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I’m currently working on a couple of redraws of some older pieces. They really help me see how much my style has changed over time, and honestly, it’s such a fun exercise too.
@rayrayhaywire sent me a stucky tweet, i sent one back, and this snippet spawned in my brain so i wrote it in ten-ish minutes because the writing inspo suddenly struck. just treat it as crack please. 😭😭
though tbh this was a nice little break between trying to write something serious, i love my little crackfics. (i actually have a mostly-written spiderverse au that is the most ridiculous thing ever, i may post it here sometime. also treat that as a joke if i do. idk) 💀
~
Bucky Barnes has now been promoted to the status of god.
A much warmer five minutes ago, Bucky had been sitting in the living room, attempting to read a book— the attempts were being interrupted by his little sister making commentary, like she’s on a radio talk show, while staring out the frosted windowpane that overlooks the yard between their apartment building and another brownstone. The empty plot was supposed to be the site of yet another building, but apparently the builders never got around to it, because it’s been the go-to place of pickup baseball games for the past few years. In the summers, it’s full of weeds and dried-out dirt where the grass used to grow before it all died to the heatwaves. In the winters, it’s iced over in a failed attempt by the Brooklyn kids (“the menaces,” as the neighbors would say) to make an ice-skating rink, and then covered with snowdrifts and turned into a fortress for snowball fights. Today, it’s abandoned except for the one person stubborn enough to go outside in the season’s first below-freezing snow spell to make a snowman. As Bucky goes to join his spying sister at the window, he’s gotta say— it’s a pretty sorry sight. The head keeps falling off, and so do the stone buttons of the snowman’s nonexistent shirt, but the kid’s got spirit.
“I think that’s Steve Rogers,” Becca says, squinting out the window. “Ma was talking to his ma yesterday. They moved in last week.” And, with wide eyes and an expression so dramatically grim that Bucky almost laughs, “he almost died, like, twenty times.”
“Oh,” says Bucky. “Then what the heck is he doing out there?”
Becca shrugs. The snowman’s head falls off again. They stare, giving a moment of silence for the unfortunate snowman, and for Steve, who will hopefully be spared the snowman’s fate.
And then Bucky can’t take it anymore. He pushes Becca to the side and unlatches the window, a wave of frosty air hitting his face as he leans outside and shouts two stories down. “Hey, dipshit— you’re gonna get sick, come back inside.”
The kid looks around dramatically, flailing his arms to the sky as he turns towards the window. “GOD?” He yells at a much louder volume than needed. And, looking Bucky straight in the eye— “I know you work in mysterious ways, but you should really watch your language.”
Alright, then. That's how it’s going to be.
If Becca’s got the facts straight, the skinny punk is Steve Rogers. Steve Rogers is his next-door (or rather, next-floor) neighbor, and Steve Rogers is an idiot.
And somehow, right then and there, Bucky just knows that Steve Rogers is going to be the bane of his existence. But somebody has to do damage control, and unfortunately, as the appointed god of skinny punks, it seems that the duty has fallen to him.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” he says to Becca, reaching for his coat.
Bucky learns that the best way to help you calm down when you're spiralling in a pit of anxiety is to lie on you like a weighted blanket.
Which would be fine, if he wasn't so damn in love with you.
The first time it happens, it’s an accident.
Not a cute accident. Not one of those romantic comedy accidents where someone trips and lands in another person’s lap while soft music plays in the background.
No.
It happens because you are halfway to a panic attack in the kitchen of the compound at two in the morning, shaking so hard you drop a mug hard enough to shatter it across the tile floor.
And because Bucky Barnes has spent the better part of a century reacting to danger before thinking, he moves before his brain catches up.
The mug breaks.
You gasp.
And then suddenly you’re crouched on the floor with your hands clamped over your ears like the sound physically hurt you.
“Hey,” Bucky says immediately.
Too sharp.
Too fast.
Your shoulders jerk violently.
His stomach drops.
“Sorry,” he says, softer now. “Sorry, doll. Didn’t mean to startle you.”
You don’t answer.
That’s what scares him.
You always answer.
Even anxious, even exhausted, even spiralling—you answer.
Usually with a joke. Usually with something self-deprecating and wry and designed to make everyone else comfortable while you quietly unravel inside your own skin.
But now you’re breathing too fast.
Your eyes are fixed on the floor.
And Bucky realizes with cold certainty:
Oh.
Oh, this is bad.
He’s seen panic attacks before. Hell, he’s had enough of them himself. But yours always look different than his. Quieter. Like you’re trying to contain the catastrophe internally so it doesn’t inconvenience anyone else.
“Can you look at me?” he asks carefully.
Nothing.
He crouches slowly several feet away, metal hand deliberately visible, movements gentle.
“Okay,” he murmurs. “That’s okay.”
Broken ceramic litters the floor between you both.
You whisper something he can’t hear.
“What was that?”
Your voice cracks.
“Everything feels wrong.”
Jesus Christ.
That sentence nearly tears him in half.
Because he knows that feeling.
The horrible skin-tight sensation of existing incorrectly. Like your bones are full of bees. Like every thought in your head is moving too fast and too loud and none of them can be stopped.
Bucky swallows hard.
“What do you need?”
“I don’t know.”
You sound ashamed of it.
Like not knowing is somehow a personal failure.
His chest aches.
“Okay,” he says again. “That’s alright too.”
Your breathing gets worse.
Shorter.
Faster.
Your fingers dig into your sleeves hard enough he worries you’ll bruise.
Bucky looks around the kitchen helplessly.
He knows combat. Extraction. Interrogation. Trauma. Survival.
But this?
You falling apart in front of him while he desperately tries to figure out how to help?
It scares him more than most things.
“Can you stand?” he asks.
You shake your head immediately.
“No? Okay. Okay.”
Think.
Think.
Usually when you’re anxious, you like warmth. Blankets. Hoodies. Pressure against your chest.
Pressure.
His eyes flick downward thoughtfully.
“Can I try something?”
You laugh once.
It sounds awful.
“Depends how weird it is.”
His mouth twitches despite everything.
“Probably pretty weird.”
You finally look at him then, eyes glassy and overwhelmed.
“Fine.”
He moves carefully around the broken ceramic before lowering himself to sit beside you against the cabinets.
For a second he hesitates.
This could go horribly.
But then he remembers the way you curl under every blanket in the compound during storms. The way you once admitted sleeping better when Alpine sprawled over your ribs like a furry paperweight.
So Bucky exhales once and says:
“C’mere.”
You blink at him.
“What?”
“Just trust me.”
Which you do.
That’s the dangerous thing.
You always do.
You shift toward him uncertainly, and before he can overthink it, Bucky pulls you gently sideways until your back rests against his chest.
Then he wraps one arm around your middle.
And slowly—carefully—leans enough weight against you that you’re partially pinned beneath him.
Not crushing.
Just heavy.
Solid.
Warm.
The effect is immediate.
Your breathing stutters.
Then slows.
Bucky freezes.
You go still beneath him.
“…oh,” you whisper.
His heartbeat trips.
“Too much?”
“No.”
Another breath.
Slower this time.
“No, that’s—”
Your shoulders finally unclench for the first time since he walked into the kitchen.
“Oh my god.”
Bucky stares at the side of your face.
“You okay?”
“You’re heavy.”
“I’m aware.”
“No,” you say weakly. “I mean—good heavy.”
Something inside him softens so violently it nearly hurts.
Carefully, cautiously, he shifts a little more weight against you.
Your eyes flutter shut.
And then—
Then you melt.
There’s no other word for it.
The tension leaves you in visible increments, your body gradually surrendering under the pressure of his weight and warmth. Your breathing evens out. Your death grip on your sleeves loosens.
Bucky can practically feel your nervous system recalibrating beneath him.
“What kind of sorcery is this?” you murmur.
He huffs a quiet laugh.
“Dunno. Maybe you’re broken.”
“You’re hilarious.”
“You’re calmer.”
“…unfortunately true.”
Bucky smiles before he can stop himself.
And because you can’t see his face pressed near your hair, you miss the terrifying realization blooming in his chest.
He likes taking care of you.
Too much.
In ways that feel dangerous.
Because this—holding you down gently against his chest at two in the morning while your breathing evens out—feels more intimate than half the things he’s done with actual girlfriends.
That should concern him more than it does.
Instead, he tightens his arm around you slightly and says softly:
“Better?”
“Yeah.”
A pause.
“Don’t move.”
His heart does something deeply embarrassing.
“Wasn’t planning to.”
After that, it becomes a thing.
Not intentionally at first.
Neither of you discuss it.
But a week later, after a disastrous mission briefing leaves you overwhelmed and shaky, Bucky finds you curled miserably into the corner of the common room couch.
He takes one look at you.
“You spiralling?”
“Maybe.”
“Move over.”
You snort tiredly.
“There is literally no room.”
“I’ll make room.”
And somehow he does.
The others walk in to discover you pinned beneath the bulk of the Winter Soldier like a hostage being gently comforted.
Sam stops dead.
“…what the hell am I looking at?”
Without opening your eyes, you answer:
“Medical treatment.”
Bucky feels you relax further when he settles more weight across you.
Sam stares.
“You’re using Barnes as an emotional support sandbag?”
“Yes.”
“…and this works?”
“Yes.”
There’s a beat.
Then Sam points accusingly at Bucky.
“You look way too pleased about this.”
“I’m not.”
“You absolutely are.”
Bucky ignores him.
Mostly because Sam’s right.
The horrifying truth is that Bucky likes this arrangement so much it’s becoming a problem.
He likes when you seek him out now.
Likes the sleepy, “Buck?” you murmur from doorways when your anxiety gets bad.
Likes how trusting you are with him.
Likes the way you immediately soften once he presses close.
And he especially likes the fact you never seem afraid of him.
Not of his metal arm.
Not of his size.
Not of the sheer physical reality of him.
You just curl beneath him willingly like he’s safety instead of danger.
It ruins him slowly.
The worst part is how domestic it becomes.
You’re both pathetic enough not to notice immediately.
It starts with movies.
You’re anxious after a rough therapy session, so Bucky sprawls partially on top of you on the couch while some terrible reality baking show plays in the background.
Then it becomes routine.
You reading while he rests against you.
You napping underneath him.
Your legs tangled together while Alpine sleeps smugly on Bucky’s back like she approves of the arrangement.
One night Natasha walks into the living room, sees the position you’re both in, and physically backs out again.
“Nope,” she says immediately.
You blink sleepily from beneath Bucky’s chest.
“What?”
“I’m giving you both privacy to deal with…” she gestures vaguely, “…whatever this is.”
Bucky frowns.
“We’re watching TV.”
Natasha stares at him.
“You’re lying on top of her.”
“To help her anxiety.”
“Mhm.”
“That’s literally all this is.”
Natasha looks directly at you.
“Are you aware he’s in love with you?”
Bucky nearly chokes to death.
You burst into startled laughter.
“What?”
Natasha rolls her eyes.
“Men are exhausting.”
Then she leaves before either of you can recover.
The silence afterward is catastrophic.
Bucky can feel heat crawling up his neck.
You clear your throat awkwardly beneath him.
“Well.”
“Nat talks too much.”
“Yeah.”
Another silence.
Then quietly:
“You’re not in love with me, right?”
And there it is.
The moment.
The opening.
The place where honesty could exist.
Bucky should tell you.
He should.
Instead he says, “You’d know if I was.”
It’s a lie.
A terrible one.
Because he is so violently in love with you it feels like organ failure sometimes.
He loves your laugh.
Your stubbornness.
The way you ramble when tired.
The way you pretend your anxiety makes you difficult to love while offering everyone else endless patience and gentleness.
He loves how you trust him with your softest parts.
He loves you so much it scares him.
But you relax at his answer.
And somehow that feels worse.
“Oh good,” you murmur.
His chest aches.
“Yeah.”
You smile faintly beneath him.
“Because that would make this complicated.”
Bucky stares at the ceiling all night afterward unable to breathe properly.
Things get worse after the nightmare.
Not his.
Yours.
Bucky wakes around three in the morning because someone is pounding on his door hard enough to shake the frame.
He’s moving before he’s fully awake.
When he opens it, you’re standing there shaking.
Not crying.
Which is somehow worse.
Your face looks pale and distant and terrified in a way that spikes immediate panic through him.
“Hey,” he says sharply. “Hey, what happened?”
“I can’t calm down.”
Your voice trembles violently.
“I tried—I tried everything and I can’t—”
“C’mere.”
You practically fall into him.
Bucky catches you automatically, metal arm bracing your back while your fingers clutch desperately at his shirt.
Your heartbeat is terrifying.
Way too fast.
“Easy,” he murmurs. “I got you.”
You bury your face against his chest.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.”
“I woke you up.”
“I don’t care.”
And he means it.
He’d wake up for you every night for the rest of his life if it helped.
The realization lands hard enough to nearly stagger him.
Before he can think too deeply about that deeply alarming truth, he guides you toward the bed.
“Lay down.”
You obey immediately, exhausted and overwhelmed.
Bucky climbs in beside you without hesitation.
Then carefully—carefully—he settles partially over you, broad chest against yours, one heavy thigh between yours, arms caging you safely beneath him.
The second his weight settles, you exhale shakily.
“There you are,” he whispers.
Your eyes close.
“There you are.”
The room goes quiet except for your breathing gradually slowing beneath him.
Bucky should move once you calm down.
Instead he stays.
Because you’re warm beneath him.
Because your fingers are curled loosely in his shirt.
Because every instinct in his body screams protect protect protect.
And because he’s hopelessly, catastrophically gone for you.
You fall asleep first.
Bucky knows because your grip loosens and your face softens against his shoulder.
He should leave then.
Instead he remains exactly where he is for nearly an hour staring into the dark.
He brushes hair away from your face carefully.
God.
He loves you.
He loves you so much.
And he’s completely fucked.
You realize the truth accidentally.
Which feels fitting.
It happens during a mission debrief after a rough extraction goes sideways.
Nothing catastrophic.
But enough to leave everyone frayed.
You’re wound tight all evening afterward, anxiety clawing under your skin while the team argues over tactical mistakes.
Eventually you stand abruptly.
“I need five minutes.”
Bucky’s up instantly.
“I’ll come with you.”
You don’t even question it anymore.
That should probably concern both of you.
The hallway outside the conference room is quiet.
You lean heavily against the wall, pressing your palms into your eyes.
“Sorry,” you mutter.
“For what?”
“I’m being annoying.”
Bucky’s expression hardens immediately.
“You’re not.”
“I’m literally one inconvenience away from imploding.”
“So?”
You laugh weakly.
“So normal people don’t require human compression therapy to function.”
His face softens.
“Hey.”
You look at him.
And Bucky says very carefully:
“There is nothing wrong with needing comfort.”
The sincerity in his voice nearly undoes you.
Your throat tightens unexpectedly.
“You always know how to help.”
The words hit him hard.
Too hard.
Because he does.
He knows your breathing patterns now. Your tells. The difference between stress and genuine panic. He knows exactly how much pressure helps. Exactly where to hold you.
Like your bodies learned each other instinctively.
Your eyes drift across his face.
And suddenly—
Suddenly you see it.
Not all at once.
But enough.
Enough to notice the unbearable tenderness in his expression.
Enough to notice how carefully he handles you.
Enough to realize no one looks at someone they don’t love like that.
Your breath catches.
Oh.
Oh.
Bucky notices immediately.
“What?”
You stare at him.
“You are.”
His entire body stills.
“What?”
“You’re in love with me.”
The silence that follows feels enormous.
Bucky looks almost cornered.
Like you’ve found something he desperately wanted hidden.
Finally, rough and quiet:
“Yeah.”
Your heart stumbles violently.
“Oh.”
“I didn’t want you to know.”
“Why?”
A humorless laugh escapes him.
“Because this arrangement only works if you feel safe.”
“I do feel safe.”
“You know what I mean.”
He steps back slightly then, expression tight.
“If I made this weird, I’m sorry. I can stop. I should’ve stopped earlier.”
The thought hits you like physical pain.
“No.”
Bucky goes still.
You swallow hard.
“Don’t stop.”
His eyes search your face carefully.
“Doll…”
“I mean it.”
Your pulse pounds.
Because suddenly everything makes sense.
The gentleness.
The devotion.
The way he always comes when you need him.
And maybe—maybe you’ve been avoiding the truth too.
Because loving Bucky feels terrifyingly inevitable.
“I think,” you say slowly, “I think maybe I’m in love with you too.”
Bucky looks stunned.
Actually stunned.
Like the words physically knocked the air from him.
“You don’t gotta say that because—”
“I’m not.”
You step closer carefully.
His expression turns painfully vulnerable.
“You make me feel safe,” you whisper. “You make my head quiet.”
Something in him breaks open then.
His hand comes up slowly, brushing against your cheek like he’s afraid you’ll disappear.
“You have any idea what you do to me?” he murmurs.
Your breath catches.
“No.”
“You ask for me when you’re hurting.”
His forehead rests against yours.
“You trust me.”
“I do trust you.”
Bucky closes his eyes briefly like that means everything.
Because it does.
When he kisses you, it’s careful at first.
Gentle.
Almost hesitant.
Then you kiss him back and suddenly he’s holding your face like something precious, kissing you deep and aching and relieved.
Years of longing pour into it.
You clutch his shirt instinctively.
Bucky makes a soft wrecked sound against your mouth.
And then—
Because apparently neither of you can be normal people—
He murmurs against your lips:
“You anxious right now?”
You burst into startled laughter.
“You cannot be serious.”
“I’m serious.”
“Oh my god.”
“You want me to lay on you or not?”
You laugh harder, bright and helpless and happy enough it nearly kills him.
“Only if you kiss me again after.”
Bucky smiles then.
Real and warm and breathtaking.
“Deal.”
And later, tangled together in his bed with most of his weight draped over you while your fingers trace lazy patterns against his spine, you realize something quietly extraordinary:
For the first time in a very long time, your mind is calm.
And wrapped around you like armor, like warmth, like home itself—
PARTY IN THE CRAFT STORE | bucky barnes x fem reader
authors notes: it's my birthday! so that means i get THE most self indulgent fic i've ever written in the history of writing fics as a present to myself, so yes, bucky barnes is going yarn shopping because that's my natural habitat. also, not to nerd out over knitting patterns but there is in fact a henley knitting pattern that i wanna make in the same colour as the cw red henley. (yes i'm seriously uncool, i know)
warnings: reader is reluctant to celebrate her birthday because of bad ones in the past, mentions of a rough childhood, dash of angst, bucky comes in and essentially saves the day even though he's still a grumpy old guy x
(also this was written with a neurodivergent reader in mind, absolutely nothing to do with my AuDHD i swear, but it's not explicitly mentioned so everyone can read it!)
word count: 2.6k
summary:
over the years, you've been more than happy to let your birthday slip by without a fuss—too many bad experience with them. until bucky rolls out the most you birthday present you've ever had.
masterlist!
it was just before dawn when you'd woke up, usually a time that was only reserved for missions but today you were on your own kind of mission—go about your day without drawing too much attention. that was all you had to do. just one day. you slipped out of your room in silence, heading for the elevator. you padded past everyone's rooms, holding your breath at so much as a creak.
turns out that silence wasn't as silent as you thought, not with a super soldier listening out for you. bucky heard you, from start until finish when you slipped into the elevator and disappeared somewhere in the tower. it didn't take a degree in rocket science to know where you were going. you loved watching the sun come up—you'd told him once that you'd never understood people who saw one sunrise and thought they'd seen them all.
he hauled himself out of bed, heading for the kitchen first because he knew better than to turn up empty handed at this time in the morning. coffee for him, even though his body burned through the caffeine quicker than he it could do anything, tea for you. sure enough, he found you leaned against the railings of the landing pad, looking over the city as it started to wake up and the sunrise shone and bounced off the glass like it held some kind of magic.
"hey, birthday girl. gotcha something." he murmured as he leaned over and pressed the mug with 'second best avenger' blazoned across it in bright pink letters into your hand—you'd forgot who'd brought it for who but it was yours now, apparently. "one weird english tea, just how you like." you pretended to be exasperated as you rolled your eyes, fingers curling around the mug. "it's not weird tea. 's just got milk in it. and don't mention the b word. if stark hears you then he'll have a party planned quicker than the speed of light." and that was the last thing you wanted.
you'd never, ever, been big on celebrating your birthday. if anyone dug deep enough then they'd put two and two together and realise it probably stemmed from your childhood, from years of being forced into plans you didn't want to participate in. plans that were usually the complete opposite of the things you were into. it stuck with you and dug it's ugly claws in and now you just couldn't. it was even redacted from official shield files, only the year was left behind. you didn't question how he knew, he still had his ways.
bucky got that in his own way. he couldn't remember the last time that he 'd celebrated either, even if it was for completely different reason. he knew what it was like to lose something you were supposed to get excited over and he didn't want that for you.
so this year was different.
this year, he wasn't going to let you just sit alone with your own thoughts all day—he had a plan, a perfectly curated plan that was all about you which was exactly what you deserved.
"i was thinking—" he started as you looked over the rim of the mug at him, eyebrow raised slightly. "dangerous." you hummed as he rolled your eyes at him. god forbid you missed an opportunity to take a dig at him. "yeah, well. i was thinking that we could go and check out that new craft store you were talking about, my treat."
you just blinked at him, processing what he was saying to you, processing the fact he'd actually listened and planned out something that you wanted to do. you'd been dying to check it out for weeks, it was all you'd talked about outside of work, but you'd never found the time because it turns out that saving the world didn't care about your hobbies. you'd be lying if you said that the idea wasn't exciting.
they had a stunning range of hand dyed yarn that had called your name since the day you'd saw it online, plus you wanted to pick up some new threads to start your new cross stitch pattern. "you wanna spend your morning watching me shop for yarn? you do know it's gonna be really boring, right? like, sit though stark's meeting without a cup of coffee level of boring?" bucky scoffed as he shuffled closer, bumping his shoulder against yours. "nah, sweetheart. nothing boring about watching you be happy, doesn't matter what it's over."
he was so sincere that it broke something deep inside of you. he'd cared, he'd listened, he'd planned—it was almost enough to make you cry.
almost.
but you were dangerously close to losing it before you'd even woken up properly.
"i don't think you really wanna do that." you shook your head, taking another sip of your tea as you waited for the other shoe to drop. it felt like your brain was permanently wired to expect the worst from people, even if they loved you.
"no, i do. i really do."
"it's—colourful." bucky murmured as you pushed the door open, bell dinging above it as he was hit with a solid wall of colour and different fabrics that would absolutely give him a headache if he looked at them too long. he could handle missions and safe houses, but it was a craft store that was gonna bring him down.
he'd never live it down if anyone found out.
but then he turned his head just enough to look at you, and his complaints died on his tongue. he wasn't entirely sure when he'd seen you that happy last—your eyes were practically shining. "hey." he smiled as he bumped his arm against yours, pulling you out of your thoughts. "alright, what's our plan of attack?"
"yeah, no, uh—" you cut yourself off with a shake of your head. "i got a list, don't worry." you smiled as you slipped your hand in his before you started to wonder around the shop. you were still half on edge, scanning around like someone was magically about to ambush you with a cake and balloons and a whole party that was your idea of hell—but none of that seemed to be coming and your shoulders dropped a fraction.
"i think i wanna make myself a new sweater." you nodded as you stopped in front of one of the many walls of yarn, tugging at his hand so he stopped with you. "but like, in a very specific colour." your eyebrows furrowed together as your eyes danced over all the shades with the same precision usually reserved for missions—and yarn shops when time allowed. you picked up two different shades of red, holding them up to the henley he was wearing.
"oh." bucky grinned like an idiot as he moved his jacket out of the way for you to colour match properly. "so stealing it wasn't enough, you gotta go and make your own?" he'd lost count of the amount of his shirts you'd stole at this point, the original red henley was somewhere in your closet and this was just the replacement, not that he minded. "this one." he picked the closest colour match out of your hands and put the other one back on the shelf. "pick whatever you need, 'm gonna grab a basket."
you nodded as he disappeared, picking up enough skeins for the whole project and dumping them in the basket when he came back. "come on, sweetheart. lead the way." he took your free hand back in his as you carried on walking.
your walls came down slowly, brick by brick. it started slowly, telling him about the patterns you had but never got around to as you picked out more colours, tossing them in the basket. he wasn't even sure you realised that the tension had bled out of you. your eyes were almost shining as you hit the cross stitch section. "my ma used to do this. she used to have them framed up all over the walls. she taught becca one summer and it lasted about ten minutes before she stabbed herself and gave up." he chuckled as he leaned a shoulder against the wall and watched you cross match the colour codes of the threads with the ones you needed.
"yeah, that happens a lot." you nodded solemnly as you looked up at him. "i do it all the time, you just stop feeling it eventually." you made a mental note in the back of your mind to make him something at some point, something to remind him of home.
everything was going fine, suspiciously fine, until you realised just how much stuff you'd picked up—and then that guilty feeling reared it's ugly head again.
"buck, i can't—" you shook your head as you looked at the overflowing basket that was threatening to cause a yarn avalanche if it moved wrong. "yeah, you can. consider it overdue birthday presents for the last decade." he shrugged as his hand settled in the small of your back as guided you towards the checkout. "this is crazy. you're crazy, i'm never gonna use half of this, you know that, right? i was like, you didn't have to—" he rolled his eyes as he silenced you with a kiss, setting the basket down on the counter top. "we're getting it all." he murmured against your lips before he pulled away.
the old lady behind the counter watched you with a sparkle in her eye as the younger woman—daughter or granddaughter, maybe—rang everything up. "such a handsome young man. reminds me of the kinda guy you'd find back in the dance halls. such pretty eyes." she gushed as you tried your hardest to hold back the laugh that was threatening to break out of you. oh, if only she knew. "yeah, no, he's a great dancer, actually." you grinned, wrapping your arms around his and resting the side of your head against his shoulder.
bucky scoffed, eyes flickering down to you as he reached into his jacket pocket for his wallet. "i'm flattered, ma'am, really." she reminded him of a human embodiment of everything old brooklyn used to be. "granny!" the young woman let out an exasperated sigh, shaking her head. "i'm sorry, she's still a real charmer." bucky shook his head, waving it off. he loved seeing glimpses of the old days shining through. it was almost—just almost—enough to distract you from the last dregs of guilt that were still sticking around, especially when you saw the final total. you unpeeled yourself from him, swallowing thickly as you went to protest.
bucky didn't even give you a second to complain before he tapped his card, side eyeing you as you tried to grab one of bags until you backed off and he grabbed them instead, hanging them off his metal arm. "you keep hold of this one, dearie. a real tight hold, otherwise you're gonna have a queue around the block tryin' to steal him." she leaned over and patted your shoulder before you and bucky headed for the door. just as you stepped out onto the street, you heard her add on a "me included" which earned another exasperated sigh from her granddaughter.
the two of you walked in silence for a little bit, arms bumping against each others every so often but neither of you made the effort to move further apart. "you looked like you were having the time of your life in there." he said eventually as he switched the bags to the other hand so he could snake his arm around your waist, doing nothing to solve the space issue. "mhm." you hummed as you smiled softly, bumping your shoulder against his on purpose this time. "felt it, i guess. it's nice when someone actually cares about what you wanna do, y'know? people never really asked what i wanted to do before, they just made plans, and that makes me sound ungrateful but—"
"you don't sound ungrateful. because you're not. it's not that you didn't appreciate what they did." he added. "the thought was there, just not the right level of effort." you huffed at that because he sounded exactly like your therapist, it was sort of uncanny. "for the record, that wasn't even close to boring. it was kinda therapeutic. we should do that again sometime. now, you're not even ready for the next bit, trust me, you're gonna love it."
the sound of the rain was filtering through the bedroom window, hand in hand with the smell of the earth. you'd forgotten exactly when it had started to rain, the afternoon was turning into one big blur. bucky was sat behind you against the headboard, his chest pressed up against your chest with an arm snaked around your waist. the project that you'd only just started with the red henley red was abandoned somewhere on the bed next to the empty cupcake box from your favourite bakery—an impromptu stop on the way home because he was insistent that bo birthday was complete without cake.
you'd tried to focus, but you'd undone the same section of the sweater four times before you realised that was a no go, not that you were mad. you were happy enough to get lost in the sound of the rain and the solid warmth of him against your back. existing always felt easier when you were pulled into his orbit.
that sleepy haze that came with lazy afternoons was slowly settling over you—the both of you, even if one of you wouldn't admit it—as you tilted your head far enough back to look up at him. granted, it was probably the worlds most unflattering angle, but you didn't care.
"thank you for today." you murmured as you leaned up pressing a kiss to the underside of his jaw, mentally cataloguing the way he shivered away for later. "it was nice." nice was understatement, but it was the only thing you were sure that you could get out without the tears flowing. it felt like stepping into the light after spending so long in the dark. it wasn't fixed—not by a long shot—but this was probably the biggest step you'd taken in a long, long, time.
bucky hummed, his thumb tracing lazy circles against your hipbone. he could feel the shift in you, mentally just as much as physically. you felt lighter, like you'd finally realised that people actually listened. "yeah, it was real good. told you, nothing boring about watching you have fun." he could have spent all day in there with you, watching you gush over the different colours and fibre types, things that made no sense to him but made you happy.
and if it made you happy?
he'd listen forever.
"thank you." you repeated as you sat up, turning on your side to curl up against his chest. "for making me feel—" seen, heard, loved, a whole host of words that you couldn't quite get out.
"next year, i'm gonna get you one of those party hats with the stripes." he murmured before he pressed a kiss to the top of your head. you rolled your eyes, poking at his side.
"don't you dare."
outside the rain was still hammering against the window, setting the soundtrack for the afternoon. eventually, one of you would move to turn on a film that would stay unfinished because neither of you were paying any real attention to it—but for now? now you were happy enough to just sit with the fact that birthdays didn't always have to be something negative after all.
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Summary: An unexpected pregnancy test forces Bucky and you to confront your deepest fears. Amid silences, doubts, and fears that neither of you can fully articulate, you’ll both discover that starting a family may be the hardest—and most important—battle of your lives.
Tags: Post-TFATWS, Established relationship, accidental pregnancy, miscommunication, angst, hurt/comfort, fear, trauma, mentions of HYDRA, mentions of abortion, mentions of reader with irregular periods, mentions of Sam, mentions of Bucky working with Sam, Bucky emotionally constipated, Bucky afraid of fatherhood, Bucky crying, reader crying, no y/n, happy ending. My native language isn't English (I apologize if there are any mistakes).
Masterlist.
Notes: Hi! I should really be working on the drafts I have, but this idea just popped into my head and helped me get past a little writer’s block.
You’d been trying to pay attention to Bucky for almost half an hour.
With his usual calm demeanor, he was telling you how that day’s mission with Sam had gone. He talked about a chase that ended sooner than expected, his partner’s constant jokes, and a plan that had gone surprisingly well. You nodded from time to time, even smiled out of sheer habit, but in reality you hadn’t heard half of what he was saying. Your mind was trapped in a single thought that repeated itself over and over, impossible to ignore.
The positive pregnancy test.
The little plastic strip was still tucked away in your sock drawer, as if its mere existence had upset the balance of your entire life. You felt it took up a lot of space, even though it barely took up any at all. Ever since you’d seen it that morning, emotions had swirled inside you in a way that was impossible to sort out: fear, uncertainty, nerves, surprise, and a strange sense of hope that you still didn’t dare to accept.
You had no idea what to do.
During your early dates, the two of you had talked about starting a family. It had been a calm conversation, without arguments or promises. Bucky had admitted that he hadn’t imagined himself as a father and wasn’t even sure he could ever be one; after everything he’d been through, the idea of bringing a child into the world seemed too overwhelming to him. You, for your part, didn’t feel it was the right time either.
And yet, there you were.
Facing a situation neither of you had planned for.
The silence between you began to stretch because you had stopped responding several seconds ago. Bucky finished speaking and waited for a reaction that never came. That was when his senses picked up on what your words weren’t expressing.
Your heart was beating too fast.
The rapid, irregular, and persistent rhythm made him turn his full attention to you. He noticed the slight furrow of your brow, the tension in your jaw, and the way your fingers nervously fiddled with the rim of the cup resting on the table.
His expression changed instantly.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart? Are you okay?” he asked in a soft voice, full of concern, as he leaned slightly toward you.
His hand sought yours on the table and gently wrapped around it, giving it a light squeeze, as if to remind you he was there.
That simple gesture finally broke down the barrier you’d been maintaining throughout the conversation.
The words slipped from your lips before you could finish turning them over in your head.
“I think I’m pregnant.”
Time seemed to stand still.
A complete silence settled between you, heavy and almost tangible. Bucky’s eyes widened slowly until they were wide with surprise, as the air left his lungs in a held breath. His fingers trembled slightly around yours, unable to hide the impact of the confession.
You lowered your gaze and let out an unsteady sigh, trying to control the lump that had formed in your throat and the anxiety coursing through every corner of your body.
“I took a pregnancy test because my period was later than usual…” you murmured in a low, tense voice, feeling as though every word required an enormous effort. “I thought it would be a false alarm, but… it came back positive.”
As you finished your sentence, silence once again enveloped the room with an almost suffocating intensity. The world seemed to have come to a sudden halt. Only the sound of their breathing broke the stillness, along with the rapid beating of your heart, which Bucky could still hear with absolute clarity. Each beat revealed the fear you were trying to hide behind a serene expression. They both remained motionless, realizing that a few words had been enough to completely change the course of their lives.
“When…?” he whispered, almost to himself, his gaze lost somewhere on the table.
The question didn’t seem directed at you, but at his own memories.
He looked down as he mentally reviewed every moment of the past few months, trying to find an explanation. Then he remembered. His expression slowly changed until it twisted into a small grimace filled with recognition and regret.
That night.
The only time they had both completely cast caution aside, convinced that nothing would happen, letting themselves be carried away by desire, closeness, and the heat of the moment.
In her memory, that slip had seemed insignificant. Now she realized that just once had been enough.
Her fingers tensed slightly before slipping from yours.
You parted your lips shyly, ready to say something—anything—to break the silence or calm the growing anxiety that was beginning to settle in your chest. You wanted to explain that you didn’t expect an immediate answer, that you didn’t know how to feel either, that the two of you could work it out together.
But Bucky stood up before you could utter a single word.
The movement was so sudden that the chair slid a few inches backward, making a sharp clatter against the floor.
He ran a hand over his face, breathing heavily as he avoided looking directly at you.
“I need some air…” he said in a low voice, though the weight of those four words fell on you like a slab of stone.
There was no anger in his tone, nor rejection, but there was no calm either. Just a confusion so deep that he seemed unable to stay another second within those four walls.
You watched him walk with hurried steps toward the apartment entrance. He grabbed his jacket from the coat rack almost out of habit, without bothering to put it on properly, and opened the door.
For a moment, you thought he would stop, that he would turn his head to say something else or to reassure you.
It didn’t happen.
The door closed behind him with a sharp click that echoed throughout the room.
You stood motionless, staring at the spot where he had disappeared, as silence once again took hold of the apartment. The pressure in your chest increased immediately, and fear began to make its way through all the thoughts you’d been trying to hold back.
☆
The faint blue glow from the TV was the only light in the room you shared with Bucky. Images flashed one after another across the screen, accompanied by the distant voices of a show you’d been trying to follow for over an hour without success.
You were sitting on the bed, your back against the headboard and your legs drawn up to your chest, wrapping both arms around them as if that small gesture could hold you together while you felt everything else beginning to fall apart.
Your eyes remained fixed on the television, but they didn’t really see what was happening on it.
Your mind kept returning to the same place over and over.
The positive test.
Bucky’s expression when you told him.
The way he’d let go of your hand.
And, above all, the door closing behind him.
It had been almost five hours since he left the apartment.
Five hours without a call.
Five hours without a reply to any of the messages you’d sent him with trembling hands—messages that had gone from a simple “Are you okay?” to a worried “Just tell me where you are.”
The phone lay beside you on the sheets, completely silent.
You were worried about him.
You knew that the idea of becoming a father had never held an important place in his life. After everything he’d been through, the decades that had been stolen from him, and the burden he still carried for acts he hadn’t even committed while in his right mind, starting a family seemed like a dream reserved for other people.
He had never told you he didn’t want children, but he hadn’t said he wanted them either.
And now the decision had gone from being a distant possibility to an unexpected reality.
Yet, as you thought about him, it was also impossible not to think about yourself.
About what that new life growing inside your body meant.
About how it would change your future.
About whether you would be able to handle it.
About whether you would be alone.
A lump formed in your throat as you tried to hold back the tears that threatened to return.
The only sound that managed to snap you out of your thoughts was the unmistakable turn of a key in the front door lock.
Your breath caught in your throat.
Then came the creak of the door as it opened, followed by the soft thud as it closed again.
And finally, the heavy echo of boots echoing through the apartment.
You lay motionless on the bed, your gaze fixed on the bedroom door, listening as those footsteps moved slowly down the hallway. Each one seemed to last an eternity.
The doorknob turned and the door opened slowly.
Bucky stood in the doorway for a few seconds before entering. For the first time since you’d broken the news to him, his eyes met yours.
Silence settled between you once more.
You couldn’t help but notice the state he’d returned in.
His hair was more disheveled than usual, as if he’d run his hand through it countless times. The shadows under his eyes seemed to have deepened, betraying that he hadn’t found peace during those hours either. His jacket was still on, slightly wrinkled, and his shoulders remained tense.
But what caught your attention most was the expression on his face. There was fear and guilt.
His eyes scanned the room until they settled on the only source of light: the television.
He was silent for a few seconds before speaking, in that deep, restrained voice that barely let his true feelings show.
“You’re going to ruin your eyes like that…”
It wasn’t a rebuke; it was the only everyday thing he could think to say.
He walked over to the light switch and turned on the room’s light.
The warm glow instantly filled every corner.
You winced slightly at the sudden change in lighting and turned your face away a little, too late to hide what was obvious.
Your eyes were swollen and red. Dry tear stains remained on your cheeks.
Bucky stood still, his jaw tightening slightly. He looked down for a moment before looking back at you, as if he’d been struck by a silent blow.
He didn’t say “I’m sorry.” He wasn’t someone who found words easily, but the way he took a deep breath and stood motionless was enough to make it clear that he regretted leaving you alone for those hours.
With slow, measured movements, he took off his jacket, draped it over a nearby chair, and walked over to the bed.
The mattress sank slightly as he sat down beside you, leaving just a few inches between you and turning his back to you.
He didn’t try to touch you, but he didn’t move away either. He simply stayed there, his forearms resting on his legs and his hands clasped, staring at the floor as he searched, unsuccessfully, for the right way to sort through everything going through his head.
Silence settled in again, heavy and uncomfortable. Filled with questions neither of you dared to ask.
Several seconds passed before Bucky slowly exhaled.
“I walked down to the pier…” he murmured without looking up. “Then I kept walking. I wasn’t planning on going anywhere… I just needed my head to stop making noise.”
He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand and fell silent again.
“I didn’t answer because… I didn’t know what to say.”
The words came out clumsily, forced, as if each one took an enormous effort.
“And because I was afraid of saying the wrong thing.”
You felt a twinge in your heart and could barely manage a shaky exhale as you watched his back.
“I was never good at this.”
He didn’t specify what he meant, and you weren’t sure what he was referring to either. Maybe he meant talking, feeling, imagining a future, or becoming a father. It was probably all of those things at once.
The distance between you was still just a few centimeters, but the real obstacle wasn’t physical.
Your nails dug lightly into your legs before you began crawling toward him to gently take his chin and make him look at you.
He let you do it, and his eyes finally met yours. That blue you loved so much looked different; there was no anger or rejection, only a deep, silent fear mixed with an uncertainty that seemed to have robbed him of his breath.
For a moment, it seemed to you that you were looking at the soldier who had survived a war, not the man who always found a way to protect you.
You traced the rough line of his beard with your thumb.
“What do you want to do?” you asked in a barely audible whisper.
The question hung between you.
Bucky closed his eyes for a second, and his face twisted into an expression that was hard to read—a bitter mix of guilt, vulnerability, and resignation.
He was fully aware that this decision belonged solely to your body and your life. He also knew that he would never try to push you toward a choice that would benefit him over you. Even if he felt terrified, even if the idea of being a father overwhelmed him.
"I'll support you... whatever you decide." His voice was deep and low, almost hoarse.
It was the only certainty he had amid the chaos.
He paused for a moment longer before adding, almost as if he were struggling to get the words out.
"I don't know if I'll do this right... But I won't let you carry this burden alone."
☆
The next day, the uncertainty was still there.
After a nearly sleepless night, you began to convince yourself that maybe that home test had simply been wrong. After all, even pharmacy tests could yield false positives.
It was a possibility, so you clung to it with all your might.
After discussing it briefly over breakfast—if you could even call a cup of coffee you barely touched and the untouched toast on the plate breakfast—you decided to go to the hospital.
An ultrasound could provide answers almost immediately, and you wouldn’t have to endure the endless wait for a blood test.
When they called your name in the waiting room, your stomach turned instantly.
You stood up, your legs trembling, and without even thinking, you reached for Bucky’s hand and gripped it tightly.
He remained seated for another second, motionless, his back stiff and his gaze fixed on the floor. He seemed unable to force himself to walk through that door, not because he wanted to leave, but because he feared what he might find on the other side.
He stood up and walked behind you after you gently took his hand.
The office smelled just like the rest of the hospital: a clean, pungent mix of disinfectant and antiseptic products. However, the atmosphere was different.
The lights were warmer, and the walls were covered with informational posters about conception, birth control methods, fetal development, and drawings showing the approximate size of a baby week by week.
Your eyes lingered for a moment on each one.
Week 4—Poppy seed.
Week 6—Lentil.
Week 7—Chickpea.
Week 8—Cherry.
Week 9—Olive.
And the weeks and illustrations went on.
The illustrations seemed absurdly small for the enormous change they represented.
You swallowed hard as you clung to Bucky’s hand.
Your fingers were cold, and so were his. The slight tremor in his fingers betrayed that he was just as nervous as you were.
He stood beside you with his shoulders slightly hunched, staring at the floor as if he found it impossible to look up at any of those images. His jaw remained tense.
When the specialist told you to lie down on the examination table, you obeyed with slow movements. You lifted the fabric of your clothes just enough to expose your abdomen.
Moments later, the contact of the cold gel on your skin drew a small, involuntary grimace from you. A shiver ran through your entire body.
Without realizing it, you squeezed Bucky’s hand tighter, and he reacted almost reflexively, interlacing his fingers with yours and holding them firmly.
The careful squeeze of his hand was enough to make you understand that, even though he was still emotionally lost and the words remained stuck in some corner of his chest, he had decided to stay with you until he knew the answer.
The room was enveloped in an expectant silence.
The doctor moved the transducer calmly over your abdomen while watching the screen in front of her intently.
To you, that mass of shadows made no sense at all.
To her, every little change seemed to say a lot.
You felt your breathing start to quicken, and Bucky noticed it instantly.
Without taking his eyes off the monitor, his thumb began to slide slowly across the back of your hand—an almost automatic movement that he probably wasn’t even aware he was making.
It was strange and overwhelming for him.
A man who had survived wars, experiments, and decades of violence was completely defenseless in front of an ultrasound screen.
The doctor remained silent for a few more seconds, and your imagination began to fill in the blanks.
Maybe the test had failed after all.
Maybe your period was just coming soon.
Maybe...
“There it is.”
Her voice interrupted the whirlwind of thoughts.
She pointed to a tiny dot on the screen.
“It’s still very early, but we can see the gestational sac.”
You felt the air leave your lungs.
It wasn’t a mistake.
It wasn’t a false positive.
It was real.
Your eyes remained fixed on that tiny image, trying to understand how something so small could change two people’s lives so completely.
Bucky’s hand tightened around yours.
He didn’t say anything and didn’t even blink; he seemed to be holding his breath.
His gaze remained fixed on the monitor, as if trying to memorize every shadow despite not fully understanding them.
The doctor continued explaining a few things about the estimated gestational age, prenatal vitamins, and the tests that would be advisable to perform over the next few weeks.
Her voice reached you like a distant murmur. Neither of you seemed to be processing much; you just nodded.
At one point, the specialist smiled kindly, already accustomed to all kinds of reactions to this news.
“Would you like to hear the heartbeat?”
You turned your head toward Bucky, who remained completely still.
His eyes stayed fixed on the screen, but for the first time since they’d entered the office, he seemed to lose control of his expression.
He looked completely vulnerable.
And, almost imperceptibly, he shook his head before closing his eyes for a moment.
It wasn’t a “no.” It was someone trying to muster enough courage for something he couldn’t bring himself to say because of the weight of the moment and his fear.
“We… We need to talk about this first,” you murmured, your voice strained by the wave of emotions.
The doctor nodded understandingly, printed out some images, and began wiping the gel from your abdomen before walking over to Bucky’s side, where her desk was.
“It seems to be developing as expected for the sixth week,” she explained calmly. “We’ll schedule another checkup in a few weeks and proceed according to your decision.”
You nodded automatically and slowly sat up on the stretcher.
Bucky remained seated where he was, staring at one of the photographs the doctor had just placed on the desk. He seemed unable to take his eyes off that small gray smudge.
Finally, he stood up and slowly let go of your hand to pick up the image between his fingers with an almost absurd delicacy, as if he were afraid of breaking it. He looked at it for a long moment before carefully putting it away in the folder the doctor had given them along with all sorts of recommendations and informational brochures.
He didn't say a word.
He didn't ask any questions.
He just stayed by your side, supporting you when it seemed like the strength in your legs was about to give out.
☆
The days that followed weren't easy.
Both of you tried to cling to a routine that no longer felt entirely your own, as if pretending nothing had changed might delay the moment of facing reality.
You made a conscious effort to carry on with your usual life. You went to work, tidied the apartment, read, replied to messages, and tried to fill every minute with some activity that would keep your mind occupied. There were moments when you even succeeded. For a couple of hours, you forgot the constant fear that had settled in your chest, the uncertainty about the future, and the enormous decision that was still waiting for you.
But those moments of calm never lasted long; something always came along to bring you back to reality, and anxiety would wash over you like a wave.
Things didn’t seem any easier for Bucky either.
He kept taking on missions with Sam, though not as often as before. He started turning down smaller jobs and heading back to the apartment as soon as operations were over.
He didn’t say why—and probably never would—but it was clear he wanted to be close to you, even if he still didn’t know how to be there for you.
Many times he would sit on the couch while you read in silence. Other times you simply shared the same space without exchanging more than a few words, finding a strange sense of calm in each other’s mere presence.
It was his way of saying he was still there.
There were days when the tension seemed to grant you a respite, and you looked like yourselves again.
You’d curl up on the couch under a blanket to watch a movie neither of you paid much attention to, sharing a bowl of popcorn while Bucky complained about the main character and you ended up laughing at his comments.
Other afternoons, you’d cook together. He would chop vegetables with precision while you tried to steal a piece of carrot from him before it made it into the pan, causing him to shake his head and hide a barely perceptible smile before kissing your forehead.
They even resumed their habit of going for walks around the city. They wandered through familiar streets, small cafes, and parks where time seemed to move more slowly.
For a few hours, they managed to forget... Or at least pretend they did.
But the subject of the baby always found a way to come back.
It would surface when you caught yourself imagining how his life would change if you decided to continue with the pregnancy. When you wondered if Bucky could ever feel happy with that possibility. If the two of you could truly become a family.
It also came up during those walks when you passed a pregnant woman absentmindedly stroking her belly, a father pushing a stroller while a baby slept peacefully inside, or a little hand clutching its mother’s tightly as they crossed the street.
Then your steps would slow, your gaze would linger a few seconds longer, and the weight would settle back onto your shoulders.
Bucky never made any comments or asked what you were thinking, but he always noticed the change. He saw how your smile faded little by little, how your fingers unconsciously sought to rest on your abdomen, and how the sparkle in your eyes dimmed.
He could only walk beside you, keeping silent as he felt that familiar tightness settle in his chest.
The words remained trapped inside him.
He had learned to survive without uttering a single word for far too many years, and now, when he needed them most, they wouldn’t come out either.
The nights were the worst.
There were times when the weight of the decision would end up crushing you.
You’d wait until you were sure Bucky was breathing deeply before carefully slipping out of bed, leaving behind the warmth of the sheets and the arms that, even in his sleep, seemed to reach out for you.
Silently, you walked with the folder in your hands to the dining room and opened it once more to reread every brochure and recommendation with obsessive attention.
You read about prenatal vitamins, nutrition, hormonal changes, and medical checkups. Then you turned to the pages that talked about abortion clinics and the procedure.
You set them aside and always ended up doing the same thing: you held the ultrasound photo between your fingers.
The corners were slightly bent, and the paper had lost some of its stiffness from all the times you’d held it in the early hours of the morning.
You slipped out of bed again and again to look at that blurry image where you could barely make out a tiny white dot.
That was all.
A tiny speck.
And yet, it already occupied every corner of your mind.
What you didn’t know was that those worn corners weren’t just your fault.
Many nights, when he woke up and found your spot empty, Bucky would wait a few minutes before getting up and finding you sitting at the table.
He didn’t interrupt.
He simply returned silently to the bedroom, and when you finally fell back asleep, he was the one who left.
He stood in front of the open folder for minutes, sometimes for over an hour, staring at the same photograph without moving, feeling a fear and vulnerability that were completely foreign to him.
A silent terror that no mission, no battlefield, and no enemy had ever managed to awaken in him.
He never told you that he also looked at that ultrasound.
He never confessed that he already had it etched in his memory.
You sighed softly as you held it between your fingers. With the tip of your index finger, you slowly traced the tiny, barely visible figure on the paper.
According to one of the posters in the doctor’s office, when you found out, it was the size of a lentil. Now it was close to the size of a cherry.
It was a tiny difference, and yet, to you, it meant that time was still moving forward.
For days you’d tried to imagine every possible scenario and had made mental lists, thinking about work, money, the future, fear, Bucky, and yourself.
You’d tried to make a decision based solely on reason, but, for the first time since it all began, you stopped trying to convince yourself of an answer and simply listened to the silence.
Slowly, you brought your hand to your belly, which was still flat. Yet you felt a twinge in your chest at the thought of it being empty by your own choice.
You closed your eyes as you realized that the fear was still there, but it was no longer fear that was guiding your thoughts.
It was something else.
A small, fragile, and hard-to-explain feeling that had been growing almost without your noticing over those days.
It was hope.
Your lips trembled before forming a tiny, almost imperceptible smile, and tears slowly rolled down your cheeks.
They weren’t tears of anguish.
Not entirely.
They were the silent relief of someone who, after weeks of doubt, had finally found an answer.
“I want to get to know you…” you whispered, your voice breaking.
The decision was made.
The fear hadn’t disappeared; it had simply stopped being greater than love.
☆
When the first rays of sunlight began to filter through the bedroom curtains, drawing golden lines across the rumpled sheets, you slowly opened your eyes.
The first thing you saw was Bucky, who was already awake.
He lay on his side, his metal arm resting on the mattress and his elbow bent to support his head in the palm of his hand. He’d been watching you in silence for who knows how long, with that almost hypnotic calm and intensity so characteristic of him, as if while you slept he were trying to read all the thoughts you were never able to put into words.
You blinked a couple of times before letting out a sleepy sigh.
The sound snapped him out of his own thoughts, and his lips curved into a faint, discreet smile—so small that anyone could have easily missed it.
“Good morning, sweetheart…” he murmured in his deep, hoarse voice.
He leaned slowly toward you. First he placed a soft kiss on your cheek, then another at the corner of your lips, and finally a slow, gentle kiss on your mouth.
“Good morning, Buck…” you replied, your voice barely audible against his lips.
For a few moments, everything seemed to return to normal.
It was the same tranquility as any Sunday morning. Those mornings when neither of you was in a hurry to get up and you could spend an hour or even two under the sheets, embracing without saying much, stroking each other’s hair, sharing absent-minded kisses, or simply enjoying each other’s warmth while the world kept moving on outside the windows.
A sanctuary that had always belonged only to the two of you.
But something in your expression made him slowly step back to get a full view of your face. His blue eyes scanned every inch of your face, searching for that look he knew so well.
It was the look you had when you’d already made a decision and were gathering the courage to say it.
The faint trace of his smile vanished.
The silence in the bedroom was broken only by the distant traffic beginning to fill the streets and the soft rustle of the sheets as you slowly sat up. Bucky did the same.
“I know what I want to do…” Your voice came out almost as a whisper.
Bucky barely looked up, and there was something in his expression that broke your heart. He looked like a wounded animal trying to stay still so no one would notice how much pain he was in.
Your fingers sought his, and you wanted to intertwine them as you had so many times before, but he remained still, his hand unmoving.
You took a deep breath and spoke.
“I want to continue with the pregnancy.”
Your words came out soft, firm, and without hesitation, and yet they seemed to strike the air with impossible force.
Bucky remained completely still.
He didn’t respond.
He didn’t pull his hand away.
His expression didn’t change.
He simply sat there in front of you, watching you as if he needed several seconds to grasp the meaning of those five words.
Then he slowly lowered his head, and his lips parted slightly as if to say something, but nothing came out. He tried again, and only a muffled sound escaped.
His throat moved with difficulty as he swallowed, and his chest began to rise with deeper breaths than usual.
Fear had suddenly taken hold of his entire body.
It wasn’t fear of the baby or of the decision you’d made. Because during those days, as he walked with you through the city or lay awake staring at the ultrasound in the middle of the night, he’d discovered a truth he’d never wanted to admit.
He wanted to be a father with you and no one else.
He wanted that pregnancy to continue.
He wanted it more than he ever thought possible.
He wanted to meet that little life.
He wanted to hear that tiny heartbeat at the next appointment.
He wanted to be with you as your belly grew little by little.
He wanted to hold your hand during every checkup and for the rest of his life.
He wanted to try to be better for you and for that little boy or girl.
He had even caught himself imagining a messy room with toys on the floor, little footsteps running through the apartment, and a tiny voice calling them “Mom and Dad” while they both laughed as they prepared dinner.
He had allowed himself to imagine a home.
And that was precisely why the fear was unbearable. He had never longed for anything so intensely since regaining his freedom, and he had never felt such terror at the thought of not being up to the task.
The questions began to crowd his mind, giving him no respite.
What if he didn’t know how to be a father?
What if he wasn’t truly free and one day lost control?
What if his past caught up with them?
What if she deserved a simple life, far from someone like him?
What if her children deserved a different father?
He looked down at his own hands—the flesh-and-blood one and the vibranium one—and studied them as if seeing them for the first time.
He remembered the wars, the orders, the HYDRA labs, the lives he had taken, and the names he could never forget.
When his gaze settled on the gleam of the dark, golden metal, all he could think of was the gray metal with the red star. An unbearable shame squeezed his chest.
How could he imagine holding a newborn with hands that had been used to kill for so long?
How could someone who still woke up some nights convinced he was still a weapon promise protection?
The weight of each of his thoughts kept him frozen and unable to speak—that was why he was silent. It wasn’t because he rejected your decision, but because he accepted it so deeply that fear had left him speechless.
He only returned to reality when he felt your trembling hands encircling his face with infinite tenderness. As he looked up, seeing the tears streaming uncontrollably down your cheeks, something inside him snapped, and an unbearable pressure squeezed his chest.
His silence had lasted so long that you began to interpret that absence of words in the worst possible way. You thought he didn’t agree with your decision, that he could never accept that future... That, sooner or later, you would both end up going your separate ways.
That possibility, reflected in the pain in your eyes, was infinitely more terrifying to Bucky than any of the ghosts he carried with him.
For a moment, all the ghosts of his past fell silent.
Now there was only you, crying in front of him, thinking you were going to lose him.
His breath caught.
He raised a hand with obvious hesitation, as if even that gesture cost him an enormous effort, and ended up covering one of yours that you were holding against his cheek.
His fingers held you with desperate strength, as if he feared you were going to pull it away.
He slowly shook his head.
He tried to speak, but his throat kept closing up long before he could utter a single word.
The inability to speak made him feel more helpless than any enemy he had ever faced.
“No…” he finally managed to say, his voice breaking.
He swallowed with difficulty and looked down for just a second before meeting your gaze again.
“Don’t think that.”
His thumb began to absentmindedly stroke the back of your hand. It was a clumsy, instinctive movement, the same one he made every time he tried to calm you down without finding the right words.
“I don’t want… you to leave.” He took a deep breath before continuing. “I want the same thing you do…”
That confession was so quiet it was almost lost amid the noise from outside.
“I’m scared. Really scared.”
He said it plainly, without trying to hide it; it was a brutal honesty that he was finally letting out into the open.
Bucky looked so fragile and vulnerable, until he finally broke down.
His eyes had filled with tears without warning, and a sob welled up from deep within his chest.
His hands wrapped tightly around your waist—but without choking you—as he did his best not to cry like a little child on your shoulder.
You didn’t hesitate for a second to cling to his body as you let yourself cry after all the fear and anxiety that was beginning to dissipate. You could finally feel relief knowing you wouldn’t be alone.
Bucky let out a brief, bitter laugh, filled with disbelief in himself, and shook his head.
“I’ve been imagining it for days,” he confessed, almost ashamed, his voice breaking slightly. “I see you walking around the apartment with the baby in your arms.”
For the first time, a tiny smile appeared on your face through your tears as you heard him.
Bucky looked up fully. His eyes were glistening with small, unshed tears, and there was an obvious, immense fear, but there was also a certainty he was finally ready to voice.
“I want to meet our little one.”
The words hung between you.
Bucky seemed surprised to have said it out loud and without trembling, as if a weight had just been lifted from his shoulders.
“I want to hear his heartbeat at the next appointment.” His lips trembled as a smile full of emotion appeared on his face. “I want to watch him grow…”
His gaze slowly drifted down to your still-flat abdomen, and with reverent slowness, he brought his vibranium hand to rest upon it. The tremor running through his fingers was entirely human.
“And I want to be there when the baby is born.” His voice broke again. “I want to hold him.”
He fell silent for a few seconds to compose himself.
“I still think you deserve better than me.” He admitted in a whisper.
You shook your head quickly. You searched desperately for his gaze as one of your hands reached out to touch his face again, but his metallic fingers gently caught your hand and pressed a kiss against the back of it.
“I’ll probably think that for a while,” he whispered as a tear rolled down his cheek. “But I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to be the man you both deserve.”
You threw yourself at him without thinking, and Bucky barely had time to react before wrapping both arms around you with absolute firmness. You buried your face in his shoulder while he buried his in your hair.
They stayed like that for several long minutes.
Without speaking.
Without moving.
The future remained uncertain, but for the first time since that positive test forgotten in your drawer, the two of you stopped facing it alone.
They would face it together.
And for someone like Bucky, who clung to the idea of not making grand promises and was used to showing love through presence rather than words, standing there, holding you as if he wanted to protect you from the whole world, was the most sincere way of saying that he had chosen to stay with you.
A/N: Another one for the disabled and sick chicks. This story comes from a very vulnerable place for me, and my struggles over the past few months with body image and coming to terms with my own limitations. All bodies are beautiful, whether you’re fit, jacked, skinny, curvy, disabled, and anywhere in between. Mine is too, and I’m trying to remember that. All my love <3
Tags: Fem!Reader, Body Image, Chronic Illness, Disability, Chronic Pain, Chronic Fatigue, Flare-ups, Sick-Fic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Physio/Physical Therapy, Amputee Bucky, Slice of Life, Established Relationship, Married Couple, Acts of Service, Domestic Fluff, Thunderbolts!Bucky
When Bucky enters the gym at the Watchtower, it knows to fear him. Stern brow and taped fists, he lays into the punching bag with brutal, practiced precision until it gives up plumes of dust, only to then bench press triple his body weight like it’s nothing more than the bar itself. The air smells like metal and rubber and sweat, beads of it running down and along his sharp lines, gluing his loose hair to his face and seeping through his workout gear and with every laboured breath.
But when you linger self-consciously in the doorframe, shrinking in on yourself as if you don’t belong, the folded sheet of paper with your regimen scribbled on it in ballpoint pen clutched between your fingers, the world decelerates and his jagged edges soften. Bucky’s eyes crinkle at the corners as he admires you and urges you forward. For a moment you feel a little taller.
It’s a battle just to be awake some days, let alone function. Physiotherapy is its own special brand of torture. Your energy is finite and fluctuating, results varied. The last gym, filled with its countless athletes and other perfect specimens of health and wellness, had only rubbed salt in the wound. You knew you could never be like one of the girls with their hair bouncing in time with their footfalls on the treadmill, or the ones with the worn out power belts that deadlift and it shows. No, you were an imposter in spandex, stewing in your own frustration that the universe had set your starting line so far back and pushed everyone else’s forward. It’s all you can do just to survive without crumbling into dust at a mundane task that sends your body over the edge.
The gym at the Tower seems no different on the surface. There’s still steel beams and concrete walls, monochrome colours and exposed bulbs. Individuals who move like water and hit like trucks train to carry the whole city on their shoulders, but this space has something the others didn’t, and if anyone could make you feel welcome in it, it would be your Bucky.
Bucky knew training. His form had been built on conditioning and discipline and blood. He had long cursed the protocols that were burned into him, but not if they could be made of use to you. He just had to make them…softer. Kinder. You didn’t have to hate it like he had.
It didn’t have to break you. And it wouldn’t, not if he could help it.
He’ll make your mats and resistance bands materialize out of thin air, laid out before you even step over the threshold. He takes your water bottle, the one in your favourite colour because it always brings a bit more light into your eyes, and fills with your choice of electrolytes from the stash he keeps, the condensation cold against your palm. He’s already got your playlist queued on the stereo system, filled with pop anthems and empowerment because he knows that his words alone aren’t enough some days.
There are days where you are in such pain that he is helpless to do anything other than comfort you. But any day that you are able to do something to build up yourself after crashing down, Bucky considers a good day, and he will stop at nothing to remove every obstacle in your path so you can do so.
He had stumbled across your physio binder while tidying up your bedroom one weekend. Page protectors stashed beneath your old workout clothes, filled with diagrams and exercises he had not once seen you doing.
“Hey, doll?”
“Yeah?” you’d called back from inside the walk-in closet—you had to admit, Valentina had great choice in design—where you were finally getting around to putting away your clean clothes.
He flipped through the pages. “Are you supposed to be doing this stuff?”
“What stuff?” Your poked your head out and scowled when you saw what balanced across his palms. “Hey! Don’t touch that!”
“M’sorry, didn’t mean to snoop but…sweetheart, this is important. Especially for you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” You ripped the binder out from his fingers and slammed the cover shut, shoving it into the nearest drawer with a thud, just to get it out of sight. “It’s not like it’s going to cure me, James.”
James. Oh, you were pissed. Bucky tread carefully from there, trailing behind as you stomped back into the closet and threw his dress shirts onto hangers with fire.
“I didn’t mean it like that. Just…this could make things more comfortable for you.” He encircled you from behind, arms wrapped loose around your waist. You didn’t push him away, which he took as a good sign. “Honey. You know I’ll never push you to do more than you can. You know that.”
The hot, frustrated tears that coated your cheeks had started to dry down and make your face feel tight. You tipped your head back to rest against his shoulder but let your face fall to the side to hide your dour features.
“I’m sorry. I know how difficult things are for you right now. I see it, alright? How hard you’ve got to work just to get through the day. I promise, it does not go unnoticed. And all I want is to support you through that.”
The tightening of his hold, that stable, comforting squeeze, was proof enough. Your walls began to splinter at his acknowledgement, coaxing out a whimper you couldn’t quite swallow.
“So maybe we can just do a little. Once a week, to start? You could even come down when I’m working out and we can do them together. How’s that sound?”
“I don’t know, Buck…”
“Hey, that’s alright. You don’t have to decide right now, just think about it. But I’ve got to know…”
You braced for impact.
“There’s a lot of papers in there. Takes time to accumulate all that. You must’ve been going pretty regularly at some point, so why’d you stop?”
You sniffled. “Wasn’t working…”
“Wasn’t working how, sweetheart?”
“…I tried so hard, did everything right. For months. Never missed a day or appointment. I was proud of myself. I felt stronger. Then I got hurt again, like I hadn’t done it at all. All that work, all that energy and effort, and it hadn’t mattered.” The tears wanted to well up again. Bucky hummed, letting you vent without intrusion. “It’s never going to fix me. So why bother?”
“Because it’s good for you, honey. It’s good to move, good to sweat a little. So we won’t push so hard, no big deal. I can find ways to motivate you and make it easier to manage. But I think a little is better than nothing, don’t you?”
You didn’t want to admit it, but he was right.
“…Okay,” you conceded.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He planted his hands on your shoulders whipped around to press a wet kiss to your cheek from behind, stubble scratching at your skin. “Okay.”
So, it begins.
He waits for a day that your schedule is light to breach the topic again. Even then, there’s no pressure. Just an offer, and an enticing one at that. Bucky Barnes is not above bribery.
“I’m heading up to the gym if you want to come along? I’ll take my shirt off,” he teases with a cheeky wink. You just roll your eyes, but follow along anyway.
Hook, line and sinker. Because yes, you would very much like to see that.
You find him on the couch one night, so late it’s early, reading by lamplight. Sleep evades you, and as you try to tiptoe across to the kitchen for a nice cup of tea, the pages come into view. He’s not reading one of his beloved fantasy novels tonight. No, these are…scientific articles, dozens of them. All about your condition. Research papers and medical studies arranged around him like battle plans.
“Super-soldier hearing, doll,” He murmurs, not even having to look up from the paragraph he’s engrossed in.
“Sorry, I didn’t want to disturb you.”
“You’re never a disturbance. Do you need something?”
“No, I’m alright. What are you reading?”
He sucks you into his orbit, your sleepy delirium no match for the warm arms that pull you toward the couch and into the cushions. “Want to make sure I understand what we’re up against here. Everything you’re dealing with, so I’m not pestering you with questions all hours of the day.”
“I don’t mind…” you yawn.
“I know, and thank you, but it shouldn’t have to be your responsibility alone. You can use that energy better elsewhere. M’sure I’ll still have things to ask you, these things can’t teach me everything. Just want to help the best I can.”
“What did I do to deserve you?”
“I ask myself the same thing every day I get to wake up with you beside me.”
Bucky is true to his word. He gets up early and preps with the same intensity he would for an op. Your chores disappear from your to-do list one by one, checked off with the sunrise and morning traffic as the backdrop. Smoothies appear in the fridge, protein powder and creatine masked by yogurt and fresh berries, and a truly overwhelming amount of banana. He’s folded and put away your clean clothes exactly where they belong, with the occasional sweet note pressed inbetween that flutters out when you pull them from the dresser.
A routine begins to take shape, and it feels like the sun coming out from behind the clouds. Your muscles loosen. Your head feels clear.
For a while you can almost forget about the pain.
For a while it works.
Until it doesn’t.
As soon as you open your eyes that morning, you’re near tears. They hover at the surface, threatening to overflow at the slightest inconvenience. You ache down to the marrow of your bones. Consciousness itself weighs down on you like a sandbag. All the strength you can muster goes into lifting the covers and putting your feet on the floor.
The moment he lays eyes on you after you’ve dragged yourself out of the bedroom, he knows. And you shatter.
“I was doing so well…” the words quiver as you voice them.
He moves like a bullet, discarding whatever he had in hand and bundling you against his chest before the first cry pierces the air.
“I hate this…I hate my body,” you sob into his sweatshirt, until wet patches bloom across the knit and you’re gasping between words. “I can’t even do something as simple as get up in the morning without it all falling apart!”
With his fingers threaded through your hair, Bucky holds you close so you don’t have to see the way he has to stare up at the ceiling and bite his lip or the tear that slips past his defences.
“Please don’t say that. I love this body. She works so hard, and she never gives up. Not once. She knows what she’s got to do, you just have to give her time…Look how far you’ve come already.”
“But I’m so tired…”
You mean it more than most people do. It’s deeper than that, and Bucky understands the words don’t do it justice. It means you are fed up. It means you are in pain. It means you’re at your limit, backed against the edge and teetering.
“C’mere,” he purrs, “let’s get you to back to bed, alright? I’ll make you something to eat, and we can have a slow day together.”
“M’sorry…”
Bucky steadies you as you amble back down the hall, the sheets still warm when he pulls them over you. “Not sorry,” he rumbles and kisses your forehead. “Just say thank you. I’ll take care of everything. You rest.”
He raids the kitchen for every indulgent comfort food he can find on short notice, bundling up as much as he can carry and depositing the spread across the bedside table to be forgotten about in favour of sprawling across the mattress and cradling you against him. He rubs your back until your heart rate attempts to match his and your breathing evens.
“…how did you do it?” you finally ask as the weepiness begins to leave you.
“Do what, doll?”
“Cope. With having no control over the changes that happened to your body.”
“You talking about my arm?”
You nod. He sighs.
“It took a long time, not to be at odds with it or be bothered by it. When I finally got the chance to process what happened…I can’t say that there wasn’t grief. Or anger, because there was a lot of that. I spent a long cursing Hydra, the fall, the war. I was mad at the world for doing this to me, because I knew I didn’t deserve it. And you don’t deserve this kind of pain, either. There’s no reason for it, you didn’t do anything wrong. But I had to learn that in order to live our lives and get through the day, we have to roll with the punches it throws at us. And yes, that sucks, and yes, it’s not fair, but we’ll never get anywhere if we stay stuck in the things we can’t change. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
You hum.
“You’re going to have days like today. But you’re also going to have so many good ones. It might not balance out, but it’s enough to keep going. You’re allowed to be pissed and frustrated or cry until you’re all shrivelled like a raisin,” he exhales in a chuckle. “You need to take a break, shut out the world for a while? We’ll take a break. You want to get angry and punch something? We can spar and you can give it to me with everything you’ve got to spare. But you can’t just give up, because good days are coming. I will be your crutch, I will be your advocate, your shield, your cheerleader. Anything you need to make it to tomorrow so you can have them.”
“…But I can’t help but feel…like I’m a burden on you.”
You might as well have slapped Bucky across the face. Shame rolls off of you as the ugly thought that has lurked in the back of your head for far too long claws its way to the surface, unable to meet his eyes as you say it. He bolts up, propped on his elbow to face you head-on with a determination in his eyes that you’ve never seen to such an extent. The grip of his hand clutching yours leaves no room for you to run.
“Listen to me. You are not a burden. You are the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. You give me purpose, and strength and joy that I never thought I’d get to have. I love you, and I love caring for you. Don’t think for a second that I don’t want to do this. I am exactly where I want to be.” He states it like an indisputable fact, and it tugs at something in your chest like a loose thread, threatening to unravel your whole worldview with a single motion.
“I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“Good thing you don’t have to worry about that, then.”
When you start to giggle and crack a smile again, red-rimmed eyes scrunched up in delight as you curl further into him, it’s infectious. His thumb skirts across your cheek and smooths your hair in tender passes “There’s my girl. One day at a time, alright? Think we can do that?”
“One day at a time.”
A/N: Thank you to my physiotherapist for rolling with the punches with me. You’re a real one, Steve.
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Just a dull ache at first—it was easy to ignore, easy to brush off as something that would pass if you slept it off. You remember shifting under the covers, pressing a hand to your stomach and thinking that it’ll all be fine in the morning.
Except it didn’t.
It got worse overnight.
You’d planned on waking up a little early, but by the time morning came, the ache had turned into full-on cramps. Every small movement just made it worse, and every time you tried to relax, another wave would roll through and tighten all over again, not giving you a second to breathe.
On the other hand, Bucky had been up for hours already—you could hear it faintly through the open door. The clink of dishes, the quiet hum of movement in the kitchen. He was cleaning up. Your chores. The ones you’d planned to handle yourself.
But every time you even thought about getting up, your stomach would twist again, keeping you pinned right where you were.
The guilt settled heavy in your chest.
You hated that he was doing your chores. Hated that he’d probably noticed you hadn’t come out yet. But more than that—you didn’t want to bother him. Not with this. Not with something that felt so humiliating to say out loud.
So you stayed quiet.
Even as the hours dragged on.
Even as it got way past noon.
Because as awful as the pain was, it still felt easier to lie there and deal with it alone than to actually say it.
As time passes, your body curls in on itself, hand pressing into your lower stomach like you can hold it still, like you can stop it from tightening any further.
“Mm—” your voice breaks, barely making it out.
You try to breathe through it.
But it’s too much for you to handle. A quiet, broken sound leaves you, your face pressing harder into the pillow as tears finally spill over. You try to be quiet about it. You didn’t want him to hear you, nonetheless see you like this—curled up, crying over something you should be able to handle.
You were so caught up in the pain and the way it kept building that everything else blurred out. Your thoughts spiraled, one into the next, until it was all you could focus on.
It consumed you, so much so that you didn’t even hear him approaching.
He’d come in every now and then to see if you were up and moving, yet this time he had paused in the doorway, watching for a moment, like he was waiting to see if you were going to say something. When you didn’t, he let out a quiet breath and started to walk slowly towards you, not wanting to wake you if you were still asleep.
But as he walked closer, he could hear you sniffling and moaning.
As soon as you felt the mattress dip beside you, you immediately turned away—like if he couldn’t see you, maybe he’d leave you alone. But he knew you were stubborn sometimes.
He doesn’t say anything at first.
There’s just a quiet pause as he looks at you, like he’s putting the pieces together—your back was turned away from him, the uneven way you’re breathing, the way you’re trying a little too hard to stay still.
“Hey,” he murmurs after a second. One hand comes up, hesitating for just a moment before settling lightly against your arm—not forcing, not pulling, just there. “Wha’s goin’ on?”
“…Nothing,” you managed to mumble, blurting out the first word that came to mind.
There’s a quiet huff from him. “Right,” he mutters. “S’that why you’ve been rollin’ around like you’re tryin’ to fight the mattress all day?”
“It’s stupid,” you mumble into the pillow.
His hand settles over the blanket near your side. “I highly doubt that,” he shakes his head at your response.
You only pulled the blanket a little closer. “…it is.”
He sighs quietly, not anywhere near being annoyed—he was just worried. “Mmm, no, it isn’t.” His voice is calm, more tender like, with that low firmness he only uses when he’s trying not to let his concern show too much. “You’ve been in here all day, barely said two words to me. That doesn’t sound like ‘stupid’ to me.”
You stay quiet, and his hand smooths slowly over the blanket.
“C’mon now,” his eyes were searching your face. “You know better than to say something like that.” There’s something almost gentle in his scolding, the way he says it like it’s less about correcting you and more about how much he hates hearing you talk yourself down.
“If something’s got you curled up in bed like this, then it must matter.” His thumb brushes lightly against the blanket. “And if it matters to you, then it matters to me. You know that.”
The room goes still for a moment, his voice the only thing breaking the silence. “I’m not askin’ because I wanna pry,” he says quietly. “I’m askin’ because I can see somethin’s wrong, and I don’t like watchin’ you sit here hurting and actin’ like I’m supposed to ignore it.”
His hand shifts slightly, resting over the blanket before giving a small, steady rub against your leg beneath it.
He’s been patient with you the entire time yet the concern on his face hasn’t gone away for a second, and somehow that only makes it harder to say anything. When you finally speak, your voice is barely above a whisper.
“It’s…that time of the month.”
For a second, he just looks at you. Something in his expression shifts, concern taking over again. “You’re on your period?” You give a small nod, too embarrassed to say it again, and he lets out a slow breath, rubbing a hand over his jaw before looking back at you. “Darlin’…why didn’t you tell me?”
You shrug weakly, staring harder at the blanket. “I didn’t wanna make a big deal out of it.”
His brows pull together, not frustrated, just confused. “So instead you were gonna sit in here feeling like hell and not say a word to me?” His tone stays gentle, trying his hardest to not sound upset.
“I just didn’t want to make you grossed out,” you admit. The words come out hesitant, like you already know how bad they sound. “Or bother you.”
The second you say it, something in Bucky’s expression shifts completely. His eyes flicker with something almost hurt, and the concern in his face deepens. He shifts a little closer, his hand settling over yours on top of the blanket.
Bucky exhales quietly and shakes his head, his thumb brushing slowly over your knuckles.
“Baby, I would never judge you for that,” he says, like the thought doesn’t even exist for him. “First of all, periods are natural. There’s nothin’ weird about it, and there sure as hell isn’t anything disgusting about you.”
He watches you as he speaks, like he’s checking that the words are actually landing.
“And second, even if it wasn’t natural, I’d still want you to tell me. Not because it bothers me, but just so I can help. You’re not supposed to sit here and deal with it alone.”
A pause settles for a second, but it isn’t empty. His eyes shifts over your face, taking in the way you’re holding yourself too still, the tension you’re trying not to show.
“Sweetheart,” his gaze doesn’t leave yours. “This is your body. There’s nothin’ about it that’s disgusting. And there’s definitely not a damn thing about you that would make me feel that way.”
His jaw tightens briefly, not at you, just at the idea of you thinking that.
“You’ve been in pain and you’ve been hidin’ it in here alone because you thought I’d be uncomfortable,” he says quieter, almost more to himself than anything, like he’s piecing it together as he speaks. “That’s what gets me.”
His eyes flick back to yours. “You don’t have to sit on stuff like that with me,” he adds, more grounded again. “If you’re hurting, I wanna know. Alright?”
You muttered, “I just didn’t want to say anything because I didn’t think it was necessary.”
“But you look paler than usual,” he says simply. “And you’ve been holding yourself like you’re one second away from either crying or passing out.” The concern in his voice makes it impossible to lie, so after a second, you nod. Bucky closes his eyes for a brief second, then lets out a slow breath.
You hesitate for a second, fingers fidgeting with the edge of your sleeve before you finally look back up at him. “…Are you upset with me?”
“No, no, I’m not mad,” he says when he sees your face crumple. His hand squeezes yours gently, as if he was trying to ground you. “I just wish you’d told me sooner.” His gaze softened as he looked back at you. “Because the thought of you laying here hurting this bad while I had no clue what was going on? I hate that.”
You let out a shaky breath and look away. “I didn’t want to be over dramatic or anything along those lines..”
Bucky’s brows knit together again, but his tone stays soft. “Baby, being in pain isn’t dramatic. If you’re hurting, that matters. And if it matters to you, then I wanna know.” His hand stays warm over yours while he speaks, every word calm and sure. “I don’t care that it’s your period. I care that you feel awful. That’s what matters here.”
Your chest tightens, and he keeps talking, softer now, like he’s trying to undo every anxious thought you’ve had all day. You nod weakly, wiping at your face, and Bucky gives the faintest nod back before brushing your hair away from your forehead.
“Good.” He holds your gaze for a moment, making sure you mean it. “Because next time, I wanna know the second you start feeling bad. I can’t help you if you don’t let me in, sweet girl.”
Your throat tightens again, but this time it’s because of how gentle he sounds. Bucky brushes away one more tear, his hand warm against your cheek.
He watches you for a second before saying anything, his eyes moving over your face like he’s trying to figure out how bad you’re feeling without making you explain it.
“Have you taken anything yet?”
You shake your head, giving him a weak little “no,” like maybe if you say it casually enough it won’t sound as bad as it is, and he lets out the smallest breath through his nose, the corner of his mouth lifting just a little like he already expected that answer.
“No?” The corner of his mouth lifts just a tad. “Were you just gonna tough it out and hope for the best?” There’s no judgment in his voice, just quiet fondness, and when you try to shrug it off, he only smiles a little, as if he knows exactly what you’re doing.
“Sounds like a terrible plan,” he murmurs. You manage the tiniest smile back, and his expression softens the second he sees it, like that alone makes him feel a little better.
“You need somethin’ besides curlin’ up and sufferin’ over here,” he muttered as he stood. “I’ll be back in a minute, sweetheart.” He squeezed your hand gently, pressed a quick kiss to your temple, and slipped out of the room.
A little while later, there was a brief knock before the door cracked open. “In my defense, I didn’t know what counted as enough,” Bucky pointed out as he stepped inside, his arms full of things he had gathered for you.
He made his way over to the bed, carefully setting everything down on the nightstand beside you before looking back at you with a softer expression. “Do you need anything else?”
“Yeah.” You hesitate for a moment before adding, “I’d like it if you stayed.”
That earned a huffed out quiet laugh from him, the corner of his mouth pulling into a small smile as he leaned against the side of the bed. “I can do that.”
He reached down to brush a hand over your hair before nodding toward the pile he’d set on the nightstand. “C’mon, move over,” he murmured, already climbing onto the bed beside you. “Lemme take care of ya. You look miserable.”
You let out a tired groan but shifted anyway, making enough room for him to slide in beside you.
Bucky settled carefully against the pillows before reaching for the water bottle he’d brought in. “Alright,” he murmured, unscrewing the cap for you first.
You barely moved, only burrowing deeper beneath the blankets with a tired groan. Bucky just sighed quietly through his nose, already expecting the resistance.
“Don’t you start,” he muttered, one hand sliding under the blanket until he found your arm. “You gotta take the meds, angel.”
“I will,” you mumbled weakly. “Later.”
“Mmmm, yeah? And when exactly is ‘later’?” he asked dryly. “After you moan ‘nd groan around for another three hours?”
You shot him a sleepy glare that had absolutely had no bite behind it, and he almost smiled. Almost. Instead, he reached over to the nightstand, grabbing the bottle before shaking two pills into his palm. “Sit up a little f’me.”
When you didn’t move fast enough, Bucky just rested his hand around your waist, giving you enough time to shift on your own before he gently helped you against him. As you settled there, he kept his arm loosely around you, holding you close to his chest so you didn’t have to support all of your weight by yourself.
“There we go,” he murmured, much softer now.
You frowned at the pills in his hand. “But they taste miserable.”
“They’re not meant to taste good, sweetheart,” Bucky saw the horrendous face you made towards the medicine. “They’re supposed to help.
“That’s easy for you to say.”
Bucky huffed out a quiet laugh before pressing the water bottle into your hands. “C’mon. Take ’em before I start getting mean.”
“You’re always mean.”
“And yet you love me anyway.”
You rolled your eyes but finally took the pills, immediately reaching for more water afterward. Bucky watched carefully until he was sure enough you’d swallowed them, his metal fingers rubbing slow circles against your side the entire time.
“Good.” He waits until he’s sure you’ve swallowed before taking the bottle back and setting it aside. The second your head hit his shoulder, Bucky pulled the blankets higher around you, tucking them under your chin with gentleness. His hand drifted up to brush through your hair. “You still hurtin’ bad?” he asked quietly.
You gave a small nod against him.
Bucky’s jaw tightened for half a second, not at you, never at you. He just hated seeing you uncomfortable, hated that he couldn’t fix it instantly.
“Okay,” he murmured after a moment. “Well the meds’ll kick in soon, hopefully. Till then, I’ll have to suffice.”
You tilted your head just enough to look up at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Bucky adjusted against the pillows beside you, one hand absently fixing the blanket where it had twisted around your legs. He looked oddly thoughtful for a second before answering, “Well I was thinkin’ that maybe we should invest in one of those warming thingies, y’know?”
You blinked up at him. “A what?”
“One of those warm…things,” he said, gesturing vaguely with his hand. “Couldn’t find one anywhere. That’s why it took me so long to come back.”
A sleepy laugh escaped you before you could stop it. “Baby, are you referring to a heating pad?”
“Yes,” he deadpanned immediately. “That. That’s what I meant.”
Your smile only widened, and he had to fight the urge to smile back too much at the sound of your laugh. “A warming thingie,” you repeated teasingly.
“Alright, alright,” he grumbled, shaking his head. “You know what I meant.”
His gaze dropped toward your stomach then before flicking back up to your face, suddenly more careful again. Bucky only hesitated for a second before speaking again. “Well since we don’t have one, I was thinkin’ maybe we could lay down for a while and I could hold you a little closer. Might help warm you up some.”
His hand brushed gently along your side before he added more quietly, “Would you mind if I do that?”
You looked up at him for a moment, your expression softening immediately at the quiet concern in his voice.
“Yeah,” you whispered. “I’d like that.”
The tension in Bucky’s shoulders eased almost instantly. Carefully, he helped guide you down beneath the blankets until you were laying on your side with your back pressed against his chest. Bucky shifted in behind you, settling close enough that his presence immediately surrounded you from every angle.
One arm slipped carefully around your waist, holding you against him while his other hand found yours beneath the blankets. He made sure not to squeeze too tightly, keeping his touch gentle
“There,” he whispered near your ear. “Is that…better?”
You let out a quiet hum, relaxing further as his warmth seeped into you.
Bucky’s nose brushed lightly against your hair before he ducked his head and pressed a kiss to your temple, staying there for a moment.
“Hate seein’ you like this,” he admitted quietly. “I wish I could just take it from you instead.”
His hand spread warmth against your stomach then, rubbing slow circles through the blanket while he tucked you even closer against him.
Bucky stayed quiet for a while after that, just holding you close while his hand continued slow circles against your stomach. The room fell quiet after that, the only sound being your steady breathing and the occasional rustle of blankets when Bucky adjusted them around you again.
After a few minutes, his lips brushed lightly against your temple once more. “Do you need anything else?” He was still worried. “Water, snacks, more blankets?”
You shook your head weakly. “Mm-m. I’m okay now.”
“Okay now,” he repeated skeptically, earning a sleepy little smile from you.
Bucky’s arm tightened around your waist just a little, he wasn’t entirely convinced. “Well, if that changes later, you tell me, alright?” he gently scolded. “Don’t care if it’s two minutes from now or three in the morning.”
His thumb brushed gently over your stomach again. “I mean it,” he added softer. “If you need somethin’, I’ll get it.”
You turned your head just enough to look back at him over your shoulder, the look on his face. He was tired, worried, but so unbelievably gentle with you. “Alright,” you whispered.
That finally seemed to satisfy him. Bucky pressed one last kiss against your temple before settling back against the pillows with you tucked safely against his chest.
For a while, things seemed better.
Between the medicine kicking in and the comfort of being wrapped up in your boyfriend’s arms, you were on the verge of falling asleep. Almost. A sudden cramp seized low in your stomach, making your breath hitch as you curled tighter against him.
Bucky immediately felt it. His arm tightened around your waist as he lifted his head from the pillow. “Hey, hey,” he murmured, concern immediately creeping into his voice. “Talk t’me. Did it start up again?”
You hesitated before nodding.
Bucky’s expression fell. For a moment, all he could do was look at you.
Then he let out a slow breath through his nose and rested his forehead against the back of your head.
“God, my sweet girl…” he muttered quietly. “I really thought you were finally getting some relief.”
His hand moved across your stomach once more, rubbing slow circles through the blanket.
“I know the meds are helping some, but every time I think you’re doing better, you get another one of those cramps and I just…” He shook his head. “I don’t know. It just gets to me.”
You shifted slightly so you could glance back at him. “Buck—”
“No, I’m serious.” His voice softened. “I hate seeing you hurt. I know that sounds obvious, but I mean it. I hate watching you try to act like it’s not that bad when I can feel you tensing up every few minutes.”
His gaze dropped toward where his hand rested over your stomach.
“And the worst part is that there’s not really anything I can do to fix it.”
Another cramp made you wince, and he noticed right away, frowning at you.
“If you scraped your knee, I could clean it up. If you were sick, I could make soup or get medicine. If somebody was giving you a hard time, I’d know exactly what to do.”
A humorless laugh escaped him. “But this? All I can do is sit here and wish I could take some of it off your shoulders.”
You reached for his hand. “Baby, you are helping.”
His fingers intertwined with yours immediately. “Maybe a little,” he admitted.
“A lot.”
His expression softened at that. Still, he looked unconvinced.
“I just wish it was more. You shouldn’t have to sit here hurting while I’m stuck guessing what might make you feel better.”
His thumb brushed over your knuckles.
“Honestly, I’ve been trying to think of things this entire time,” he admitted although he was still working through it in his head. “Different positions, more blankets, less blankets, water, food…I was halfway ready to tear the apartment apart looking for one of those heating pads.”
His eyes dropped to where his hand rested carefully against your stomach, still moving in slow, steady circles through the blanket.
“I keep running it over like there’s something I’m missing,” he went on, a little more tense now. “Like there’s some obvious fix and I just haven’t figured it out yet.”
A quiet exhale left him through his nose.
“And it’s just…it’s frustrating,” he admitted. “Because I can deal with things I can fix. I can handle problems that actually do something when you act on them. But this just sits here and you’re hurting and all I’ve got is…this.”
He scrubbed a hand over his face before reaching for yours again, holding it a little tighter this time. “I don’t like feeling useless.” His jaw tightened briefly before he looked back at you. “Especially when it comes down to you.”
That made something in your expression shift, and you turned your head just enough to look back at him over your shoulder.
“You’re not useless,” you said immediately, not giving him the chance to argue. “You’re literally doing everything you can right now.”
Bucky didn’t look convinced right away. “I’m rubbing your stomach,” he replied, almost bluntly. “That’s not exactly fixing anything.”
“It’s helping,” you insisted. “Trust me, it does help.”
His jaw tightened slightly, not in anger, just stubbornness. “It’s just not enough.”
“Yes it is.”
“Not really.”
You huffed faintly, adjusting against him a little more so you could see his face better. “Bucky, I’m telling you it is. I feel so much better than I was before.”
He hesitated at that, eyes flicking down to your face like he was trying to decide whether to believe you or argue with you out of habit. “…Yeah?” he asked finally, quieter.
“Yes.”
His shoulders eased just a little, though his expression still held that lingering frustration. “Still feels like I should be doing more,” he admitted.
You rolled your eyes a little, tired but fond. “You always feel like you should be doing more. That’s kind of your thing.”
That earned a faint huff from him through his nose, like he didn’t appreciate being called out but couldn’t fully deny it either.
“Yeah, well,” he muttered, hand resuming its steady motion over your stomach. “My ‘thing’ is usually more useful than this.”
“You’re literally holding me together right now,” you said quietly. “That’s useful.”
That made him pause again. For a second, he just looked at you like he was trying to reconcile what you were saying with whatever he had in his head.
“I just don’t want you thinking you have to deal with this alone.” He shook his head, like the thought of it alone bothered him. “Or that I’m just sitting here not doing anything.”
“But you’re not,” you sat up and laid your head against his shoulder. “You’re here. You’re paying attention. You’re taking care of me. That’s everything to me.”
A quiet second or two had passed. He exhaled slowly, some of the tension finally easing out of his shoulders. “…Alright,” he wasn’t fully convinced, but he was just choosing to accept it for now.
“I just wish I could make it stop.” His arm tightened gently around your waist as he leaned in and pressed a gentle kiss on your temple. “I know I can’t make the cramps disappear,” he said quietly. “Believe me, if I could take them from you, I would.”
His hand kept moving over your stomach in slow circles, more out of habit than anything now. “But I can be here.”
His arm tightened around your waist, pulling you a little closer against him. “So if you need to complain, complain. If you need to cry, let it out. If you want to tell me for the hundredth time how much this sucks, then tell me.”
A faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “You don’t have to make it easier for me to hear. You don’t have to pretend you’re okay because you’re worried about it bein’ dramatic. You’re in pain. That’s enough.”
He pressed another quick kiss to your forehead. “And I know you deal with this all the time. I know you’re used to pushing through it and getting on with your day anyway.”
His eyes dropped to where his hand rested against your stomach. “But just because you’re used to carrying something doesn’t mean it isn’t heavy.”
He pressed another quick kiss to your forehead.
“And I know you deal with this all the time. I know you’re used to pushing through it and getting on with your day anyway.”
He shook his head slightly. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
His hand rubbed slowly up and down your side. “I know there’s not much I can do. Trust me, if there was, I’d be doing it.”
For a moment, he just looked at you.
“I just hate seeing you feel like this.” The honesty in his voice left no room for argument.
You shifted closer, tucking yourself against his chest as he wrapped both arms around you. The room fell quiet after that.
Bucky kept one hand moving lazily along your back, the other resting against your side, and little by little the tension started to leave you. When he felt your body finally begin to relax against him, he gently guided you down onto the mattress.
Once you were settled, he stretched out beside you, pulling the blankets up over both of you before gathering you back against his chest.
“Get some sleep, angel.” He didn’t need to say anything else. Your eyelids were already getting heavier by the second.
While you knew tomorrow would likely look a lot like today, you also knew he’d be right there with you through it.
“I love you,” he pressed one last kiss to the top of your head.
And by the time exhaustion finally caught up to you, Bucky was still right where he’d promised he’d be—stuck in bed with you.
Everybody told me love was blind - Then I saw your face and you blew my mind - Finally, you and me are the lucky ones this time
The first mistake you made was telling Wade Wilson anything.
The second mistake had been telling him you had a crush.
The third mistake had been admitting that crush was Logan Howlett.
The moment the words left your mouth, Wade stared at you for a solid five seconds before slowly lowering his chimichanga.
“Logan?”
You groaned immediately.
“Oh my God, forget I said anything.”
“No, no, no.” Wade pointed at you dramatically. “We’re not speeding past this. Logan? As in Wolverine? As in angry Canadian murder uncle? As in the human embodiment of ‘touch my fries and die’?”
“He is not that bad.”
Wade’s eyes widened.
“You’re already defending him.”
“I’m not—“
“You are.”
You buried your face in your hands.
“Sweetheart, love is blind, but don’t go walking into traffic.”
“Wade.”
“I’m serious. Don’t fall too hard.”
You rolled her eyes, at him.
But Wade looked genuinely concerned.
Which should have been your warning.
Because whenever Wade looked concerned, it usually meant he was about to make everyone’s life significantly worse.
Including yours.
⸻
A few days later, Remy had somehow ended up sitting beside you in the lobby.
Now, in the few months you had known him, Remy never just casually sat beside anyone.
That should have been warning number two.
“Hey, cher.”
“Hi?”
Remy glanced around suspiciously, then leaned closer.
“You got a thing for Wolverine, yeah?”
Your entire body froze, “…Wade.”
“Dat man got a mouth bigger than the Mississippi.”
“I’m going to kill him.” You said, burying your face into your hands again.
“Nah. Logan probably get there first.”
You blinked at the older man next to you, “What does that mean?”
Remy’s expression immediately became serious.
Too serious.
Suspiciously serious.
“Look, I ain’t saying dis to be mean.”
The moment someone says that, they’re absolutely about to be mean.
“He ain’t exactly easy.”
Your stomach sank.
“His Temper. He’s Stubborn. He pushes people away.”
That last one hurt your feelings a little.
Remy sighed dramatically.
“Man’s been through enough trauma to keep ten therapists employed.”
Over the next week there were comments, little comments, that seemed harmless comments. The worst kind of comments.
“Logan doesn’t really do relationships.”
“You know he likes being alone, right?”
“Guy’s got emotional walls taller than the Avengers Tower.”
“Actually, scratch that. The Avengers Tower got destroyed. Logan’s walls are still standing.”
The more you heard, the more stupid your crush felt.
Because maybe Wade was right. Maybe Logan was too complicated.
Too damaged and too impossible.
And you are just…you.
A woman living down the hall.
Someone who occasionally shared coffee with him in the mornings.
Someone who laughed at his rare jokes.
Someone who maybe looked for him every time you entered a room.
So you did the mature, adult thing…. you avoided him.
⸻
Day one was accidental. The second day was intentional. By the fourth day you were basically performing tactical military maneuvers.
If Logan entered the kitchen, you suddenly remembered you had laundry.
If he got on the elevator, you’d opt to take the stairs.
If you saw him in the courtyard you’d immediately find somewhere else to be.
At first you thought he didn’t notice but then you realized Logan noticed everything.
The problem was he didn’t say anything.
Not immediately at least.
Which somehow made it worse.
Because you’d kept catching him watching you.
⸻
Eight days later you were in the mailroom, standing near your box shuffling through your mail. Halfway through sorting them you heard the door shut behind you.
The click echoed through the room.
Something in your chest immediately tightened. You first thought wasn’t that you were probably gonna get murder, it was, “God don’t let this be Logan.”
Slowly you turned around. There he was, standing between you and the now closed door
“Hi,” you said weakly.
“Hi.”
The room felt suddenly very warm.
“What are you doing down here?”
Logan stared at her, tilting his head to the side.
For several painfully long seconds.
Then he spoke low, “Why are you avoiding me?”
Straight to the point.
No warning. No easing into it.
You immediately looked away, embarrassed
“I’m not.”
“Bullshit.”
Your head immediately snapped up to the much older man in front of you.
“You’re leaving rooms when I walk in.”
“I—”
“You take the stairs,”
“You noticed that?”
“I notice everything.”
Your stomach did a little flip you absolutely hated.
Because that wasn’t helping.
Not even a little.
“You’ve barely looked at me in over a week.” His voice was quieter now. Less like the frustrated Wolverine he is, to more hurt and sad.
And somehow that was infinitely worse.
You chose to stare at the floor, because looking at him felt dangerous.
“Yn, did I do something?”
The question hit harder than it should have.
Logan sounded genuinely concerned. Like he’d spent days trying to figure out what he’d done wrong.
Something twisted painfully inside her chest.
“No.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Then explain it to me.”
You couldn’t. How are you supposed to explain that you’d fallen for him?
How were you supposed to admit you’d started avoiding him because everyone convinced you that you never stood a chance?
Logan took a step forward.
The distance between them shrank.
Every nerve in you body became painfully aware of it.
“You talked to Wade.” His said more has a statement than a question.
Wincing, you chose not to respond.
Logan sighed, “Thought so.”
Your eyes widened. “He was trying to help.”
“He was trying to meddle.”
“Okay, yes.”
Logan pinched the bridge of his nose.
“And Remy?”
“…Maybe.”
“Unbelievable.”
A laugh slipped out from you.
Maybe everybody was right. Maybe love really was blind.
⸻
Logan stared at you hard.
At the woman who’d spent the last week running from him.
The woman he’d been thinking about far more than he should.
The woman who looked at him like he was something worth looking at.
He hated that because, after everything he’d lost…
After every timeline, every grave, every mistake.
He’d promised himself he wouldn’t do this again.
Wouldn’t care this much.
Wouldn’t want someone this badly.
Logan takes another step closer.
“What did they tell you?”
You look down at the envelopes in your hands.
“That you don’t let people get close.”
His jaw tightens. “Maybe that used to be true.”
You glance up.
“Why Logan?”
His hazel eyes lock onto your e/c.
For a moment, neither of you speaks.
Then he sighs.
“Because I like you.”
Your heart nearly stops.
“What?”
“I like you.”
You stare at him.
“You… like me?”
A small smile appears on his face.
“Yeah, sweetheart. You.”
You let out a nervous laugh.
“I spent days avoiding you.”
“I noticed. Darlin’, I’ve spent the last week trying not to follow you into every room you leave.”
Heat rushes to your cheeks.
His smile widens.
The silence between you feels softer and warmer now.
You study his face.
The face everyone warned you about.
The face you’ve been trying not to think about.
The face you’ve completely fallen for.
A smile tugs at your lips.
“Everybody told me love was blind.”
Logan lets out a quiet laugh.
“Yeah?”
You raised your arms around his neck.
“Then I saw your face and you blew my mind.”
For a second, Logan just looks at you.
Like he can’t believe you’re real.
Then he smiles. A real smile.
The kind reserved only for you.
You step closer.
“Finally, you and me are the lucky ones.”
His hand slides to your waist.
“Come here.”
You don’t need to be told twice.
Logan pulls you against him and kisses you and when he finally pulls away, his forehead rests against yours.
will you still love me when I’m not longer young and beautiful?
The music was too loud.
That was the first thing you thought whenever you watched one of Steve’s USO shows.
Too bright, too polished, too full of cheering strangers who only knew the version of him printed on posters. The broad shoulders. The perfect smile. The shining uniform. Captain America as an idea.
Not the boy who used to cough into his sleeve in the cold, the boy who sketched in the margins of newspapers, or the boy who once offered you the last half of his sandwich when he barely had enough for himself.
Not your Steve.
You stood near the side of the stage, hands clasped in front of your dress, watching him bow dramatically to another screaming crowd.
He caught your eye for half a second.
And smiled differently.
Softer, real and loving.
Your heart did the same foolish thing it had done for years.
-
By the time the audience was gone and the dancers had disappeared backstage, the hall felt like another world entirely.
The lights had been dimmed to a golden hush. Somewhere in the distance, a record crackled softly. Glitter still shimmered across the stage floor, forgotten remnants of costumes already packed away.
And in the middle of it all, Steve held you close.
You swayed together in the empty space, moving slowly to music meant for no one else.
His hand rested at your waist with such careful reverence it made your chest ache, as though some part of him still couldn’t believe he was allowed to touch you there.
Your arms circled his neck.
He was larger now… stronger.
Everything they had wanted him to become.
But when he looked at you, he was still Stevie.
Still the boy who blushed if your fingers brushed his.
Still the boy who got flustered when you stood too near.
Still yours.
“You were wonderful tonight,” you murmured, unable to resist.
He blushed instantly. “Don’t start.”
“Oh, I’m starting. I counted at least twenty girls screaming your name.”
“Yeah,” he said, drawing you a little closer. “But only one of them matters.”
Your breath caught.
Even now, after he’d changed, after the serum and the fame and the spotlight, he could still surprise you.
You lowered your gaze for a moment, suddenly shy.
The song drifted around you like a secret.
Then, quietly, before you could stop yourself, you asked the question that has been on your mind, “Stevie… would you still love me when I’m no longer young and beautiful?”
He stopped moving just enough to tilt your chin up.
There was no hesitation in him.
No confusion. Only certainty.
“Yes,” he said softly. “Of course I would.”
Your eyes stung unexpectedly.
He smiled and pressed his forehead to yours.
“I’d love you when we’re old and grey and arguing over the radio on the porch.”
You laughed through the tears threatening to rise.
“And if I’m grumpy?”
“You already are.”
You gasped, smacking his chest playfully, “Steven Grant Rogers.”
He grinned.
Then he kissed you for the first time under dim stage lights and fading music, with the whole world waiting outside and neither of you caring.
-
The world changed anyway.
War took what it wanted.
Time took the rest.
And Steve Rogers fell into the ice, while you…. you had lived your life, alone.
-
When he woke, nothing felt right.
New York City was louder, brighter, and busier.
People rushed past with glowing boxes in their hands and empty urgency in their eyes. Streets he had once memorized had vanished beneath towers of steel and glass.
Everyone he had loved belonged to history.
Until they didn’t.
The file had been thin. Inside contained a name, a picture, and history and the address that stuck out like a sore thumb.
Current residence: assisted living.
Steve had stared at the paper so long Natasha eventually plucked it from his hands, pressed it back into his chest, and told him to go.
So he did.
-
The retirement home smelled like honey and polished wood.
His heartbeat hadn’t steadied since the ride over.
What if it wasn’t really you?
What if it was?
What if you hated him for disappearing?
What if you’d forgotten him entirely?
A nurse guided him down the hall and stopped outside a half-open door.
“She’s been expecting you,” she said gently.
Steve froze.
Then stepped inside.
You were sitting by the window with a blanket over your knees, a book in your lap and the glowing sun covering your skin.
You were older, your hair silver at the temples. Fine lines at the corners of your eyes. Hands softer with age.
But you, were still you.
You looked up.
And smiled like he’d only been gone a week.
“There you are, Stevie.”
His heart shuttered and his breath staggered.
He crossed white and black tiles in three desperate strides and immediately dropped to his knees beside your chair.
Your trembling hands reached up to move his hair, “My handsome boy,” you whispered.
Steve laughed once, choked and wet, and gently grasped you hands guiding them to his lips as he presses a soft kiss to them.
“I’m late.” He managed to choke out.
“Terribly late,” you replied. “Same as always.”
He bowed his head into your hand.
“I thought you’d have… more. A family. A husband. Children and grandchildren.
You were quiet for a moment.
Then you gave him a small smile, the same smile that made his 20 year old scrawny self melt.
“I had a good life.”
His eyes met yours.
“But no,” you said gently. “None of those things.”
Pain and hope tangled painfully in his chest.
“Why not?”
Your smile turned wistful.
“I suppose I was waiting for someone to finish our dance.”
The room fell silent.
Steve looked away towards the window, overcome by every lost year standing between you.
You saved him from drowning in it, just as you always had.
“Stevie.”
He turned back immediately.
Your gaze was soft and certain.
“Do you still love me even though I’m no longer young and beautiful?”
His throat tightened.
He took your hand and kissed your knuckles with reverence.
“You are still beautiful,” he whispered hoarsely. “And i will always love you, always..”
Tears shimmered in your eyes.
Good,” you said. “I wanted to hear it again.
-
Unfortunately Steve had lost you once more, but this time it was peaceful for you.
Only a quiet hospital room, your hand in his, and a final breath so gentle it somehow hurt more.
Steve stayed beside you long after the room went still and the line on the monitor stayed straight.
And for the first time in nearly a hundred years, he didn’t know who he was meant to be next.
-
Then came the stones. The mission.
The chance to put everything back where it belonged.
One last job.
He returned each stone.
Each weapon that took away family from each other.
Each borrowed piece of time.
And then, standing in a world that was no longer asking anything of him, Steve made one selfish choice.
He went back to you.
Not the older version in the quiet room, or the one who’s breathing had stoped.
The younger version, the girl in the dance hall, the one who still had years ahead of her, the one who hadn’t had to wait alone, and the one who he had loved the most.
-
When the platform glowed to life, Sam stepped forward first.
But there was no old man waiting.
It was Steve. Still young. Still dressed like Captain America. Smiling with a peace none of them had ever seen on his face.
The only new thing about Steve, was the woman standing next to him who had her hand intertwined with his.
Young, radiant, and laughing softly.
Bruce blinked. “…How…who?”
Steve scratched the back of his neck.
“It’s complicated.”
Sam stared, then broke into a grin.
“You rewrote history for a woman?”
Steve squeezed your hand.
“For my woman, Sam.”
Warmth climbed your cheeks.
Then Steve looked past them.
“Buck.”
Bucky stopped dead.
His eyes moved from Steve, to you, then back again.
“You vanish for five minutes,” Bucky muttered, “and somehow come back married?”
“We never married,” you said quickly.
Steve glanced sideways at you, entirely smug.
“Not yet.” He snuck in.
You hit his arm.
Sam doubled over laughing.
Bucky just shook his head.
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s definitely him.”
-
A few weeks later, sunlight filled your now shared apartment. Your dog, Isla, lay curled at your feet as you finished washing the dishes, the warm water running over your hands in a steady rhythm that almost made everything feel normal.
The sound of the front door opening and closing made both you and Isla perk up instantly. A second later, the two-year-old German Shepherd was already on her feet, tail thumping wildly as she rushed to greet the man who had saved her.
Steve.
You smiled before you even saw him.
“Hey,” you called softly.
He appeared a moment later, rolling his shoulders like he was trying to shake the weight of the world off with it. “Hey,” he said, voice lighter the second his eyes found you.
Isla nearly tackled him. He laughed under his breath, crouching down to scratch behind her ears like she was the best part of his day—and honestly, she probably was.
You leaned against the counter, watching him for a moment. “Long day?”
“Avengers meeting,” he answered, standing back up slowly. “Tony tried to turn it into a debate about shawarma again.”
That earned a soft laugh from you. “Sounds serious.”
“World-ending, apparently.” His eyes softened as they came back to you. “How was your day?”
“Quiet,” you said. “Just Isla being dramatic and me pretending I have my life together.”
He hummed like that was acceptable information, then crossed the room toward you.
You opened your arms without thinking.
He stepped into you immediately.
Warm. Solid. Safe.
But after a second, he gently pulled back just enough to rest his hands over your stomach.
Your breath caught softly.
His thumbs moved in a slow, careful circle over the small curve there, like he was still getting used to the idea that this was real—that you were real, that this little future between you was real.
“How are my girls doing?” he asked quietly.
You smiled down at him. “We’re good,.”
His eyes flicked up to yours, softer than anything the world ever saw from Captain America.
The room felt warm in a way that had nothing to do with the sunlight.
For a moment, neither of you moved—just stayed there, like the world outside didn’t exist, like time wasn’t something trying to steal you both away anymore.
Then Steve leaned in and pressed a gentle kiss to your forehead.
“I love you,” he murmured.
Your heart softened instantly.
“I love you too, Stevie.”
An: i know Steve isn’t part of my main masterlist but this song fits him so well!!
A blog named "confirm-page" tagged my sideblog (and various other blogs) in the comments under its post claiming that a "minor anomaly" was detected with my account, telling me to verify my account within 48 hours by clicking a random link.
I did not click the link, of course; I reported the account for phishing and then blocked it. Just wanted to share what it looked like in case anyone else encounters it and isn't sure whether it's legit or not! :)
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Screenshots:
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Tumblr would NOT contact you through tagging you on a post like this (never will); they would contact you privately e.g. via email if there was an issue.
If you're unsure of if something is actually from Tumblr, either report it (my preferred method) or look up which email address to contact Tumblr though, and use that to ask them if it's legit or not!
Edit: seems like there are multiple different blogs doing this, so keep an eye out I guess
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I've always loved the fact that Captain America is an artist in the comics, it feels just so fitting for the character that is supposed to embody ideal of freedom and fighting for it. Cause what is art after all?
A little nostalgic piece to keep feeding into my newfound hyperfixation. Till the end of the fucking line.
Never been to USA cause I'm poor af, but hopefully I'll manage to visit Brooklyn one day. It's been on my dream list for about as long as Japan after all, though I can't remember what started it all.
germansingergirl
yousharknotpass
ellievsbear
jbbartram-illu
izzy806
prguitarman
kaledo-art
