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Summary: You skip the med bay after a mission that left you bruised and bleeding to keep Bucky from finding out you’re hurt—not realizing he’s home early.
MCU Timeline Placement: Post TFATWS
Master List: Find my other stuff here!
Warnings: blood, injury, self-treated wounds, dislocated shoulder, medical trauma, mentions of nerve damage, panic responses, protective!Bucky
Word Count: 3.9k
Author’s Note: been running on caffeine, stress, and the vague memory of sleep the past few days and wrote this instead of doing literally anything productive. i’ll probably regret it tomorrow but i’m sure you all will thank me for this. do something gentle for yourself today!
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The door clicked shut behind you, too loud in the hush of 3 a.m.
You winced, not from the sound but from the blooming ache along your ribs—a dull, thudding thing that had grown teeth somewhere between the quinjet and the car ride home. You hadn’t bothered with the med bay. You couldn’t. Not when you knew what it would trigger.
A simple scan, a single ping, and Bucky would know. No matter where he was. No matter what state or country he was in. The notification would be flagged priority, something about shared permissions and ‘partner alerts’. And you knew him, knew the way he’d abandon his own mission, skip debrief, tear across continents just to put eyes on you.
You couldn’t let him do that. Not again. Not after last time.
The scrape of your jacket zipper echoed through the apartment as you peeled it off. One shoulder dipped lower than the other, dislocated and popped back into place two hours ago with a groan and a tree trunk for leverage. Your shirt was tacky with blood. Not all of it yours, but enough that you didn’t want to think too hard about it.
The apartment was dark. Not just empty-dark, but heavy. The lights were off, blinds drawn, the kind of quiet that meant no one had touched the space in hours. Maybe days. You exhaled, shallow.
Good. He was still gone.
You padded through the kitchen barefoot, leaving a faint smear of red on the tile that you’d wipe up later.
You opened the fridge, grabbed a water bottle, unscrewed the cap with trembling fingers. Your grip was going. Blood loss, maybe. Or nerve fatigue. You weren’t sure.
You sipped. Swallowed. Braced your palm against the counter. Waited for the floor to stop tilting before heading to the bathroom.
First aid kit. Bathroom cabinet. Top shelf. You knew the drill.
The light over the bathroom sink flickered when you flipped it on. You stared at yourself in the mirror for too long, trying to make sense of what was staring back.
Dark circles. A bruised jaw. Dried blood crusted beneath your nose.
Not the worst you’d looked.
The pain flared as you bent down to grab a towel, wrapping it around your palm where a shard of glass had made itself a home just beneath the skin. Stupid mistake. Rookie mistake. You muttered under your breath, pulled open the bathroom drawer.
But the med kit wasn’t there.
Your brows furrowed. You checked the cabinet under the sink, then the one behind the mirror. Nothing. You opened the linen closet next, rummaging through shelves of folded towels and spare shampoo bottles, making too much noise—plastic rattling, wood creaking under your weight.
And then—
A sound pricked your ears. Soft, but unmistakable. A dull thud. Followed by the shift of a floorboard.
You stilled.
Every part of your body snapped back to attention, like it had only been waiting for an excuse. Your breath stilled in your chest. Blood surged hot through your ears.
Not an empty apartment.
You dropped the towel in your hand.
Your knife was still sheathed on your thigh. Part of you had forgotten it was there. But you reached for it without thinking, fingers locking around the hilt, thumb flicking the clasp. The steel was still warm from your body, the leather tacky with blood.
Another creak. Closer now.
You stepped back from the cabinet, blade drawn, posture squared—not wide enough to agitate any wounds, but firm enough to hold your weight. If someone had followed you home, if the mission had trailed into something worse...
A figure stepped into the doorway, framed by the soft glow spilling from the bathroom mirror.
Bucky was shirtless, barefoot. Half-asleep. Hair tousled. Eyes fogged with sleep but rapidly clearing. The moment he saw you—saw the blood, the blade, the way you were braced like an animal cornered—
He stopped short. Hands up, palms open.
“Hey, hey—baby, it’s just me.”
You didn’t lower the knife. You couldn’t move.
Because your brain couldn’t reconcile it immediately. Bucky wasn’t supposed to be here. He wasn’t home. He was supposed to be halfway across Eastern Europe dealing with something messy and classified and very much not here.
He took a few steps closer, slowly, like approaching a wounded thing that hadn’t decided if it needed help or if it still intended to bite.
You didn’t realize your breathing had gone ragged until he was in front of you, reaching out slowly. His left hand came up first, the metal one, movements practiced and calm, palm open. No sudden movements. The kind of control that came from too many years disarming bombs.
“Sweetheart, can I take it?” he asked quietly, eyes locked on yours, not the knife. “Please.”
You hesitated but, slowly, your fingers began to unfurl. The blade shook once, then slipped from your hand into his.
He caught it with care. Set it down on the counter beside you.
You tried to speak. Swallowed instead. Your throat felt dry, the words caught somewhere behind potentially cracked ribs.
“I thought you weren’t home till Friday.”
“Got back yesterday.”
“You didn’t—why didn’t you call?”
“I was gonna surprise you. I thought…” He trailed off, gaze lowering to your shirt, your side, the blood. “Christ.”
He stepped back like he couldn’t stand seeing it up close. Ran a hand down his face. Metal fingers scraped against his jaw.
You didn’t say anything. You just leaned on the wall like the exhaustion was catching up.
Bucky stared for a moment longer. Then, quietly, firmly, “Sit.”
“What?”
“Please sit down before you fall over.”
His voice was gentler this time. Not just quiet, but low in a way that coaxed more than commanded, like he was trying not to shatter whatever thread was holding you upright.
The porcelain was cold against your thighs as you lowered yourself onto the closed toilet seat, hands braced on either side of you, breath sharp through your teeth when your ribs caught against gravity.
Bucky knelt in front of you, the light from the mirror catching the jagged scar that ran from the edge of his collarbone to the meat of his shoulder.
His eyes flicked across your body, cataloging damage. That precision never left him. One look and he knew what was surface-level and what was deeper. His jaw flexed as he looked at the soaked side of your shirt.
He stood, moved fast, but quiet. Like he was afraid if he took too long you’d vanish or pass out or both. You watched him go., the broad line of his back, the tension in his shoulders. He moved like he was still halfway in a war zone, even barefoot in your shared apartment.
He was back before you had time to think about closing your eyes. Med kit in one hand, a fresh bottle of water in the other.
“Drink.” He held it out, waited until you took it.
You cracked the cap. Sipped. It felt colder than before. Or maybe your hands had gone hotter. Shaking again, too.
Bucky crouched in front of you, laying out supplies like it was muscle memory. He didn’t speak right away. Not until he’d pulled a pair of shears from the kit and slid the blunt edge beneath your shirt hem.
“Gonna cut this off you.”
“S'fine. Didn’t even like this one.”
A small sound escaped him—half exhale, half broken chuckle. “Still. Hate seein’ you in blood.”
The blade sliced clean. Fabric peeled away. He didn’t flinch at the wound beneath. Just cleaned it, steady and efficient. No dramatics. Just careful hands and the occasional furrow of his brow when you hissed between your teeth.
You weren’t watching the injury. You were watching him.
The line between his brows. The way his lips pressed together like he was holding something back. How his hands never hesitated, but his eyes never lingered too long either. Like looking too close made it worse.
Finally, after he’d flushed the gash and applied a waterproof bandage, he sat back on his heels. Rested his forearms on his knees. Looked at you.
“Why didn’t you go to med bay?”
Not angry. Not demanding. Just…there. A quiet question hanging between you.
You swallowed. Didn’t answer right away.
“I asked Hill to scrub my exit from the mission log,” you said eventually. “Went out through a side hangar. Didn’t even file my return time. Just…got in the car and came home.”
His gaze didn’t waver. “That’s not what I asked.”
You pressed the bottle to your lips again. It gave you something to do. Something to anchor you.
“If I showed up at med bay, it would’ve triggered the system,” you said softly. “Partner alert. You would’ve gotten pinged. Would’ve seen the scan, seen the treatment order, the vitals. You’d have thought—”
“I would’ve known,” he interrupted, voice quiet but firm. “That’s the point.”
You glanced at him. “And what would you have done, Buck?”
He didn’t answer.
You let the silence answer for him.
“You would’ve left wherever you were. You would’ve dropped everything. You wouldn’t have slept, or eaten, or breathed until you got back here. And I—I didn’t want that.”
He exhaled slowly. Ran his hand down his face again. You could tell it was habit, a tell. One of the few he hadn’t trained out of himself.
“I get it,” he said finally. “I do. But, baby…you don’t have to protect me from your pain.”
Your throat tightened.
“I wasn’t trying to protect you,” you said. “I was trying to spare you.”
His gaze lifted. “Isn’t that the same thing?”
“No.” You shook your head. “One’s love. The other’s fear.”
He sat with that. Let the words settle. Then leaned forward, resting his forehead gently against yours.
“You don’t have to be strong when you’re home.”
“I wasn’t trying to be strong,” you murmured. “I was trying not to make you hurt with me.”
His hand came up, thumb brushing your cheek. The skin there was warm, too warm. Maybe a fever. Maybe just him.
“I’d rather hurt with you than without you.”
The words were quiet. Rough around the edges. But they landed.
He pulled back just enough to look at you, his metal hand settling carefully over your thigh. The weight of it made something in your chest loosen.
“I know what this life costs,” he said. “I’ve paid it too many times. I just—” His voice faltered. “I don’t want to get a message at two in the morning and find out you’re three floors underground across the world with a code red next to your name.”
You nodded once. Just enough for him to see.
“Okay.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know, Buck.”
That seemed to ease something in him. Not all the way, but enough.
You reached for his hand then, the flesh one. Twined your fingers through his. They were still a little cold from rinsing off the blood.
He squeezed back.
“Come to bed,” he said.
“I should shower first.”
“I’ll help.”
You arched a brow. “Are you trying to make it sexy?”
He huffed a dry sound, shaking his head. “No. ‘M trying to make sure you don’t pass out standing up.”
Fair.
He squeezed your hand again, firmer this time. Then released it to kneel beside you, one hand steadying your knee while the other reached behind you to turn on the shower. The spray stuttered to life, sharp against the tile, steam already beginning to curl at the edges of the mirror.
You didn’t move. Couldn’t, for a moment.
The idea of standing felt distant. Like something your body used to know how to do, but had since unlearned. Everything hurt. The kind of hurt that came with deep tissue damage, bone-bruising impact, whatever internal bruising you hadn’t dared look at too closely yet.
But Bucky was already moving.
He stood again, leaned over to the cabinet for a spare towel, then turned back to you with the kind of gentleness he never gave anyone else. Only you. Always you.
“Up we go.”
You braced your good arm on the counter and let him lift you—not because you couldn’t, but because fighting him on it would’ve taken more energy than you had. His arm wrapped around your back, careful to avoid your ribs. You leaned against him as he helped you to your feet.
The room felt too warm now. The steam was climbing fast.
“You got this?” he asked, voice low, right at your ear.
“Yeah.” You exhaled. “Just… slow.”
He nodded once and helped you shuffle toward the shower. He helped you peel what was left of your shirt off, eyes never lingering where they didn’t need to, hands always checking for resistance before moving again.
When your left arm jolted mid-lift, you hissed through your teeth.
Bucky stilled.
“What?” His voice sharpened, immediate.
“I—” You swallowed. “Popped my shoulder earlier. In the field. Had to get it back in before exfil.”
He went still.
“You did it yourself?”
You nodded. “Didn’t have a choice.”
Bucky’s jaw locked. His eyes dropped to your arm, the one you couldn’t quite raise above chest level now. You could see the gears turning in his mind—injury assessment, timeline, recovery window, potential complications.
“You could’ve torn the rotator cuff,” he said flatly. “Could’ve pinched the nerve. You dislocate at that angle and it severs the bundle near your clavicle, and you’re not just numb—you’re done. That’s a full paralysis risk.”
“I know,” you said, voice small. “I didn’t have another option.”
“There’s always an option,” he muttered, not at you, but to himself. “There should’ve been someone with you.”
“There wasn’t.”
You met his eyes. He looked away first.
He helped you out of the rest of your clothes in silence. Unbuckled the strap at your thigh. Peeled the blood-stiffened fabric down your hips, careful not to drag against any bruises. When you reached for the support bar to step into the shower, your fingers trembled.
Warm water slid down your spine. Over your ribs. Across the bruises you hadn’t seen yet. You stood there, letting it hit you, head tilted down, hair plastered to your skull. Blood spiraled at your feet. A rust-colored helix circling the drain.
“Here,” Bucky said quietly, stepping in behind you. His sweatpants were gone now, boxers too, but he kept to the far side of the stall until you leaned into him without needing to speak.
He took the body wash from the shelf, worked it into a lather with slow, circular movements. The scent was familiar—his, not yours.
He worked around the bandages he’d already placed, avoiding the raw edge of the worst wounds. But when he hit the spot beneath your ribs, your breath stuttered.
His hand stilled.
“You breathing okay?”
You nodded.
He waited.
“…Mostly.”
“D’you think anything’s cracked?”
“No.”
“You feel tingling anywhere? Pins and needles?”
You nodded once. “A little in the fingers.”
He exhaled, pressed a slow kiss to the curve of your neck—not for comfort, not for softness, but something deeper. Like an apology. Like sorrow. Like grief at what you had to do just to make it back to him.
“You need to let someone run a scan,” he said, voice low against your skin. “Nerve damage can build. It gets worse over time. You’ll lose strength, coordination—”
“You know I hate the med bay.”
“I know.” He kissed your temple this time. “But I’d rather you go willingly than when I have to carry you there.”
That silence between you rang louder than before. Steam coiled around your bodies. Water ran down your spine.
“I didn’t want to scare you,” you said quietly.
“Too late.”
You lifted a hand to his face. Touched his cheek, thumb brushing the scar there.
“I’m okay,” you whispered.
“You’re here,” he corrected. “That’s not the same.”
You didn’t argue.
Because he was right.
He reached for the shampoo next, squeezing some into his hands and carefully working it through your hair. Gentle, slow circles. He tilted your chin back beneath the stream when it was time to rinse. You kept your eyes closed the entire time. Let him take care of you in all the ways you wouldn’t let anyone else.
When the water turned cold, he shut it off, wrapped a towel around your shoulders. Dried your arms like you couldn’t do it yourself. You let him.
He guided you out of the tub, hand firm on your waist.
“I’m carrying you to bed,” he said.
“I can walk.”
“Don’t care.”
He toweled off your hair a bit, ruffled it gently, and bent to press his lips to your sternum. As if he had to physically remind himself you were here, alive, still warm.
And then he picked you up.
Lifted you with both arms like it cost him nothing, though you knew his back probably ached from his last op, that he hadn’t even finished unpacking yet. You didn’t resist. Your arms looped around his neck, tucking your face into the place just beneath his ear.
The bedroom was dark, just like the rest of the apartment. He hadn’t turned on a single light since stepping out of the bathroom.
He paused beside the bed, nudging the rumpled blanket back with one arm before lowering you gently onto your side. His touch was slow, like he was afraid too much movement might split something open again. Your breath hitched when your ribs protested the shift, and his hands stilled instantly.
He didn’t answer that. Just adjusted the pillows behind you, pulled the covers over you, then crawled in on the other side—not climbing over you like he might’ve on a normal night, not brushing it off with a flirt or a laugh. He took the long way around.
You felt the mattress dip under his weight.
Then, the weight of his arm—the metal one—sliding under you. A tentative pause. Then the warmth of his other arm curling around your waist, hand settling just above the bandages he’d wrapped himself.
You moved, leaned in, slow and instinctive. Let your head rest against his shoulder, your hand splay across the space between his ribs. He exhaled, and you felt it vibrate through his chest.
“Cold?” he asked quietly.
“A little.”
“‘Kay. Gimme a sec.”
He adjusted, drew you tighter, pulling the blankets closer around you both. His flesh fingers found the back of your neck and rubbed soft, slow circles there. He always ran warmer than you—something about his body trying to regulate the metal of his arm and the serum in his veins—and you leaned into it now, greedy for it.
Neither of you spoke for a long while.
“I didn’t like waking up to you not being there,” he said softly. “Didn’t like the quiet.”
You blinked up at him.
“I thought you were asleep when I came in.”
“I was.” A short breath. “Too deep. Think that’s what scared me. That I didn’t hear you come in at first. That I wasn’t ready.”
“You don’t have to be ready all the time, Buck.”
He stared at the ceiling, jaw tight. “I do when it comes to you.”
You shifted your hand across his chest. Felt the hard flutter of his heart. Too fast for a man lying still.
He swallowed. “You came home bleeding. And I didn’t feel it.”
“You were exhausted.”
“I was asleep.”
There was no self-forgiveness in his voice. Just something close to shame.
“You’re not a sensor,” you said gently. “You’re not a failsafe. You’re a person, Bucky. One who deserves rest.”
You nuzzled closer, burying your nose in the place just under his collarbone where the skin was softest. He let out a quiet sound when you did, like he hadn’t realized how much tension he was holding until you settled there.
You wondered if he ever truly relaxed when you were hurt.
“I didn’t want to come home like this,” you said quietly.
He didn’t answer right away. You felt him shift, just a fraction, enough that his hand could move from your waist to your back, the pads of his fingers drawing slow, idle lines across the blanket there.
“I know,” he said.
You let the silence return for a moment. Let it press down, warm and clean and unsharpened. There were no bombs in this bed. No shadows behind the door. No mission timers running out.
Just his heartbeat. Your breath. The soreness in your limbs. The whisper of fabric between you.
“You know what’s weird?” you said, voice thin and drifting.
“Hm?”
“That I didn’t even think about you until I got back here.”
He went still.
“I mean, of course I thought of you. Not like that. But in the moment. The worst of it. When I realized I was bleeding and alone and probably too far from help—I didn’t see your face. Didn’t flash to you like some cinematic dying thought. I just got practical. Tactical. Kept moving. Like that part of me doesn’t exist until I stop.”
You heard his exhale. Long. Slow.
“That’s not weird,” he said finally. “That’s how you stay alive.”
You tilted your chin slightly, enough to look up at him. His face was shadowed in the dark, but you could see his eyes—open, fixed on the ceiling, lashes still wet from steam.
“That part of me scares me a little,” you admitted.
He didn’t flinch.
“I like that part of you,” he said.
You blinked. “You do?”
He nodded once, chin grazing the top of your head.
“I like all your parts,” he said, and somehow it didn’t sound even remotely flirtatious. “Even the brutal ones. The ones that patch bullet holes in the dark and walk three miles with a sprained ankle. I don’t want that to be the only version of you, but I’m not afraid of it.”
You weren’t sure what to say to that. So you didn’t.
You just let the silence fall again.
It was strange—how quiet things got when you were together like this. How still he could be. For a man who used to breathe like every second was an apology, Bucky had become so good at silence. Not the brittle, tight-lipped kind. Not the silence that screamed with things unsaid.
This was something else.
This was simply presence.
His fingers drifted to your jaw. He traced a line up to your temple, brushed a damp strand of hair away from your cheek.
“You gonna let me take you to the med bay tomorrow?” he asked.
“Mmm.”
“That a yes?”
“It’s a we’ll see.”
He huffed out a breath. “I’ll take it.”
You shifted slightly, and the movement made something in your ribs twinge. He noticed. Of course he did. His hand immediately steadied you, thumb brushing the edge of your back.
“I keep thinking,” you said, “about how easily this could’ve gone the other way. That if I hadn’t found cover, if I’d been five seconds slower—”
“Don’t,” he said, quiet but firm.
You looked at him again.
“I do, too,” he said. “Every time you leave. I do. But if we live there—in the what-could’ve-happened—we won't make it back either.”
That shut you up.
Because he was right. And it was too true.
You curled tighter into him. Let your forehead rest beneath his jaw. Let his arms bracket you in completely. He didn’t hold too tight, didn’t smother. Just held. Like he’d learned exactly how to without squeezing the breath from your lungs.
“You gonna sleep?” he asked after a while.
“Not yet.”
He nodded. “Me either.”
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Summary: Bucky Barnes gave up on marriage a long time ago. But then, somewhere deep in a storm-soaked safe house, he pulls a bullet from your leg and accidentally proposes in the process.
MCU Timeline Placement: Post TFATWS
Master List: Find my other stuff here!
Warnings: blood loss, injury, bullet wound, field medicine, pain, mild medical trauma, emotional vulnerability, war references, ptsd mentions, marriage talk, soft angst, accidental proposal
Word Count: 3.9k
Author’s Note: i am once again asking bucky barnes to know peace (he will not). anyway i cleaned my kitchen at 1am and now i’m emotionally compromised about fictional men again. if you need me i’ll be lying facedown on the floor, thinking about laundry and commitment.
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The idea of marriage had died sometime in the ice.
Not all at once. Not dramatically, like a final gasp of a man slipping into the Atlantic with a ring still in his coat pocket. No, it had been slower than that. Eaten away in inches. First by frostbite. Then by fire. Then by the sound of screaming that wasn’t his own but came from his own mouth anyway.
It used to mean something to him. Marriage. A porch swing. Warm soup. A house with windows that didn’t rattle in the wind. The kind of thing you promised a girl in church shoes, hands clasped over the Sunday paper.
James Buchanan Barnes had once thought he’d get that life. That he’d earn it. If he fought hard enough, if he came home in one piece, if he smiled the right way when he walked her back to her door.
Then war had cracked the world open like a rotten egg, and everything inside had spilled black.
There were no porches where Hydra took him. No rings. Just cold steel and code phrases. Needles and electrodes. Years swallowed by fog. And when he remembered again, when he started to remember, he couldn’t even picture a wedding band without wondering how deep it would slice if it caught against bone.
So no, marriage hadn’t crossed his mind in years.
Not until you.
Not even with you, not in the usual sense. You hadn’t crawled into his life and started naming curtains or pointing out flower arrangements like a threat. You’d just…stayed. Through the Accords. Through the fallout. Through Wakanda and the long, sterile quiet of the recovery halls. You never flinched when he woke up screaming. You never tiptoed around the word past like it might set off a bomb.
You were there during the repairs. The recalibrations. You’d worked with Shuri on something far above his understanding, fingers stained with grease and ink, hair always pinned messily away from your eyes. You’d curse under your breath in three different languages. You argued with Ayo. You laughed loudly.
By the time he was sent back into the field—once he had left the mountains, left the quiet—he expected the connection to die out. Most things did. The world had taught him that. You could try to keep something alive outside the place it was born, but roots snapped when you pulled too hard.
And it had. He had left you. Not by choice, not really. One blink and he was gone. Another blink, and you’d aged five years without him.
But then he saw you again. In D.C. In New York. Even in Louisiana. Out of nowhere, standing in a pair of sunglasses too big for your face, grinning like it hadn’t been years for you.
“Miss me, Barnes?”
And damn him, he had.
You’d joined the mission against the Flag Smashers. Temporarily, at first. That’s what you both said. Just this op. Just this briefing. Just this one joint task force run with Sam.
And then it wasn’t temporary anymore. And then there was a room in the same safe house that you’d claimed. A bunk on the same floor. Your stuff beside his. And his toothbrush in your travel kit, and he had no idea how or when that had happened.
There were no conversations. No declarations. Just a slow merging.
He liked your laugh. The dry, cut-glass one you used when Joaquin said something stupid. The low, real one that came out when you let your guard down, when the weight on your shoulders slipped just enough to let joy through.
You liked to touch him. Not in the way that made him flinch. In the way that made the back of his neck burn. A casual hand on his spine when passing behind him. Fingers brushing his sleeve. A nudge with your elbow when he got too serious. You were constant.
You grounded him.
And he didn’t know how to name that. He wasn’t good at words anymore. Hadn’t been in decades. But he knew how it felt when you were hurt. When you bled. When someone touched you too rough during an extraction and he saw red before he even registered why.
He had never said “I love you.” Not outright. Neither had you.
But there were nights you fell asleep on his chest, breathing slow against the metal plates, and he’d whisper it in your hair like a secret. Like a curse.
Because he did love you.
And it terrified him.
Not because he thought you’d leave, though that was always a part of it.
But because he didn’t believe in the future. Not really. Hydra had broken that part of him, rewired him to think in terms of seconds, triggers, threats. Even now, after all this time, after all this healing, the idea of forever felt…dangerous. Unrealistic. Like planning for spring in the middle of a war zone.
But the truth was: he wanted to grow old with you.
He didn’t say it. But he wanted it.
The thought came loudest during quiet missions. When your hand found his under the table. When you scolded Sam like a sitcom wife. When you kissed him before leaving in a rush and forgot your ID badge, and he chased after you just to hear you laugh when he caught up.
That was what marriage looked like to him now.
Not churches or tuxedos. Not parties or speeches. Just this. Just you.
────────────────────────
It was raining now. Somewhere deep in the woods outside of Vienna, a safe house blinked on like a dying star. One generator. One flickering lamp. One bullet in your leg, and his hands slick with blood that wasn’t his.
You hissed as he dug the tweezers in.
“I told you,” he said, voice low, steady even as his gut churned, “you were too exposed on the ridge. You shouldn’t have gone up alone.”
You shot him a look. “Wasn’t alone. You were covering me.”
“I was supposed to be covering you,” he muttered, breath tight. “Didn’t exactly do a great job, did I?”
You didn’t answer.
He hated this part. The way the pain made your voice tighten, the way you bit your lip hard enough to bleed rather than make a sound. It reminded him too much of everything he couldn’t fix. Of every mission where he hadn’t been fast enough. Every loss that had turned to ash in his mouth.
You were trembling now, sweat slicking your brow. The bullet was lodged deep. He could feel it with the tip of the tweezers, but it wouldn’t come clean.
His jaw clenched.
“Bucky.”
“Almost got it.”
“Bucky.”
He angled the tweezers just slightly, catching the edge of the casing with a surgeon’s precision, eyes fixed on the wound like it was the only thing keeping him tethered. You were trying to steady him. He knew that. Heard it in your voice. But he couldn’t afford to believe you were okay. Not yet. Not until the metal was out and you were still breathing.
“James.”
He looked up at that. Your eyes were glassy, lips pale. And yet, somehow, you smiled.
“You smile too much when you’re in pain,” he muttered, tweezers angled again.
“Maybe you just give me a lot to smile about.”
“Yeah?” His voice came quieter, almost bitter. “Like what?”
“Like this charming bedside manner,” you rasped. “And your tendency to monologue when
you’re worried.”
“I’m not—”
“You are.”
The bullet shifted. Your body jerked, a hoarse cry caught in your throat.
“Shit—sorry,” he said instantly, his free hand anchoring you at the hip. His palm was warm. Steady. “You okay?”
“Peachy,” you breathed.
And then, silence.
Heavy. Close. Pressed between bodies that had seen too many battlefields, too many exits. The only sound was the storm outside, ticking against the roof like bones, and your ragged, uneven breath.
He bent closer, eyes narrowed on the wound.
“You need to hold still,” he said softly. “If I nick your femoral, it’s over.”
“I know.”
“I mean it. It’s deep. If I miss this—”
“You won’t.”
“I might.”
“You won’t.”
Another silence.
He couldn’t look at you. Not now. Not with the bullet half-extracted and your skin flushed with shock and fever and trust. Trust he hadn’t earned. Trust that felt too close to faith.
And he was always bad at faith.
He adjusted the angle of the tweezers again, fingers tight with precision, breath shallow. If he moved just a millimeter too far to the left, he'd sever an artery. Too far right, and he'd leave metal behind. His mind kept listing the options like a file folder: all the ways he could fail you. All the ways he could lose you.
“Keep talkin’ to me,” he said roughly, not looking at you. “You pass out, I’m gonna be pissed.”
“What, no pressure or anything,” you slurred, but he caught the strain in it. The thin layer of humor barely stretched over real pain.
The tweezers hit resistance. He felt it in his bones.
“You’re doing good,” he muttered. “You’re—fuck. Just hang on. Almost there.”
“Bucky.”
“I said keep talking.”
You let out a ragged breath. “You want a story or a monologue?”
“Dealer’s choice.”
Your voice wavered. “One time I saw Sam fall off a boat trying to impress a group of kids with his balance—”
“Not funny enough.”
“He hit his head.”
“That’s better.”
Silence ticked between your words. His grip steadied. He’d have to go in again. Just a little deeper.
You winced as the metal tip shifted.
“Fuck,” you whispered. “You know, I thought this would be the day we got pizza. Not playing Operation.”
“We’ll still get pizza,” he muttered.
“Oh yeah? You cooking?”
“I’m not cooking. I’m buying.”
You didn’t reply. And when he glanced up, your eyes were fluttering, breath shallower.
“Hey,” he barked. “C’mon. Eyes open.”
“M’tired.”
“I don’t give a shit.”
You laughed faintly again, breathe hitching, and it cracked something in him.
“Do me a favor?” You asked.
He hummed.
“If I lose consciousness…don’t let someone else try to patch me up.”
“Not a chance.”
“And if I die…”
“You’re not gonna die.”
“If I did. Hypothetically.”
His jaw ticked.
“If you did,” he said slowly, “then I’d kill whoever touched you. Then myself, probably.”
You let out a hoarse huff. “Jesus. That’s grim.”
“It’s honest.”
And it was.
Because he would. That was the part that terrified him. He would level cities for you. Not because it was right. Not because he’d made a vow. But because he couldn’t breathe without you anymore and he didn’t know when that had happened.
He leaned in. Flashlight shifting under his elbow. Blood soaked the makeshift cloth beneath you. The bullet was lodged against something slick and resistant. He knew the second he twisted, you’d scream.
He swallowed. Adjusted his grip.
“If this fucks up, it’s gonna hurt like hell,” he muttered. “So you need to stay with me, alright?”
You made a noise. Not quite a word. Not quite a yes.
He couldn’t stop now.
“Just keep talkin’, sweetheart. Anything. Tell me what kind of pizza we’re getting. Tell me a lie. Tell me where you see yourself in five years—”
“I’m bleeding out on a rotting cot in the woods, Buck,” you rasped. “Not interviewing for my dream job.”
“Doesn’t mean I don’t wanna hear it.”
You blinked slow. “You first, then.”
He didn’t think. Couldn’t. The panic had tunneled too deep. He started speaking before he meant to.
“Five years from now,” voice low, working the metal free inch by inch, “we’re retired. You hate the house I picked but only complain about the goddamn mugs. You make fun of me for how I fold laundry. You still steal all the blankets. And some poor bastard down the road asks what it’s like being married to the grumpiest man alive and you tell them I’ve always been soft on you.”
His fingers adjusted instinctively, and there it was, the clean edge of the casing caught between the tips. A perfect hold. He didn’t breathe. Didn’t blink. Just braced himself, every nerve wound tight as wire.
He cleared his throat. “Got it. On three.”
You didn’t speak.
“Three.”
He yanked.
A scream ripped from your throat, half-swallowed into his shoulder as you surged forward, clutching at his arm. Blood poured hot and fast, but the bullet clinked into the basin beside the cot.
He dropped the tweezers. Hands went to pressure. To cloth. To you.
“You’re okay,” he murmured. “You’re okay. Just keep breathing.”
You nodded faintly, head lolling back against the pillow.
He didn’t realize how close his face was to yours until the storm flash lit up the room—and he saw the way your eyes were fixed on him.
“Did you mean that?”
He blinked.
“What?”
Your lashes were heavy, lips pale, but there was no mistaking the way your gaze held him now. Steady. Anchored. Like you’d come back to yourself just enough to feel it. The weight of what he’d said, the shape it had taken, the shape it could still take if either of you were stupid enough to say it again.
“You said we’d be married,” you whispered.
His jaw ticked. “You were going into shock.”
“I wasn’t hearing things.”
“You were half-conscious.”
“And you still said it.”
He exhaled through his nose, sharp and shallow, dragging the blood-soaked cloth tighter around your thigh with more care than force. His hands didn’t match the way his mouth tensed.
“It was nothing. Just words.”
You didn’t believe that. He could see you didn’t. And that was worse. You weren’t teasing. You weren’t cornering him. You were just looking at him. Like maybe you’d known this was in him before he did. Like maybe you’d been waiting for it to slip out.
And god, he wanted to run.
Not because he didn’t mean it. But because he did. Too much. Too fast. In ways he couldn’t survive.
He pressed the cloth harder against your leg, then grabbed another strip of cloth from the field kit, wrapping it tight, methodical, just above the wound. Tourniquet style. Not too high and not too tight, just enough to slow the bleed.
His hands moved on instinct, the muscle memory of field medicine kicking in even as his mind spun. He checked your pulse. Inner thigh. Faint, but steady. He exhaled. Forced himself not to shake.
“I wouldn’t mind,” you said softly, “being a Mrs. Barnes one day.”
He stilled.
For a second, you thought maybe he didn’t hear you right. Or maybe he’d frozen, like his mind shorted out and hadn’t rebooted yet.
His heart flipped. Fucked off entirely, probably.
You shifted slightly, voice smaller. “But only if you keep folding laundry the wrong way. And keep picking ugly mugs.”
His laugh cracked at the edges. Like old bark. Like something split down the middle.
“You hate those mugs.”
“Yeah,” you murmured. “But you love them. And I love you.”
His breath caught. Chest tight. No armor. No dodge. No shield left between the two of you now.
“You’re not allowed to say that,” he said hoarsely. “Not when you’re this fucked up.”
“I’m lucid enough,” you whispered. “Don’t make me take it back.”
He didn’t.
He looked at your hand, still curled near his arm. Blood beneath your nails. Pulse stuttering in your wrist.
“I don’t even have a ring,” he said before he could stop himself.
You laughed. Soft. Breathless. Real.
“That’s okay. You’ve got gauze.”
He swallowed.
“I’d want to do it right,” he said, more to the floor than to you.
You reached up, brushed your knuckles against his cheek. Just barely there.
“Right now,” you whispered, “you just pulled a bullet out of my leg and said you’d kill the world for me. I think that counts.”
He leaned into your touch. Just for a second. Just long enough to let the part of him that still believed in things like vows and porches and soft lives feel it.
“Mrs. Barnes,” he murmured, testing it, letting the sound break in his mouth. “You sure about that?”
Your lips barely moved. “Why don’t you ask me?”
His head lifted just slightly, eyes catching yours through the stormlight. And it hit him like a second shot to the chest—cleaner than the first, but just as deep.
Why don’t you ask me?
So simple. So fucking impossible.
Because it was too big. Because it wasn’t a joke anymore. Because the second he said the words, really said them, he couldn’t take them back. Not like all the other things he’d lost to time. Not like the names they’d stripped from him or the missions they’d made him forget. This one, he’d remember.
He looked down at your leg, at the blood still leaking through cloth. His hands had steadied. His breathing hadn’t.
Why don’t you ask me?
Because what if you said yes just because you were scared. Because you thought you were dying. Because he looked like a man who needed saving and you were always the type to offer your hands even when yours were already shaking.
He looked at you, chest tight, and thought you don’t know what you’re saying. Not really. Not now. Not like this.
But then your thumb moved. Just once. Across the hinge of his jaw. And the quiet in your eyes told him yes, you did know. You always had.
He dropped his gaze, voice rough. “It’s just…”
He let it sit there. Let it ache.
“It’s not supposed to be this way,” he murmured, eyes flicking to the bloodied gauze still pressed to your leg. “I was supposed to have flowers. A ring. I was supposed to have something better for you than a leaking roof and a med kit that expired in 2015.”
His throat worked. His jaw locked.
He should’ve said it right then. Should’ve just spoken.
But instead—
“I didn’t think I was allowed to want this,” he said, voice low, uneven. “Not after everything I did. Not after everything that was done to me.”
You didn’t interrupt.
He swallowed. Continued.
“I used to think if I ever got out, I’d live quiet. Alone. Keep to myself. Go somewhere cold. Make peace with the fact that I’d never get to be anyone real again.”
His hand twitched where it held yours.
“And then you showed up. Like some pain-in-the-ass fever dream with too many opinions and terrible taste in music. You just—you didn’t leave. You stayed. You made fun of my shirts. You memorized my nightmares. You never once flinched at what I used to be.”
He looked up, then. Just barely. Just enough to meet your gaze.
“You made me want things again.”
You blinked. He could see the tears gathering now, not falling yet, just clinging to the edges like dew. Shaking. Waiting.
He shifted, exhaled through his nose, then slowly reached toward the chain tucked under his shirt. The tags clicked quietly against one another as he drew them out—worn, scraped, edges dulled. He hesitated. Thumb running along the groove of his name.
Barnes, James B.
Property of the U.S. Army.
And below that werenumbers. Codes. The echo of orders that used to own him.
They were the only thing he’d ever been given back when he’d stopped being a person. They were the last thing that made him his.
He huffed a breath. Shaky. Wet around the edges.
“And I don’t know how long I’ve been in love with you. I think maybe it was the first time you told Sam to shut up without looking up from your lunch when you knew it was a bad day. Or maybe it was the time you stayed up with me for four hours just so I could get ten minutes of sleep without a nightmare.”
His mouth quirked, not a smile, just a break in the grief.
“I’d want to give you more than this. Not a safehouse or some half-muttered promise with your blood on my hands. I’d want to give you everything.”
He looked at you now. Really looked.
“But I can’t.”
Your breath hitched. “Bucky—”
“All I’ve got is this.”
His voice was rough, worn down to its bones. He lifted the tags where they rested, cold and inert against his chest, like they hadn't once hung heavy with every name he’d buried, every order he’d followed. He hadn’t taken them off in years. Not since Wakanda. Not since they rewired the storm in his head and called it healing. Not since he’d started remembering how to breathe without a trigger warning stitched into his ribs.
But now?
Now he held them in his palm like they were something fragile. Like they might mean more in yours.
“I know it’s not a ring,” he muttered. “I just... I didn’t want to wait.”
His heart was punching up into his throat, each beat louder than the last. He wasn’t sure when he’d started shaking. Just that it was everywhere—under his skin, in his voice, in the ghost of a life he’d never thought he’d want back until you gave it shape.
He didn’t look away. Couldn’t. You were still bleeding. Still half-broken in his arms. But you were there. And alive. And looking at him like maybe he wasn’t a ruin of a man. Like maybe, even now, there was something left in him worth holding onto.
So he asked.
“Will you marry me?”
It didn’t sound the way it had in his head. It wasn’t confident. Wasn’t clean. It cracked at the center, frayed at the edges, barely held together by the breath it rode in on. Wrecked and unguarded and true in the way only something broken and rebuilt could be.
But it was his. And it was real.
You didn’t answer at first. Just stared at him—wide-eyed, wrecked, like the question had hollowed you out from the inside. And maybe it had. Maybe this was a bad time. Maybe he was a goddamn idiot for doing it now, here, with blood on his hands and guilt in his lungs and everything still burning in the corners of the room.
But then you nodded. Once. Then again. And again.
“Yes.” A whisper. Broken glass and salt. You swallowed hard, voice splitting again as you said it louder. “Yes. Of course I will.”
The sob hit him sideways. He didn’t mean to. Didn’t plan it. It just caught in his throat and stayed there, and suddenly your hands were on his face, and he was leaning in, and—
He kissed you.
It was desperate. Salty. A little off-center. His lip caught on yours, and your nose bumped his, and neither of you could breathe right but it didn’t matter. It was messy and clumsy and wet with tears and still somehow perfect.
His hand cradled the back of your head like he thought you might slip away, like if he didn’t hold on, the whole world might tilt again. And yours fisted into his jacket like you’d forgotten how to let go.
You were both shaking.
You pulled apart only because you had to. Because the world hadn’t stopped spinning even if it felt like it had. And then, quiet again, he moved.
He brought the tags forward.
Didn’t rush.
Didn’t speak.
He waited until you nodded, slow, sure, already teary again, and only then did he lift the chain and slide it over your head. Careful. Reverent. Like it mattered.
The tags settled on your chest, clinking softly as they touched your skin. They were cold. Real. Still streaked faintly with red.
But they were yours now.
His breath caught again, sharper this time. Not because it hurt. But because it didn’t. Because maybe this was what hope felt like when it didn’t come with a body count.
He pressed his forehead to yours and closed his eyes.
Mine, he thought. Not the government’s. Not the ghost’s. Not the weapon’s.
Yours.
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Summary: You use Bucky’s only weakness to your advantage until it bites you in the ass.
Word Count: 7.2k
Warnings: feigning injuries; a sprained ankle; bruises; hiding injuries; combat fighting training; sparring sessions; mutual pining; Bucky being a doting sweetheart; Bucky being smug; Bucky being worried
Author’s Notes: This idea has been sitting in my drafts as a rough outline for months lol and I finally got the inspiration to make something out of it. I hope you will enjoy this! ♡
Masterlist
You love sparring with Bucky.
Maybe because you love the man.
But there is so much more to that, honestly.
You have basically sparred with anyone out of the team.
Steve is methodical. Always a teacher, always Captain. He calls out corrections in a way he does orders, his patience long-practiced. His strikes are accurate, economical, as if he calculates the exact amount of force necessary to bring you down and delivers it precisely, nothing wasted. But you always know he is holding back. He does not say it but you feel it in the way he controls every movement, never quite giving you the full weight of his strength. You learn from him, but there is always a ceiling to what he will allow you to take from the fight.
Natasha is sharp. She doesn’t coach you, doesn’t slow down, doesn’t hold back. She fights you like she fights anyone. You feel the sting of a bruise blooming before you even realize she struck you. And yet, when you get a hit in, when you shift fast enough to slip past her guard, her smirk is quicksilver - pleased, challenging, like she has just discovered something worth sinking her teeth into.
Wanda fights like she plays. Some days, she keeps her powers at bay, working only with what her body allows, light on her feet, swaying rather than striking. But she is not used to this. Not using her powers in a fight. So most of the time, she teases, powers tugging at your wrist mid-swing, a flicker of scarlett at the edge of your vision before she is suddenly behind you.
Sam is solid. He fights with his whole body, never wasting energy on anything that doesn’t serve his goal. He takes up space, keeps you on the defenses, his moves seamless. But he is generous too, throwing you a verbal lifeline mid-fight - “too slow, come on,” - challenging you in encouraging you. And when you get him down, he grins, bright and wide, like he wants you to win.
Clint fights like someone who doesn’t need to win, just needs to keep moving. He is slippery, dodging rather than blocking, grinning rather than growling. He makes a game of it, laughing at your frustration, forcing you to loosen up, to adapt, to try something unorthodox. He doesn’t spar to overpower. He spars to frustrate, to outlast, to make you think three steps ahead.
But Bucky.
Bucky watches you. Always. Even when he isn’t facing you directly, even when he’s standing in the shadows at the edge of the gym, you have his attention. It is something you have learned to steady yourself beneath. Because it never really seems to waver.
He is mindful. Of your form. Of your tells. Of how far he can push you. He does not go easy on you. Despite the obvious differences in height and weight and him being a super soldier. But he fights you like an opponent worth fighting. He fights you like himself. Precise. Controlled. Thoughtful. When he corrects you, it is not instruction, just a simple adjustment with the brush of his metal fingers nudging your wrist into a better angle, a small nod when you adapt.
And when you take him down - when you surprise him, when you shift your weight at the last moment and send him to the mat - there is that laugh breaking out. He is not stunned at the way you overpowered him. Not disbelieving. He merely laughs. A short burst of warmth, rare and genuine, something boyish in the way it escapes.
You live for that laugh.
Because Bucky knows your competence. He does not gift you victories because he knows you don’t need them in the first place. He expects you to win. He knows you can. And will. He does not say it outright, but you learned to read the subtle body language in the years of knowing him - the glimmer of something pleased in his eyes, the upturn at the corner of his mouth.
And when he helps you up - fingers gently curling around your wrist to pull you to your feet - he lingers just a little too long.
So yes, you love sparring with Bucky.
Basically, on the first day as an Avenger it was drilled into you that knowing your enemy is everything - know what you are up against, who you are fighting, how they move, what makes them weak.
You are good at this. At observing. You know how to study people, how to pick out patterns, how to find the smallest crack in an otherwise impenetrable wall and press until it splits wide open.
Still, Bucky Barnes is not an easy person to read.
But perhaps it was just a little too much fun figuring out what exactly his weaknesses are.
He doesn’t have many. His body is conditioned for war, his mind sharpened, his instincts too honed to give much away. If he has vulnerabilities, they are subtle. Nearly imperceptible to anyone who isn’t looking closely enough.
But you have been looking closely. For the better part of a year.
And then, about five months ago, something clicked.
Bucky Barnes does have a weakness.
A glaring one, in fact.
One so obvious you nearly laughed out loud when you finally pieced it together.
It’s you.
You are his weakness.
Bucky is a creature of routines.
The kind that keep him grounded in a world that still feels like shifting sand beneath his feet. And somehow, you have become part of them.
You don’t remember when it started, exactly. But you know that when you stumble into the kitchen in the morning, still half-asleep, Bucky is already there. Always. Sometimes with coffee already poured for you, sometimes just sitting at the counter like he’s lost, waiting like he’s been expecting something. You.
You tested it, once. You woke up later than usual, wanting to see if he still lingered. And sure enough, when you finally stepped into the kitchen, he was there, nursing a long-gone cup of coffee that was somehow still halfway filled, gaze fixed on the entryway even before you entered. Like he hadn’t been planning on leaving until he saw you. It’s when he loosened his grip on the poor mug. Flexing his fingers, as if he was close to shattering it.
Bucky is not a fan of crowded spaces.
He likes corners, walls at his back, exits in view. He keeps a respectable distance from most people, moving on silent feet, always aware of what’s around him.
Except when it comes to you.
You began to notice that in the common room. How he lets you sit closer than he does with anyone else, how he doesn’t shift away when his knee bumps his. How, when you walk side by side, he moves to make space for you without thinking. How he stops standing near the door when you are in a room, like some unconscious part of him doesn’t feel the need to watch his six when you are there.
And then there are the small things.
The way his arm comes up instinctively when you reach past him for something, like he is preparing to steady you or get it down for you if it is something you can’t reach. The way he steps in front of you if something startled him, body moving before anything else.
Little things. Automatic things.
And the most endearing part is, that he genuinely does not seem like he knows he is doing all that.
Bucky is strategic on missions.
He follows the plan without a hitch, keeps his cool and executes flawlessly.
Until you are in danger.
Then he gets frantic. He even tends to snap at Steve. He gets tighter, sharper, more lethal. It seems like instinct.
Just last month, you got cut along your thigh that you managed to patch up before the mission was even completely over. But Bucky was stoic and brooding. Frown on his face the whole time. He saw the blood, saw the way you had a limp in your step and something utterly cold settled in his eyes.
Sam later mentioned to you with a weird wiggle of his eyebrow that the man whose knife slashed you never had the chance to land another hit on anyone.
You started testing him in small ways. Seeing if he moves when you move. If he adjusts his strategy to keep you in his line of sight. If he listens to your voice above all others in a debriefing, even when Steve is talking.
And he does. Every time.
Bucky got mad at Clint once because he ate the last donut that was meant for you. Clint was genuinely terrified. He even went out to get you new ones.
Bucky picks up stuff from the common room he knows belong to you and takes it to your room.
Just yesterday, there was a book on your nightstand. One you had mentioned offhand in conversation weeks ago, something you said you wanted to read someday. And you know for a fact that Bucky got dragged into the city by Sam and Steve the day before.
After years as an Avenger, you learn to fool people.
You know how to smile when you need to, how to shake things off, how to deal with missions gone wrong or people unsaved.
But you can’t fool Bucky.
He just knows when something is off. He notices the way your voice shifts, the way your shoulders carry tension differently. You don’t have to say anything. He just knows.
And he never pushes. He lingers. He makes himself available. He sits beside you in silence when you don’t feel like talking. He glares at everyone who wants something unnecessary from you in times like those.
And then he would just go, come on, let’s go do something.
It is basically just watching a movie or cooking a dinner or baking cookies, but everything is more fun with him, and soon enough your smile touches your eyes again.
Bucky does not share.
He does not share his food. He does not share his belongings.
But he does with you.
When you are out and freezing, he shrugs off his jacket and tosses it over your shoulders without a word.
He lets you take fries off his plate and lets you drink from his cup, much to Sam’s surprise and disgruntlement.
Bucky does not talk about his nightmares.
Not to anyone.
But on certain nights, when sleep refuses to hold him and his mind is drowning in things long past but never gone, he finds you.
You were in the common room when it first started. Months ago. Nursing a mug of tea, when he wandered in, looking lost and exhausted.
With a single glance at him, you nodded to the couch, shifting over to make space, and he came sitting down without a word.
He let you talk. He even seemed to relish it. Intertwining his hands at his front and laying his head back against the backside of the couch, closing his eyes and listening to your mocked aggravation at the fact that Sam left a half-eaten sandwich on the counter again.
He stayed until the sun crept in through the windows, slight snoring making you smile.
It happened again. And then again.
After a while, you started recognizing the signs when his nightmares are getting worse again. The way he drifts into whatever room you are in and stays locked in his own when you are gone on a mission or out with the girls. How he leans against the doorway for a second longer than necessary before stepping inside, like he is debating whether he has the right to be there.
Sometimes, he’d pretend he’s just passing through. He would linger in the kitchen, hands wrapped around a cup of coffee he doesn’t drink while you are having your conversation with Wanda and Natasha.
One night, he even came to your room. Knocking and standing there with his hands fidgeting at his sides, eyes shamefully lowered, looking so much like a puppy in search of some love.
He didn’t pretend. He didn’t offer excuses. He just stood there and you saw it in his eyes.
You took him in your arms and then you took him in.
First, he sat down on the floor beside your bed, back against the wall, knees drawn up like he was trying to take up as little space as possible. He didn’t say anything for a long time. You just sat beside him on the ground, laying your head on his shoulder.
Eventually, his breathing evened out, head falling onto yours.
He would fall asleep like that. Until you managed to get him to lie down in your bed beside you. He usually sleeps like a baby when he’s with you.
You are not stupid. Neither are you naive. You have always been good at reading people, at knowing them, at watching them, and deciphering the things they do not say.
And you know what this might mean.
You certainly know what it means to you.
The way your pulse picks up when Bucky walks into a room so casually because you are there. The way your stomach flutters when his gaze lingers on you. The way your chest gets so unbearably full when he does all those smallest things for you.
But you think you also might know what it means to him. He seeks you out for everything, on instinct or not. Smiling seems to come so easily to him when he is with you. You are the only person he lets into his personal space - the only person he doesn’t startle away from when it comes to accidentally touching.
But Bucky Barnes is not a man who allows himself to want things easily.
So, you will not force yourself upon him. You will not push. You will not demand. You will not take what he does not freely offer.
Because you understand that he does not fear pain, or war, or perhaps even death.
But he fears something real, something good, something that cannot be fought off with fists or buried beneath old ghosts.
Because he does not think it is something he deserves yet.
But you are willing to wait. Until he is ready. Until he is sure. Until he knows that this is what he wants.
And if he never is, if he never comes to you with certainty in his hands, if he never crosses the space between you - then you will wait anyway.
Because for him, you would wait forever.
****
“Alright, sweetheart. Let’s see what you’ve got.”
There’s a smug grin on his face as he’s circling you.
And you know why it is there.
Because you are currently three losses deep into a losing streak against Bucky. And that just won’t do. You need a win.
You move first, closing the distance fast, testing his defenses. He blocks. A quick jab - he dodges. A feint - he doesn’t bite.
He knows your patterns, how you move, how you think. But you know him, too.
You go low, aiming for his legs, but he anticipates and shifts out of reach. “Getting predictable there, doll,” he drawls, smirking.
Yeah, you’re gonna wipe that off.
Rolling your eyes, you adjust. A punch goes up that isn’t meant to land, just to see how he reacts. He blocks high, but his balance shifts and there is a brief opening. A second and you are too late.
You strike fast, sweeping low again, and this time, you actually catch him. Not enough to take him down, but a start.
Bucky huffs, rolling his neck. “Not good enough, but better,” he teases, smirk still in place.
“Oh, fuck off,” you laugh, lunging again.
He meets you halfway, and for a moment, it’s just movement - sharp and fast and fluid, but you keep your balance. You duck, weave, block.
You land a hit, but it barely fazes him. He grabs your wrist, twisting - flipping you, but you are prepared, rolling and springing back up.
“That all you got?”
“Come find out.”
He laughs brightly before going in for attack. You block his strike, twisting out of reach.
It’s definitely not all you got.
He is not expecting you to cheat.
Not that you call it cheating anyway.
You decide that it’s time to take advantage of that weakness of his.
After all, it has worked before. And it will work again.
Bucky feints left. You dodge, pivot, but let your foot catch just so against the mat to send you off balance. The stumble isn’t exaggerated - it doesn’t need to be. You land on your side, letting out a sharp breath as if this is not exactly what you were expecting, and grab your ankle, wincing.
Bucky stops immediately. Just like always. It’s the first time you feign your ankle getting hurt but he reacts all the same.
His shift is instant. His whole body tenses. Taking a step toward you with his brows furrowed tightly, he scans you like he’s already running through every possible way to help you. Carrying you to the medical wing, for example.
“Shit, doll. You okay?” His voice is softer now. Concerned. So genuinely worried, you might actually feel bad.
He crouches without hesitation, without a thought, eyes so intensely fixed on you. And that smug grin is as predicted wiped cleanly off his face.
“Lemme see-”
He reaches out to you but that is when you strike.
You twist up, leg sweeping out and knocking his feet from under him. His surprised noise is so satisfying as he goes down, flat on his back, sprawled across the mat.
Silence.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Bucky groans loudly.
You are kneeling beside him, grinning, chest heaving. “Kinda needed that win, Barnes. No bad feelings, yeah?”
Bucky just stares at the ceiling for a long moment, one hand scrubbing down his face. He exhales sharply, muttering something under his breath, something that sounds suspiciously like every goddam time.
The last time you used your little trick on him, you had sold a jab against your side, staggering back and exhaling sharply as if he hit some sensitive point. He froze instantly, eyes wide. And you spun him into a flawless takedown.
The time before that it was your shoulder. All you needed was a slight grimace in fake pain and his whole demeanor changed in an instant. His hands went up slightly, a step in your direction and that was your opening to duck under his arm, and bring him down with a precise twist.
Yeah, alright, people might believe that that technique is a little mean and it certainly wouldn’t help you at all in the open field, but Clint did tell you to try something unorthodox.
You stretch, still smirking, and tilt your head at him. “You know, you’d think after falling for this multiple times, you’d have learned by now.”
Bucky’s head rolls to the side and he glares at you. Not in anger, not even close. Just that specific kind of exasperation that you have come to learn is something only you get to see from him.
He huffs. “Should’ve known you’d pull this shit again.”
“Should have. And here I thought I am predictable.”
He gives you a flat, unimpressed look.
“Can’t believe I was worried.”
“Aww, you were?” you say sarcastically, lightly. Almost in a sly sing-song voice, because is is always worried. That’s the whole point of this.
Another hand drags down his face, but there is a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
****
You exhale deeply, rolling your shoulders, as you make your way down to the gym.
Your muscles are stiff. Everything aches in that dull, stubborn way that promises it will get worse before it gets better.
The bruises that paint your ribs throb with your pulse. You remember the sharp, biting crack when you hit the ground.
It was a mission for Steve, Nat, and you, though you definitely could have used some backup.
You feel terrible.
And you hadn’t told Bucky any of that when you came home yesterday, sometime late.
Instead, you sent him a quick I’m fine. Training tomorrow? and buried yourself in sleep before he could pry. You know how he gets, after all. How his worry manifests, his eyes linger and his mouth tightens when you brush him off. You did not have the energy for it last night. And you don’t have it now. He does not have to know what hits you have taken due to your own recklessness. You already got a lecture from Cap. Don’t need it from his best friend.
So you show up. Because, if you don’t, he will know something is wrong.
Bucky is already waiting for you, standing loose and ready on the mat. His eyes snap up the moment you enter, scanning you the way he always does. Checking.
You ignore his gaze.
“Ready to get your ass kicked?” you say, tossing your water bottle onto the bench, forcing something light into your voice.
He smirks, arms crossed. “That what’s gonna happen?”
You step onto the mat, careful not to wince, careful to keep your breath even despite the sharpness pulling at your ribs. “Don’t sound so doubtful, Barnes. I’ll let you eat the mat.”
He snorts, tilting his head. “I sure like to see you try.”
He raises his hands, shifting into a stance, watching you closely. Too closely. There is something probing in his gaze today.
“How’d the mission go? Steve mentioned you guys ran into some-”
You don’t give him time to finish - time to think.
You move, fast, hoping to catch him off guard.
He sidesteps, but you strike again.
And immediately regret it.
Your ribs scream. Punishing. Your breath stutters, but you grit your teeth and keep going, keep pushing forward and attacking because if you pause, he will most definitely notice.
It goes on for perhaps a minute and you think you might actually be able to bite away the pain your whole body is consumed with, but then you stumble.
It’s a half-second of hesitation, a misstep that normally wouldn’t happen. But it causes you to trip away a few steps. Sharp pain courses through your ribs and a hand instinctively shoots up to your side. A hiss slips past your lips. Loud enough for him to hear.
But instead of reacting the way he always does - immediately stopping, immediately reaching - he just huffs amused, shaking his head.
“Bad time for trying that trick again, sweetheart. Shoulda known better.” There is that smugness in his tone.
His voice is light, teasing. His eyes are sharp, watching.
You grit your teeth, saying nothing.
He thinks you’re faking.
Which - fine. You have done this a few times. But now, with every movement grinding against the ache in your ribs, you wish he would just stop you.
Because it’s getting harder to hide.
It’s getting harder to see.
Bucky seems confused for a second when you don’t react to him at all, but doesn’t have time to act on it as you are going in for the next hit.
And Bucky dodges you too easily like he doesn’t even need to try. You swing again, slower than you should be, weaker than you should be - and he sidesteps, frowning.
“Tryin’ a new strategy?” he asks, but his voice is careful. His eyes are assessing.
You don’t answer. You can’t. You just go again, ignoring the way your body protests, ignoring the way you are moving wrong like you are just a second behind yourself. You hope maybe muscle memory will carry you through.
It doesn’t seem like it.
Bucky stopped throwing punches himself, only staying in defense mode and he won’t stop fucking looking at you.
And then you pivot too fast - twist wrong.
White-hot pain flares through your side so fiercely, it rips the breath from your lungs. A harsh, unsteady sound falls out. You can’t catch it. You stagger, grip tightening into fists, trying to push through.
But Bucky’s expression now definitely shifted. Amusement gone. Smugness gone. His face is hard.
You ignore that and try to go in for the next hit, but Bucky steps in fast, too fast for you to counter in your state, hooking an arm around you, pressing your back against his chest. He doesn’t throw you - he could, easily, he would - but he just halts your movement, stopping you clean in your tracks.
The pain spikes again and you gasp sharply. Your knees nearly buckle and Bucky’s grip on you tightens.
His hands are firm around you. Steady. But his breathing is not. It’s fast, strained, the muscles in his arms locking as he keeps you upright.
“What the hell happened?” His voice is so low, so serious. There is an edge to it, teetering on loosing control.
“It’s not a big deal,” you grit out.
“Bullshit.” Now he sounds harsh.
But his fingers still press so gently into your side, checking you out.
You whimper, flinching.
And Bucky freezes.
“Shit.” He shifts his grip, an arm around your waist, moving you to face him and still trying to support you without making it worse. His heartbeat is fast. You can feel it. Even in his hands on you.
He grabs the hem of your shirt and lifts it enough to see your torso. A breath hitches. It’s not yours.
The bruises are bad. Worse than they were yesterday. Dark and sprawling across your ribs, blooming in ugly purples and reds. You feel the shift in him, the way his whole body goes still.
You watch his tense features in discomfort. His eyes are turbulent, filled with a wildness stemming from something dark that writhes beneath his skin and causes his hands to shake against you. A tremor passes his jaw.
He curses under his breath.
“You didn’t tell me.” His voice drags low.
“I didn’t think it was that bad.”
He lets out a deep and rumbling sigh. Trying to compose himself. “It is bad, Y/n! How come you thought it’s a good idea to train like this, huh?”
He meets your eyes. There is a sternness in his expression. His eyes are heavy.
“I didn’t want you to worry.”
Bucky lets out a humorless breath. Closes his eyes for a moment until he takes a breath in again.
“I was already worried, doll. I always am. You know that, no?” he speaks solemnly. “You think not telling me makes this better?”
You open your mouth, then close it.
He shakes his head, exhaling profoundly through his nose. His grip tightens, but not enough to hurt you. He holds you carefully.
You take in a deep breath. “I- I don’t know. I guess I just didn’t wanna talk about it. I’m sorry, Bucky.”
His jaw is clenched and he bites his bottom lip, staring at the bruises littering your skin for a moment with eyes so dark they make you shiver.
“How did that happen? Who did this?”
You scoff half-heartedly. “Got a little messy. Pretty sure that guy’s not doing that well either.” You aim to get even the tiniest bits of amusement out of him but he might have gotten even more grim.
His touch is slow, a careful sweep of his finger across your skin, studying you for reactions.
He opens his mouth. Something on his tongue he wants to get out, but he hesitates. He swallows. Waits a few seconds. His voice is a rasp. “Don’t do that again.”
“Getting hurt on missions is kind of a normal occurrence, Buck. Not much I can do about that-”
“No, I mean-” he interrupts, voice quieter. “Don’t hide it again. Not from me. I- Just please.”
There is something in his tone that makes you stare for a while longer.
Then, you nod. Just once. But you mean it.
****
It took weeks for you to properly heal.
But finally, earlier today, you got the clearance of Dr. Cho - and Bucky, because he somehow told himself he has a say in that kind of thing - to step onto the mat again and resume training.
There is still a phantom pain in your ribs but it’s locked somewhere in the back of your mind.
But Bucky still would not stop fucking looking at you.
And it never is in a casual way. Bucky always watches you like he is waiting for something. Like his body is ready to move before his mind even has to tell it to. Like he is memorizing you, making sure nothing slips past him.
He is currently standing in front of you on the mat, rolling his shoulders, the stretch of muscle under his shirt shifting with the movement. The tension in his frame hasn’t faded, no matter how much you’ve reassured him. His fingers flex, then curl into loose fists.
Then his eyes find yours.
“Alright,” he says, voice low and edged with something firm, something not up for debate. “Don’t ever pull that shit on me again. You’re good enough as it is. No need for all that, yeah?” There is something heavy in his tone. “I'll even let you win this time if you need it so badly, doll,” he adds with a hint of humor that his voice lacked earlier, bouncing right back into your easy friendship.
You huff out a laugh and stretch your arms over your head, feeling the pull of muscles that have gone a little too long without use. “Trust me Bucky, I’ve learned my lesson.” Your voice is rather light, but it carries an edge as well.
Bucky’s jaw ticks.
There is something like guilt crossing his eyes for a second. Gone as fast as it came but you catch it. His lips are pressed together tightly and he seems to hold back an uncomfortable cough.
You’ve talked about this already. Plenty, in the weeks of your recovery. You told him you wouldn’t have believed him either after the many times you feigned injury during matches. That if anything, it was your own stubbornness that got you hurt and not him.
He only agreed with the stubborn part but he stopped bringing it up.
Still, you see he hasn’t let it go.
He carries too much guilt as it is. You don’t want him to carry more. So, you definitely won’t question his weakness during fights again. It was kind of funny, though, at least you’ll hold onto that.
You roll out your shoulders, shaking off the stiffness, then take your stance. “C’mon Barnes. You gonna fight me or just stand there looking pretty?”
His mouth twitches, a ghost of a smirk, maybe even a ghost of pink at the tip of his ears, but his eyes stay sharp.
He steps in, closing the space, moving with the same impossible control he always does.
You block his first strike, but it shakes through you. The force of it reminds you just how much power he’s holding back.
His eyes snap to your face. He doesn’t stop watching.
Studying.
Testing how you move, how much strain you can handle.
You feel yourself get into it again. The movement, the impact, the swiftness. The gym is filled with the sounds of breaths and footwork against the mat.
Bucky tests you, pushes you.
And you give as good as you get.
Your body remembers even if it’s been weeks. Your muscles adjust, wake up in a way they haven’t in too long. You move on instinct, dodging, striking, thinking, even pulling a move that you copied from Nat. One that Bucky didn’t see coming.
And it honestly looks pretty good for you, until your foot catches.
It’s nothing at first, a simple shift in weight, an uneven pivot that causes your balance to tip slightly off center. But a dizziness suddenly overcomes you and it’s too late to catch you. Your ankle twists, your knees buckle and the floor comes rushing up to you.
You hit the mat hard, landing awkwardly on your side, the jolt of pain snapping through your ankle up your whole leg, sharp enough for you to wince.
Shit.
You suck in a breath, already dreading what this looks like, what Bucky must be thinking. The timing couldn’t be worse. After everything - after the fights weeks ago, after the conversations, after the promise you just made to never feign getting hurt again - what else would he think?
But before you can lift your head, before you can force out some half-hearted quip, Bucky is already there.
Not hesitating. Not wary.
Rushing. Fast and frantic.
He’s at your side, crouching so fast his knees nearly hit the mat.
And you find yourself blinking at him stunned.
You expected him to pause. To hesitate. Maybe even get angry - to assume, even for a second, that you are feigning again, that you had just promised him not to pull that anymore but here you are.
But there is none of that.
Only the same panic from every other time you’ve dropped yourself to the ground on purpose. But this time it is real. There just was no way for him to know that. He still reacts the same.
“Where does it hurt, doll? Talk to me.”
His voice is calm, but his face is tight. His brows are drawn together, tension lining his mouth. The breaths he lets out are just a little too measured.
You blink at him, still baffled at the way with how fast he was there, how fast his reaction was.
“Just my leg,” you say, exhaling slowly. “It’s nothing. I just got dizzy and fell.”
That makes him frown, deeper than before. His hand moves so gently as he lifts the fabric of your training pants to get a look, taking your calve into his other hand. The touch sends a pulse of pain through you but you manage not to let it show on your face. You’ve had worse. You’re an Avenger, after all.
But Bucky’s jaw clenches so tightly at the sight of the swollen bone and the deepening flush of color on your ankle as if it is serious.
“Might have sprained it,” he mutters gruffly, and the displeasure in his voice is so clear.
“Think I’ll live, Buck,” you quip lightly and shift, trying to stand up but his hand doesn’t let up on your leg and he presses just lightly against your shoulders to make you sit back down.
“You still feelin’ dizzy?” he asks, basically ignoring what you said, voice dipping lower. His gaze locks onto yours. Intense.
You shake your head, trying to show him how casual this whole thing is but his eyes won’t stop searching you and it makes your stomach churn.
“I’m fine, Buck.”
His eyes don’t move. He doesn’t let go.
“Why did you even believe me?” You voice it light, but there is something cautious underlining it, you can’t shake. “Could’ve faked again.”
Bucky rakes a hand through his hair with a long breath. He averts his eyes.
“Saw you go down,” he says with a shrug that seems just a little too exaggeratedly indifferent. “S’ enough for my head to go straight to hell.”
That’s certainly not something you expected him to say and you are stunned once again. But you can’t help the way your belly does some delightful flips.
“And you promised me you wouldn’t,” he adds, shoulders straightening, like he is trying to shift your attention from the words he said before. From the admission he made.
“I’m really not going to do it again,” you promise again. But you won’t forget his words.
“I know, sweetheart,” he says sweetly, certainly, but the tension of your current situation lingers.
His touch on you is so damn careful, checking and rechecking, making you tell him what and how something hurts and you almost laugh out loud at his fussing.
“Buck, it’s not like I broke it,” you point out, a laugh in your voice. “I can still-”
“You’re not gonna walk around on that.”
You lift your brow at him, at his tone, an amused smile on your face but he just stares back. Without the smiling part.
Then he sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face before standing to his full height, adjusting his stance before crouching slightly again.
“Alright, come on.”
You blink but his hands already settle, one beneath your legs, the other bracing your back, and you barely have time to react before he is lifting you, arms locking as he pulls you against his chest with an ease you could only dream of.
“Bucky-”
“Not a word,” he warns with a grunt.
You sigh, letting your head fall back against his shoulder. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Don’t care.”
****
A sprained ankle takes anywhere from two to six weeks to heal properly, depending on the severity. You’ve had a few sprained ankles in your career already, so you would know.
But yours sits on the longer end of that spectrum and it frustrates you to no end because what the fuck. You were just done healing and now you got to do it all again.
The first week, Bucky barely lets you breathe without hovering close. He is always there, catching you if you wobble because you are too damn stubborn and rather hop around the compound than use a clutch. Because that would make it too easy, wouldn’t it?
The second week you get snappish. Tony makes sure to leave the room when you enter, Sam gets defensive, Natasha just smirks what frustrates you even more, Vision is a fucking robot only answering in a robotic voice way that drives you up the wall when he gives you a list of stores around New York that sell kettle fries but you only wanted to know where they are in the compounds kitchen. And Bucky endures every tiny bit of it, only that he is entirely unmoved by your attitude. At one point you just taped your ankle and tried to go down to the gym but Bucky stopped you before you could reach the elevator. He already stood there, brow quirked, arms crossed, unimpressed but amused.
By the third week, he sat next to you during team training, watching, studying. You criticized movements, talked about strategies, and laughed at Sam when Nat made him faceplant onto the mat.
Then the fourth week rolled in and you could finally put weight on your foot without wincing. For you, that meant you were good to go train again. But not for Bucky. So that meant another week of waiting.
But now you are back on the mat. Fucking again.
And you promise yourself, you will not fall this time. Not on purpose, not by accident.
Bucky stands across from you, arms loose at his sides, weight balanced, watching as you roll your shoulders and move through your warm-up.
“Got any last words before I kick your ass, Barnes?”
His mouth twitches. That half-smirk, something smug but fond, something that flies through his blue eyes like a spark.
“I dunno, sweetheart. Wouldn’t wanna land you on the sidelines again.”
You scoff, rolling your eyes.
“Bite me, Barnes.”
The moment you move, he matches it.
His reflexes are quicker than yours - always have been, always will be - but your advantage is that you know that. You know him. His patterns, the way he shifts his weight, the way his left shoulder always tenses a fraction of a second before he throws a punch. You don’t need to match his strength to win. You just need to read him.
The first strike comes low, an attempt to test your footing, but you pivot fast, avoiding the sweep of his leg with a practiced step-back. You counter with a jab - not meant to hit, just to distract - but he reads it immediately, catches your wrist, yanks you forward.
You twist, using the momentum, your free hand shooting up - Bucky dodges, barely, but you are already adjusting, using your own imbalance to push into him.
His hands are always steady, whether he’s attacking or defending. He uses his strength not to hurt you, but to push you, to remind you that you can take it.
And you do.
Blow for blow, counter for counter.
You refrain from looking at his face because he looks distractingly hot with his hair falling into his eyes and all, whipping around with his movements.
The moment his weight shifts forward, you are already countering. Stepping out of reach just as his arm sweeps for your waist. Your breath comes sharp as you turn and aim a well-placed jab that he sidesteps.
Bucky’s eyes gleam. Thrilled.
“Not bad,” he calls, already throwing another feint.
“Not trying to be”, you fire back, ducking, moving with him like it’s a dance. Like your bodies know this better than your minds do.
You push - he counters. You feint - he laughs, quick and breathy. You strike - he blocks.
Fuck, you missed this.
But then, he shifts.
And something changes.
It’s in his stance. The way he adjusts - not a mistake, but a decision. And in the half-second, before you react, before you catch on, you realize you don’t know what he is planning.
Your body is moving, a reaction before thought, but he is quicker - and you only feel him wind his arm around your waist, spin you around, and crash his lips against yours.
You stagger, letting out a surprised grunt against his mouth, caught completely fucking blindsided, because - what?
His mouth is firm, demanding - and it sears straight through your skin, your ribs, right into your bones, into your pulse, because Bucky Barnes is kissing you.
It’s not soft.
Not hesitant.
Not careful.
It’s everything it shouldn’t be in the middle of a fight.
It’s so unexpected that you don’t even notice the moment your back hits the mat. Don’t notice the way he takes you down like it’s nothing, like it’s unpredictable, because you weren’t ready.
You didn’t see it coming.
By the time you blink, by the time your brain catches up, he is already above you. Hovering.
His weight is balanced, both arms braced on either side of your head, and he is looking at you like he just won the fucking lottery.
Smirking. So damn smug.
Because Bucky finally found out your weakness. And he used it to his advantage.
Because what else could it be than him?
“You cheated,” you breathe out. Where has all the air gone?
“You kinda started it, sweetheart.” Bucky grins so wide, so proud, so happy. He pants above you. His eyes are shining.
And then he ducks down again.
He kisses you once more.
Slower, this time. Deeper. With something that lingers, something that presses into you as his hand slides along your jaw, something that feels like it has been waiting far too long for this exact moment.
And you don’t fight it.
Because it seems, you no longer have to wait for Bucky Barnes.
“You’ll know… not just in the way they look at you, but in how they’re not looking anywhere else.”
Pairing: Avenger!Bucky x Non-superhero!Girlfriend!Reader
Summary: You attend a public Avengers event as Bucky’s girlfriend for the first time, but things spiral from nerves to chaos in a matter of seconds. And when you’re caught in the crossfire, Bucky unleashes.
Word Count: 2.4k
Warnings: violence; injury; PTSD elements; emotional distress; explosions; mass panic; allusions to death; protective!Bucky; nobody hurts his girl; seriously, he’s a little feral here
Author’s Note: I need protective Bucky all day and all night omg. Thank you so much, my love, for this absolutely amazing request!! I hope you'll enjoy ♡
2k Drabble Challenge Masterlist | Masterlist
The lights are everywhere.
Glinting off skyscraper windows and camera lenses, bouncing off metallic armor and too-white smiles.
The voices are everywhere. They swarm like bees - the press, the fans, the murmuring of people watching people.
The flash of the cameras is a strobe light stinging the back of your eyes. Reporters shout questions like bullets, flinging them past your ears and into your chest.
You feel your lungs shrinking in your ribcage as if they’ve decided you’ve seen enough. Felt enough. Been too much.
You’re not supposed to be here.
Not in this crowd, not in this dress, not in front of a hundred reporters and their glittering cameras. Not in the spotlight. Not on the arm of the Bucky Barnes.
You tug at the hem of your dress, fingers nervous, breath catching on a sigh you don’t release. Everyone here looks like they belong - as if they were born to walk red carpets and sip sparkling drinks under light that only blinds you. You feel like an ink smudge on a page of golden script.
It’s the first time you’re out in the public with him. The first time the press will capture who’s been speculated to be the former Winter Soldier’s girlfriend.
Bucky spent the night whispering reassurances into your skin, but it seems you should have listened to his words rather than the feeling of his plump lips all over your body.
Your hand is in his, and his thumb traces slow circles against you, metal fingers warm from your skin. His other hand rests lightly on your back. He hasn’t let go of you once.
You look up at him.
And he’s already looking at you.
He looks perfect, tailored, controlled, dangerous in a way that makes people stare too long and then look away even faster.
His hair is swept back tonight, save for one defiant strand that keeps falling across his brow. You keep watching that strand as if it’s a lifeline. Like if you can count how many times it falls, maybe your nerves will shut the hell up.
You know he feels how tense you are.
He frowns, and it’s so soft it nearly breaks your heart. That Bucky Barnes can frown like that. As if you just told him you were fading into dust.
“Hey,” Bucky coos, voice soft, voice low, the world dissolving for a second into nothing but him and you. “You okay, sweetheart?”
You try to nod. But you can’t lie to him. Words jam in your throat, caught somewhere between the beat of your heart and the reality of who he is and who you are not.
“I just-” you manage, but it’s a little shaky, you look around. “I feel out of place.”
Bucky tilts his head, brow still furrowed tightly. “Why?”
You open your mouth, then close it again. Try to explain how it feels to be ordinary in a sea of extraordinary. How it feels to be his, but not one of them. How terrifying it is to not have armor, or training, or anything more than love for a man who could kill with his pinky finger and kindness in his eyes just for you.
Bucky steps in close, crowding the noise out with the breadth of his body, his warmth, the familiarity of his scent - cedar and cold and something quietly him. His nose brushes yours, and it’s stupid how it grounds you.
“I’d rather be anywhere else,” he murmurs, eyes locked on yours. “I’d rather be nowhere. Just me and you. On a rooftop. Under the sheets. In the woods. I don’t care. Just not here. No noise. No cameras. No Stark in a tuxedo with a martini making bad decisions.”
You laugh, and it trembles out of you.
His smile is all softness and secret promises. His eyes are glinting. “But if I have to be here - then I'm glad it’s with you.”
The way he says it - quiet, low, as if it’s something he only ever told the wind - freezes everything inside you and sets it on fire all at once.
You blink, and the fear stutters. Collapses a little. Because it’s not you and the Avengers. It’s you and Bucky.
His lips graze your ear, then your temple, taking his time. He’s not bothered at all by the cameras flashing around you, capturing this moment, capturing the Winter Soldier going soft on his girlfriend.
You want to fall into him. You want to crawl into his chest and live there.
You let out a breath. It’s just beginning to feel okay. The world quiets just for a second.
Then it explodes.
There’s a metallic whine, a rumble like thunder swallowed by stone. The ground jerks beneath your feet as though it’s trying to shake you off. Screams tear through the air. A plume of smoke mushrooms in the sky as fire roars from the far end of the pavilion. People scatter. Glass shatters. Concrete buckles.
You don’t even have time to be shocked when Bucky already reacts.
He pushes you behind him so fast your teeth snap together. He doesn’t look back. His body shields yours, metal arm braced outward, flesh hand pressing you into his back, eyes scanning for threats.
Another explosion cracks through the sky, rips through the atmosphere like an angry god. And right after, the next explosion follows, punched through the sky like a fist made of fire.
You cough, eyes watering. There’s debris. Someone’s car door skitters across the ground like a dead insect. Tony’s suit whirs to life across the square. Natasha’s already sprinting. Sam is in the air.
Bucky is moving, dragging you behind a line of armored cars, his body is coiled with tension, his expression is deadly serious.
“Stay here!” he orders. It’s his soldier voice. Cold steel and no argument. He’s never used this voice on you before.
“Bucky-”
“Y/n, stay down,” he barks sharply, and you nearly flinch. But his tone is not filled with anger. It’s filled with fear. “Do not move until I come back for you.”
Your heart is pounding so hard you think it might break your ribs. Your head is shaking from side to side so fast, you can’t do anything. “No- Bucky-”
He cups your face, his hands stiff, his hold almost rough. He leans in. “Stay. Here,” he growls. “I can’t do this if I’m worried about you.”
His eyes tell you he already is. He will be. But he doesn’t tell you.
He waits for you to nod, although he doesn’t have the time. An almost aggressive kiss is pressed to your mouth, then to your forehead, and he is gone. Thrown into chaos, lost in the smoke and fury and shouts.
You barely register the space he leaves behind. The smoke moves like a creature through the crowd, making people disappear wholly. Somewhere nearby, there’s another explosion. The screams rise again, louder.
You crouch lower, press yourself against the cold steel of the car, try to breathe through the hammer in your chest. You want to do what he said. You try to do what he said.
But the panic moves toward you.
You don’t see where it starts. Just feel it. A shove. A push. Someone collides with your hiding place, someone is behind you and suddenly you’re on the ground. White-hot pain at your side. You fall hard enough to see stars. A sharp ache slices down your shoulder where debris must have caught you. Blood runs hot and slick beneath your dress.
Disoriented, you try to push up on trembling arms but they shake too much, and everything is spinning.
You don’t see the soldier until you turn your head and there’s a flash of metal in his hand. A knife.
“Y/n!”
It’s your name. It’s Bucky’s voice. It’s not a shout. It’s a roar. As if it was ripped out of his chest. As if he’s afraid of what he’ll find when he gets to you.
From fifty yards away, across smoke and bodies and fire, he sees the blood blooming on your sleeve. Sees your fingers twitch as you try to sit up. Sees the man with the knife coming too close.
And he is barreling through the smoke like something unholy, eyes wild, teeth clenched, hands balled to fists. The light behind his eyes just snaps.
He moves as though he’s been set free. No hesitation. No fear. No softness left in him. His face is stone, is fury, is death, is Winter Soldier. His arm gleams under the flames, a ghost of his past resurrected in defense of his present.
Bucky hits the guy with bone-crushing force, enough to send teeth skittering across pavement. A scream echoes once before it’s cut off. Another blow. Another. Fist to face. Elbow to jaw. A crunch that sounds like death and rage all rolled into one. His vibranium hand wraps around the man’s throat, and you swear you see something flash in his eyes - something ancient and broken - before Bucky picks him up and slams him against a crumbling wall. Again. And again.
It’s not strategy. It’s not mercy. It’s pure rage.
Somewhere, Steve yells his name like a warning.
Bucky doesn’t stop.
“Bucky-” you croak, blood warm down your arm. You try to sit up.
In an instant, he turns back to you, easing up on his brutal hold and the soldier crumples to the ground. Bucky’s whole body is tight with adrenaline, his breath sawing in and out as though he ran through a warzone - which he kind of did. For you. His eyes find yours and shatter.
He’s at your side in half a breath.
“Baby,” he whispers, hands on your face, on your shoulder, trembling now. “No, no, no. You weren’t supposed to be- I told you to stay-”
“I tried,” you defend weakly, dizzy. “I didn’t- I’m okay. I think. Just- grazed me, maybe-”
But he’s not hearing you. Not through the panic tearing holes in his composure. His hands flutter, unsure where to land without hurting you more. His voice drops, gravelly and hushed. “I shouldn’t have brought you here. Shit, I should’ve known-”
“Hey.” You grab his wrists. “Bucky.”
He stills, but he won’t meet your eyes. Your thumb brushes the inside of his wrist. “I’m okay.”
But he’s too far in his head.
He wraps you in his arms in seconds, cradles you as if you’re made of moonlight and scripture, as if you’re hallowed and half-broken and held together by threads only he can see.
His metal hand supports your back, curved protectively around your spine. His other hand is pressing your legs into his chest.
The darkening sky is still full of smoke and sirens.
Colors smear across the sky like blood in water. Reds and blues. Shouting and static. Flashing lights and fractured ground. Somewhere nearby, someone is screaming. Somewhere farther, something explodes.
But not for him anymore. He doesn’t seem to hear anything. Doesn’t seem to listen to anything other than your breathing, your pulse.
He walks fast, but carefully. Erratic feet cut through rubble, his jaw is locked so hard, his body so rigid, he surely is in pain from holding all that tension. His eyes are storm-dark and unblinking. No one stops him. Not Steve. Not Tony. Not even the medics who see the look on his face and take a cautious step back as though maybe the devil borrowed his bones tonight.
He never trusted any random medic to look you over. It has to be someone he knows.
You whisper his name.
Soft. Breathless. Almost an apology.
And he almost drops to his knees.
“I’ve got you,” he rasps, hoarse and urgent. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
You know you are. But he doesn’t.
Your fingers curl in the collar of his suit jacket. His real name - James - lives on your tongue but never quite makes it out because he’s holding you too close, and perhaps saying his name might crush him completely.
He smells like smoke and ash and steel and blood. Your temple is tucked against the curve of his neck, where his pulse thunders beneath the surface. He’s warm and shaking.
He bursts into the quinjet that brought you here like a man on fire, like a man trying to outpace grief, and he yells something sharp. He lays you down - reluctantly, tenderly, surrendering - onto a stretcher, but his hands don’t stop touching you.
He’s a storm with a purpose, and that purpose is you.
You, safe.
You, whole.
You, alive.
“Bucky,” you try to ease, blinking up at him, face pale under flickering emergency lights. “I told you, baby. It’s not that bad.” Your voice is soft. Slow.
“You were on the ground.” His voice cracks.
“I was on the ground for like two seconds-”
“You’re bleeding.”
“It stopped, baby. Okay? There’s no fresh blood.” You are close to whispering.
Bucky doesn’t seem eased, though. He sits beside you. Big body bent in half, elbows on knees, one trembling hand reaching to gently - so, so gently - brush your hair from your forehead.
And then he says it.
“I would’ve burned the whole goddamn city to get to you.” Quiet. Like a vow. Like a confession. Like faith. Like a truth, he doesn’t know how to carry anymore. “I would’ve torn down buildings with my bare hands if I didn’t see your breathing. I don’t care who saw. I don’t care what they think-” his voice breaks, his breaths spill all over his words. “I can’t be okay without you.”
You stare up at him. Your throat is tight, eyes are stinging. Because he doesn’t say things like that. Not often. Not out loud. You see it in his eyes every day, in the way he looks at you, in the way he treats you. But it’s something else entirely to hear him form those words and let his tongue roll them out.
He presses his forehead to yours. His breath ghosts over your lips. His eyes are closed. His hand cups the back of your head.
He’s holding you so close to him, as if he’s never intending to let go ever again.
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