bucky and whatever trouble he tends to bring back with him.

But exhaustion claims you before said trouble arrives. You barely manage to loosen your dress before crawling beneath the covers, telling Steve you only mean to close your eyes whilst he checks the room. The bed feels strangely wide after so many nights spent wedged between two warm bodies beneath the open sky. Even when there had only been Steve beside you, his arm always fond your waist before sleep did. 

Tonight, the empty space at your back bothers you more than it ought to, and you drift off feeling faintly abandoned by both outlaws. 

Until finally you stir to the mattress dipping behind you and warmth settling along your back. It’s broad and familiar enough that your half-asleep mind doesn’t ask questions. Instead, you arch back into him, pleased to have your outlaw close, fitting your ass against his hips. 

Impatiently, and a little pointedly, you reach back for the arm that has failed to wrap itself around you. You drag it over your waist and hold is hand beneath yours. 

“Took you long enough,” you mumble into the pillow, a little pout tucked into the words. After all those weeks of Steve looking wounded whenever you rode with Bucky, he might at least have the decency to act pleased now that he can pull you close whenever.

His body goes stiff, and you take the teasing for what it is, grinding back again. Slower this time, rolling your ass over the shape beneath his trousers until his cock begins to harden against you. A strained breath warms the back of your neck. Then another, rougher, when you press closer and keep moving, sleepy need gathering fast between your thighs.

Still, his hand remains where you put it.

Your brows pinch. Steve has never needed this much encouragement where you;re concerned. Usually, one soft sound from you is enough to have him pushing up your skirts and getting greedy with whatever he finds beneath them.

“Stevie,” you whine, catching his wrist again. “Quit makin’ me ask.”

You guide his hand down over your stomach and between your thighs, pressing his palm against the heat gathered beneath your drawers. His fingers flex once. The groan that leaves him is low and delicious beside your ear, and you answer it with a needy little roll of your hips, trying to coax his hand into giving you what you want.

“That’s it, honey.” You hear Steve drawl, but his voice doesn’t come from behind you. “Keep grindin’ that pretty ass over Buck’s cock, he’s been waitin’ weeks to feel how sweet you are.”

Your eyes snap open. 

Steve is sat in the chair near the window, one ankle hooked over the other, watching the two of you through the low lamplight. His hat rests on the table beside him, hair pushed back from his face, and the hard shape beneath his trousers leaves little doubt as to how much he’s been enjoying the view.

Behind you, Bucky has gone completely still. His hand remains trapped between your thighs where you placed it, fingers flexing once against the damp cloth of your drawers before stopping again.

Steve catches the hesitation on your face.

“Easy, pretty girl,” he coos, voice dropping softer. “You’re alright. Ain’t nobody cross with you.”

His gaze stays warm and steady on yours, settling some of the panic before it can take hold. Bucky makes no attempt to claim what you offered him in your sleep, leaving the choice entirely with you now that you’re awake, and the restraint loosens something in your chest.

You sink back against him again, and a quiet, needy “Steve” slips from your mouth. 

“Well, quit teasin’ him then, sweetheart. You dragged Buck’s hand down to that needy pussy yourself.” His eyes stay on yours, smile turning wicked. “You want him to touch you, don’t you?”

You nod, “Yes, Stevie, please.”

Approval rumbles from Steve across the room at the same moment Bucky groans against your shoulder. His hand finally moves, slipping beneath the damp cloth between your thighs and dragging two rough fingers through the slick gathered there.

“Christ,” Bucky breathes, the word warm against your neck. “You’re soaked through darlin’.”

Your hips chase his hand before you can help it, opening wider as his fingers circle your clit. He parts you slowly, gathering the mess of you over his fingertips before circling your clit. And God, does he learn quickly. Taking each broken breath and twitch of your thighs as instruction, until your body is rolling against him with shameless impatience.

“That feel good?” he murmurs. “Been wondering how sweet you’d get for me.”

You whine and press back against him, already impatient, already desperate for more than the teasing drag of his fingers. Bucky laughs softly into your neck, pleased by how quickly you come apart for him.

“Yeah, I can feel that.” One finger presses into your pussy, drawing a thin moan from you as he works it deeper. “Taking me so easy. Such a good girl for us.”

Bucky pushes a second finger into your pussy, and the stretch of them pulls a broken moan from you. His hand is rougher than Steve’s, the calluses catching at tender places as he works you open, but he watches every reaction with the same focused attention he gives everything. One curl of his fingers makes your thighs tremble, and he does it again immediately.

Steve watches from the chair with one hand resting over the hard shape in his trousers, his eyes fixed on the way you grind down over Bucky’s knuckles.

“That it?” he asks against your skin. “Right there, sugar?”

“Yes—God, Buck—”

Bucky curses when your walls tighten around him. “She’s so damn sweet, Stevie.”

Steve’s mouth curves.

“If you think she’s sweet around your fingers,” he says, voice low enough to make your stomach clench, “wait till you get a taste of her.”

The thought pulls a desperate sound from you. Bucky answers with a groan of his own, his fingers curling inside you as his gaze drops hungrily between your thighs from over your shoulder. Your hand is already reaching back, fingers tangling in his dark hair as you twist toward him and tug with very little patience left.

Bucky goes willingly, laughing once under his breath as he lets you pull him down the bed, tugging down your drawers as he goes.

“That eager, darlin’?”

“Yes,” you gasp, spreading your thighs wider to accommodate those broad shoulders. “Please.”

Steve leans back in the chair, hand now palming over his cock as he watches.

“Go on, Buck,” he drawls. “Show her that mouth’s good for something besides bein’ a clever jackass.”

The first slow drag of Bucky’s tongue through you tears a cry from your throat. His hands close around your hips at once, holding you open while he tastes you again, deeper this time, mouth working with none of the caution his fingers had shown. He licks through every slick fold, groaning against your pussy.

Then his tongue circles your clit, and your hips jerk sharply into his face.

“There,” Steve rumbles, hand pressing harder over his thick length, still trapped beneath too much fabric. “She likes it right there. Don’t rush her, Buck. Keep your tongue flat and make her grind on it.”

Bucky follows the instruction immediately. He spreads his mouth over you, tongue broad and slow beneath your clit while his grip shifts lower, fingers digging into the soft flesh beneath your thighs to pull you closer. Your back arches, breath breaking into a helpless whine as you begin to move against him, too desperate to stay still and too overwhelmed to find any rhythm beyond chasing whatever his mouth gives you.

“That’s it,” Bucky praises against you. “Good girl. Use me.”

His words vibrate through your pussy and leave you clenching around nothing. He feels it, answers with another hungry groan, then slips two fingers back inside you while his mouth returns to your clit.

The room seems to tilt.

“Buck—Steve—God—”

Their names tangle together as Bucky curls his fingers into the place that makes your thighs shake. Steve keeps talking from across the room, telling Bucky when to press harder, when to keep his mouth where it is, every quiet command proving how well he knows your body and how willingly Bucky is learning it.

Pleasure builds so quickly that instinct has you trying to squirm away from it. Your hips twist even as they buck toward him, hands scrambling over the sheets while Bucky holds you firmly in place and refuses to let the distance grow.

“Easy, darlin’,” he soothes, breathless against you. “I’ve got you. Let me have it.”

But you can’t. You need more. Need both of them.

Your hand reaches blindly toward Steve even though he’s still too far away, fingers stretching uselessly through the space between you as his name leaves you in a broken plea. “Stevie.”

He’s out of the chair before the word has finished. Steve comes to the bedside and catches your reaching hand, pressing it against his chest as he bends over you.

“I’m here, pretty girl,” he coos. “You close?”

You nod frantically, one hand clutching his shirt and dragging him lower because words have abandoned you. Steve lets himself be pulled into the kiss, mouth covering yours just as Bucky’s tongue flicks hard over your clit again.

You moan against Steve’s lips as his hand slides into Bucky’s hair.

“Closer, Buck,” Steve pants into your mouth, pushing him more firmly between your thighs. “She’s trying to run from it. Don’t let her.”

Bucky groans and buries his face deeper, lips and tongue turning greedy while Steve kisses you through every broken sound. The hand in Bucky’s hair holds him just where you need him, and Steve’s other palm cups your jaw, keeping your mouth against his as your body begins to lose all control.

“That’s my best girl,” Steve praises between kisses. “Lettin’ me share this sweet pussy with Buck. Look how greedy you’ve got him.”

Your fingers knot in Steve’s shirt as your hips rise hard against Bucky’s face, chasing the relentless pressure of his tongue. Bucky holds you there and eats you through it, groaning when your thighs close around his head and the first desperate pulse of your orgasm rolls over his mouth.

You come with Steve’s name breaking against his lips and Bucky’s muffled beneath it, your whole body shuddering as slick spills over Bucky’s tongue and chin. Steve kisses every cry from you while Bucky greedily laps at everything you give him, refusing to stop until you are trembling and breathless between them.

Only then does Steve ease his hold in Bucky’s hair.

Bucky lifts his head slowly, mouth shining and eyes dark with satisfaction, looking every bit as wrecked as you feel. He’s knelt between your thighs, one hand warm against your hip, whilst Steve is still leant over you. It leaves them close enough that Steve’s gaze has nowhere else to fall but Bucky’s mouth.

“Fuck Stevie,” he breathes, wiping his thumb beneath his lip only to suck the taste from it. “Can’t believe you kept her to yourself for so long. Greedy bastard.”

But Steve’s gaze is too focused on Bucky’s swollen lips, glistening with your arousal, for his brain to think of a response. His tongue flicks out absently, sweeping over his lower lip as though he can already taste you there. The hunger in his face is so plain that your hand rises almost instinctively, fingers curling around his jaw and drawing him toward Bucky.

Their mouths meet hard enough to pull a startled sound from Bucky, and for one suspended second neither man moves. Steve’s hand stays curled around his jaw. Bucky’s fingers bunch in the front of Steve’s shirt. The rough scrape of stubble and the unfamiliar shape of another man’s mouth seem to catch them both off guard.

But then Bucky pulls him closer.

Steve takes hold of the back of his neck and kisses him properly, tongue pushing into Bucky’s mouth with a low groan, greedy for every trace of you left on his tongue. Bucky answers with all the hunger he had just spent between your thighs, opening for him as though this is something they have been circling for years without ever daring to name.

The sight of them together sends fresh heat curling low in your stomach.

Steve’s tongue pushes deeper into Bucky’s mouth, licking over his lips and teeth as though Bucky has become another place from which Steve can take his fill. Bucky groans, one hand sliding around the back of Steve’s neck while the other tightens possessively on your thigh. Every reckless rescue, every night spent back to back beneath the open sky, every time one of them chose the other without hesitation finally makes sense for what it has always been.

Your slick still glistens on Bucky’s chin. Steve’s mouth smears through it as the kiss deepens, and neither of them seems to care where one taste ends and the other begins. Years of rough affection and stranger devotion turn filthy in front of you, Steve holding Bucky by the jaw while Bucky bites lightly at his lower lip before drawing him back in, as if now they have finally started, neither of them knows how to stop.

Then Bucky’s hand drops between them. His palm settles over Steve’s straining cock, and Steve groans into the kiss. Bucky rubs him slowly through the fabric, swallowing each low moan Steve gives him while Steve keeps one hand firm at the back of his neck. They look made for this, rough hands and parted mouths, years of devotion finding a new language right in front of you, and the thought leaves you aching all over again.

Your thighs shift restlessly beneath them. One hand slips between your legs, fingers finding your swollen clit while you watch Bucky palm Steve’s cock through his trousers. A moan escapes before you can smother it.

Their kiss breaks, both men looking down at you, though their foreheads remain pressed together. Bucky’s mouth is red and wet, Steve’s no better, and neither of them moves for a moment as they watch your fingers circle desperately between your thighs.

“Well, look at her,” Bucky murmurs, his hand still cupped around Steve. “Got herself all worked up watching us.”

You whine softly, pressing harder against your clit.

Steve’s eyes darken. “Poor pretty thing.”

Bucky gives Steve’s cock another slow squeeze, making his jaw tighten. “Reckon we ought to find that mouth something to do besides whine.”

Steve’s smile turns wicked. “Reckon you’re right.”

He shifts farther onto the bed and settles on his knees near the headboard, giving you room to turn beneath him. You move eagerly onto your hands and knees, facing Steve with Bucky still kneeling behind you, close enough that his thighs frame yours and his chest brushes your back when he leans over.

Bucky reaches around you before you can, fingers working open Steve’s trousers slowly at first, then surer when Steve does nothing to stop him. His hand closes around Steve’s cock as it spills free, heavy against his palm, the skin flushed deep at the head and drawn tight over the thick ridge beneath it. The vein you know so well runs dark along the underside, disappearing into Bucky’s fist when he gives one cautious stroke.

Steve’s head tips back on a broken groan.

The sound seems to delight Bucky, eyes dropping to watch his hand move again, slower this time, thumb dragging over the wet slit before sliding back down the length of him. Steve’s broad chest rises sharply beneath his shirt, every muscle in his shoulders pulled tight with the effort of holding still while Bucky learns how easily he can make him come apart.

Something needy catches inside you at the sight. You’ve heard that sound beneath your own hands too many times to let Bucky keep it all to himself.

You lean forward and press your lips to the swollen head, kissing it once before your tongue slips out to taste the slick Bucky has spread there. Steve’s breath breaks again, rougher now, and you follow the thick vein beneath his cock with a slow drag of your tongue, smiling when his hips twitch toward your mouth.

You kiss the tip again, softer this time, letting your lips linger around the crown. Steve’s hand braced against the headboard curls hard enough that the wood gives a quiet complaint beneath his grip.

Behind you, Bucky makes a low sound of disapproval.

“Now that ain’t kind,” he murmurs, gathering your hair away from your face with one hand. “Stevie’s been real good, lettin’ me have my fill of you, and here you are making him suffer for it.”

Steve tries to laugh, but it comes out rough and unsteady when you trace the underside of his cock with the tip of your tongue, following that thick vein until his hips jerk helplessly toward you again. Bucky’s fingers tighten in your hair.

“Think you oughta thank him proper.”

The push is slow but firm, guiding you down Steve’s length before you can tease him again. Your lips stretch around him as inch after inch slides over your tongue, Bucky holding your hair clear while he eases you forward until the swollen tip presses into your throat. You gag softly around him, eyes watering as your hands catch at Steve’s thighs, and the sound Steve makes is loud enough to fill the room.

His forehead drops against Bucky’s.

“Fuck,” he groans straight into Bucky’s mouth, breath breaking between them while your throat works helplessly around his cock. “Sweet girl, always so damn good to me.”

The praise goes straight through you. You moan around him, and Steve curses as the vibration rolls over his cock.

Bucky’s grip settles more firmly in your hair, guiding you back until Steve’s cock slips from your throat and then forward again in one slow, measured stroke. He controls the pace with an ease that makes your stomach tighten, keeping you steady while your lips drag over every inch of Steve. Each pass pulls another sound from Steve, his restraint coming apart piece by piece as the two of you work together to ruin him.

Bucky watches it happen with open satisfaction. His fingers tighten whenever Steve’s hips twitch, holding you in place long enough to make him feel the wet heat of your mouth before easing you back again. When your throat tightens around him and pulls another helpless groan from his chest, Bucky closes the distance and kisses him, swallowing every broken breath you pull from Steve as you bob on his cock.

 Then Steve seems to decide he’s had enough of Bucky being the only one left with any composure. His hand drops between you, fumbling once at Bucky’s trousers before dragging them open. Bucky’s breath breaks into the kiss when Steve wraps a fist around his cock, giving him an experimental stroke.

“Stevie,” Bucky groans against his lips.

Steve’s mouth curves against his. He pumps him again, firmer this time, and the sound Bucky makes rolls straight through you. It leaves you suddenly, painfully aware of the hard weight of him behind you, of how close his cock is to the slick heat between your thighs while his hand remains tangled in your hair.

Your knees edge farther apart without thought.

The movement opens you beneath him, your hips rocking back in a needy little invitation even as your mouth continues working over Steve. Bucky feels it immediately. His free hand slides down your spine and cups your ass, spreading you wider as his thumb traces through the slick already coating your inner thighs.

“Goddamn, sugar, look at you,” he breathes , looking down at the wet heat waiting behind you. “Spread wide and drippin’ all over yourself for my cock.”

Steve follows his gaze.

His fist slows around Bucky’s cock, drawing the swollen head through the mess between your thighs. You whimper around Steve as Bucky’s cock slides over your clit and nudges against your entrance.

Bucky presses forward slowly, teasing you with every inch of his cock. He isn’t as thick as Steve, but he is longer, the stretch different enough to wrench a muffled cry from you around the cock already filling your mouth. Your pussy opens greedily for him, slick walls fluttering as he sinks deeper until the head of him kisses your cervix and leaves you shuddering between them.

“Fuck me, Steve,” Bucky groans, driving in until his hips meet your ass. “You been fillin’ this pussy every chance you get and she’s still tight enough to choke my cock.”

Steve’s cock pulses over your tongue at the words. You barely have enough strength left to hold yourself upright, arms trembling beneath you while Bucky draws back and fills you again, each long stroke knocking the breath from your lungs. Steve’s hips begin to move with him, pushing into your mouth as Bucky fucks into your pussy, and soon there is no rhythm left for you to keep, only the one they make between them.

You let them have you.

Steve’s hands settle on either side of your face, keeping you steady as his cock slips wetly over your tongue. Saliva gathers at the corners of your mouth and spills down your chin. Every thrust from behind rocks you farther onto Steve, leaving you whining and gagging softly around him while Bucky’s cock reaches so deep your legs threaten to give beneath you.

“Look at her, Buck,” Steve rumbles, watching your lips stretch around him. “Can’t decide which cock she wants more, so she’s takin’ both like the greedy little thing she is.”

Bucky groans and drives in deeper, his hips pressing flush to your ass, causing your mouth to jolt forward around Steve. “She loves it, Stevie. Can feel her squeezin’ me every time you push down her throat.”

Your walls clench hard around Bucky at the filth in their words, milking his cock as another broken moan vibrates around Steve’s. 

“Think she likes hearing us talk about her.”

Steve’s gaze drops to you again, dark with affection and something far less gentle.

“Course she does,” he murmurs, thumb brushing through the spit shining on your chin. “Our filthy girl likes knowing she’s got both her outlaws pleased.”

Bucky’s thrusts begin to turn rougher behind you, each one driving you further onto Steve’s cock whilst Steve keeps one hand cradled against your jaw, thumb catching the drool that slips from the corner of your mouth. They feel your orgasm building, your pussy gripping Bucky and your moans breaking around Steve, and they chase it without mercy.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” Steve groans, eyes fixed on yours. “Come for us. Let Buck feel what that greedy pussy does when she gets everything she wants.”

Bucky’s hand tightens in your hair as his hips snap into you again. “Go on, sugar. Come all over my cock while you choke on his. Show us how good we make you feel.”

It’s the words that push you over. Pleasure tears through you so hard your arms nearly buckle beneath it. You come with both of them filling you, Steve thick over your tongue and Bucky buried deep enough to empty every though from your head. It’s both too much and exactly what you need - the two of them wrapped around you, with the truth of what they are to each other finally laid out between you.

Your walls clamp down around Bucky in frantic, pulsing waves. “That’s it darlin’,” Bucky growls as your pussy milks him, hips stuttering against your ass. “Keep choking me like that and I’m gonna paint this pretty back with my come.”

He pulls out just in time. His fist closes around his cock, stroking fast as the first hot spill lands across your lower back, followed by another thick stripe over your ass. Bucky groans your name as he empties himself over you, watching his seed streak your skin while your body still trembles beneath him.

Steve stares at the mess his best friend has made of you, and his cock jerks at the sight of you marked by Bucky’s cum. It’s enough to break him, spilling down your throat with a broken groan, hand tightening against your jaw as pulse after pulse fills your mouth. You swallow greedily around him, taking every drop while Bucky’s palm smooths over your hip.

“Such a sweet little thing,” Bucky murmurs behind you, still breathless. “Think your girl likes being shared, Steve.”

Steve’s thumb strokes tenderly over your cheek as you swallow the last of him, eyes glassy and looking up at him with such devoted affection it pulls his heart.

“Our girl.”

The next morning, you stir to Steve trying to leave the bed without disturbing you. He almost manages it. But the mattress shifts beneath his weight, and the warmth pressed against your front begins to disappear before you make a soft, petulant sound and reach for him beneath the covers. Steve catches your searching hand, pressing a kiss to your knuckles before leaning down to brush another against your forehead.

“Go back to sleep, sweetheart.”

You answer by tightening your fingers around his wrist, unwilling to surrender the place you have spent the night tucked between your two outlaws. Steve’s mouth softens, but Bucky solves the problem without properly waking. He makes a rough, sleepy noise behind you and pulls you firmly into his chest, one arm cinching around your waist until your back is fitted to him and there is no room left to complain about being abandoned.

“There,” Bucky mumbles into your hair. “Quit fussin’.”

You melt into him happily enough, eyes drifting shut again while Steve dresses nearby. Buck’s body is warm and heavy behind yours, his breath slow against your neck, and for a few precious moments the room feels safe enough to forget where you are. 

But then Steve’s curse cuts through the quiet.

“Buck.”

Bucky doesn’t move immediately. “Mm?”

“Get up.”

The tension in Steve’s voice does what the words alone can’t. Bucky’s arm disappears from around your waist as he pushes upright, sleep falling away from him in an instant. You sit up with the blanket clutched to your chest and find Steve beside the window, peering through the narrow gap he has made in the curtain. His gun belt is already fastened. One revolver rests in his hand while he checks the chamber of the other.

“What is it?” Bucky asks, reaching for his trousers.

Steve lets the curtain fall back into place. “We’ve got company.”

Bucky crosses the room barefoot, keeping himself close to the wall as he looks out. His expression hardens. “How many?”

“Too many.”

Your heart begins to pound. You drag the sheet around yourself and slip from the bed, though Steve catches sight of you moving and immediately shakes his head.

“Stay back from the window.”

“What’s happening?”

Neither answers quickly enough.

You look from one man to the other, watching the quick efficiency with which they arm themselves. Bucky pulls on his shirt without bothering to button it before buckling his holster. Steve gathers the ammunition from the table and divides it between them, his movements calm in a way that frightens you more than panic would have.

“Steve,” you push, and when Steve glances back at you, the desperation on your face is enough to make him stop pretending.

“Street’s surrounded,” he finally admits. “Sheriff’s got men covering the front, both ends of the alley and the stable yard. More on the roofs across from us.”

The words make you freeze. “How did they find us?”

Steve looks toward the door, jaw working once. “Maybe the clerk didn’t buy our performance after all.”

Bucky looks through the curtain again, studying the street below. “Back window?”

“Two men in the alley, three more watching the yard. We’d need to draw them round the front first.”

They continue to move through possibilities quickly, cutting each one down almost as soon as it’s spoken. There are too many men. That’s the truth beneath every low exchange, though neither of them says it aloud. Bucky begins loading his rifle. Steve watches him for a moment, then glances toward you. The look passing between them is brief, but you understand it anyway.

“No.”

Steve’s face closes. “Sweetheart—”

“No.”

Bucky sets the rifle down. “Sugar, listen.”

“I know that look.” Your voice shakes despite every effort to steady it. “You’re working out how to get me clear.”

Steve crosses to you, hands finding your cheeks and tilting your face to his. “Buck and I will draw them towards the front, and once they’re focused on us, you slip through the yard and take the first horse you can reach.”

Your eyes burn as you look between them. “And what chance does it give you?”

Neither man answers.

Months ago, when they let you ride away with them, you told them there was only one part of their life you wouldn’t share. You would endure the cold, the hunger, the long days in the saddle and every bullet sent chasing after them, but you wouldn’t stand by and watch either man die. Now they mean to hold you to it.

Bucky comes to stand beside you, one hand settling at the back of your neck. His thumb moves once over your skin, the touch unbearably gentle from a man preparing to walk into gunfire.

“You take the horse south,” he says. “Don’t stop in the next town. Just keep goin’ ‘till you can’t.”

You search their faces for another answer and find none. They’re terrified - you know them well enough now to see it. But they’re simply more frightened for you than they are for themselves. So you nod. 

Steve’s hands linger against your cheeks for another second before he releases you, and Bucky’s thumb brushes the back of your neck once more before both men turn away, returning to plan as they let you dress. 

Your fingers feel clumsy fastening your stays, though you force them through each familiar movement, pulling on yesterday’s dress and tying your hair back with shaking hands. Bucky crouches beside the bed and spreads their remaining cartridges across the floorboards, counting beneath his breath until a thought makes him pause with one round still caught between his fingers.

“Wait a minute - you didn’t see Rumlow out there, did you?”

Steve glances over from the rifle. “Rumlow? No. Why?”

“Thank God for that.” Bucky exhales and drops the cartridge onto the pile. “For a minute there, I thought we were in trouble.”

Steve’s expression flattens while a startled laugh escapes you despite everything, and the crooked grin Bucky sends your way suggests that was precisely what he’d been aiming for.

Steve returns to checking the rifle with a quiet shake of his head. “Idiot.”

Bucky’s smirk lingers only a moment before the boys begin getting ready in earnest. 

Steve fastens the last of the ammunition at his belt and checks both revolvers one final time, while Bucky gathers the remaining cartridges into his pockets and slings the rifle over his shoulder. You stand beside the bed with your coat half-buttoned and look between them, both armed now, both trying to pretend as though this is merely another bad plan they will laugh about by nightfall.

It’s Steve who comes to you first. He cups the back of your neck and kisses you hard, all the tenderness in him sharpened by the knowledge that he cannot afford to linger. You clutch at his shirt anyway, trying to hold him there, but he pulls back just enough to rest his forehead against yours.

“Promise me you’ll run,” Steve begs against your lips.

Before you can respond, Bucky adds “And don’t look back.”

You turn toward him, already crying despite the effort you’ve made not to. Bucky’s expression softens. He reaches up and wipes beneath one of your eyes with his thumb before drawing you against him and kissing you with none of his usual teasing left in it.

“You promise us, sugar,” he murmurs against your mouth. “You hear the gunfire, you run.”

Your bottom lip trembles, tears spilling freely, but you manage to keep you voice steady enough to reply “I promise.”

They lead you to the back window and ease it open just enough for you to slip through when the time comes, before heading back to the front door.

“Sheriff’s moved two more men toward the front,” he observes, peering through the narrow gap in the curtains. “Looks like they’re expecting us to make a grand entrance.”

Steve cocks his gun. “Well, I’d hate to disappoint.”

Bucky turns from the window with a faint smile, and just for a minute, the years between them seem to gather there in the quiet. They stand beside the door with their weapons ready, drawing one steadying breath before looking at each other.

“Till the end of the line,” Steve says.

Bucky’s answer comes without hesitation. “Always.”

Then they burst through the front door.

Gunfire erupts immediately, deafening in the close quarters, answered by the heavy crack of Steve’s revolver and the sharper report of Bucky’s rifle as they force the fight toward the front of the hotel. Every instinct in you screams to turn, to look, to run after them instead of away, but you cling to the promise you made and climb through the rear window once the coast is clear.

Then you run. Across the yard, past the stable wall and toward the first horse you can reach, every step carrying you farther from the two men you love. The law may have their names and faced printed on posters, may call them thieves and bad men, but you know better now.

Wanted men they may be, but they’re the best men you have ever known.

more mads: sooooo, i am so so sorry for how late i am for posting this. half of this was written in a sleep deprived, frantic haze so apologies if any of it gets confusing at any point, especially the ending. i had a different plan for it at first, but then i want to stay more loyal to the film, and i also needed to just get this fic done considering how late i already was to posting it. so this is what i landed on and i'm worried it hasn't quite worked :/ idk, this could be the sleep deprivation talking but i just started to hate this fic as i got closer to the end. hopefully you guys still enjoyed - if you did, please hit like or, even better, please consider leaving a comment/reblog bc it would genuinely make my whole day. my leo moon means i will literally perish without external validation. i’m tinkerbell coded. love u <33