Vunblr Archive

Small stone, at that.

He tilted his head back once, studying the face of a structure looming over the street, and felt something close to vertigo.

The bricks -if that was even the word- were absurdly small, identical, and stacked in rows so precise they might have been drawn with a ruler and simply willed into permanence. Higher than any keep he'd laid siege to. Higher than the bell tower at Wintermouth Cathedral, which had taken forty years and three master masons and had still needed scaffolding twice in his lifetime.

How does it hold?

She stopped in front of one such building, smaller than its neighbors, though smaller was doing considerable work in that sentence, and mounted three steps to a set of doors.

She pulled one open without ceremony, without announcing herself to anyone, without a steward or a porter to bar entry to a stranger, and walked inside as though the building belonged to her the way a woman owns a shawl.

He followed, because there was nothing else to do, and stepped into a hall.

Marble underfoot, or something convincingly like it. A row of small brass boxes set into one wall, each with a slot and a number, they purpose entirely opaque. Light again without flame, hanging in a glass fixture overhead, steady and shadowless.

This is not a florist's household, he thought.

He knew what it was to walk into a great house as a guest and be received as one. He knew, with rather more bitterness, what it was to walk into a great house as staff, had spent enough of his squireship fetching, carrying, standing at attention in halls not unlike this one, waiting to be noticed or ignored, whichever suited the lord in question that day.

Was that it, then? Flowers by morning, service by evening? some second position in a household large enough to warrant it, explaining the marble, the brass, the strange indifferent grandeur of the place?

He said none of this. He had learned, in the space of one morning, that his conclusions about this century had a poor survival rate once spoken aloud. So he held his tongue and followed her toward a narrow staircase at the back of the hall.

The climbing did nothing to improve his opinion of the day, since each step was a constant reminder of the state of his bruised ribs. He kept his breathing even through will alone, one hand trailing the rail, and said nothing.

She glanced back once, near the second landing, some question half-formed on her face. He gave her nothing to work with, so she turned around and kept climbing.

By the third floor, sweat had gathered along his spine beneath the ruined shirt, and his vision had gone a touch too bright at the edges, a warning he chose to ignore in favor of counting doors instead of stairs.

---

She'd clocked it two flights ago, the careful, deliberate way he was breathing, the hand that never quite let go of the rail, the fact that a man who'd crossed half of Camden without complaint had gone very quiet somewhere around the second landing.

She didn't say anything. She had a feeling he'd sooner collapse on her stairwell than admit to needing a minute, and there was something in the set of his jaw - stubborn, absurdly proud, entirely unbothered by what it was clearly costing him - that she found herself, against her better judgment, a little charmed by. Which was not a thought she had time for right now, with a bleeding stranger three steps behind her and a landing still to reach.

She kept climbing. Slower than she strictly needed to. Just in case.

----

A corridor stretched ahead of them, narrow, lined with identical doors, and identical brass numbers screwed into identical wood.

He catalogued it out of habit -the width, how many doors stood between them and the stairs- before it occurred to him that there was likely nothing here worth defending against, and the habit still refused to switch itself off.

From behind one door, there was music. Not lute or pipe, but something layered and strange, a woman's voice threaded through with instruments he couldn't place.

From another, the smell of onions frying, rich enough that his stomach gave a low, traitorous rumble.

He frowned at that second door as they passed it.

The kitchens were on the third floor. It made no sense.

Kitchens belonged low, ground level, or below it if the house could afford the excavation, close to the well and the fuel stores, far enough from the sleeping quarters that smoke and grease didn't creep into a lord's bedding.

Every keep he'd ever served in, ever laid siege to, ever simply visited, kept its kitchens low. He turned it over, half convinced he was missing some obvious explanation, and came up with nothing.

Unless this household ran differently. Unless the entire logic of the place inverted itself the way everything else in this century seemed determined to.

She stopped in front of a door indistinguishable from the others save its number, and drew a ring of keys from her purse, finding the right one without hesitation, the ease of long habit. The lock turned, and the door opened onto a narrow entry, dim and modest, but unmistakably a dwelling.

He stood in the corridor a moment longer than necessary, his gaze moving once more down the row of identical doors stretching in both directions. Service quarters, he decided.

"You may introduce me to your employer at your convenience," he said, following her through. "I would prefer not to be mistaken for an intruder in his household a second time today."

She turned to look at him with an expression he was rapidly learning to be wary of, the kind that came right before she informed him he'd misunderstood something, in a manner she found simultaneously exhausting and, despite herself, a little bit funny.

He didn't yet know what he'd said wrong. That, too, was becoming familiar.

"My employer," she repeated.

"The lord of this house." He gestured back toward the corridor and its row of doors, already bracing -without quite knowing why- for the ground to shift under him again.

She closed the door behind him and looked at him a moment, one hand still on the latch, working through how precisely to explain something she'd clearly never had to explain to a grown man before.

"Mr. Barnes," she said slowly. "There is no lord."

"Then whose house-" He stopped himself. Every theory he'd voiced aloud today had met the same fate, and he saw no cause to expect this one would fare better.

"This is my apartment." She said the word carefully. "It's mine. I pay rent on it every month, out of what the shop makes. Every one of those doors you just walked past, that's not one household. That's a different family behind every single one. A different kitchen, different bathrooms. Strangers to each other, mostly, sharing a staircase and nothing else."

He stared at her, and felt the shape of the building rearrange itself in his mind. It was not a great house at all, but something closer to a hive. Dozens of lives stacked one atop the other with nothing holding them together but shared stairs and walls.

"An entire building," he said slowly, "of strangers."

"Yes."

"Stacked."

"...Yes."

She was watching him, but with an attention that had nothing to do with the conversation they were having, and he felt it land somewhere just beneath his collar before he'd decided what to make of it.

"Hey," she said, softer than before. "You look like you're about to go down again. Sit for a minute?"

She gestured toward a low, upholstered thing pushed against the far wall. Two cushioned seats joined into one continuous piece, the fabric a bright, unrepentant orange.

He had never seen its like. Not a bench, not quite a settle, too soft-looking for either, its cushions plump and uniform in a way no upholsterer he knew could have managed by hand.

It looked, if he was honest, extremely inviting.

It also looked new. Unmarked. The kind of thing a household kept for guests of consequence, and he was aware, with some discomfort, of exactly how far he fell from that description at present.

"I would ruin it," he said.

She blinked. "What?"

"The seat." He gestured at himself, at the dried blood, the dirt ground into the linen, the general catastrophe of a man who had crossed six centuries without the benefit of a bath. "That fabric will not survive contact with me. And I am not dressed to sit in a lady's parlor regardless."

Something flickered across her face, not quite amusement, but not quite exasperation either.

"It's not a parlor," she said. "It's just the living room. And it's a couch, Mr. Barnes, not a coronation throne. It'll survive."

"All the same." He held his ground, aware even as he did it that the ground in question was faintly ridiculous: a man arguing etiquette while swaying on his feet in a stranger's home, in a century that had already proven it cared nothing for the rules he knew.

He couldn't seem to let go of them regardless. They were, at the moment, nearly the only thing of his own he still had. "If you have something less consequential."

She studied him a moment longer, then exhaled through her nose in a way he was beginning to recognize as her particular flavor of surrender. "Fine. The kitchen, then."

She led him into a smaller room with a tiled floor, pale and clean, a window over a deep basin, and, against the wall, a small table with two chairs, their seats covered in the same relentless color as the couch, though blue instead of orange.

He lowered himself into one carefully, his ribs complaining the entire way down, and studied the chair beneath him.

Bright, even, unfaded blue. The kind of pigment that, in his experience, cost more per yard than the chair itself was likely worth.

For kitchen furniture.

"Water?" she asked, already moving toward the far wall.

He nodded, distracted, still cataloguing the room: the smoothness of every surface, the absence of soot anywhere. Then she opened a tall white cabinet set against the wall, and he stopped cataloguing anything at all.

Cold air rolled out of it. He felt it from where he sat, and some old instinct, the one that had kept him alive through winters of campaign, sat up and took notice before the rest of him had caught up.

"What," he said slowly, "is that?"

"The icebox?" She glanced back, one hand still on the door, a bottle in the other.

"It has no ice."

"It doesn't need ice, it's electric. Keeps things cold on its own."

He rose, forgetting his ribs for exactly as long as it took three steps to carry him there, and looked into the cabinet himself before she could object.

Shelves. Bottles. A bowl of eggs, pale and ordinary, sitting beside butter, unmelted, in a room warm enough that any butter he'd ever known would have long since gone soft and glistening on a table.

He found himself wanting, absurdly, to touch it, to confirm with his own hand what his eyes were telling him couldn't be true.

"How?"

"I don't actually know," she admitted, and there was something almost sheepish in it. "Something with wires, a motor… I don't know the mechanics of it any more than I know how a telephone carries a voice across town. It just works. You plug it in, and it's cold, and that's as far as my understanding goes."

He stared at the shelves a moment longer, at the ordinary miracle of butter refusing to soften, and felt something very close to wonder. And beneath the wonder, quieter, something that felt uncomfortably like grief.

Traveling through centuries, he had arrived at a place where a woman kept the dead of winter locked in a box in her kitchen and thought nothing of it.

She poured water into a glass -clear, flawless glass- and set it in front of him as though it were nothing at all.

He was hardly positioned to complain, since she had taken a bleeding stranger into her home and fed him besides, but he found himself glancing toward the cabinets regardless, expecting a jug of small ale, a pitcher of cider, anything a household of any means offered a guest before water.

Water alone, had killed men he'd known. Good men, careful men, who'd survived worse than a bad well and gone down anyway with their guts turned to fire. Almost every house's table poured ale or wine for that reason as much as for taste.

That this place, with its marble hall and its brass boxes and its indifferent grandeur, should hand him water and nothing else struck him as strange enough to notice.

He lifted the glass and drank anyway, telling himself that whatever this century had done to its water, it had also apparently solved the preservation of food in a cool box, and a man who trusted one miracle might as well trust the other.

The taste caught him off guard. It wasn’t unpleasant, but strange. No hint of the barrel it had traveled in, no faint rot at the back of the throat that a man learned to drink around.

It tasted, as far as he could tell, of nothing at all. Clean. He'd never had water that tasted that clean, and some old, wary part of him kept waiting for the sickness to follow regardless.

"Is it safe?" he asked, careful to keep the question light, a thing he was merely curious about, rather than a thing he genuinely needed answered before his next swallow.

"Perfectly. It's tap water, comes straight out of the faucet, city runs it through filtration before it ever gets to a pipe. You could drink it all day and never think twice."

Faucet. He turned the word over, another one for the stack, and said nothing.

She caught the blankness on his face and rose, crossing to the basin set into the counter.

"Here. If the jug ever runs dry and you want more, don't wait around for me. Just do this." She turned a small metal handle.

Water came. No need to pour, carry, or draw it up on a rope from some hidden well; it simply arrived, a clear, steady stream falling into the basin, as though the house itself had a vein opened somewhere and this was where it bled.

He was on his feet before he'd decided to be, some part of him needing, absurdly, to see the mechanism of it, as if enough looking might finally make it make sense. "Where does it come from?"

"Pipes. Underground, runs under the whole city, connects to a reservoir north of here. Every building's hooked into it." She watched him with open curiosity now. "You want it hot instead of cold, there's a second handle."

"Hot?"

"Mm-hm."

He looked at the two handles. Looked at her. Looked back at the water, still running, and felt the day's tally of impossible things tip over into something he no longer had the will to keep counting.

"You are telling me," he said slowly, "that every house in this city commands its own well. Hot and cold both. Without a servant, a bucket, or a rope."

"That's the general idea, yeah."

He said nothing for a long moment, turning it over, what a man could build, what a man could stop needing, if he never again had to haul water himself.

He thought, unbidden, of every squire and servant he'd ever sent down to a well at dawn, or even gone himself when he squired, and wondered what those boys would have made of this.

She reached past him and shut the tap. The water stopped as abruptly as it had come, and the silence that followed felt, absurdly, louder than the sound itself had been.

----

She watched him sit back down, slower than he probably wanted her to notice, and felt her own worry sharpen in response.

He was pale under the bruising. Worse than in the stockroom, now that the adrenaline of the street and the stairs had burned off and left him with nothing to run on but stubbornness. She was starting to suspect stubbornness was mostly what he had left today.

He needed a bath. Badly. And rest, and quiet, all of which she could actually provide here, behind a locked door, away from patrolmen and gossiping bakery owners. That part, at least, she could manage.

What she couldn't provide was clothes, and that was the part actually nagging at her.

He couldn't wear what he had on; there was no version of a corner grocery where a six-foot-something man in a laced medieval tunic and thigh straps walked in without every head turning. She'd been running through options since the stockroom and kept landing on the same one.

"I can wash what I'm wearing," he offered, apparently following the direction of her thoughts more accurately than she'd expected. "It only wants soap and water. I've done worse with less on campaign."

"It's not really a laundry problem, Mr. Barnes." She said it as gently as she could manage, not wanting to make him feel worse than he already seemed to about needing help. "Even clean, that's not something a man wears walking down Camden Street in this year."

"I have nothing to offer you outright," he said, after a moment, "but I could part with something of value. The belt. The leg straps." He nodded down at the heavy leather still buckled across his hips and thighs, the only thing of worth currently on his person. "The leather alone is good work. It should fetch enough for whatever I need."

She wasn't sure whether to be touched or exasperated, and settled, after a second, on both at once. There was something almost unbearable about how hard he was working to make sure he didn't owe her anything. "I'm not taking your pants apart for scrap, Mr. Barnes."

"It is not scrap. It is craftsmanship."

"I believe you. I'm still not doing it. I know a place. Charity, secondhand, mostly donated. You don't have to pay, and you don't have to give me your belt to make yourself feel better about not paying. It's fine."

He didn't look like he agreed that it was fine, but he said nothing further, which she was coming to understand was as close to agreement as she was likely to get from him. She'd take it.

"Stay put and drink your water," she said, smoothing her skirt. Then she crossed to a basket near the icebox and drew out a cloth bundle with biscuits, plain and slightly dense.

"You're probably still hungry. One sandwich isn't much, considering whatever it is you've been through today. Eat those while I'm gone. I'll be as quick as I can."

He looked at the plate, then at her, something in his face she couldn't quite name, and she decided not to push for a name for it.

"Thank you," he said, quiet enough that she almost missed it over the sound of her own keys. "And… Bucky." He said it almost before he'd decided to. "Please. Call me Bucky."

She paused with her hand on the door, caught off guard. It was a small, private surprise hearing a man this formal hand her something informal on purpose, like he'd decided she'd earned it.

"Alright then," she said. "Bucky."

She was out the door before she could decide what to do with the rest of it.

----

She took the stairs two at a time, bags of flour-sack cloth knocking against her hip with every step, and allowed herself a small, private satisfaction over the haul.

Two pairs of trousers, both plain, both in decent shape. Two undershirts. Three button-up shirts, all in the largest size the donation bin carried; apparently the largest size was also the least popular, because she'd had her pick of three, tags barely worn off. Socks, a few pairs, unmatched but clean.

She'd even swung by the little men's shop on the corner for the one thing charity boxes never carried enough of, sliding two pairs of short underwear across the counter to a clerk who hadn't so much as blinked. Small mercies.

Not bad, she thought, climbing the last flight. Not bad at all for forty minutes and whatever cash she'd had folded in her coat pocket.

The apartment was quiet when she let herself in, quiet enough that her stomach gave one small, unpleasant lurch before she registered why. The living room was empty, and for one dumb second her mind went straight to worst-case: gone, hurt because he meddled with something unknown, collapsed somewhere she couldn't see.

She set the bags down just inside the kitchen doorway and leaned in.

There he was. Exactly where she'd left him, same chair, same table, the plate of biscuits reduced to crumbs and one lonely survivor. Relief hit before she'd even fully processed why she'd been braced for something worse.

His head had tipped back against the wall at some point, throat exposed, mouth slightly open, one hand still loosely curled around the water glass as though he'd meant to keep drinking.

He hadn't heard her come in. Whatever was going on with him, and whatever had actually happened to leave him bruised and half-convinced he was a knight out of a storybook, the exhaustion was real, and something about seeing it made her chest ache a little more than she felt entitled to on a few hours' acquaintance.

She crossed the room slowly, quiet out of some instinct she didn't examine too closely and stopped a few feet away. He frowned in his sleep, and she found herself wondering what a man like him dreamed about. Nothing good, probably.

It was, she noted with some irritation at herself, deeply unfair how good-looking he still managed to be while doing it. Even bruised, even filthy, even asleep in a kitchen chair with his neck at an angle that was going to cost him.

Great, she thought. That's exactly the thought you needed to be having right now.

She shook it off, mostly, and refocused on the more immediate problem: he was going to wake up with a crick in his neck to rival his ribs if she let him stay like that much longer.

"Hey," she said, gently, crouching down to something closer to his eye level before she reached out. She touched his shoulder. Lightly, carefully, and tried to say his name again.

It happened faster than she could track.

One second her hand was on his shoulder, his name half-formed on her lips for the second time, and the next, his eyes had snapped open, his hand had closed around her wrist like a manacle, and his other hand was at her throat.

Not gripping, not yet. Just a half-second suspended somewhere between reflex and intention, fingers pressed light but certainly against her skin, the pressure of a man who knew exactly where to close his hand and how much force it would take, poised on the edge of applying it.

Her whole body had gone very still, some animal part of her taking stock of the situation faster than the rest of her could catch up.

Then he saw her. Not whatever ghost his sleeping mind had conjured in her place,  and his hand recoiled from her throat like he'd touched a stove.

He let go of her wrist a half-beat after, both hands snapping back, and shoved himself away from her so hard the chair legs shrieked against the tile.

"I'm sorry." Low, fast, wrecked. "I'm sorry- I didn't- are you hurt, milady? Did I hurt you?"

Milady? Well, at least it wasn’t wench.

"I'm fine." She kept her voice level, even though her pulse hadn't quite caught up with that fact yet, one hand coming up unconsciously to touch her own throat, still warm from where his'd been. "I'm… fine."

He didn't look like he believed her, and honestly, she wasn't sure she believed herself either. Not shaken by what he'd done, exactly, but by how close it had come, and how little time there'd been between his eyes opening and his hand finding her throat with that kind of certainty.

He was staring at his own hands now, jaw working, color gone from his face in a way that had nothing to do with the morning's injuries.

"May I see?" His voice had dropped, quiet and careful, stripped of all its usual formal armor. "Please. I need to see that I didn't-" He didn't finish it. "Please."

She lowered her hand and let him look, some instinct telling her this wasn't a moment to argue with him about it, that he needed the proof more than she needed the space.

He stepped close, close enough that she could feel him not quite touching her, his eyes moving over her throat, but there was nothing to find. The barest ghost of pressure, gone already, nothing that would leave a mark.

She was abruptly, uselessly aware of how near he was standing, and annoyed with herself for noticing it now of all moments.

He looked at her face once he was satisfied, and whatever was in his eyes in that moment, she didn't have a word ready for it.

"I shouldn't have grabbed you like that," she said finally, quiet. "Waking someone up out of a dead sleep, I should've known better. My fault too."

"No." His answer was fast, firm, and with no room in it for argument. "It is not. A man does not require permission to be startled to see reason before he raises a hand to a woman who has done nothing but show him kindness. No excuse covers what I nearly did. I won't let you make one for me."

She opened her mouth to push back  -some instinct to smooth it over, to meet him halfway- then closed it again, because the look on his face told her plainly this wasn't a fight she'd win today, maybe not ever.

"I'm sorry," he said again, and this time it landed somewhere lower and more tired than the first two.

She let it sit a moment before she moved. Then she nodded toward the doorway, toward the bags still waiting where she'd left them, glad for once to have somewhere else to point his attention, and hers.

"C'mere. I want to show you what I got."

It wasn't subtle, the redirection of the topic, and she suspected he knew exactly what she was doing. But he let her do it anyway and followed her the few steps to the kitchen table, watching her upend the flour-sack bags across it with something that might, in a better hour, have been curiosity.

Trousers. Shirts, still stiff with the fold-lines of whoever had donated them and never worn out. Socks in mismatched pairs. A single undershirt he picked up and turned over in his hands, studying the cut like it was a garment he half-recognized, and half didn't.

"They're not much," she said, "but they'll get you through the next few days. We'll figure out the rest as we go."

He set the undershirt down and looked over the rest of the pile with careful attention.

"Thank you," he said. She was starting to lose count of how many ways he'd found to say it, and how much he seemed to mean it every time and how much, against all reason, she was starting to like hearing it.

"Don't thank me yet." She managed something close to a smile, enough to pull the air in the room back toward ordinary. "You still have to survive a bath. And getting dressed. I have a feeling that's going to be its own adventure."

He looked at her like he had no idea what she meant by that.

She decided not to ruin the surprise.

Next Chapter

I try to be normal

But something was stolen

I don't believe that I'm still real

I thought I'd remember

Each face, each December

But those white rooms, it's all I have.

If you believe there's still a soul

Beneath the guilt of all I've done

I’d face the ghost of who I was

Just to find out who I am now

But I can't do this on my own.

The arm feels so heavy

My past is so deadly

I know just how it got so bad

I know I've gone crazy

Wish something could save me

But that's the only thing I am.

If you believe there's still a soul

Beneath the guilt of all I've done

I’d face the ghost of who I was

Just to find out who I am now

But I can't do this on my own.

I've tried to move forward

Being free wasn't working

I've been so lost for far too long

It's so hard to see me

The mirror deceives me

I guess I can't go back at all.

If you believe there's still a soul

Beneath the guilt of all I've done

I'd face the ghost I was before

Just to find out who I am now

But I can't do this on my own.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who hates the apartment, then hates himself for hating anything that has running water, a bed, and no one waiting to strap him down.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who is coming back from the grocery store one afternoon when the paper bag splits open in front of the hardware store.

Soft-dark!Bucky, whose oranges and plums roll across the sidewalk, whose bread lands in the gutter, whose jaw clenches so hard it aches because he feels exposed.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who hears, "Oh, shit, hold on," before he sees you.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who finds you crouching in front of him with two of his oranges in your hands, wearing the store apron, your hair a little windblown from dragging the discount chalkboard onto the sidewalk.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who sees you clicking your tongue at the ruined bag and saying, "These things are useless. Come in, I'll give you a better one."

Soft-dark!Bucky, who follows because he has nowhere else to put the groceries, and because you have his bread under your arm and the oranges in your apron’s pocket.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who, when you ask if he lives close by, says he just moved into the building down the block.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who adds, after a beat, that the place is falling apart.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who notices the smell of cut wood, dust, metal shelving, floor cleaner, and underneath all of it, something that is only yours.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who notices the little nick on your thumb, the smudge of chalk on your wrist, the way you push a drawer shut with your hip.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who leaves with a reusable canvas bag, his groceries, and the sound of your voice circling in his head.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who lies awake that night replaying it -your hip against the drawer, the small huff of breath when you stood up too fast, the care when sorting his stuff inside the bag-.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who tells himself he needs a screwdriver the next day.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who already has two.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who goes and buys it anyway.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who comes in while you’re restocking lightbulbs and pretends to study wall anchors like he knows a damn thing about wall anchors.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who does not smile often, but does when you say, "Oh, hi again. How’s the disaster apartment?” because you remembered him, because you’ve kept him in your thoughts.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who goes home and sets the screwdriver in an empty laundry basket by the door.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who does not fix the loose cabinet handle.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who goes back two days later for painter’s tape.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who buys sandpaper the day after that.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who buys a level, a box of screws, two cabinet knobs, felt pads, a wrench he does not need, a flashlight, wood glue, replacement washers, a tape measure, and a little packet of brass picture hooks.

Soft-dark!Bucky, whose apartment remains exactly the same.

Soft-dark!Bucky, whose basket fills slowly with small, useless proof that he has reasons to see you.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who starts knowing your shifts without meaning to.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who tells himself it is not stalking if he only notices.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who notices you always work the afternoon shift, notices you drink your coffee too sweet and too cold because you keep forgetting about it behind the counter, and notices your smile changes when you are being polite instead of pleased.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who starts walking past the store even when he has nothing to buy.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who pauses at the window if you are near the front.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who tells himself he is checking whether you got home safe when he sees you leave after closing.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who keeps enough distance that you never turn around.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who hates himself the first time.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who does it again the next night.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who tells himself the city is dangerous, that men are dangerous, that he knows exactly what a dangerous man looks like because he was one - because maybe he still is one- because maybe that's exactly why he's the only one who could keep you safe.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who watches a contractor lean over the counter one Tuesday, with an elbow planted too close to your hand, voice low and easy in a way that has nothing to do with hardware.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who stands by the paint chips with a strip of color samples he doesn't need, watching the back of that man's neck, doing the kind of math he was trained to do in a different context. Distance, angle, how many seconds.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who has never had much.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who has had his body stolen, his mind fried, his name erased.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who has spent decades being emptied out and then handed back to the world, and expected to act grateful there was anything left.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who starts thinking, quietly and then not quietly enough, that maybe he deserves one good thing.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who knows that is a selfish thought.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who lets himself have it anyway.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who hears “Bucky” from your lips and feels something inside him sit up like a starving dog.

Soft-dark!Bucky, whose body remembers want before his mind permits it, a pressure in his loins when you reach for something on a high shelf and the hem of your skirt rides up, gone as fast as it came, leaving him furious at himself for noticing, for wanting, like wanting were still a thing that got him punished.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who starts imagining you saying his name in his apartment, against his throat instead of across a counter.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who starts imagining you barefoot in his kitchen, wearing one of his shirts, complaining about the cabinet handle he still has not fixed.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who starts imagining what your hands would feel like against his chest, his back, then lower.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who has to leave the store early one afternoon because the thought arrives too vivid, too sudden, and his body answers before he can stop it.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who stands in an alley two blocks away, breathing hard like it's a flashback, except this one he doesn't want to end.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who does not think of taking you, but of bringing you home.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who knows exactly how that sounds.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who still comes into the store with his careful voice and his tired eyes and his useless little purchases.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who lets you tease him about becoming the most prepared tenant in Brooklyn.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who says, “Something like that.”

Soft-dark!Bucky, who is gentle with you every time he sees you.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who carries heavy boxes from the delivery truck because the kid scheduled to help called in sick.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who fixes the jammed back door in twelve seconds and pretends not to understand why you look impressed.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who walks you to the corner in the rain to take a cab because he has an umbrella and you do not.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who looks almost boyish when you say, “You’re sweet, you know that?”

Soft-dark!Bucky, who has been called many things.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who has never believed that one.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who goes home shaking because you touched his arm when you said goodbye.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who sits on the edge of his bed for an hour with that touch burning through his sleeve, then gives in -finally, helplessly- to wanting, his metal hand braced on the headboard as the other strokes his aching cock.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who hates how easy it is now. How fast his body answers for you when it answered for no one, nothing, for seventy years.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who thinks about the alley behind the store, the broken security light, and the back entrance you forget to lock until after counting the register.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who thinks about how easy it would be.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who hates that he knows how easy it would be.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who shows up the next day pale and quiet, buys a single pack of picture hooks.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who stares at your lips while you ring him up.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who listens to you talk about a customer, about the weather, about the chalkboard falling over again in the wind.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who has to look away first when your gaze finds his, even if he has never had to look away first from anything in the last few decades.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who thinks you have no idea how close you are to being his.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who smiles when you hand him the receipt.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who says, “See you tomorrow.”

Soft-dark!Bucky, who means it like a promise.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who stands there in the dim apartment, surrounded by all the things he bought from you and never used, and realizes the basket was never full of repairs, but full of steps.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who looks at all that and understands he bought a home in pieces before he knew who he was making it for.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who finally fixes the cabinet handle.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who makes the apartment quieter, softer, less broken.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who hangs the brass hook by the door and imagines your coat there.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who tells himself he can make it all nice for you, that you’ll be scared at first, but only at first.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who has survived too much to keep being empty-handed.

Soft-dark!Bucky, who has decided that the world has taken enough from him, and that this time, when it places something good within reach, he is not giving it back.

Needed to figure out what, exactly, she'd just fed and cured and lied to a policeman for.

"Alright, Mr. Barnes." She laced her fingers together in her lap, spine straight. Professional. "I think we need to have a frank conversation about where you actually came from."

His jaw shifted. A muscle jumped near his ear. "I told you-"

"You told me you're a knight who came here through a magic ring." She kept her voice gentle, the tone she used with customers who were difficult but not deliberately rude. "And I'm trying very hard to be understanding, but you have to see how that sounds."

"I am aware," he said quietly, "how it sounds."

The resignation in his voice caught her off guard. He sounded tired.

She studied him, trying to catalog the pieces that didn't fit.

The vocabulary. Nobody spoke like him unless they were performing, and he did it too naturally, even when he was startled or off-balance. That took education. Years of it.

A professor, maybe. Before the war.

Except professors were bookish men with ink-stained fingers and reading glasses, who got winded on staircases and couldn't lift a sack of flour without wheezing.

This man was not that.

This man's shoulders tested the seams of that linen shirt every time he breathed, and had calloused hands.

An enthusiast, then. One of those men who took historical recreation seriously. Joined societies, learned swordplay, commissioned authentic reproductions.

That would explain the clothes, the boots, and the strange belt with its reinforced straps.

It would even explain the confusion with modern objects, if the war had... broken something, sent his mind retreating into the safer world of his obsession.

She'd heard of that. Men who came back believing they were still in the trenches, or still dodging things that had stopped falling years ago.

Why not a man who believed he was a knight?

"You were in the war," she said.

He blinked. "Which war?"

"The war," she repeated. "World War II.”

"I know nothing about that war."

Her stomach did something complicated.

"You... don't know World War II."

"No."

She sat back slightly.

Amnesia could do strange things. She knew that. Trauma could erase memories, create gaps, make a man forget his own mother's face.

"What about… Hitler?" she tried, her voice careful. "Roosevelt? Eisenhower?"

Each name landed with the same blank incomprehension.

He wasn't pretending; his expression was genuine.

"Alright," she said slowly. "What about... England? You know England?"

"Of course I know England." His shoulders stiffened. "I'm not an imbecile."

"I didn't say you were. Who's the king of England?"

"Henry of Monmouth." No hesitation. "Son of Henry Bolingbroke."

She stared at him, her hands gone still in her lap.

That was... specific.

The kind of detail a professor would know, certainly. Or an enthusiast with an encyclopedic knowledge of the period.

"Henry of… Monmouth," she repeated.

"Yes."

"Not Queen Elizabeth."

"Who?"

"Queen Elizabeth. The Second."

He looked at her with perfect, uncomprehending silence.

"A queen," he said finally. "Reigning. Not beside a king."

"That's right."

“You don’t think a woman can hold a country together.”

“I think a country is held together by men willing to bleed for whoever wears the crown,” he said, leaning forward slightly, as if the point mattered enough to close the distance for. “And such men are not moved by right alone. They want coin, land, fear, favor, God, glory… something. A queen may rule, yes. But every lord who doubts her will call that doubt reason, and every lord who wants more than he is owed will call it principle.”

“That’s almost progressive of you, Mr. Barnes.”

"I am simply experienced in how quickly men forget their oaths when it's convenient." Something flickered behind his eyes, brief and unreadable, gone before she could name it. His jaw clenched around whatever it was, and he didn't offer it to her.

She let the quiet be for a moment, then circled back to the part that actually mattered.

"Who's your king? Now, I mean. Currently."

He lifted one eyebrow, as if she'd asked him what color the sky was. "Well. I told you, the king of England."

"I asked you who the king of England was, not your king. Didn’t see you as one." She blinked.

"I am a knight of the Realm." Said slowly, and he straightened as he said it, shoulders pulling back like the title still meant something even here.

She studied him properly now, turning the new information over. It explained nothing and complicated everything.

"You don't sound English," she said.

His brows drew together, that particular brand of offense she was starting to recognize. "My speech is perfectly proper."

"I'm not saying it isn't proper. I'm saying it's not-" She gestured vaguely with one hand, searching for the word. "You don't sound like an Englishman. You sound like-"

Like nothing she could place, was the honest answer. Not quite American, not quite anything she'd heard from the newsreels or the actors who played dukes in the pictures. The vowels were wrong. The rhythm was off.

"I assure you, wench, there is nothing wrong with my diction."

The air between them went very still.

"I beg your pardon?"

He paused, reading something in her face that made him go very still, the same stillness she imagined he used right before a fight.

Her voice had dropped to something soft and dangerous.

"What did you just call me, you inconsiderate piece of-"

"But you are," he cut in, baffled, hands lifting slightly, palms out in a universal gesture. "How else would you have me address you?"

Her mouth fell open. Heat crawled up her neck.

"Something polite would be a fine start."

"I was not impolite."

"You called me a wench."

"Yes."

"That is not polite."

"It is not an insult."

"It absolutely is."

His frown deepened, not with anger this time, but with concentration. His head tilted slightly, eyes narrowing like he was working through a puzzle with missing pieces.

"It means a young woman," he said slowly, his hands opening wider as if to count off points in an argument he was now losing. "You are a woman. You are not old. I made no accusation beyond the obvious."

She stared at him.

He stared back, and now he looked genuinely wrong-footed. His weight shifted slightly on the crate. The set of his shoulders had gone uncertain.

"I never thought," he added, the words coming slower now, more careful, "that I would live to meet a woman offended by being called young."

For one second, her hand twitched in her lap.

Then she inhaled through her nose, long and deliberate.

"Mr. Barnes."

"Yes." His posture changed: spine straighter, chin tucked just slightly. He'd learned that tone meant something was coming.

"Do not call me that again."

He considered this. His jaw worked, muscle jumping beneath the skin. She could see the struggle play out across his face ,pride pulling one way, survival pulling the other.

"As you wish," he said at last.

"Thank you."

A pause. The warehouse settled around them, the distant drip of water from a pipe somewhere in the back.

And then, because apparently he couldn't help himself, his head tilted. His mouth opened.

"But for the sake of accuracy-"

"No."

His mouth shut.

"And do not call any other woman that either," she added. "Unless you have a particular fondness for being slapped."

His brows drew together, and something in his expression suggested he was filing this away with real seriousness. Useful intelligence, not a reprimand he needed to absorb.

"This century is very particular."

"You have no idea."

He let that sit, some of the tension easing out of his shoulders, though his jaw stayed set in the particular way of someone who still believed himself in the right and had simply decided the argument wasn't worth the cost of continuing it.

She watched him for a moment. Watched the stubbornness, watched him go quiet again, and felt the conversation circle back, unbidden, to the question she hadn't actually answered yet. The one underneath all the others.

What are we going to do with you?

He had -technically- no family. No household. No money she'd seen, no papers, no anything that would let him walk into a rooming house and rent a room for the night without someone asking questions he couldn't answer. He didn't know what a dollar looked like. He'd nearly died crossing a street that had a stop sign on it.

He could not survive a week alone in this city. She was fairly certain he couldn't survive an afternoon.

His alternatives, if he really had no one, were bad. A precinct cell. A ward. Some institution that wouldn't ask whether his story was true so much as whether it was inconvenient, and either answer would end with him strapped to a bed and explaining himself to men with far less patience than she currently had.

She thought of the flinch on the sidewalk.

That decided it, more than the king or the dates or any of it.

She exhaled slowly, already regretting the sentence before she'd finished thinking it.

"Mr. Barnes."

"Yes." He asked, wary now.

"How many of your people live here? In this city, I mean. Anyone you could go to."

"None." Flat. No hedging, no attempt to dress it up.

"Right." She pressed her lips together, She pressed her lips together, snapping a loose splinter from the edge of her crate under her thumbnail."And you have no money that would mean anything here, no papers, no notion of how anything works, and you nearly got flattened by a car within five minutes of standing on a sidewalk."

His chin lifted, and he opened his mouth, presumably to defend the car incident, his jaw already set, and she lifted a hand to stop him.

"I'm not finished."

He closed his mouth, though not without making her wait a beat for it, as if closing it on his own schedule rather than her command. A tiny, huffed breath escaped his nose, sharp with annoyance.

"So here's where we are," she said, and hated, faintly, how reasonable she was about to sound about something so spectacularly unreasonable. "You can't go anywhere. You can't be left anywhere. And the only people who'd take an interest in a man who thinks cars are-" She stopped herself. "Well. The only people who'd take interest are exactly the people you do not want taking interest."

His expression had gone very still.

"What are you implying?" His voice had dropped, low and careful, no irritation left in it now.

She took a breath.

"I think," she said carefully, "that for the time being, it would be sensible for you to come stay with me."

He blinked once, slow, like he was making sure he’d heard the words right.

"Your home," he said.

"It's a few blocks from here. It's not big, but it has another little bedroom that was occupied until two months ago." She crossed her arms. "It's the only option that doesn't end with you in a cell or a ward, so."

He studied her for a long moment, and she could see him working through it methodically.

"Who else lives there?" he said. "What relatives?"

"None." She said simply.

His brow creased slightly. "Servants, then."

She huffed a short, dry laugh at that.

"No servants."

The crease deepened. He seemed to turn the information over again, searching for the piece he was missing, and when he spoke again, there was a faint reluctance to ask a question he wasn't sure he wanted answered.

"...Husband?"

"No husband."

"This plan is improper."

She rolled her eyes so hard it was nearly audible. "Here we go."

"A woman, alone, inviting a man into her home, with no one else present-"

His gaze dropped, just briefly, to her lips before he dragged it back up to her eyes.

She noticed. It wasn't the first time he did that.

"Mr. Barnes." She held up a hand. "I live alone. I have lived alone for four years now, and the world has not ended yet."

"It is not done."

"It's done plenty. It's just not talked about plenty." She shrugged. "It's not exactly admired, sure. If my father were alive, he'd have an opinion. The ladies at church would have more opinions. But nobody's going to drag me out into the street over it. A woman living alone doesn't get burned for it anymore, metaphorically or otherwise."

He did not look reassured by this. If anything, his jaw set harder.

"All I'm saying," she went on, "is that it's not ideal, but it's not the end of the world either. What would be the end of the world is if you were wandering this city alone for another five minutes. So." She spread her hands. "We just need a story. Something that holds up better than cousin from up north."

He was quiet for a moment, jaw tight, visibly weighing decorum against the plain, undeniable reality of his situation. When he finally spoke, it was with the air of a man conceding a point he still didn't agree with.

"A story," he repeated slowly.

"Not family," she said. "I thought about it, but it won't hold. I've got an old lady two streets over who knows every branch of my family tree better than the family does, and if she so much as hears the word cousin, she'll want to know which side, whose son, why she's never heard the name. It'll fall apart in a week."

"You said that already. To the officer."

"I panicked. It was the first thing that came out of my mouth, and it's already on borrowed time." She shook her head. "We need something that doesn't put you inside the family, just close enough to it that nobody questions why you're suddenly attached to me."

He waited, watching her think, arms loosely crossed, which she found oddly easier to do with him quiet than when he was arguing.

"I could say… I'm employing you," she offered. "Heaven knows the shop could use the extra hands, lifting and deliveries and all that. But a woman hiring a man she's never met before, taking him into her home on top of it-" She made a face. "That's not believable either. It's not even wise, frankly, even though it's exactly what I'm doing."

"Then what." His voice was calm, no impatience in it.

"We merge them." She sat up a little straighter. "Something like... you're the son of a friend of my uncle's. Out east, far enough that nobody local would know the family to dispute it. Your father wrote ahead, asked if I could help you find work and a place to land while you got settled in the city."

His eyes narrowed slightly, thinking it through.

"And if someone asks the name of this uncle, this friend?"

"Then we'll have an answer ready before anyone asks the question." She tapped her fingers against her knee. "It just needs to be boring enough that nobody wants to follow up. Nobody interrogates a dull story. They interrogate interesting ones."

A pause. He glanced at her sideways, something almost wry settling into the line of his mouth.

"I am, apparently, an interesting story," he said dryly.

"I have to admit," she said, "that you are the single least boring thing that has happened to me in years."

----

Bucky looked at her, and for a moment, he said nothing.

There were several ways to answer that. Most of them, unkind.

Least boring.

It was not her fault, exactly. She had meant it lightly, or as lightly as a woman could mean anything after finding a wounded stranger in her stockroom, lying to a city guardsman for him, feeding him, tending his face, and then offering him a place beneath her roof with the practicality of someone discussing bad weather.

But the words settled poorly all the same, a low weight behind his ribs that had nothing to do with the wound there.

To her, perhaps, he was strange. A problem. A curiosity dropped through the ceiling by whatever god had run out of better things to do.

To him, this was his life.

Or what remained of it.

His room above the cooper's shop. His armor left beside a cold hearth. His prize chest with the coins. The estate he had meant to rebuild, as if enough work could make a ruin into a home and a man into something other than what captivity had left of him.

All of it was gone.

Not destroyed, or stolen. Not even lost in any ordinary sense.

Simply elsewhere.

Hundreds and hundreds of years behind him, if she was to be believed.

If the calendar was to be believed.

If the things outside, the light without flame, the clothing, the speech, the queen ruling England, the glass and wires, and horseless carriages were all to be believed.

He had more questions than there were saints to hear them.

But questions did not put food in a man's belly. Questions did not give him coin, shelter, papers, allies, or a road back to where he belonged.

The woman across from him might.

That was the difficulty.

She sat on the overturned crate with her arms folded, her mouth set in a way that made it clear she expected an argument and had already prepared to be irritated by it.

There was soil on one sleeve. A smear of dust near the hem of her skirt. Her painted lips had held their color through the entire catastrophe of the morning, which continued to seem unreasonable and... distracting.

He found himself tracking the small movements of her mouth when she spoke and the way her bottom lip caught briefly on her teeth when she was thinking, before he caught the direction of his own attention and dragged it back where it belonged.

Focus.

The room smelled of cut stems and damp paper, sweet rot under something green, nothing like the smoke and tallow he knew. It should have unsettled him more than it did. Instead, it was her voice that kept pulling him back, low and certain, cutting through everything else like a familiar sound in a foreign field.

People did not take in strangers for no reason. They did not endanger their reputations, lie to men in uniform, and offer spare bedrooms out of the goodness of their hearts unless there was something wrong with them, something wanted, or something hidden underneath.

He had learned that lesson well enough. Kindness was rarely free, and mercy even less so.

"What do you gain from this?" he asked, leaning forward slightly, elbows finding his knees.

Her brows drew together slightly.

"What?"

"This arrangement." He kept his voice even, though something in him stayed braced, waiting to hear the price named. "My staying in your household. Working in your shop. This story you are building around me."

"I'm not building-"

"You are." He watched her face as he said it, the way her chin had lifted half an inch, almost daring him to push further. "You seem to have taken care of the situation and threaded some narrative. You seem good at it."

That stopped her.

A little.

Not because the words were flattering. They were not meant to be. A person could be good at lying for a great many reasons, most of them unpleasant.

Her expression shifted, offended first, then thoughtful despite herself, her arms tightening around her body.

"I am trying to keep you out of trouble."

"Why?"

"Because if you haven't noticed, you are in trouble."

"That is not an answer."

"It is a perfectly good answer."

"It is a charitable answer." His hand tightened once over his knee before he made it relax, the motion deliberate, the way he might force open a fist mid-fight. "Charity is what people name a thing when they would rather not name its price."

She stared at him. He had said too much, perhaps.

No. Not too much. Enough.

"So what do I gain, you want to know?" she repeated.

"Yes."

"A scandal, probably. More work. A great deal of inconvenience. The pleasure of explaining traffic laws to a man who thinks bicycles are sorcery. Possibly an ulcer."

"I do not know what that is."

"Lucky you."

For the first time since she had mentioned the spare room, something like amusement tried to move through him.

He did not permit it far.

She leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on her knees now, close enough that he caught the faint warmth of her body, and soap and something floral from the shop clinging to her skin.

"Look," she said. "You want a price? Fine. The price is that you work. You do what you're told when you're in the shop. You carry crates, sweep, make deliveries once I can trust you not to get lost, and keep your opinions about my clothes and my lack of chaperone to yourself."

A muscle in his jaw shifted. His gaze dropped, briefly, to the offending hem of her skirt, then back up.

"It remains improper." He said it flatly, arms crossing over his chest.

"It remains none of your business." She matched the posture, her own arms tightening around herself, chin tilting up to hold his gaze.

"If I am under your roof," he said, his voice dropping low rather than rising, "your reputation becomes my business." He uncrossed his arms, and the linen of his sleeves brushed against his skin as he leaned forward, closing the gap between them by the width of two hands. Close enough to see the flecks of color in her eyes, the slight flare of her nostrils.

Her mouth opened. Closed. The quick inhale of breath was audible in the quiet warehouse.

There. He still had some ground beneath his feet, then.

"I may not understand this place." He weighed each word before speaking it, refusing to let her impatience rush him. "But I understand that a woman's name can be damaged by a man's presence. That has not changed. You said so yourself."

Her eyes searched his face.

He let her, holding still, giving nothing away on purpose.

"I will not be the cause of that," he added.

He was many things. Some of them worse than she knew. But he was not that.

Her expression softened, and the change in her face made his own shoulders tense. Softness was dangerous. It made men careless, made them reach for things they had no right to take.

"My point is-"

"The point is," she cut in, “that if we both manage to behave decently in front of the neighbors-"

She stopped.

His eyebrows rose. The slow tap of his boot against the floor ceased instantly. He went utterly still, letting the silence stretch.

Heat flooded her cheeks, quick and sudden. She glared at the floor, angry with herself, before transferring the glare to him.

"Not that we would behave indecently out of sight," she said, the words tumbling out quick and uneven. "Obviously. I- if we behave decently. In general. Everywhere. At all times." She bit off each syllable, her arms crossing tight over her chest, hands gripping her own elbows as if she could physically squeeze the sentence back into nothing.

"There should not be a problem with that," he agreed, his voice dropping a fraction, unhurried and thick with a sudden, dark amusement he couldn't entirely swallow.

"Exactly."

"But there may be... talk," he finished, steering them back to the danger he saw.

Her mouth pressed into a thin line.

"Yes," she said. "There may be. People talk. People always talk. They talked when I decided to live alone after my father died, when I kept the shop instead of looking for a husband, and they'll talk if I take in a stray cat. I can't live by people's imagination."

"I am not a cat."

"No." She looked him over. Her gaze moved from his broad shoulders down to his scuffed boots and back up to his face. "You are much less convenient."

Despite himself, the corner of his mouth twitched upward.

She pointed at him before it could become anything, putting the line back where it belonged. "You'll help in the shop, carry deliveries, stay out of trouble, and sleep in the spare room. That's the arrangement. Boring, practical, and temporary."

Temporary.

Of course, it was needless to say.

He would find his footing. He always had. Could earn coin, acquire what he needed, find his way back or -if God and all his saints had truly abandoned him-find a way forward.

But not today.

Today, he had no coin that meant anything here. No horse, no blade, no armor. The clothes on his back were torn and bloodstained, and he could smell the sweat and dirt on himself. His ribs were a constant, grinding ache every time he drew breath. The cut on his face throbbed dully where she had cleaned it.

He had nothing, except this woman, with her sharp tongue and her poorly-concealed softness, offering him a place to land as if that were not an absurdly reckless thing to do.

He straightened slightly, ignoring the pull of bruised muscle along his side.

"I accept," he said.

Her shoulders dropped half an inch.

Relief. Quickly hidden, but not quickly enough.

"Good," she said. "That's… good."

"I am in your debt."

"No, you-"

"I am," he repeated.

His voice came out firm enough to stop the protest before it could gather momentum. She closed her mouth, but the objection remained in her eyes.

He extended his hand across the narrow space between them, palm open, offering what little he had left to offer. His word. His obligation.

She looked down at his hand, then back up at his face. Then she placed her hand in his.

Her palm was warm and smaller than his, but not fragile. There was work in it, a faint roughness on her skin from whatever this century asked of a woman who kept her own roof and business.

He closed his hand around hers with care, then bent his head and pressed his mouth to her knuckles.

The kiss was brief. Formal. The way a knight acknowledged a debt to a lady, the way oaths were sealed.

Her breath caught. He heard it, a small, sharp inhale that made the space between them feel suddenly smaller.

But she didn't pull her hand away. She went still instead, her hand resting in his, her skin warm beneath his mouth, and for the length of one heartbeat, the gesture became something less simple than it should have been.

He knew better.

He did.

She had offered him shelter, not an invitation. Terms, not softness. And yet his body, treacherous and exhausted and starved of gentleness, noted the warmth of her hand as if it were a thing worth remembering.

His lips lingered a moment longer than strictly necessary, and his thumb brushed once -accidentally, or perhaps not- against her pulse point.

When he lifted his head, her eyes were wide, fixed on his face with an expression he couldn't quite read. Surprise, yes. But not alarm.

That was the part he noticed, and he shouldn’t have noticed.

He released her slowly, letting her hand slip from his grip by degrees. His fingertips trailed against hers at the last, a final, improper accident neither of them commented on.

"Thank you," he said quietly.

Her hand dropped to her lap, where it closed once into the fabric of her skirt before smoothing flat again.

"You're welcome," she murmured.

Dust motes drifted lazily through the slant of afternoon light, as the smell of foliage and broken soil surrounded them.

She cleared her throat, the sound small but deliberate.

"Right." She stood, brushing her palms against her skirt in a quick, nervous gesture. "We should probably go. You need to get cleaned up, and I need to find you something to wear that won't get you arrested for vagrancy."

His ribs ground out a complaint sharp enough to darken the edge of his vision, but he ignored it. There would be time to hurt later. Or there would not. Either way, standing was required first.

"Lead on, then."

She nodded once, already turning toward the door. But her hand -the one he'd kissed- stayed closed loosely at her side, fingers flexing once before going still.

Bucky looked away before she could notice him noticing.

Beyond the door waited the shop, and beyond the shop, the street. The roaring carriages, the wires in the sky, the glass-eyed windows, the women walking with bare calves as if the world had always allowed it.

He drew one careful breath.

Then another.

And forced himself to cross the threshold after her.

Next Chapter

One passed close enough that the wind of it tugged at his tunic.

He started walking.

His gaze roamed over everything: the glass fronts of the shops, the painted signs, the wires strung between buildings like black veins against the grey sky. And the people.

Lord, the people.

Men in strange short coats and narrow hats. Women with bare legs, bare arms, painted mouths, walking alone as though the world had not lost its mind.

Another contraption rolled past him.

A man balanced on a device with two impossibly thin wheels, propelling himself forward with his own legs pumping at metal arms near the ground. No horse. No visible engine or magic. Just the man and the skeletal black frame beneath him, moving at a speed no human should manage on foot.

Bucky stopped dead.

The thing came at him with no reins, no visible means of being controlled beyond the rider's boots working those narrow metal arms. Its wheels were impossibly thin, its bell giving a sharp little trill that cut through the street noise like a thrown knife.

The rider leaned around him at the last possible moment, coat flapping, one hand lifted from the handlebar in furious accusation.

"Watch it, pal!"

Bucky turned with him, tracking the motion, the insult, the impossible narrow-wheeled thing as it shot past his shoulder close enough that he felt the brush of air against his sleeve. His boots moved half a step off the curb before his mind had decided anything useful.

A horn blared. A flat, mechanical scream that didn't belong to any animal he'd ever heard.

He turned back just as one of those horseless carriages -wide and green and shining like a beetle's carapace- bore down on him with two round eyes burning pale through the grey morning. For a heartbeat, he stood rooted to the ground, unable to make his legs obey.

Then, a hand closed around his left wrist.

The contact went through him like a struck bell, and his whole body answered before thought could intervene, muscles jerking in the direction of the grip, boots scraping over wet pavement as he stumbled backward.

Pain lit up his ribs, white and vicious. The green beast roared past close enough that its wind slapped cold against his face, horn still bellowing as the driver shouted something filthy through an open window and did not stop.

Bucky hit the edge of the sidewalk hard enough to jar his teeth.

The woman struck him in the arm a second later with her free hand. Not hard, exactly, but sharp enough to snap him back to his senses.

"What is wrong with you?"

He stared at the place where the carriage had been, watching it disappear down the street.

The traffic kept moving as if nothing had happened.

Another one followed behind it. Dark blue this time. Smaller. More of them farther down the road, parked along the curb like sleeping beasts, their windows reflecting pieces of the sky in impossibly clear glass.

His wrist was still held.

He looked down at it.

Her fingers were wrapped tight enough to blanch the skin beneath her own knuckles. She seemed to realize it at the same moment he did and let go at once, as if his skin had burned her.

Her mouth moved. Red. That impossible red, angry now.

"Do you have a special wish to die this morning?"

He heard the words. Understood them individually. Could not make them gather into meaning.

His hands were empty. He had no sword. No shield. No idea what kingdom this was, what laws governed it, what god had built machines to transport people without horses as though it were the most natural thing in the world, people walking past in their strange attire as if nothing remarkable had happened.

His chest worked once.

Then again.

The breath would not settle.

He tried to force it down into the place where his discipline lived. The old place. The trained place. The place that had carried him through broken ribs, frozen marches, cells too dark to measure time in, men asking questions with tools because words had failed to satisfy them.

It was there.

He could feel its shape, familiar as the weight of a sword, but he simply could not reach it.

The street stretched wide before him, slick and grey, full of motion. The wires overhead trembled in the wind. Somewhere nearby, unseen machinery thudded and clanged. A woman laughed. A dog barked. Another horn sounded in the distance, and his shoulders flinched before he could stop them.

----

She saw the flinch.

It was small, almost nothing, just the quick betrayal of his shoulders at the distant horn, but it made whatever else she had been about to say die behind her lips.

Her question was still there between them, and he had not answered it.

Not that he was ignoring her. Not exactly. Men ignored women in a variety of ways, and she had developed, over the course of owning a business and being alive in general, a fairly extensive catalogue.

This wasn't that.

This man was not ignoring her.

He was… not there. Not properly.

He stood six inches from her on the sidewalk outside her own shop, broad and filthy and absurd in those boots, and looked past her with eyes that had gone distant in a way that made the back of her neck prickle.

The color had drained from his face.

The bruise along his cheekbone looked darker for it, purple-black against the sudden pallor. The cut above his brow, which she had almost forgotten in the general catastrophe of him, had opened again somehow; a thin line of red slipped down toward his temple.

His body was trembling.

Not dramatically. Nothing anyone passing by would notice unless they were close enough to see the tiny, involuntary shiver running through his hands. Through his jaw. Through the tendons in his neck, standing out like rope under skin.

She saw it because she was standing too close.

Because she had grabbed his wrist and felt the shock.

Because for one terrible second, when the car had come at him, and he had simply stood there, she had known with absolute certainty that he was about to die in front of The Sweet Briar before the shop had even opened for the day.

Her own heart was still beating in her throat.

"You could have been killed," she said, quieter this time.

He did not answer.

His gaze flicked once to the street, then to the cars, then upward to the wires, then back to the place where the green car had disappeared around the corner. Too much. That was what his face said now, beneath the stubbornness, beneath the absurd severity of all that knight-of-the-realm nonsense.

Her anger lost its footing.

Damn him.

Damn him for being frightening, and rude, and possibly insane, and then standing there looking like a lost thing that had wandered too far from wherever it belonged.

"Mr. Barnes," she said carefully.

His eyes moved to her face. Not focused, at first.

She lifted both hands a little, palms angled toward him in what she hoped was a calming gesture.

"Listen to me," she said. "You need to come back inside."

His jaw shifted.

"No."

Of course.

Of course the man who had nearly been flattened by a sedan five seconds ago still had room in him to be obstinate.

She took a breath and counted to three.

"Fine. Stay out here. Get yourself killed. But do it after lunch hour, so at least my customers don't have to step over you to buy lilies."

Something passed across his face. A flicker. Not amusement, exactly, but something close to it. Then his attention cut past her shoulder.

She followed it automatically.

A patrolman was coming down the opposite side of Camden Street from the corner near Levinson's pharmacy, where the sidewalk opened into a clear view of the street in front of her shop.

He must have seen the bicycle swerve. Must have seen the car skim by close enough to make two women outside the bakery gasp into their gloves.

And now he was looking directly at her companion.

At the strange clothes. The long hair. The bruising on his face. The blood at his brow. The size of him. The way he stood there, pale and shaking and not quite oriented toward the world around him.

The patrolman adjusted his cap and crossed the street at an angle, long strides eating up the wet pavement with purpose.

Oh, wonderful.

Perfect.

Exactly what the morning needed.

She turned back to Mr. Barnes.

Something in him changed. The trembling did not stop, but it went underground, forced beneath a sudden hardening of posture. His shoulders squared. His chin lifted. The lost look vanished so quickly that if she had not been watching, she might have thought she'd imagined it.

A mask, she realized.

No. Not a mask.

An armor.

He didn’t have one, so his face became it.

"Don't," she said under her breath.

His eyes did not leave the approaching patrolman. "Don't what."

"Whatever it is you're about to do."

"I am doing nothing."

"You're standing like you're about to challenge the entire police department to single combat."

His gaze cut briefly to her, offended despite everything. "I don't know what that is."

"That," she said, pointing with one discrete motion of her head toward the uniform, "is a policeman. He keeps order. He asks questions. He carries a gun. And if you call him a knave or try to throw him to the floor, this morning is going to get much worse for both of us."

The word gun did something. His eyes narrowed slightly.

"A guardsman."

"Close enough."

"Yours?"

"What?"

"Is he yours?"

She stared at him. "No, he is not mine. I don't keep policemen."

The patrolman was halfway across the street now. She had perhaps eight seconds before he reached them.

Eight seconds to decide whether to tell the truth -which would sound insane- or lie.

This strange, injured man appeared in my locked stockroom. He says he's a medieval knight and believes I'm a witch. Oh, and he almost died because he doesn't understand automobiles.

Yes, officer, please take him somewhere kind.

But there was nowhere kind, and that was the problem.

She knew enough about the state institutions to know that. A man like him was not gently escorted to a warm bed and a sensible doctor. A man like this would get handcuffed if he startled the wrong person. A cell if he argued. A hospital ward, if someone felt charitable. An institution, if someone with authority decided his mind was more inconvenient than treatable.

The officer stepped up onto the curb.

"Morning, ma'am," he said, though his eyes stayed mostly on Barnes. "Everything all right here?"

She smiled.

It was not a good smile. It arrived quickly and had too many teeth, the kind of smile that fooled absolutely no one but was required by the social contract.

"Good morning, officer."

Barnes looked at her.

She felt it rather than saw it, the sudden sharp turn of his attention. Suspicious. Assessing. Probably wondering if she was about to have him arrested, detained, executed, or whatever else knights expected from guardsmen in impossible cities.

She kept smiling.

"Had a little scare, that's all."

The patrolman's gaze moved over the man beside her again, slow and professional, cataloguing details. "Looked like your friend here nearly stepped in front of a car."

Friend.

The word hung there, wrong and convenient.

Barnes's expression did not change, but she could feel his objection forming between his brows like a gathering storm.

She stepped on it before it could speak.

"My cousin," she said.

The patrolman blinked. So did the man beside her.

She did not look at him.

"My cousin," she repeated, silently kicking herself for the flimsy excuse even as she committed to it. "From up north."

The patrolman's brows lifted slightly.

"Up north."

"A little town near Mount Katahdin. Very remote, really. Hardly any roads to speak of."

Behind her, he drew a slow breath through his nose. She could feel judgment radiating from him like heat from a stove. She ignored it.

"He came in early this morning, he’s looking for a job, you see," she continued with a bright tone. "He's had a long trip and hardly slept. He’s a stubborn backwoodsman with no sense around traffic. He was bewildered by the view, and then that bicycle startled him, and- well. You saw what happened.”

"I saw him walk into traffic."

"Yes. He does that."

The patrolman squinted at her, and she immediately regretted having a mouth.

"I mean," she amended quickly, "he doesn't usually do that. Obviously. That would be very troubling as a habit. He's just tired. Disoriented. And he took a fall yesterday, so he's not entirely himself."

The officer's gaze went to the bruise on Barnes's cheek, then the cut above his brow, lingering there with professional interest.

"A fall."

"From a horse," she said.

That, at least, felt thematically appropriate.

Barnes's head turned very, very slowly toward her.

She gave him a look that she hoped communicated several things at once, including but not limited to: be quiet, I am saving you, and if you ruin this, I will personally murder you with a pair of pruning shears.

Miraculously, he said nothing.

The patrolman studied him for a long moment.

"That true, sir?"

His eyes moved from her to the officer.

A pause. Too long. Much too long.

Then, with grave reluctance, "I was unseated."

Her eyes nearly closed with relief.

The patrolman seemed to accept this, or at least failed to find the obvious hole in it quickly enough to press. Maybe it was too early in the morning for him, too.

"Looks like you ought to have a doctor look at that."

"He will," she said firmly.

"I do not require-"

"He will," she repeated, louder, and smiled harder at the patrolman. "As soon as I get him inside and settled. He also needs a change of clothing, as you can see. Can't have him walking around looking like he lost a fight with a hay wagon."

The officer looked between them, considering.

The moment stretched.

Someone across the street had stopped pretending not to watch. Mrs. Kaplan from the bakery stood with one hand on her door, eyes bright with the terrible appetite of neighborhood gossip that would fuel conversations for a week.

No.

Absolutely not.

She could not have this become a story before mid-morning.

The patrolman finally nodded once, seeming to decide the situation was odd but not dangerous.

"Best keep him out of the road, then."

"That is very much my plan."

The man's gaze flicked to Barnes one more time. "You take care, sir. City streets aren't forgiving."

He looked at the road, then back at the officer, and when he spoke, his voice was quiet and oddly sincere.

"No," he said. "They are not."

Something in his tone made the patrolman pause, a flicker of concern crossing his features. But then he simply tipped his cap to her.

"Ma'am."

"Officer."

He moved on, though not quickly. She watched him walk back down the block toward the pharmacy, glancing back once before he reached the corner.

Only when he had turned out of sight did she let the smile fall off her face like an abandoned coat.

He was staring at her.

"What," she said flatly.

His expression was unreadable again, which she was beginning to suspect meant he was feeling several things at once and had decided none of them were fit for public display.

"Your cousin," he said.

"It was the first thing that came to mind."

"From up north."

"It seemed plausible."

"It did not."

"Well, he bought it, didn't he?"

"Did he?"

She looked toward the corner where the patrolman had disappeared. Then at Mrs. Kaplan, who was still watching from the bakery window like a hawk spotting a rabbit. Then at the two women whispering near the bus stop. Then at him, standing there like a brawl in human form, bleeding gently onto the collar of his impossible shirt.

"Maybe," she admitted.

A horn blared somewhere down the street, and he flinched.

Small, contained and brutally fast.

But she saw it.

His jaw clenched afterward, as if he could trap the reaction between his teeth and kill it there.

She sighed, feeling what was left of her anger drain away and leave behind something uncomfortably close to pity. And the very reasonable desire to shove him back into the street herself and let nature finish what the sedan had started.

But beneath all of it was the fact of him: pale, shaking, hurt, completely unmoored, and looking at Camden Street as if it were a battlefield he'd stumbled onto without armor or weapons or any idea which side he was meant to be fighting for.

"Inside," she said.

His eyes narrowed.

She pointed at the shop door behind them.

"Now."

"I told you-"

"I lied to a policeman for you, Mr. Barnes, so unless you'd like me to call him back and explain that you are not, in fact, my cousin from up north, you are going to walk through that door, sit down somewhere that is not my begonias, and let me clean the blood off your face before Mrs. Kaplan decides to come over here and ask questions I cannot answer."

He stared at her.

For one second, she could almost see the refusal rise in him, proud and immediate and utterly stupid.

Then another car passed, and he did not look at it; that was how she knew it had frightened him. Then, he turned toward the flower shop without another word.

The bell above the door gave its bright chime as he stepped back inside.

She followed, locked the door behind them, and flipped the sign to CLOSED with more force than strictly necessary.

----

Bucky heard the bolt slide into place with a soft, final click.

A small sound. Ordinary, probably, to her. To him, it landed with considerably more weight. The sound of a cell door, a gate closing, an exit sealed.

He turned his head to her.

She reached up and drew down a strange fabric stretched between narrow wooden slats that clattered softly as it descended, stopping halfway down the window. Not a curtain, exactly. Something that rolled and caught on a mechanism he couldn't see.

He noticed everything, apparently, except the things that might keep him from nearly being killed by horseless carriages.

"Come on," she said and walked past him toward the rear of the shop.

There were, at present, too many questions in his head. They had gathered in his head like crows on a battlefield fence, black and loud and waiting for something to die.

So he followed.

The shop looked different from behind her.

That was not a thought he should have had.

It arrived anyway, unbidden and unhelpful.

Her skirt moved when she walked, a soft, hypnotic sway that drew the eye and then punished the man attached to it for having one. The fabric brushed the backs of her knees with each step, and below that -God help him- her calves were bare, the skin catching the morning light filtering through the half-drawn shade.

The sight shouldn't have affected him the way it did.

He'd seen far worse immodesty in camp followers, tavern girls who unlaced their bodices for coin, even a countess once who'd been shameless enough to receive him in his own chambers in nothing but a loose shift that left very little to imagination.

But this felt different somehow.

Deliberate in its casualness. Ordinary in its brazenness.

As if every woman in this godforsaken century simply walked around like this, and he was the fool for noticing.

He wrenched his gaze toward the nearest bucket of flowers with such determination that he might as well have been preparing to duel it.

Roses.

White ones, their petals just beginning to unfurl, with the faintest blush of pink at the heart of each bloom. Innocent. Chaste. Entirely safe to look at.

Unlike certain other things in this room.

She reached the back room and stepped aside, pointing toward a chair beside the worktable.

"Sit."

He looked at it with immediate suspicion.

The chair was made of metal. Thin silver legs bent in a precise curve, holding up a seat covered in some smooth green material that was neither leather nor cloth. It shone faintly under the light overhead, reflecting the ceiling in a way that seemed unnatural.

Bucky stared at it for a second too long.

"It's a chair," she seemed fit to clarify.

"I can see that."

"Wonderful. Then use it."

He should not have.

There were several reasons he should not have.

For one, it was unwise to place himself at a disadvantage in a room he did not understand, with a woman he did not know, in a century that seemed very committed to making a fool of him at every opportunity.

For another, it was utterly inappropriate.

There was no servant. No matron tucked into the corner with her embroidery and her sharp little coughs to remind them of propriety. No chaperone at all to lend respectability to the fact that this woman was about to put her hands near his face, possibly his body, while the two of them were alone behind a locked door.

A decent man would object.

A prudent man would leave.

He sat.

The metal chair gave a faint protesting creak beneath his weight but did not collapse, which was more than he had expected from something built with legs that narrow. The act of lowering himself was unpleasant. His ribs had apparently chosen this moment to remind him -in exhaustive detail- that they had been cracked before the universe had lost its mind and had not improved during the intervening catastrophe.

His breath caught despite his best efforts.

She noticed. Her gaze flicked down to his side, then back up, too quick to be called staring and too sharp to be accidental.

"You hurt your ribs?"

"No."

She gave him a look that suggested she had heard better lies from children.

He met it stubbornly.

A pause.

"Yes," he admitted.

"Thought so."

She turned toward a small wooden cabinet mounted low on the wall and crouched down. From inside, she pulled out a metal case. Small, rectangular, with a hinged lid and a painted red cross on the top.

A coffer, his mind supplied automatically, though it was made of metal rather than wood, and far too uniform in its construction to have been hammered by any smith he knew.

She set it on the worktable and flipped the latch.

The cross should have been reassuring.

It was not.

Inside were bottles, tins, folded cloths, strange implements he had no names for. She began sorting through them, and he watched her hands move.

Competent hands. Not delicate, though they looked as if they could be when they wanted to. She knew where things were, even in the disorder. She found a clean cloth, a small brown bottle, and a roll of white bandaging and set them on the table.

He cleared his throat and she glanced over her shoulder.

The words should have come easily. Courtesy did, when one was raised with enough of it beaten in by tutors and lords and the general expectation of civilized behavior.

He had thanked lords he despised, maesters who'd prodded at wounds, servants who'd brought water, boys who'd held horses, women who had done far less for him than lie to an armed city guardsman.

Still, it took him a moment.

"For what you said to the guardsman," he began carefully. "Outside."

Her hands stilled completely. She turned to face him, the cloth still held loosely in her fingers.

"The policeman," she corrected gently.

"The policeman," he repeated, the word still feeling foreign on his tongue. He met her eyes. "For that. You have my thanks."

Something in her expression softened. The wariness didn't disappear entirely, but it eased.

"You're welcome," she said simply.

She set the cloth down on the worktable and leaned back against it, her hands bracing on the edge behind her. The posture was less guarded than before.

"Though for the record," she added, and there was the faintest hint of amusement in her voice now, "you made that more difficult than it needed to be."

He shifted in the metal chair, wincing slightly as his ribs protested. "I said very little."

"You said it with the face of a man about to fight." She tilted her head, studying him.

“I was inquired by a law enforcement."

"You were asked whether you fell off a horse." She crossed her ankles, settling more comfortably against the table. The motion drew his eye briefly to those impossible shoes before he forced his gaze back to her face.

"I was unseated," he corrected with careful dignity.

She blinked at him for a moment.

Then her lips curved into something that was almost a smile, warm in a way that made something in his chest tug unexpectedly.

"Fallen, unseated…" she said softly, waving her hand.

The strange thing was, he almost wanted to explain. Wanted to tell her that it was not the same thing at all.

That falling could be clumsy, careless, the result of poor seat or a man who didn't know his business. Being unseated meant impact, skill, another man's force meeting yours at the exact angle required to take you from the saddle despite everything you did to prevent it.

There was dignity in the distinction.

But she was looking at him with something gentler than he'd seen from her yet. So he did not explain. He was, as she had said, trying not to make things more difficult than they needed to be.

Also, and more pressing, he was hungry.

The realization came with embarrassing force now that he was seated and no longer fighting for his life against bicycles and automobiles. He had not eaten since before the tournament.

Had meant to, after. Had meant to remove his armor, find bread and stew at the tavern down the street, and perhaps sleep for half a day if his luck could be persuaded toward mercy for once.

Instead, he had put on a cursed ring and been thrown into a florist's back room nearly six centuries from where he belonged.

His stomach gave a low, traitorous growl that echoed in the stockroom with all the subtlety of a church bell at matins.

The woman paused mid-motion.

He closed his eyes briefly.

Lord.

When he opened them, she was looking at him with something that might have been concern or exasperation or both.

"When did you last eat?"

He considered lying.

His stomach, apparently tired of his pride, made the answer unnecessary by growling again, louder this time.

She set the cloth down with a soft sigh.

"Right," she said. "Blood first. Food after."

"That’s not-"

"Mr. Barnes."

He stopped.

Her tone had changed. It was the voice of a woman who had discovered the exact amount of patience she possessed and found him standing at the far edge of it with his boots on.

"You are bleeding, you nearly got killed by a car, and I have already lied to a policeman before midday.” She gestured at the chair, less sharp than simply direct. "Sit still and let me clean that before you pass out and make this morning worse than it already is. Then, we'll figure out food."

He was opening his mouth to object-

"Please," she added, and something about her tone reached him. So he leaned back in the metal chair and said nothing.

She seemed to take that as victory.

Perhaps it was.

She stepped closer, and the air between them shifted. He caught her scent more clearly now: flowers, yes, but also something faintly powdery and sweet that he couldn't name. Soap, perhaps. Or some cosmetic concoction women of this time favored.

The cloth in her hand was damp; he could see the darkness of moisture against the white fabric.

He kept perfectly still.

She bent toward him, close enough that her breath would have touched his face if she'd spoken, and then her fingers touched his jaw.

The contact was brief, impersonal, the gesture of someone accustomed to arranging things precisely.

It went through him like a strike of flint.

His breath caught with the sudden, with the unwelcome awareness of how close she was. How warm. How the neckline of her dress sat just low enough that if he dropped his gaze even slightly-

He locked his eyes on the ceiling and kept them there.

"Hold still," she said quietly.

He was already still. Rigid as a man in armor, every muscle tense by the maddening fact that her thumb was resting just below his jaw, her fingertips cool against the edge of his beard.

The damp cloth touched his brow.

Cool. Clean. It stung where the cut was, a sharp little bite that he barely felt through everything else.

What he felt was her.

The bend of her body as she leaned in. The brush of her skirt against his knee. Brief, accidental, gone before he could react. The small crease of concentration between her brows as she worked, utterly focused, utterly unaware of what the simple act of touching him was doing.

She tilted his face slightly toward the light.

His jaw shifted under her hand, and the movement made her fingers slide -just barely- along the line of bone and muscle beneath his ear.

Heat crawled up the back of his neck.

This was absurd.

She was cleaning a wound. Nothing more. She had shown him no interest beyond the bare minimum of human decency, and even that had been grudging. She thought him mad, or damaged, or some combination of both. She had called him cousin to a lawman to avoid further inconvenience.

And here he sat, breathing too carefully, thinking about what it would feel like if those hands moved with intent instead of practicality. If they slid into his hair. If her thumb pressed just a little harder against his throat. If she leaned closer and-

Fuck.

He was acting like some green boy again.

Worse. He was acting like a man who hadn't been touched by anyone in far too long, and whose body had decided now -of all the godsforsaken moments- was the time to remind him of it.

The cloth moved to his cheekbone, gentler now, following the edge of the bruise.

"It's not deep," she said after a moment. "Won't need stitches. Just needs to be clean."

"I've had worse." He managed.

"I don't doubt it."

She stepped back, and the absence of her touch was immediate and disorienting. She studied her work, then reached for the brown bottle, uncorking it with a soft pop.

The smell hit him immediately. Sharp. Medicinal. Something that burned the inside of his nose and made his eyes water.

"This is going to sting," she warned.

"I can-"

She dabbed it on before he could finish.

It did not sting.

It burned like the fires of hell had been distilled into liquid form and applied directly to his face.

He did not move. Did not make a sound.

His hand, however, gripped the edge of the metal chair hard enough that he heard the frame creak.

"Sorry," she said, and she actually sounded it. "It's awful, but it'll keep it from getting infected."

He managed a nod, not trusting his voice.

She corked the bottle and set it aside, examining the cut again, and then stepped back fully, putting a respectable distance between them, and he could breathe again.

Then his stomach growled. Again. Loud and shameless.

She paused.

He watched something shift in her expression, watched her think. Her gaze went to the little corner table where the tin of those dried herbs sat, and her mouth pressed into a thoughtful line.

"I don't have much here," she said slowly. "It's a stockroom, not a kitchen. Tea and stale biscuits in some corner, mostly."

He opened his mouth to tell her it didn't matter, that he required nothing-

"Wait here," she said abruptly.

Before he could object, she was already moving toward the front of the shop, pulling a key from somewhere in her skirt and unlocking the door.

"Don't touch anything," she added over her shoulder. "And for God's sake, don't go outside again."

The bell chimed.

The door closed.

He sat alone in the stockroom, surrounded by buckets of flowers and incomprehensible objects, with no earthly idea where she had gone or whether she would return.

For a brief, ungenerous moment, he considered the possibility that she had simply gone to fetch the authorities after all. Left him here to be collected like a stray dog.

He could not have blamed her if she had.

But he stayed.

Partly because his ribs ached and his legs felt unsteady, and the metal chair, absurd as it was, held his weight. Partly because the door to the street terrified him in a way he was not prepared to examine.

And partly -mostly- because some quiet, exhausted part of him had decided to trust her, and he was too tired to argue with it.

Time passed. He did not know how much. Somewhere beyond the walls, the muffled sounds of the impossible city continued: horns, voices, the rumble of those horseless carriages.

Then the bell chimed again, and he heard the click of her heels through the shop. She reappeared through the storage door with a brown paper sack clutched in one hand.

"Here," she said, crossing to him and holding it out. "Eat this before you fall over."

He took it cautiously.

The sack was warm. And the smell…

God, the smell.

Something rich and savory drifted up from inside, meat and bread and something he couldn't identify, and his mouth flooded with saliva before he'd even looked inside.

He opened it.

Within was a strange construction: two thick slices of bread pressed together, and between them, slices of roasted meat layered with melted cheese, what appeared to be a cooked egg, and some green leaves he didn't recognize.

He turned it over, examining the oddity from several angles.

"It's a sandwich," she said, watching his confusion with poorly concealed amusement. "Roast beef. From the diner on the corner. You eat it. With your hands."

A sandwich.

He had never heard the term. Never seen meat and bread arranged in such a deliberate, portable fashion. In his world, meat was served on a trencher, or in a pie, or skewered over a fire. Not... stacked.

The smell did not care about his confusion, and his stomach growled a third time, traitorous and insistent, and he abandoned his examination in favor of simply eating.

The first bite was a revelation.

Warm bread. Tender meat, properly seasoned. The richness of the cheese, the unexpected softness of the egg, the crunch of whatever green leaves she'd called them.

It was, without exaggeration, one of the finest things he had ever tasted.

He ate with more control than he felt, forcing himself to chew, to pace himself, to not devour the entire thing in three bites like a starving animal.

She watched him for a moment, then turned away to give him privacy.

He was grateful for it.

When he'd finished -every crumb, every scrap, the paper sack reduced to a crumpled ball in his fist- he set it down carefully and cleared his throat.

She turned.

"Better?"

"Yes." His voice came out rough. "Thank you. That was..."

He didn't have words for what it was.

A sandwich, apparently.

"...generous of you," he finished.

She nodded, accepting it, and for a moment neither of them said anything.

The silence stretched, not quite comfortable but not hostile either. Finally, she crossed her arms over her chest in a way that was becoming familiar.

"So," she said. "What are we going to do with you, Mr. Barnes?"

He looked at her standing there in her scandalously short skirt and her impossible shoes.

"I don't know," he said honestly.

Next Chapter

His eyes searched her face, flicking from her eyes to her mouth, then back up. The frown deepened.

"The ring," he said, and there was something in his voice now that hadn't been there before, something that sounded almost like fear, buried under the controlled features. "You put the ring in the chest, did something. You brought me here."

She stared at him.

Right. So. Not a drunk actor. That left her with someone eloped from an asylum, or a veteran with some kind of shock.

She forced herself to take a breath, to level her voice to a stay, calm tone, the way you'd talk to a spooked horse or a confused child.

"Listen, sir," she said. "I don't know what you've got going on in that head of yours, but I am not a witch, I don't know anything about any ring, and I would greatly appreciate it if you got off me. Now."

----

He studied her properly now..

Really examined, now that the immediate threat of the -whatever that thing was she'd tried to brain him with- had been neutralized.

The clothing was wrong. Scandalously wrong. She wore a blouse with short sleeves that ended above the elbow, leaving her forearms bare. And the neckline! God. The neckline was cut in a V that plunged toward her chest with no chemise beneath, no modest linen to preserve decency, with buttons made of something that caught the light, like shell or bone, beaconing the eyes toward the tantalizing curve of her-

His eyes snapped back to her face, jaw tight.

No respectable woman dressed like this. No lady certainly, but even common women knew better than to display themselves so openly unless they were advertising a service. Also, the carmine on her lips. He had never seen such a brazen display.

So. A whore, then? Or a service in whatever establishment he'd been dragged to after being drugged and robbed? The building smelled strange. Earth and growing things, yes, but also that underlying wrongness he couldn't place. And the light overhead wasn't firelight, wasn't candlelight, but something steady that didn't flicker, didn't smoke, just existed like it had been summoned there and told to stay.

Magic. Had to be.

His head was pounding. His ribs ached with every breath. And this woman was staring up at him like he was the confusing element in this situation.

"If not a witch," he said, keeping his voice level with effort, "then what are you, wench?"

Her eyes went wide.

Then they narrowed, and something in her expression shifted from fear into outrage so quickly he almost missed the transition.

"Wench?" she repeated, her voice climbing half an octave. "Did you just call me a wench?"

He frowned. "You object to the term?"

"Get off me, you brute!"

She shoved at his chest with her free hand. Not hard enough to move him, but hard enough to make her intention clear. The outrage was burning off the fear now, replacing it with something that looked a lot like indignation.

He didn't move. Didn't understand her sudden fury.

"I asked you a simple question-"

"A simple-" She made a sound that was half-laugh, half-disbelief. "You pinned me to the floor, accused me of being a witch, called me a wench, and-"

"You tried to strike me-"

"Because you're a stranger in my stockroom!"

"after summoning me here with dark magic-"

"I didn't summon anybody!"

They were talking over each other now, voices rising, and he could feel his own temper fraying. He was tired. His whole body hurt. He'd woken up in a hovel filled with plants and dirt, and that gods-damned light hanging from the ceiling like something out of a fever dream.

Wasn’t a candle, nor a lantern, just a spark that had no business existing without flame inside an unbelievably thin glass.

And now this woman, this… temptress with her bare arms and her plunging neckline and luring lips, was acting as though he was the unreasonable one.

As though she hadn't put that cursed ring in the tournament chest.

As though she hadn't brought him here, wherever here was.

He leaned in slightly, dropping his voice to something harder, more controlled.

"Listen to me very carefully," he said. "I don't know what game you're playing, but I woke up in this place with your plants scattered around me and that-" he jerked his head toward the overhead bulb without taking his eyes off her, "thing burning without oil or wick. The ring on my hand is still warm from whatever spell you cast. So you can tell me what you want from me, and where I am, and we can handle this civilly-"

His grip on her wrist tightened slightly.

"-or you can keep pretending you don't know what I'm talking about, and I'll get the information another way."

She stared up at him, breathing hard. For a moment, he thought she might bite at him, she looked angry enough for it.

Instead, with a kind of forced, brittle calm:

"You are insane."

He blinked.

"I'm- what?"

“In-sane.” She pronounced it carefully, as though he might not know the word. “Crazy. Not right in the head. You need a doctor.”

Not right in the head.

The words landed somewhere specific, which was the problem.

There had been men along the country who said it without ever saying it outright, in the way conversations faltered when he stepped into a room, in the way former companions clapped him on the shoulder a shade too carefully, as if he were something that might splinter or lash out depending on the day. 

Barnes came back wrong, was the version that traveled fastest, passed between cups of ale and lowered voices in corners they assumed he wouldn't overhear. Too quiet. Too watchful. Sleeps alone, drinks alone, doesn't speak of the time he was missing.

Not right in the head.

As though he hadn’t entertained the possibility himself.

In the particular hours between midnight and dawn, when sleep refused him and the walls of whatever rented room he happened to be in seemed to inch steadily closer, he had considered it more than once.

And now here he was.

Sir James Buchanan Barnes.

Pinning a strange woman to the floor of a room full of crushed plants, in a place he didn’t recognize, beneath a light hanging from the ceiling like a captured star, after being brought here by a ring he had put on for no better reason than to see if it fit.

Not right in the head.

Maybe he was.

The breath left him before he could stop it. Short, sharp, entirely without humor, and yet somehow adjacent to it. The nearest thing to a laugh he’d produced in longer than he cared to reckon, wrung out of him by the worst possible circumstances imaginable, which felt fitting enough to almost be funny.

Then he looked back at her, and his expression settled into something harder, flatter. Guarded.

The joke, such as it was, was over.

“Where is this place,” he said.

Not a question.

She opened her mouth. Closed it. Then tried again.

"You're in my stockroom," she said carefully. "The Sweet Briar. It's a flower shop on Camden Street."

"What city."

"New Wintermouth."

He stared at her.

New.

"What county."

"Hancock."

The name meant nothing. He watched her read that in his face.

"Maine," she added, as if that clarified anything.

It didn't. That meant nothing either, and somehow that was worse than if she'd said a name he could place and dispute.

"New Wintermouth," he repeated, very quietly.

She nodded.

He looked at the wall, at nothing, at the impossible reality that someone had taken the name of Lord Morrow's seat -the city he'd ridden into a hundred times through the eastern gate, where he knew which taverns watered their ale and which armorers charged fair prices- and transplanted it somewhere else entirely.

Hancock.

Maine.

The place was wrong.

Everything was wrong.

He looked past her, toward the strange window set high in the wall. Pale grey light filtered through, early morning by the look of it, and beyond the clear glass…

He couldn't see much from this angle. A wall, maybe. Brickwork. Something metal, dark and angular, running up the outside of the building like a ladder but too narrow, too precise. Too uniform.

"Hancock County," he said again, quieter this time.

She nodded, still pinned beneath him, still watching him with those wide eyes that were starting to look less afraid or mad and more worried, which was somehow more unsettling.

He stood slowly.

She was already moving before he'd fully straightened, scrambling to her feet and putting the width of the stockroom between them. Her back hit the shelving on the far wall with a soft thud, and she stayed there, breathing hard, watching him.

From standing, the room rearranged itself into something even stranger.

Every surface was occupied with objects that made no sense. He turned his head slowly, cataloguing against his will, his mind trying and failing to organize the wrongness into categories he understood.

The black device mounted on the wall, the thing with the coiled cord she'd been holding before she'd tried to brain him with the trowel. It hung there like some kind of sleek, modern artifact, its purpose utterly opaque.

Beside it, a small table.

And on that table: a cup, and some little storage boxes, made from metal.

He stared at it.

Ceramic, pale pink, a color so uniform and so perfect it could not have come from any potter's wheel he'd ever seen. Too smooth. Too flawless. Not a single variation in the glaze, not a fingerprint or settling mark or any of the small human inconsistencies that came from an object being made by hand.

It looked as though it had been conjured into existence fully formed, which -given present circumstances- he could not entirely rule out.

His attention drifted back to her, because she was the only thing in this room that made any sense, except she didn't.

She didn't make sense at all.

The short sleeves. The scandalous neckline. The hair, uncovered and unpinned like no modest woman would wear it.

And her mouth. A deep red like crushed berries or wine, and he had never seen a woman paint her mouth like that outside an itinerant play.

But she'd said she sold flowers.

Then his gaze dropped lower, following the line of her blouse, and that was when he saw them.

Her legs.

He hadn't noticed from the floor. He'd been too focused on neutralizing the threat, on controlling the situation, on trying to make sense of where he was and how he'd gotten there.

But now, standing, with the full measure of her visible from across the room, it was impossible not to notice her skirts ended below the knee.

Not down the ankle, where they belonged.

Below the knee.

The hemline sat several inches beneath that joint, casual and deliberate, as though this were perfectly normal. As though she had simply decided that the entire lower half of her legs were public information and dressed accordingly.

The shoes buckled neatly at the ankle with thin straps, propped up on heels that were barely wider than his thumb.

Heat crawled up the back of his neck.

He averted his eyes. Glanced back, because he was trying to assess the situation, and that required looking at all of it, required understanding what kind of place allowed -expected- women to dress like this.

But God's wounds, her legs.

He jerked his gaze back to the room, sensing the flush spread from his neck to his cheeks, feeling like an untried boy who'd never seen a woman's ankle and was now being confronted with several square feet of information he had no idea what to do with.

Focus.

There were more objects. Incomprehensible things demanding his attention.

A flat rectangular object on the worktable, smooth and dark. A row of metal implements along the wall, too identical to each other, like they'd been cast from the same mold a dozen times over.

And then, on the wall beside the door, what it seemed to be a calendar. It had Arabic numerals, instead of Roman, but the month across the top was in clean, uniform letters.

Still, he didn't recognize the paper; it was too white, too perfectly flat, without the texture of vellum or the slight yellowing of parchment. Or the image above: flowers rendered in such flawless, vivid detail that they looked real. Not painted or illustrated with some improved technique. Something else entirely. Something that made a cold shiver run down his spine.

He took a step toward it and looked at the numbers. The month. The year in the corner, small and plain.

1955.

He stared at it for a long moment.

Then he heard himself say, from a very great distance:

"What year is this."

A pause from behind him.

"1955," she said. Carefully. The voice of someone delivering bad news to a person they weren't sure could handle it, which under other circumstances might have offended him.

His stomach dropped.

He turned away from the calendar, one hand reaching blindly for the shelving unit beside him, gripping the edge hard enough that the wood bit into his palm.

The room tilted.

He bent forward, bracing himself, trying to breathe through the sudden lurch of his body trying to reject this information the only way it knew how.

Nothing came up. He hadn't eaten since before the tournament, which was perhaps the only mercy available, so his body produced only a long, miserable contraction that did absolutely nothing except inform his bruised ribs -in exhaustive detail- exactly how much they resented this recent turn of events.

He straightened slowly and breathed through his nose.

Across the room, she was watching him with her arms crossed over her chest -covering that scandalous neckline, finally- still concerned.

"Are you-"

"Fine," he said.

His voice came out steady. He was distantly proud of that.

She pressed her lips together, clearly unconvinced. The red paint held, he noticed with the detached part of his brain that was still cataloguing details. Whatever she'd used, it didn't smear or fade. Just stayed there, perfect and crimson, even when she pressed her mouth into a skeptical line.

Focus.

"1955," he said aloud, because saying it a second time didn't make it better, didn't make it more believable, but at least made it real. A thing that had been spoken and could not be unspoken. "That is the year."

"That's the year," she confirmed quietly.

She was still watching him like he might collapse. Or bolt. Or do something else unpredictable and damaging.

Fair enough. He felt like he might do all three.

----

She watched him stare at the wall.

The anger had gone somewhere quieter while she wasn't paying attention, replaced by something she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to be feeling toward a man who had, not ten minutes ago, pinned her to the floor and called her a witch.

But he looked… lost. That was the word that kept circling back. Not dangerous-lost, not the wild-eyed unpredictability of someone you needed to run from. Just lost.

His eyes were staring, but whatever they were seeing, wasn't in the room. It was something considerably worse than whatever floral calendar and shelf of terra cotta pots were actually in front of him.

She'd seen that look before.

On men who'd come back from overseas and sat in the pews at St. Benedict's on Sunday mornings, staring at the stained glass with that same hollow, distant focus. Present but not present. Seeing Normandy or the Pacific or some foxhole outside Bastogne instead of the story of Pentecost rendered in jewel-toned light.

Poor thing, she thought, against her better judgment and every reasonable instinct of self-preservation.

The real question now was where he'd come from, and whether anyone was looking for him.

The state institutions weren't, by any account she'd ever heard -and she'd heard plenty- places that took particularly good care of anyone. Overcrowded, underfunded, and more concerned with keeping people contained than actually helping them get better.

Some families made their own arrangements instead. An attic room, a trusted relative, a situation that worked well enough until it didn't.

She looked at his clothes again, cataloging details she'd been too frightened to notice before.

The quality of the leather in that belt, in those boots. The weight of the fabric in his shirt, even dirty and sweat-stained as it was. The craftsmanship in the stitching, the buckles, the strange straps running down his thick thighs.

Not cheap. None of it was cheap.

Wealthy family, then. Wealthy enough to commission custom theatrical costumes, or whatever this was. Wealthy enough to keep their troubled son at home rather than surrender him to the state system. Wealthy enough to preserve the family name by keeping the problem private.

And then he'd gotten out somehow -wandered off, slipped away during a moment of inattention- and ended up here.

In her stockroom.

On her begonias.

She uncrossed her arms slowly, a deliberate gesture of peace, or at least of temporary ceasefire.

Alright.

"I have an immersion heater," she said, keeping her voice gentle, unthreatening. "Do you want some chamomile tea?"

He turned from the wall and looked at her with that steady, unreadable gaze.

"Chamomile," he repeated. “What is… tea?”

She blinked at him. He couldn't be serious.

"It's… like a herbal broth, I suppose." She gestured vaguely toward the little table, where she had a tin of teabags and the mug. "You put hot water and the dried flowers that come into a little bag. It's calming. Helps with..."

She trailed off, unsure how to finish that sentence. Helps with shock? Helps with whatever is going on in that head of yours?

"It's nice," she settled on. "Soothing."

Something moved across his face. A flicker of recognition, maybe, or consideration. His gaze went to the tin, then back to her, assessing.

A pause. He seemed to be weighing this information against some internal metric she couldn't guess at. Deciding something.

Then: "No."

Simple. Firm. Final.

Not exactly hostile, but borderline rude.

She blinked. "No?"

"No," he repeated. His hand was still braced against the shelving unit, white-knuckled, like he needed it to stay upright. "I don't need some herb-water. I need to think.”

Fair enough, she supposed. Though he looked like he could use something warm and settling, standing there pale and swaying slightly like a man who'd taken a harder hit than he was willing to admit.

But she wasn't about to force tea on someone who'd already demonstrated he had very effective reflexes, and a concerning assumption she was a practitioner of dark arts.

"Alright," she said. "No tea."

She shifted her weight, smoothed her skirt once more with both hands, and decided that if they were going to be standing in her stockroom together so early in the morning, the least they could do was know each other's names.

So she gave him hers.

He held her gaze for a moment, eyes narrowing with suspicion. But then, his shoulders dropped into a stiff, old-school posture, seeming to accept the exchange.

"Sir James Buchanan Barnes," he said. Each word precisely articulated, formal. "Knight of the Realm."

She blinked.

Knight. Sir.

They were committing fully to the delusion, then.

Hospice or relative's attic, definitely. Or perhaps a family arrangement gone wrong, some relative's responsibility until he'd slipped away when their back was turned. Poor man, probably thought he was Richard the Lionheart half the time.

"Right," she said, very carefully. "It's nice to meet you, Mr. Barnes."

----

He frowned.

No curtsy. No change in her posture, no dip of the chin, no clasping of hands or murmured sir or any of the thousand small genuflections that should have followed an introduction like that.

She'd just looked at him, the way one might acknowledge a tradesman. A merchant. A peasant.

Either she didn't recognize what a knight was, which would mean she was poorly educated -but that made no sense, because even the lowest-born knew what a knight was, even children knew- or she knew perfectly well and was choosing to ignore it discourteously.

An insult delivered with that same gentle, careful voice she'd used to offer him a herbal infusion.

The third option, that the title meant nothing here, that it carried no weight at all in this place, he set aside. Pushed it into the same corner of his mind where he was keeping 1955 and New Wintermouth and the impossible light hanging from the ceiling.

He wasn't ready to look at any of those directly yet. Wasn't ready to line them up and see what picture they made together.

It didn't matter. Not right now.

What mattered was the door behind her, and what lay beyond that door. What this place was, and whether the wrongness ended at the stockroom walls or continued out into the streets beyond.

He needed to move. Needed to get outside and find a street corner, a landmark, a church spire, something. Anything he could use to orient himself. Because right now the walls of this small room were doing something to his breathing that he was going to attribute entirely to the bruised ribs and not examine any further.

He pushed off the shelving unit, steadying himself.

"I'm leaving," he said.

It wasn’t a request. Just a statement of fact.

"Wait-" she started, taking half a step toward him, one hand lifting in a gesture that might have been placating or restraining or both. "You don't look so good. Maybe you should sit down for-"

"I'm aware," he said.

The words came out hard, but God's wounds, he didn't need her to tell him he looked like hell. He could feel it in every breath, every movement. Could taste it in the back of his throat, all dust and bile.

He probably looked exactly like he felt.

Which was, to put it charitably, like shit.

He ignored her and made for the door, the one that presumably led out of this cramped back room and into the rest of whatever establishment she was running.

"Is there someone I should call?" she asked behind him.

He paused, with hand on the doorframe.

Call?

The word hung there, strange and contextless. Call as in... summon? Send for?

"Give notice to, you mean?" he said, not turning around.

A beat of silence. Then: "I- yes. Someone who'd be worried. Family members, or..."

"No," he said. "That won't be necessary."

He pulled the door open and stepped through.

----

The proper shop opened up before him, and he stopped.

Well.

She hadn't lied, at least. She did, apparently, sell flowers.

The room was larger than the stockroom, lined with tables and shelving at different heights. Buckets and vases everywhere, stuffed full of blooms in various states of opening, roses, lilies, things he didn't have names for in colors that looked almost too vivid to be real.

Along the walls: more displays. Wreaths hung on hooks. Arrangements in ceramic containers. A small table near the window held potted plants, their leaves dark and waxy.

He walked further in, boots heavy on the wooden floor, his gaze moving over the inventory. The flowers were fine. Good quality, even, from what he could see. Fresh, well-tended, the kind of stock that spoke to either a reliable supplier or exceptional luck.

But flowers.

Flowers.

He tried to reconcile the economics of it and came up blank.

They were... what? A luxury for feast days and weddings. A merchant's wife might buy a small bouquet for her table if she had coin to spare and wanted to show it. A nobleman might send flowers as a token to a lady he was courting, but even then, it was usually a single perfect one, not an entire shop's worth.

How could this possibly sustain a business? Not a shabby street stall where overhead was low and expectations lower, but an entire building. With a dedicated stockroom.

Who was buying this many flowers?

His gaze drifted back toward the stockroom door, where she was still standing there, one hand braced against the doorframe, watching him as though he were the source of confusion here.

He broke eye contact first.

Because looking at her for too long made his thoughts arrange themselves in directions he did not care for. The scandalous skirt and the colored lips. The shop full of flowers that could not possibly keep a roof over anyone’s head unless the flowers were not, in fact, the point.

A front, then.

A respectable veneer for a less respectable trade.

He felt his face go hot.

Whatever this establishment was, whatever this city was, whatever madness had brought him here, he would not find answers standing in the middle of a flower shop while a half-dressed woman studied him like a puzzle she was trying to solve.

He needed air.

He needed sky.

He needed to see the street.

So he turned toward the front door.

“Mr. Barnes-”

The name stopped him for half a breath. Not Sir Barnes. Not Sir James. Mr. Barnes, again, as if she had decided the rest of him was decoration.

He did not turn around.

“I said I’m leaving.”

“I really don’t think that’s a good idea.”

"Your concern," he said, reaching for the door, "is noted. And dismissed."

There was a chime above it. He noticed it only when the door opened and the thing gave a bright, ridiculous little bell, cheerful as a jester's cap.

He made it three steps past the door before the world stopped making sense.

Next Chapter

The field itself was a ruin of churned mud and discarded favor ribbons, the occasional lost boot. Someone's gauntlet, bended and forgotten near a fence post. The detritus of spectacle.

Sir James Buchanan Barnes walked through it like a man who wanted very much to be somewhere else.

He was limping. A gift from the third bout, when Sir Aldric Thornwall had gotten a lucky angle with his shield and introduced it firmly to Bucky's ribs.

The impact had knocked the air from his lungs with an audible crack that he'd felt more than heard. He'd finished the match anyway. He'd finished all of them. He'd placed second, which in any reasonable accounting of the day should have felt like something.

It didn't feel like much of anything.

Just the persistent throb beneath his ribs with every breath. Just the weight of mail he hadn't bothered to shed yet, still bearing the afternoon's sweat and dust.

The banquet, he thought, scowling.

Lord Castellan Morrow had made it clear, through three separate messengers, that his presence was expected at the celebration feast. That the competitors were guests of honor. That it would reflect poorly on a man of his standing to absent himself.

Bucky's standing, such as it was, had survived worse reflections.

So he just kept walking.

The city proper closed around him as he left the tournament grounds. Cobblestones replacing mud, the noise changing from open-air echo to the compressed warmth of torchlit streets.

Wintermouth at night had a specific smell: woodsmoke and river damp. He knew these streets well enough to navigate them half-asleep, which was approximately his current condition.

A pair of knights from the eastern circuit fell into step beside him for a while, their breath wine-sweet and celebratory, clapping him on the shoulder with the camaraderie of men who hadn't taken a shield to the ribs. He felt the impact reverberate down through the bruise, sharp enough that his vision whited at the edges.

"Hell of a final bout, Barnes."

"Could've taken him," the other offered generously. "Aldric fights dirty."

"Aldric fights to win," he said, which was the only response that was both true and didn't require him to have feelings about it. His voice came out rough, abraded by thirst and the dust he'd swallowed every time he'd hit the ground.

They took the hint, or something close enough to it, and peeled off toward the sound of music spilling from an open tavern door, lute strings and off-key singing and the particular roar of men determined to enjoy themselves.

The next interruption came two streets later, in the form of two scarcely clothed women leaning against the warm stone of a bakehouse wall, still radiating the day's stored heat.

Their exposed skin gleamed amber in the torchlight, deliberate and inviting. They tracked him with the experience of people who had learned to read a man's evening prospects at a glance.

"Sir Knight," one called, with a smile that had worked on better men than him. Her voice was honey-slow, practiced. "Shame to spend a victory night alone."

"First runner-up," he said, without stopping. The mail clinked with each step, a sound he'd long stopped hearing.

"Close enough."

It wasn't, but he didn't have the energy to explain the difference. He kept walking.

The maester caught him at the corner of Chandler's Row. Plump, earnest, clutching a satchel of medicines with both hands as it might escape. His robes were too clean, his face unlined. Fresh from the Citadel, probably. Still believed healing mattered more than politics.

"Sir Barnes." He was slightly out of breath, which suggested he'd been following for a while, trying to work up the nerve to address him. "Lord Castellan Morrow sends his regards and requests that you allow me to examine your injuries before the feast-"

"I'm not going to the feast."

A pause. The maester's throat worked. "He anticipated you might say that. He asked me to convey that your attendance is-"

"How's your handwriting?" Bucky interrupted.

The man blinked. "My- adequate, ser. Why?"

"Good." Bucky stopped walking, turned just enough to face him properly. Watched the maester straighten reflexively under the attention. "Here's what happened: you found me three streets back, examined me thoroughly despite my objections, and determined I've got at least two cracked ribs and a possible concussion. You ordered me to bed with strict instructions not to drink, feast, or make any sudden movements for the next three days."

He held the maester's wide-eyed stare. "Your professional opinion is that my attendance at tonight's festivities would be, and I'm quoting you here, 'medically inadvisable and potentially dangerous to Sir Barnes's recovery.'"

The maester's mouth opened. Closed. His gaze flickered down to Bucky's left side, where he'd been favoring it, where the mail sat wrong.

"You..." The man's voice was uncertain. "You do likely have cracked ribs, ser."

"There you go. Not even a lie." Bucky's smile was brief and sharp. "You write that up for your Lord, attach your seal to it, and you've done your duty. He gets his excuse in writing, you get to have actually helped someone today, and I get to go home. Everyone wins."

He could see the man working through it, the truth of the injury versus the falseness of the examination, the political cover versus the medical accuracy.

"I... suppose that would be acceptable," the maester said slowly. Then, with a hint of spine Bucky hadn't expected: "But you should let me examine you properly. Cracked ribs can shift, puncture-"

"I've had worse."

"That's not the reassurance you think it is, ser."

Despite everything -the ache and the exhaustion- Bucky felt something in his chest. Not quite a laugh, but close enough.

"Tomorrow," he offered, and meant it more than he'd meant most things today. "You can poke at me all you want tomorrow."

The maester nodded, satisfied or at least willing to accept the compromise. "I'll have the letter sent within the hour."

"Appreciated."

----

His lodgings were modest by deliberate choice. A single room above a cooper's workshop on the quieter end of the merchant quarter, rented by the week during tournament season. No servants' quarters. No one to report his comings and goings to anyone who might have opinions about them.

This had its advantages.

He catalogued the disadvantages the moment he stepped inside and faced the cold hearth, his breath still misting in the chill air.

Right.

He set the heavy tournament satchel down with a dull thump, rolled his left shoulder experimentally -the socket grinding in a way that spoke of old breaks poorly healed- and decided that feeling was overrated.

The fire wasn't going to light itself. The armor wasn't going to unlace itself. The evening was shaping up to be a prolonged exercise in doing everything the hard way, which was, at this point, so consistent as to be almost comforting.

Almost.

He got the fire started on the third attempt. The tinder was damp, -because of course it was- and then stood in its growing warmth and began the specific misery of removing plate armor without assistance.

The tabard first, then the gorget, useful as it was, he hated the damn thing; removing it felt like relief. Then the pauldrons, working the straps with fingers that were more cooperative on the right side than the left.

The scarring along his left forearm pulled when he reached a certain angle, the old tissue going taut. It always did. He'd stopped noticing it the way you stopped noticing a crack in a familiar wall; it was simply part of the room now.

The breastplate hit the floor with a sound like an argument ending, the impact reverberating through the floorboards.

There.

What remained was a man in a sweat-dampened gambeson with a bruised ribcage, a mild headache, and absolutely no interest in examining either. The padded underarmor clung to him, cold now that the mail was gone, the fabric stiff with salt and exertion.

He took off the gambeson and dragged the wooden chest from his satchel, the one the tournament steward had pressed into his hands with excessive ceremony, and set it beside the fire. The brass fittings caught the light, over-polished. Performative.

The lock was simple. Inside: coin, as expected. A satisfying weight of silver stacked in neat columns, some gold beneath. He'd need it. The estate his father had left him was four walls and a burned-out shell, courtesy of the same people who took him hostage and left their mark on his arm.

Rebuilding wasn't cheap. Timber, thatch, labor, it all required the kind of funds you didn't earn through valor or skill, just the slow accumulation of tournament prizes and some service contracts.

Glory didn't buy roofing.

He picked up a brooch set with garnets -gaudy, impractical, the kind of thing you pinned to a cloak if you wanted to be robbed- and looked at it for a moment. The stones were decent quality, at least. It would fetch a reasonable price from the right jeweler.

He set it aside with the others. A necklace of amber. A pair of silver clasps. All destined for the same fate: the jeweler's scale, melted down or pried out and reset for someone who actually wanted them.

He had no use for adornments. He wasn’t fond of them, as most of the nobility, and also, he had no one to give them to.

The war had seen to that.

He reached back into the chest, fingers brushing past velvet pouches, and found something else.

A ring. Silver, heavier than it looked. He drew it out into the firelight and turned it between his fingers. The stone was a ruby, deep red, cut into the shape of a star.

He stared at it.

Red stars on grey and black.

His colors.

He turned it slowly, watching firelight slide across the facets. The star was crude, the points uneven, the kind of work you got from a jeweler with more ambition than skill. It was, objectively, the ugliest ring he had ever seen. Garish. The sort of thing a merchant's son wore to his first banquet, desperate to prove he belonged.

Bucky, who wore his father's signet ring only on scarce occasions because selling it felt wrong, even if the man was never a paragon of paternal love, felt the particular pull of a terrible idea.

Just to see if it fits.

It was small for his right hand, so he tried the left, mostly out of stubbornness… and it slid on. The fit was perfect. Uncannily so, as though it had been sized for exactly this finger, accounting for the slight deviation where the bone had set wrong.

The ruby flared.

Not like firelight reflecting, but light from within, red and sharp and pointed, like something had woken up inside the stone and found him looking.

The ring burned. Seared against his skin, hot enough that he felt it in his teeth, a bright line of pain circling his finger.

What-

He grabbed for it with his right hand, trying to twist it off, but his fingers passed through something that wasn't air and wasn't quite resistance.

The room tilted.

No. The room disappeared.

The fire went first, snuffed like a candle, leaving no smoke, no ember-glow. Then the chest, the coins. The ceiling with its water-stained beams. The floor beneath his feet.

All of it went, between one breath and the next, and what replaced it was falling.

His stomach lurched, and the burning in his finger became the only solid thing in a world that had stopped being solid.

He tried to breathe and couldn't find air.

The darkness swallowed him whole and the last thing he registered, distant, wrong, was the smell of plants and humidity.

Then nothing.

----

She stood on the sidewalk in front of The Sweet Briar with her hand buried to the wrist in her purse, fingers closing around lipstick, a crumpled handkerchief, what felt like a receipt that she really ought to throw away, and absolutely nothing key-shaped.

The morning was grey and cool for early spring, the kind of damp that sank into your coat and stayed there. The street was quiet, too early yet for the lunch crowd, the shops on either side still dark. A truck rumbled past, leaving the smell of diesel and wet pavement in its wake.

Just when she thought she might have actually forgotten the keys -left them on the kitchen counter next to the bread box, maybe, or in yesterday's coat pocket- her fingers finally closed around the key ring at the very bottom of the purse, underneath everything else, because of course they were.

The lock stuck.

She jiggled it once, patiently, the same way she had jiggled this exact lock approximately four hundred times and had not yet called the locksmith, because she only ever remembered the lock was broken when she was standing directly in front of it, key in hand, and by the time she got inside she'd forgotten again.

The metal resisted, then gave with a sound like a small complaint. She pushed inside.

The front of the shop was an obstacle course.

Mr. Thomson from the supply house had delivered very late yesterday afternoon, because apparently a union picket line two blocks east had backed up half the city's delivery routes. By closing time, she didn’t have the energy to do anything about the results: buckets of early flowers stacked three deep against the counter, their blooms still tight-furled and smelling faintly of earth.

Two flats of fern she hadn't priced yet, the fronds already drooping from a day out of soil. A box of wire and ribbon spools that had no business being in the middle of the floor but was there anyway, and somewhere underneath all of it, allegedly, the new ceramic pots she'd ordered in February and assumed were lost.

She picked her way through it with careful steps, her heels clicking against the wood floor, and made it to the back without incident.

The stockroom was small and currently in a state that she chose to call organized chaos and not a problem she had to solve today.

More deliveries back here too: boxes stacked along the left wall, the worktable barely visible under brown paper wrapping and tissue. The air smelled like potting soil and the green, living scent of the spider plants hanging near the window, their runners brushing the top of a stack of terra cotta. She reached up and pulled the cord on the single overhead bulb.

The light swung once, twice, and settled.

She saw the legs first.

Long legs, stretched across the floor between a toppled flat of begonias and the base of the shelving unit, attached to a man who was very much present and very much not conscious, sprawled at an angle that suggested he had not chosen to be on the floor so much as arrived there.

Her breath stopped.

For one crystalline second, her brain refused to process what she was seeing -legs, boots, a body where no body should be- and then her heart kicked hard against her chest.

There was a man. In her stockroom. On the floor.

He'd taken out a good portion of the new stock on his way down. The begonias were scattered, soil spilled across the floorboards in dark trails. A ceramic pot in sage green -the one she'd specifically ordered and waited two months for- was in three neat pieces beside his left arm. The pothos she'd been propagating had been knocked from its perch; the vines lay crushed beneath his shoulder.

She stood very still for a moment, one hand still on the light cord, the other pressed flat against her chest where her heart was trying to break through.

He wasn't moving.

His chest was -she watched for a second, barely breathing herself- yes, his chest was moving. Shallow, but steady.

So. Not dead.

She still hadn't decided if that was good or bad.

Her gaze darted to the back door: still closed, the bolt still thrown from the inside. The window was latched. No broken glass. No signs of forced entry.

So how-?

Her hand moved without conscious thought, reaching back toward the worktable, fingers closing around the wooden handle of a trowel. Not much of a weapon, but the edge was solid steel, the point designed for breaking hard soil. It would do.

She took a step closer, the trowel held low at her side, ready to strike.

His clothing was strange. The shirt was wrong, off-white and loose, the kind of fabric that looked hand-woven, rough in a way she couldn’t describe. The collar was laced instead of buttoned, the ties loose and askew.

The trousers were the same, tucked into boots that had absolutely no business existing in 1955: tall, dark leather, worn in the way that took years and hard use, not a factory.

Over all of it, a belt of heavy leather, studded and wide. And attached to it, running down each thigh -she tilted her head slightly- what appeared to be straps, buckled and reinforced, holding padded cushioned sheaths flat against his legs.

Like something out of a medieval fair, except those fairs didn't come through this city, and even if they did, the participants didn't break into a flower shop in full costume and collapse on the begonias.

She took another step closer, careful to avoid the broken ceramic.

His face was-

Well.

A face that had seen better days was her first thought, and her second was that even roughed up as he was, it was a remarkable face to have stumbled into her stockroom.

Strong jaw, straight nose, the kind of bone structure you saw in magazine advertisements for razors or cologne, the ones that made you look twice even when you weren't in the market.

A bruise was already darkening along his left cheekbone, deep purple spreading toward his temple. There was a cut above his brow that had bled and dried, the blood a rust-brown line trailing toward his hairline.

The beard was a few days past deliberate.

And the hair -she paused on that- dark brown, long enough to brush his shoulders, pushed back from his face and thoroughly disordered, tangled with mud and sweat.

It was long for a man. Longer than any man she'd seen outside of a history book or painting.

She straightened up slowly, the trowel still in her hand.

Alright, she thought, forcing her breathing to steady. Think.

Option one: he was a vagrant who'd somehow gotten through a locked door -the damn lock, God help her- and passed out on her stock.

Possible. Unlikely, given the boots alone probably cost more than her monthly rent, but possible.

Option two: he was a veteran. There were men, she knew -the whole city knew, even if nobody said it plainly- who hadn't come back from the war quite right in the head.

Shell-shock, they'd called it in the first war. Combat fatigue now, as if giving it a softer name made it easier to carry.

Except that didn't explain the kind of clothes.

Option three: he'd gotten blind drunk somewhere in the vicinity, wandered in through a door she knew she'd locked, and the outfit was theatrical. A costume. There was a theatre district six blocks south. Strange things happened near the theatre districts. Actors were weird.

Except that the door had been locked. And bolted.

She looked down at him again.

At the slow rise and fall of his chest. At the ring on his left hand, silver with a red stone that caught the light strangely, still faintly warm-looking even in the dim stockroom.

At the begonias, crushed beyond saving.

The telephone was on the opposite wall. She edged past him, keeping the trowel between them out of some vague instinct that felt less vague with every step. Her heel caught on a scatter of soil, and she steadied herself against the doorframe, not taking her eyes off him.

He still wasn't moving.

She picked up the receiver with her free hand, the trowel still raised in the other, and dialed zero, the rotary clicking back into place.

The line hummed and returned a busy signal.

Dammit.

She clicked the hook and tried again, her gaze locked on the sprawled figure.

Busy. Again. It was a challenge to get to an operator these last few weeks. It was the third time this month she needed to make a call, and the lines were occupied.

She leaned her hip against the wall and tried a fourth time, watching him over her shoulder out of an abundance of caution that was starting to feel less abundant and more barely sufficient.

Okay. If she could just get through to the operator, get a squad car over here -or an ambulance, depending on what exactly was wrong with him- she could have this sorted before her first customer arrived at nine. It was a reasonable plan. It was perfectly reasonable-

The fifth attempt produced a busy signal and also, from somewhere behind her, a sound. The distinct scrape of ceramic against concrete, and then a longer drag, like weight shifting.

Her breath caught.

She turned around slowly, the receiver still pressed to her ear, the busy signal droning against her brain.

He was sitting up, propped on one hand with the other braced against the shelving unit, head bowed forward like it weighed too much to lift. The dark hair fell across his face in tangled strands. His shoulders rose and fell with breaths that looked like they hurt.

She didn't move. Her fingers tightened around the trowel handle until the wood bit into her palm.

For a moment he just sat there, motionless except for the breathing. Then his head lifted slowly, and he blinked at the stockroom with the heavy, confused expression of a man whose surroundings were not what he'd been expecting.

His gaze tracked left: shelves, boxes, the window with its spider plants. Right: more shelves, the worktable, the spilled soil.

Then his eyes found her.

A nice pair of steel blue eyes.

That was the completely irrelevant thing her brain produced, and she hated that it did, because those steel blue eyes were currently fixed on her with a frown that was more baffled than threatening, but he was large.

She could see that now, even sitting down he had the kind of shoulders that spoke of labor or violence or both- and he was between her and the back door, and she did not know him, and she was alone, and-

Her mind didn't finish the thought. She crossed the distance between them in three steps, raised the spade, and swung.

She didn't account for his reflexes.

One moment she was bringing the flat of the blade down toward his head, and the next, her wrist was caught mid-arc in a grip like iron, the world tilted sideways, and she was on her back on the stockroom floor with approximately two hundred twenty pounds of confused stranger pinning her there.

The impact knocked the air from her lungs. Her shoulders hit concrete, her head just barely missing the leg of the worktable. The trowel clattered away, skittering across the floor into the scattered soil.

He'd moved fast. Too fast for someone who'd been unconscious thirty seconds ago. Too fast for someone who'd struggled to sit up.

His hand was still locked around her wrist, holding it flat against the floor above her head. His other forearm was braced beside her shoulder. His knee was between hers, his weight distributed in a way that kept her pinned without crushing her, like this was something he'd done before. Many times before, in fact.

When she pulled at her wrist -once, testing, her breath coming in sharp gasps- he simply held it, not tightening, not letting go, like the question of her leaving hadn't seriously occurred to him as a variable.

Her heart was hammering so hard she could feel it in her throat, behind her eyes. She could smell him: leather and sweat and something else, something like smoke and metal and old wool.

She could count his eyelashes.

The blue eyes she'd noticed before were a lot more striking at this distance, and a lot less groggy. Whatever fog had been in them when he'd first sat up had burned off fast into something sharp and assessing.

He was looking at her the way she imagined soldiers looked at enemies in the dark. His chest rose and fell against hers with each breath. She could feel the heat of him through her blouse, through his strange linen shirt.

Get off get off get off-

She opened her mouth to scream, to say something, to demand he let her go-

And then he lowered his face toward hers by one deliberate inch, eyes narrowing and demanded, low and very even:

"State your intentions, witch."     

Next Chapter

She wakes to weight and warmth.

His arm is still pressing around her waist, face still against her throat. The purr has faded to silence sometime during the night, but his breathing is deep and even. Peaceful in a way she suspects is rare for him.

She doesn't want to move, to disturb him.

But the sound of the traffic is entering through the window, the need to pee is not something she can ignore, and she can smell him, smoke, cheap soap, and the underlying scent of alpha that's been masked by everything else.

He needs a proper shower. Real soap. Clean clothes.

The thought of clothes makes her glance down at his naked form, tangled with her body in the sheets. She'd gotten him out of the tactical gear yesterday, but that's all he had. No change of clothes. No personal belongings. Just weapons, the suit, and… trauma.

One problem at a time.

She shifts carefully, trying to ease out from under him without waking him, but his arm tightens immediately around her.

"Alpha," she whispers. "I just need to get up for a minute."

His eyes open with instant alertness, like he goes from sleep to fully conscious in a heartbeat, and she can see the question in those pale blue eyes, even though he doesn't ask it.

Where are you going?

"Bathroom," she says softly. "I really need to go."

His arm loosens, and she slips out of bed. She can feel his eyes tracking her across the room, watchful, waiting for her to come back.

She does her business quickly, washes her hands, and when she comes back out, he's sitting up in bed. Back straight. Hands on his thighs. Watching the bathroom door like he's been waiting for her to reappear.

"Hey," she says softly, crossing back to the bed. "You okay?"

A stiff nod as an answer.

She sits on the edge of the mattress, close enough that her knee brushes his thigh. "I was thinking... you should take a shower. A real one. Get all that smoke and-" She gestures vaguely at him. "Everything else off."

He doesn't respond. Just looks at her with those unreadable pale eyes.

She tries again. "Would you like to-"

The tension in his shoulders increases fractionally, and she stops mid-sentence.

Right.

She remembers yesterday. The way he asked her to tell him what to do. The way he followed every instruction without question, like having someone make decisions for him, was a relief instead of an imposition.

She changes her approach.

"Alpha," she says, her voice firmer now. Not harsh, but directive. "I need you to take a shower. I need to smell you, not all this other stuff covering your scent. It would make me feel better."

The change is immediate.

His shoulders drop, and the tension bleeds out of his body. He nods, certain this time, because she's not asking him to choose. She's telling him what she needs, and he can do that. He can be useful to her.

"Good," she says, standing. "Come on."

He rises from the bed immediately and follows her to the bathroom.

She pulls back the curtain and turns on the shower, adjusting the temperature until the water runs hot. Steam starts to fill the small space almost immediately, and she steps back, gesturing to the shower. "Get in."

He walks with no self-consciousness, no modesty, and steps over the edge of the tub and under the spray.

And then he goes very, very still.

His eyes close, and his brow furrows like he’s trying to decipher what he feels. Then, his head tips back slightly, water streaming over his face, his hair, his shoulders.

She watches, fascinated, as his hands come up slowly -almost reverently- and push his hair back from his face, as his shoulders drop another inch, as he just stands there, unmoving, letting the hot water pour over him.

How long has it been since he had this?

The question disturbs her. Because this isn't just relief of removing filth. This is something else. Something that speaks to deprivation so complete that hot water feels like a luxury.

She swallows past the tightness in her throat and watches him for another moment, then makes a decision. She can't reach him properly from outside, and she's going to get soaked anyway trying to wash his hair.

"Scoot over," she says, pulling her shirt over her head.

He shifts immediately, making room, his eyes tracking her movements as she strips down to nothing and steps into the tub behind him.

The space is small, and the heat of the water mixing with the heat of his body makes the air thick and humid. She has to press close to reach around him, her chest against his back, and she feels him tense for just a second before relaxing into her touch.

"I'm going to wash your back first," she tells him, reaching for the soap. "Then your hair."

He nods, still facing the spray, and she works the soap into a lather between her hands before pressing them to his shoulders.

The scars feel different under the water. Softer somehow, but no less present. She traces them without meaning to, following the lines across his shoulder blades, down his spine, mapping the damage while she cleans away days of sweat and smoke and whatever else he's been through.

He's so still under her hands, waiting patiently for her to finish.

When his back is clean, she reaches for the shampoo.

"Okay, I need you to bend down for me," she says. "I can't reach your head."

He complies immediately, turning around and bending at the waist, his back to the showerhead now, water sliding down his face and neck.

"Close your eyes," she instructs quickly. "The water's going to run into them with the products, and it'll sting."

His eyes slide shut obediently, and she works the shampoo into his hair, massaging his scalp with her fingers. The water runs dark at first, carrying away dirt and product and god knows what else, but gradually it clears. She rinses thoroughly, then repeats with conditioner, working it through the tangled strands until they feel smooth under her fingers.

"Okay, you can straighten up now."

He does it slowly, water still streaming down his face, and just stands there, waiting.

She lathers it between her hands and places them on his chest. Her palms slide across his sternum, over his pecs, following the contours of muscle and scar tissue. The water runs between them, making everything slick, and she works methodically, cleaning away the last traces of smoke and sweat.

Her hands move lower, over his ribs, across his stomach. He doesn't move, doesn't react, just keeps standing there, letting her work.

When she reaches his hips, she soaps her hands again and continues downward, sliding them clinically between his thighs, washing with the same care she's given the rest of him.

That's when she notices it.

His balls are heavy. Drawn up tight against his body, swollen in a way that speaks to biological need not fully satisfied. A remnant of the rut, probably, or maybe just the proximity to her, naked and touching him in such an intimate way.

But he's not hard.

Not responding the way you'd expect an alpha to respond to his omega's hands on his body like this. And that tells her everything she needs to know about how deeply whatever they did to him runs.

She swallows the surge of anger -not at him, but at whoever made him like this- and keeps washing gently, giving him no reason to feel self-conscious about his body's lack of response.

"Does this feel okay?" she asks softly, as she works. "What I'm doing?"

"Yes."

The answer is immediate. Certain.

At least that's something.

She rinses her hands and reaches for more soap, working it over his thighs, his calves, finishing the job, and the whole time he just stands there. Letting her. Trusting her.

When she's done with his legs, she straightens, looking up at him.

"The other day," she says carefully, keeping her voice soft. "I asked you about your name."

His entire body goes rigid.

She can see the conflict playing out across his face. Confusion. Fear. The urge to answer warring with something else. Something that won't let him.

"Is it because you don't feel safe with me?" she presses gently. "Or because you don't have one? Or... you don't remember?"

His jaw works. She can see him struggling, can smell the spike of distress in his scent.

"Soldat," he finally says, and the word sounds forced. Automatic.

"Okay," she says softly. "But that's not really a name, is it? That's what you were. Not who you are."

He lifts his gaze to look at her fully now, and the look in his eyes is… lost. Confused. Like he genuinely doesn't understand the difference between those two things.

Like he's never had to understand the difference.

"Don't..." His brow furrows, and she can see him reaching for something that isn't there. "Don't remember," he says finally, and the frustration in his voice is palpable. "There was... something. But it's-"

He makes a gesture at his head with his flesh hand. Scattered. Fragmented. Gone.

Her chest tightens.

"Okay," she says, reaching up to cup his face, thumbs brushing his cheekbones. "That's okay. Maybe it'll come back. Or maybe it won't. Either way, you're still my alpha."

He leans into her touch, eyes closing briefly, and nods.

"Yeah," he echoes, barely a whisper.

She pulls him down into a gentle kiss -just a press of lips, nothing demanding- and feels him relax into it.

"Come on," she says, pulling back. "Let's get you dried off."

She reaches past him to turn off the water, then grabs a towel from the rack. "Dry yourself," she instructs, pressing it into his hands. "I'll be right back."

He takes the towel and starts patting himself down while she wraps herself in another towel and steps out of the tub.

His boxers are still on the floor where they'd left them yesterday, stiff and stained. She picks them up with two fingers, grimacing slightly, and takes them to the sink.

The water runs cold as she works soap into the fabric, scrubbing at the stains. Then, she rinses them thoroughly, wringing out as much water as she can.

She's still wringing them when she senses him behind her.

She glances up at the mirror and sees him standing, towel wrapped around his waist, watching her with those pale, unreadable eyes.

"Almost done," she says, giving the boxers one final squeeze before turning to face him. "I'm going to put these on the radiator. They shouldn't take too long to dry."

She moves, acutely aware of his gaze following her as she crosses to the radiator against the far wall. The metal is warm under her fingers as she drapes the damp fabric across it, smoothing it out so it'll dry evenly.

And that's when she remembers the other issue that needed to be approached. She turns to face him, wrapping her arms around herself. "I need to go out for a bit," she says.

"No."

The word is immediate.

"Alpha, it's to get you clothes," she explains, keeping her voice gentle. "There's a discount store just around the corner. I'll be quick, I promise. Twenty minutes, tops-"

"No."

He takes a step toward her, and something in his posture shifts. His shoulders broaden, his back straightens, and suddenly the space between them feels charged.

Another step.

She backs up instinctively until her shoulders hit the wall, and then he's right there, towering over her. His arms come up, forearms bracing against the wall on either side of her head, caging her in.

Not touching or hurting her. But unmistakably alpha in a way he hasn't been since he came back yesterday.

His head lowers, nose finding the curve of her neck, and she feels him inhale deeply. Scenting her. His lips brush against her scent gland, then the edge of his teeth, a gentle scrape that makes her breath catch.

"No," he says again, the word rumbling against her throat.

Her heart is hammering. Not from fear but from the sudden intensity of his presence, the way he's using his body to communicate what his words can't.

Don't leave. Don't go. Stay.

"Alpha," she says softly, her hands coming up to rest on his chest. She can feel his heart beating just as fast as hers. "I'm not leaving you. I'm just going to the store. I'll come right back."

His teeth scrape her gland again, more insistent this time, and a low sound rumbles in his chest. Not quite a growl. Something between that and a whine.

Mine. Stay. Don't go.

"Alpha," she says again, trying to keep her voice calm and reasonable even though her pulse is racing. "Listen to me. Nothing's going to happen to you while I'm gone. You'll be safe here. And nothing's going to happen to me either. It's just around the corner. Twenty minutes."

The sound in his chest intensifies. His face presses harder against her throat, and she can feel the tension in his body radiating in waves. "I know you don't want me to go. I understand. But I'll come right back. I promise-"

"No."

Still that same flat refusal. Immovable.

She can feel her patience starting to fray. This isn't working. Reasoning isn't working. He's too deep in whatever instinct is driving him to listen to logic. So she takes a breath, hating what she's about to do, but not seeing another option.

"You asked me to tell you what to do," she says, and her voice comes out firmer now. "So I'm telling you. I need you to let me get dressed and go buy you clothes."

He goes very still against her.

Then his head turns slightly, just enough that she can see his eyes. They're narrowed, fixed on her with a force that makes her stomach flip.

He doesn't like this. Doesn't like being ordered. But he's caught between what his instincts are screaming at him to do and what she's telling him to do.

She presses on, gentler now but still firm. "It's not acceptable for you to be naked. I mean, you can be naked if you want, that's fine. But you can't not have clothes. It's not warm enough for that, and if you need to go somewhere, you can't just walk around with your ass out."

That seems to penetrate his mind.

His eyes shift, some of the feral focus fading, replaced by the beginning of understanding. He pulls back slightly, just an inch, and she can see him processing. Trying to reconcile the conflicting drives.

She reaches up slowly and takes his flesh hand in both of hers, squeezing gently.

"Everything's going to be okay," she says softly. "I'm going to go to the store, I'm going to buy you some clothes, and I'm going to come right back. Fast. I promise."

His jaw works. She can see the internal struggle playing out across his face.

Then, slowly, his arms leave the wall, and he takes a step back, giving her space, but his hand tightens around hers. Not letting go. Not yet.

"Twenty minutes," she says, squeezing his hand again. "Okay?"

A long pause.

Then, finally, a single nod.

Stiff. Reluctant. But a nod.

----

Seventeen minutes.

The numbers on the laptop screen. 10:47 AM. She left at 10:30. Said twenty minutes. That means she should be back at 10:50.

Three minutes left.

Soldat sits on the edge of the bed, towel still wrapped around its waist, and watches the clock change to 10:48.

Its chest feels wrong. Tight. Like something is constricting around its lungs, making each breath require conscious effort.

She's coming back.

She said she would.

Twenty minutes.

But what if she doesn't?

The thought surfaces unbidden, and Soldat's hands clench into fists on its thighs. Metal fingers whir softly with the pressure.

What if she sees something out there that makes her realize what it is? What it's done? What if someone tells her about the Asset, about HYDRA, about the people it has killed?

What if she just... decides not to come back?

It wouldn't blame her.

10:49.

One minute.

Its breathing is getting faster. Shallow. The tightness in its chest is spreading, crawling up its throat, making its vision tunnel slightly at the edges.

She has to come back.

She has to.

Because without her, it doesn't know what it's supposed to do. Doesn't know where it's supposed to go. Doesn't know who it's supposed to be.

The handlers are gone. HYDRA is gone. Everything it was built for is rubble by the Potomac.

She's all it has left.

The only anchor point in a life of obeying, violence, and emptiness. The only person who's ever touched it without flinching. The only voice that's ever asked instead of ordered-

Except she did order. Told it to let her go.

And it complied.

Because that's what it does. It obeys. That's all it knows how to do.

But what if obeying was wrong this time? What if letting her leave means she doesn't come back, and it's sitting here alone in an empty apartment with no purpose and no-

10:51

The lock clicks.

Its head snaps toward the door, every muscle tense, its hand moving to grab a weapon that is not on him.

The handle turns, the door opens.

And she steps through, with a big plastic shopping bag in hand.

The relief is so overwhelming it's almost painful. The tightness in its chest releases all at once, and it has to grip the edge of the mattress to keep itself from lurching across the room toward her.

She came back.

She's here.

"Hey," she says, slightly breathless, closing the door behind her. "Sorry, the line was longer than I thought. But I got-"

She stops mid-sentence because Soldat is moving now, crossing the space between them in three long strides.

It doesn't know what it's doing. Just knows it needs to be closer, needs to confirm she's real and solid and not some hallucination its fractured mind conjured up.

Its arms wrap around her before it can stop itself, pulling her against its chest. The shopping bag crinkles between them, but it doesn't care. Just buries its face in her hair and breathes.

Brown sugar, yeast, and omega.

Real. Here. Safe.

"Alpha?" Her voice is muffled against its chest, surprised but not afraid. "Everything alright?"

It doesn't know how to answer that.

Doesn't know if "alright" is something it's capable of being. Just tightens its grip fractionally and tries to remember how to breathe.

She pulls back slightly in its grip, not trying to escape but making space to look up at it.

"I'm back," she says softly, one hand coming up to rest on its chest. "See? Just a few minutes."

It nods, still not trusting its voice.

She smiles, small and reassuring, then shifts the shopping bag between them. "Come on, let me show you what I got."

Its arms loosen reluctantly, letting her step back, and she moves to the bed, upending the bag onto the mattress. Fabric spills out. Gray, black, and dark blue. Soft-looking materials that don't resemble tactical gear at all.

"Okay," she says, organizing the pile. "I got you socks, boxers, a couple of long-sleeve shirts, and sweatpants. I didn't want to risk jeans because I wasn't totally sure about your size, and these will stretch more anyway."

It stares at the pile.

Normal clothes. The kind normal people wear. The kind it hasn't worn since… the thought fractures before it completes. It doesn't remember wearing anything except uniforms. Combat gear. Things designed for function, not comfort.

"And these," she continues, pulling out a pair of slide sandals. Cheap rubber things. "Just so you have something for your feet. I'll get you actual shoes when I can, but this is a start."

She looks up at it, expectantly. Waiting for some kind of response.

It doesn't know what to give her. Its gaze drops to the clothes again. They look soft. Warm. Like something a person would wear, not an asset.

"Try them on," she says gently. "See if they fit."

It reaches for the boxers first, then the sweatpants. The fabric is... strange. Fleece-lined, warm against its skin, nothing like the rough pants it's used to. The waistband has a drawstring. It tugs it tighter and ties it.

Then the shirt. Long sleeves, black, soft cotton that smells like store packaging and nothing else. It pulls it over its head, and the fabric feels like something foreign against his skin.

Not precisely uncomfortable, but different. It stands there, dressed like a normal person, and doesn't know what to do with its hands. Then, something white catches its eye on the floor. A piece of paper that must have fallen from the bag.

It bends down, picks it up.

The receipt.

Its eyes scan the numbers automatically. Line items. Prices. Total at the bottom.

$47.83.

The number feels like a dead weight.

It knows what things cost and the value of money. Has always had to know. Forty-seven dollars for clothes that don't deserve. Money that she probably doesn't have much of, given the size of this apartment.

The guilt is immediate and visceral.

She shouldn't have to spend money on it. Shouldn't have to take care of it. Shouldn't have to do any of this because it showed up uninvited and broke her life apart. Alphas don’t do that; alphas provide and fix, take care of their mate-

"Do they fit okay?"

Her voice pulls it back. It looks up from the receipt, and she's watching it with those warm eyes, head tilted slightly.

It nods.

"Good." She smiles. "You look-" She pauses, something shifting in her expression. "Good, alpha. Like an average person."

The words shouldn't hit as hard as they do.

Like a person.

Not an asset. Not a weapon. Not the Soldat.

Its throat feels tight. It looks back down at the receipt still clutched in its metal hand.

"Too much," it manages, voice rough. The words feel clumsy in its mouth, but it forces them out anyway. "Cost too much."

Her brow furrows. "What?"

It holds up the receipt. "The money. You... spent."

Her gaze fixes on him with something that looks almost like pain.

"Alpha," she says softly, crossing to it. Her hands come up to frame its face, thumbs brushing its cheekbones. "Don't. Don't do that. It's not too much. It's clothes. You need clothes."

It wants to argue. Wants to explain that it's not worth forty-seven dollars, not worth her time or money or care. She doesn’t know what it is, what it has done. That she should have screamed and fought him instead of letting it touch her.

But the words won't come.

Just the guilt, mixing with the relief that she came back, and the confusion of wearing soft civilian clothes that smell like nothing except fabric and detergent.

"You're worth it," she says, like she can read its thoughts. "Okay? You're worth it."

It doesn't believe her. But doesn’t have the heart to tell her.

----

She lets her hands drop from his face, giving him space to process, and turns her attention to her empty stomach.

"I don't know about you," she says, "but I'm starving. It's too late for breakfast, so we should probably just do lunch." She then moves toward the small kitchen area, opening the freezer. "I have some vareniki in here. They have ricotta inside."

When she glances back at him, his head is tilted slightly, brow furrowed. Like he's trying to grab onto something just out of reach.

"They're a kind of pasta," she explains, pulling out the package. "I buy them from this lady who makes them at home to order. They're really good."

He doesn't respond, just stands there looking lost.

She waits a beat, then realizes he's not going to tell her if he wants them or not. Can't tell her, maybe. The choice is too much, too open-ended.

"I think you'll like them," she says, deciding for him. "I'm going to make them with butter and some grated cheese. Okay?"

A nod. Small. Certain now that she's told him what's happening.

She fills a pot with water and sets it on the stove, turning the burner to high. While she waits for it to boil, she gathers the butter from the fridge and the cheese grater from the drawer.

She can feel his eyes on her.

When she turns, he's still standing exactly where she left him. Not at attention, but close. Back straight. Hands at his sides. Like he's waiting for orders.

"You can sit down," she offers, nodding toward the small table.

He moves immediately, pulling out a chair and sitting. But even seated, she can tell he is not relaxed or comfortable. Just... compliant.

She turns back to the stove, checking the water. Not boiling yet.

She glances over her shoulder again.

He's watching her. Not staring, exactly, but his gaze is fixed on what she's doing. Tracking her movements as she grates the cheese, watches the water, and adds salt.

There's something almost... analytical about it. Like he's cataloging every action, filing it away. Or maybe he just doesn't know what else to do.

"You okay over there?" she asks softly.

"Yes."

The answer is immediate. Automatic.

She's not sure she believes him, but she also doesn't know what else to ask.

The water finally boils, and she drops the vareniki in, stirring gently to keep them from sticking. They'll need about five minutes.

She turns to lean against the counter, facing him properly now.

He's still watching. Those pale blue eyes fixed on her with a focus that should probably make her uncomfortable, but doesn't.

"You can come closer if you want, alpha," she says. "I told you about sitting because I thought you would want to."

He stands immediately -too quickly- and crosses to her.

But he doesn't stop at a comfortable distance. He comes right up to her, close enough that she can feel his body heat, and just... stands there.

Watching.

She tilts her head up to look at him. "You want to see what I'm doing?"

A nod.

"Okay." She turns back to the stove, and he shifts with her, positioning himself slightly behind and to the side. Close enough that his arm brushes hers.

She stirs the vareniki, watching them bob in the boiling water. "They're almost done. They float when they're ready."

He doesn't say anything. Just watches. His presence is solid and warm beside her, and she can smell him now: clean, finally, underneath the faint scent of alpha that makes her inner omega content.

The pasta floats to the surface, and she fishes it out with a slotted spoon, draining it before transferring it to a serving plate with melted butter. He's still right there, watching every movement like this is the most fascinating thing he's ever seen.

Maybe it is.

The thought makes her chest ache.

"Go sit down," she says gently, nodding toward the table.

He moves immediately, pulling out a chair and settling into it with that same stiff posture.

She carries the serving plate to the table, setting it on a folded dish towel to protect the wood. Then she gets two regular plates and forks, setting one in front of him.

She serves him a generous portion. He's a big man, and she has no idea how much he eats. The vareniki gleam with butter as she arranges them on his plate, then sprinkles a generous amount of grated cheese over the top.

Then she serves herself and sits down across from him.

For a moment, they just... look at each other.

He's dressed. Clean. Fed. Safe.

Hers.

And she has absolutely no idea what she's doing.

"Go ahead," she says softly, picking up her fork. "Try it."

He picks up his fork and spears some food, bringing it to his mouth.

She watches him chew, his expression for any sign of reaction.

Nothing. Just methodical chewing. Swallowing.

Then he takes another bite. And another. Not desperate, but consistent. Like eating is just another task to complete.

"Do you like it?" she finally asks.

He pauses mid-bite, looks at her, then down at his plate. Like he's trying to determine if he's supposed to like it.

----

"Yes," he says finally.

It's the truth, as far as it can tell. The food is... good. Warm. The cheese is salty, the butter rich, the pasta soft in a way that's completely different from field rations or the nutrient paste they sometimes fed it through a tube to save time during mission prep.

It doesn't remember the last time it ate something that wasn't designed purely for function. Something that had flavor beyond the metallic tang of whatever vitamins they pumped into its system.

It likes this.

But the words to express that don't come. No one has ever asked for its approval on anything, least of all something as mundane as food. Its preferences have never mattered. Its sustenance was just another logistical concern, handled efficiently and without consideration for comfort.

She nods and returns to her own plate, and it watches her take a bite, chew, swallow.

There's something in her expression. A flicker of something that might be disappointment, though it's not entirely sure it's reading her correctly.

Did it insult her?

The thought sends a spike of anxiety through it. She spent food reserves, and not even normal ones, but the kind she had to order specially, to cook for it. And all it could give her was a flat "yes".

It needs to fix this.

It picks up its fork and takes another bite. Faster this time. Then another.

The problem is that it's already full.

Its stomach has spent decades being fed the bare minimum to function. Caloric intake calculated to maintain muscle mass and operational capacity, nothing more. The portions have always been small, controlled, and its body adapted.

Three vareniki in, and it can feel the pressure in its abdomen. Uncomfortable and unfamiliar. But she cooked this. She made it for it, and not finishing would be… what? Ungrateful? Disrespectful? A waste of the money she spent on ingredients?

It can't do that to her.

It forces another bite down. Chews mechanically. Swallows past the growing discomfort. Then another, and keep going.

Even though its stomach is protesting. Even though each bite is getting harder to swallow. Even though every instinct that isn't about pleasing her is screaming to stop.

It's halfway through the plate when her voice cuts through its thoughts.

"Alpha."

Its head snaps up, fork frozen halfway to its mouth.

"I'm sorry," she says, and there's genuine apology in her voice. "I should have made more. I'm watching you eat, and I'm thinking you're going to still be hungry."

If she only knew.

It shakes its head immediately.

"Are you sure?" she presses with concern. "Because I can make something else if-"

"Da." The word slips out before it can stop it, but it corrects itself quickly. "Yes. I’m sure."

She studies it for a moment, like she's trying to determine if it's telling the truth, then nods slowly.

"Okay," she says. "But if you get hungry later, tell me. We have more food."

It nods, relieved. She's not going to make it keep eating. Not going to force more food on it. She's just... accepting its answer.

She returns to her own plate, and it oblige his body to keep swallowing. Once it finishes the plate, it isn’t sure what it is supposed to do now.

Wait for her to finish? Clear the table? Stand at attention?

The uncertainty must show on its face because she glances up.

"You can relax," she says gently. "You don't have to just sit there. If you want to get up, you can."

Permission again.

It doesn't move. Not because it doesn't want to, but because it doesn't know where to go or what to do.

So it stays. Hands in its lap now, fork set down. Watching her finish her meal.

----

She finishes her plate and stands, gathering the dishes. "I'll wash these real quick, and then we can watch something. Or just cuddle on the couch if you want. You look tired."

It nods because it doesn't know what else to do.

She moves to the sink, running the water, and it sits there listening to the domestic sounds of dishes clinking, water running, her humming softly under her breath.

Normal sounds. Safe sounds.

And then its stomach clenches.

Hard.

The discomfort it had been ignoring suddenly becomes impossible to ignore anymore. A sharp, twisting sensation that makes its breath catch.

It stands abruptly, and the chair scrapes against the floor.

Bathroom. It needs to get to the bathroom.

It moves quickly, but not quickly enough.

Halfway across the small space, its stomach rebels violently. It doubles over, and everything comes up splattering across the floor in a grotesque puddle.

No.

No.

It hears her footsteps, hears the sharp intake of breath, and the shame is immediate and devastating.

"Oh, hey- it's okay-"

She's there in a second, the mop bucket from beside the sink suddenly in front of it, and it grips the edges as another wave hits it.

More comes up. Its body convulsing, emptying itself while she holds the bucket steady.

The thoughts spiral:

Unacceptable. Weak.

It made a mess on her floor. Ruined the clean space she maintains. There's also vomit on the new clothes -it can feel the wet warmth on its shirt- clothes she spent money on, clothes it doesn't deserve, and now they're ruined too.

Pathetic. Can't even eat a normal meal without failing.

She made food. Went to the effort of cooking, of feeding it like it's worth the care, and it couldn't even keep it down. Couldn't perform this one simple biological function without making a spectacle of itself.

Seventy years as Hydra’s fist, and it can't even-

"Alpha, breathe," her voice cuts through the spiral. Soft. Steady. "Just breathe. It's okay."

It's not okay.

Nothing about this is okay.

Another heave, but nothing comes up this time. Just painful dry retching that makes its eyes water and its throat burn.

"That's it," she murmurs, one hand on its back now, rubbing slow circles. "Get it all out. Don't fight it."

It wants to pull away. Wants to hide. Wants to be anywhere but here, hunched over a bucket while she watches it fall apart over something as stupid as food. But it can't move. Can only grip the bucket and try to breathe through the shame that's threatening to drown it.

Another dry heave shakes its body, but nothing else comes up.

She keeps her hand on its back, steady and warm, and her voice stays calm. "Okay. I think you're done. Just breathe for me."

It tries. Shaky inhales that burn its raw throat. The bucket is still clutched in its hands like a lifeline.

"Let me take that," she says gently, tugging at the bucket.

It releases it reluctantly, and she sets it aside, out of the immediate splash zone.

Her eyes scan the floor, the mess, then back to it. There's no disgust in her expression or anger. Just concern.

"Are you okay?" she asks. "Does your stomach still hurt?"

It can't answer. Can't form words past the shame clogging its throat.

She frowns slightly, biting her lip. "Maybe the filling was off? Or..." Her hand comes up to touch its forehead, checking for fever. "Are you getting sick? Do you feel feverish?"

It shakes its head. No fever. Just failure.

"Okay," she says, clearly trying to figure this out. "Could be a bug. Or maybe the cheese didn't agree with you."

She doesn't know.

Doesn't realize it forced itself to keep eating. Doesn't understand that its stomach has been starved down to nothing for decades and can't handle normal portions anymore.

She's trying to find an explanation that makes sense -bad food, illness, anything- because the truth wouldn't occur to her.

That it's just broken.

"Come on," she says, helping it straighten up. "Let's get you cleaned up first, then I'll deal with the floor."

It looks down at itself. The new shirt has vomit splattered across the front. Dark wet stains that reek of bile and failure.

The shame intensifies.

"Alpha," she says softly, catching its gaze. "Stop. I can see you spiraling. It's just a shirt. It'll wash."

It's not just a shirt. It's the evidence of how completely useless it is. How it can't even be trusted with basic things like eating without fucking it up.

She guides it toward the bathroom, her hand gentle on its elbow. "Let's get this off you and rinse your mouth out."

It follows because it doesn't know what else to do.

In the bathroom, she helps it pull the soiled shirt over its head. The movement makes its stomach clench again, but there's nothing left to come up. She tosses the shirt in the sink and turns on the tap, rinsing it quickly before wringing it out.

"Here," she says, handing it a cup of water. "Rinse and spit. Your mouth has to taste awful."

It does. The water is cool, soothing against the burn in its throat. It rinses and spits into the sink, then rinses again.

"Better?" she asks.

A small nod.

She's watching it carefully, and it can see the wheels turning in her head. Trying to figure out what's wrong, why this happened.

She's not going to figure it out unless it tells her.

And it doesn't know how to tell her that it's fundamentally broken. That decades of abuse have left it unable to function in even the most basic ways.

"Go sit on the couch," she says gently. "I'm going to clean up the floor, and then I'll bring you some ginger ale or something, okay? Something gentle for your stomach."

It wants to argue. Wants to clean up its own mess, but she's already guiding it out of the bathroom, her hand firm but kind on its back.

"Go," she insists. "Sit down. Let me handle this."

So it does.

Because she told it to.

And obeying is all it knows how to do.

----

She works quickly, mechanically. Paper towels first to get the worst of it, then the mop with disinfectant.

Her mind is racing. She ate the same thing he did, but her stomach feels fine. No nausea. No cramping. Nothing.

So it's not food poisoning. Is he sick? Coming down with something?

But he doesn’t seem to have a fever. His skin was cool when she touched his forehead, maybe even a little cold.

So what is it?

She scrubs harder at the floor, frustration mixing with concern. She needs to fix this. Needs to figure out what's wrong so she can help him, but she doesn't have enough information.

And he's not going to tell her. Not because he's being difficult, but because he probably doesn't even know himself what's wrong.

Or worse, he knows and doesn't think he's allowed to say.

The thought makes her chest tight again.

She finishes with the floor, dumps the dirty water in the toilet, rinses the mop and bucket, and washes her hands thoroughly. Then she goes to her purse on the counter.

There's a small tin of mints in the side pocket. Cherry flavored. She pops one out and grabs a clean dish towel from the drawer.

When she enters the living area, he's exactly where she left him. Sitting on the couch. Shirtless. Back straight. Hands on his thighs.

Waiting.

His eyes track her as she approaches, and she can see it immediately, the distress. The smell of shame radiates off him in waves, even though his expression is carefully blank.

"Here," she says softly, holding out the mint. "For your mouth."

He takes it without question, placing it on his tongue.

She sits down next to him, close enough that their thighs touch, and drapes the dish towel across his bare chest.

"Just in case," she explains. "If you feel sick again."

He nods stiffly.

She shifts, tucking herself against his side, her head resting on his shoulder. One arm wraps around his waist, and she can feel how tense he is.

Like he's bracing for something.

"Alpha," she murmurs. "It's okay. You just got sick. It happens."

He doesn't respond.

She cuddles more against him and starts to purr.

Low and steady, the sound rumbling in her chest. It's instinctive, her omega nature trying to soothe her distressed alpha, trying to calm whatever storm is raging inside him.

She feels him go even more rigid for a moment, like he doesn't know what to do with the comfort she's offering.

Then, slowly, incrementally, he starts to relax.

His shoulder drops slightly. His breathing evens out. The tension in his frame bleeds away by degrees. But the distress doesn't fully leave. She can still smell it on him, acrid and sharp underneath his natural scent.

This isn't just about getting sick. She knows that instinctively, even if she doesn't understand why. This is... something else. Something significant enough to send him spiraling.

She keeps purring, keeps holding him, and wishes desperately that he could just tell her what's wrong.

But he can't. Or won't. Or doesn't know how.

So she does the only thing she can: stays close and purrs and hopes it's enough.

His arm comes up slowly, carefully, and wraps around her shoulders. Holding her against him like she's the only thing keeping him tethered.

"I've got you," she whispers against his chest. "Whatever it is, I've got you."

She feels him nod. Just barely.

And his grip on her tightens.

----

They stay like that for a while. She's not sure how long, but long enough that the mint has dissolved completely in his mouth. Long enough that his breathing has returned to something approaching normal.

He seems okay physically. No more nausea, no signs of fever or illness. Just that lingering tension that hasn't fully released, like he's waiting for the other shoe to drop.

She understands now, in a way she didn't before, just how broken he is. How careful she's going to have to be. How slowly she'll need to move.

Their relationship didn't start with a conversation. It started with scents through a bakery vent. With biology and instinct, and something neither of them could control or explain.

Maybe that's where she needs to go back to. Not words, he doesn't have those, or can't access them, or doesn't trust them. But touch. Scent. The things that bypass language entirely.

Her hand slides up from his waist, tracing along his side. Up higher, to where the metal meets flesh. The scar tissue is thick, raised, and angry, even if it seems this was inflicted long ago.

She traces it gently, following the line where the metal bolted into living tissue.

"Does this hurt?" she asks softly.

"No."

His voice is rough but certain.

She nods and shifts, rising up slightly on the couch. Her lips press against the scarred tissue, feather-light. A kiss to the damage someone else inflicted.

His breath hitches.

It's subtle -just a small catch in his breathing- but she feels it. Feels the way his body goes very still under her mouth, like he's trying to process a sensation he doesn't have reference for.

She does it again, and this time, his exhale shakes.

And his scent shifts.

It's not dramatic, but it's there. The edge of distress that's been clinging to him since he got sick starts to fade, replaced by something warmer. Deeper.

Alpha.

Not the stressed, broken alpha smell. The real thing underneath. Leather and gunmetal and that bass note that makes her inner omega drool.

She keeps going. More kisses, tender and purposeful, mapping the border of his trauma with her mouth. Working her way across his shoulder, and with each press of her lips, his breathing gets a little heavier. A little less controlled.

The angle is awkward -she's twisted sideways on the couch, half-kneeling to reach him properly- so she shifts, swinging one leg over his thighs, settling into his lap so she can reach his shoulder, his neck, without straining.

The position puts them chest to chest, and she can feel it immediately, the way his breathing stutters when her weight settles fully on his thighs.

His hands come to her waist automatically. Steadying her. Holding her.

She presses kisses up the side of his neck now, following the line of his throat, and his pulse is racing under her lips now; she can feel it, fast and hard and alive. And his scent is getting stronger now, filling her lungs with every breath.

Her body responds before her mind catches up.

Warmth low in her belly. A flutter of arousal building between her legs. The beginning of slick, just a hint of wetness that has nothing to do with conscious thought.

She tries to ignore it. This isn't about sex. This is about comfort, about showing him that touch can be gentle, that-

A sound rumbles out of him.

Low. Subvocal. Vibrating against her lips where they're pressed to his throat, and she can feel it in her chest too, where they're pressed together.

He's purring.

The realization makes her still for half a second, and then she's moving again, drawn by instinct. Her mouth finds his scent gland, and she opens her lips against it.

Just a gentle press at first. Testing.

His whole body shudders beneath her.

Not a small tremor. A full-body shake that she feels everywhere they're touching, and the purr stutters, breaking into something rougher. More desperate.

His metal hand slides up from her waist to cup the back of her head. Not forcing, but holding her there. Like he needs this contact, needs her mouth on his gland more than he needs to breathe.

She seals her lips over it and sucks.

Gently. Carefully.

The reaction is immediate and devastating.

His scent explodes.

It floods her system -thick and overwhelming- hitting the back of her throat, her lungs, soaking into her skin. Leather and gunmetal and musk, and underneath it all, something that's just him, raw and unfiltered and so intense she feels dizzy with it.

Her vision blurs at the edges.

The hand on the back of her head tightens, metal fingers fisting carefully through her hair, and she can feel him trembling. Actually trembling, like he's coming apart under her mouth.

"Omega," he rasps, and his voice is wrecked. Barely recognizable.

The word sends a bolt of heat straight between her legs.

She's slick now. Properly slick. Can feel it coating her inner thighs, soaking through her underwear. Her body responding to his scent, to his need, to the broken way he's naming her like she's the only thing in the world that can fix him.

And maybe she is.

Her own breathing is getting ragged now. Her heart is pounding. The hand not holding his shoulder slides down to his chest, and she can feel his heart racing under her palm, matching hers beat for beat.

She sucks harder at his gland, and he makes a sound, broken and needy and so fucking desperate it makes her inner omega keen with the need to soothe, to provide, to give.

His hips shift beneath her. Just slightly. An involuntary rock upward, and that's when she feels it, his thick cock pressing against her through the thin fabric of his sweatpants, hardening with every second her mouth stays on his gland.

The friction sends a spark of pleasure through her, and she can't help the small roll of her hips in response. Seeking more of that pressure, more of that contact.

He groans against her hair, and the purr has morphed into something else now. Something between a purr and a growl, possessive and needy all at once, and it vibrates through both their chests where they're pressed together.

----

The kiss deepens, and the chaotic thoughts that have been spiraling since it threw upstart to fade, pushed aside by something stronger.

Instinct.

Alpha instinct that knows what to do even when its conscious mind doesn't. That knows how to touch her, how to hold her, how to make her feel good. This, at least, it can do.

This, it didn't fail at.

Her hips shift in its lap, grinding down, and the friction sends a bolt of heat straight through it. Its cock is fully hard now. Its hands slide down to her waist, gripping, and it can feel the softness of her through the thin fabric of her shirt. Warm. Yielding.

Omega. Mine.

She pulls back from the kiss just enough to catch her breath, her lips swollen and wet, and the sight makes its chest constrict.

"Alpha," she breathes, and the word is laced with need.

It can give her this.

Can make her feel good. Can use its body for something other than violence and destruction. Can be worthy of the care she's given it.

Its mouth finds her throat, licking over her scent gland, and she gasps. Her fingers tangle in its hair, pulling, and it growls softly against her skin.

The sound is possessive. Territorial. Pure alpha.

And she responds to it. Her hips rolling down harder, seeking friction, seeking it.

"Please," she whimpers, and that word -that desperate plea- flips every remaining switch in its brain from think to act.

Its hands slide under her shirt, palms against bare skin. She's so warm, so soft, and it can feel her pulse racing under its touch. It drags the fabric up and she helps, lifting her arms so it can pull the shirt over her head.

The shirt hits the floor, and it just stops and stares.

Its gaze drops to her breasts, and something primal and hungry coils in its gut.

Pretty. Perfect.

The thoughts are simple, base-level. No complex analysis, just pure aesthetic appreciation mixed with possessive satisfaction.

Mine. All mine.

Its metal hand comes up slowly, cupping one breast, and she shivers at the cool touch of the plates. The flesh hand mirrors it on the other side, warmer, and it just holds her for a moment. Learning the weight, the softness.

Then its thumbs brush over her nipples, watching them harden under the touch, and she makes a small sound that goes straight to its cock.

It wants its mouth there. Wants to taste.

It leans forward, closing the distance, and seals its lips around one nipple. Her hand flies to the back of its head, holding it there, and it sucks at the bud.

Her reaction is perfect. Back arching more, pushing her breast further into its mouth, a breathy moan escaping her throat.

It switches to the other side. Licking, sucking, feeling her nipple harden against its tongue, and her hips are moving restlessly in its lap now, grinding down shamelessly against its cock in a rhythm that's making it hard to think.

Need her. Need to be inside her.

It lifts her suddenly -hands gripping her ass, standing from the couch with her legs wrapped around its waist- and crosses to the bed in three strides.

The bed where it knotted her days ago. Where it learned what it felt like to be something other than it was. It lays her down carefully -always careful, because it could hurt her so easily- and follows her down, covering her body with its own.

She's reaching for it immediately, pulling it down into another kiss, and this one is hungrier. More desperate.

Its hands map her body with growing confidence. Over her sides, down to the waistband of her joggers. It hooks its fingers in the fabric and strips her swiftly -joggers and underwear gone in seconds- and then she's bare beneath it, legs falling open in invitation.

The scent of her arousal hits it like a drug. Sweet and thick and unmistakably omega.

Its mouth trails down her body -throat, collarbone, between her breasts- following instinct more than conscious thought. It pauses there, unable to resist, taking one nipple back into its mouth while its hand palms the other breast.

She whimpers, her hips lifting off the bed, seeking friction.

Lower.

It kisses down her stomach. Her hips.

And then between her thighs. It doesn't hesitate. Just buries its face between her legs and tastes.

Her reaction is immediate. Back arching off the bed, hand flying to its hair, a broken sound escaping her throat.

Good.

She feels good.

This is what alphas do. This is its purpose.

The thoughts are simple. Clear. No room for shame or failure or worthlessness.

Just its tongue on her clit, her taste flooding its mouth, her thighs shaking on either side of its head, and the sounds she's making that tell it it's doing this right.

For once in its miserable existence, it's doing something right.

And it's not going to stop until she falls apart.

Its tongue drags through her folds slowly, and her taste floods its system. Salt and sweet and omega, the slick coating its tongue, sliding down its throat.

She wants this. Wants it.

Its mouth seals around her clit and gives it a firm suck, and her hips buck up off the mattress. The hand in its hair tightens, pulling, and it growls against her, a deep, possessive sound that vibrates through her core.

She cries out, thighs trembling, and more slick floods out. It can smell it, thick and heavy in the air, mixing with its own scent until the entire room reeks of them.

Alpha and omega. Mated. Mine.

It pulls back just enough to look at her. Chest heaving, eyes glazed with need. It wants to remember this, wants to keep it when everything else is fractured and scattered.

Its fingers slide through her wetness, feeling how ready she is. How open. Her body yielding for it, welcoming it.

This isn't blind instinct anymore. It knows now. Learned her body those first frantic days: what makes her gasp, what makes her whimper, what makes her come apart completely.

And it plans to use every bit of that knowledge.

Because right now, making her feel good is the only thing it's certain of. The only thing it hasn't failed at.

Two fingers slide inside her, and she keens. Her back arches, head thrown back, and the scent of her arousal intensifies.

It watches her face as it curls its fingers, finding that spot inside that makes her whole body jolt. There. It strokes deliberately, and her thighs start to shake.

"Alpha-" Her voice is wrecked. Desperate. "Please-"

Begging.

Its omega is begging for it.

It is drunk with primal satisfaction.

Its mouth returns to her clit, tongue circling while its fingers work inside her. The dual sensation makes her cry out, hips rolling desperately against its face.

It can feel her tightening around its fingers. Getting close. Her slick is coating its hand now, running down its wrist, and the scent is so thick it's almost overwhelming.

Perfect.

She's perfect.

It sucks harder on her clit, fingers stroking faster, and her entire body goes rigid.

Then she shatters.

The sound she makes is broken and beautiful. Her walls clamp down on its fingers, pulsing, and fresh slick floods out as she comes.

It doesn't stop. Keeps licking, keeps stroking, drawing out her orgasm until she's trembling and oversensitive and trying to push its head away with shaking hands.

Only then does it pull back.

Its face is wet. Its hand is soaked. And its cock is so hard it hurts, straining against the sweatpants.

She's still panting, still trembling, but her eyes are on it now. Watching as it rises up on its knees between her spread thighs.

"Alpha," she breathes.

Its hands go to the waistband of the sweatpants. It shoves them down just enough to free its cock, and the relief of pressure is immediate.

It's leaking already. Has been since it first tasted her. The head is flushed and wet, and it wraps its flesh hand around the base, positioning itself. The head of its cock slides through her folds, coating itself in her slick, and they both groan at the contact.

Then it pushes inside.

Slow. Controlled. Watching her face for any sign of discomfort.

And then it realizes: this is the first time.

The first time it's taken her like this. Face to face. Looking at her while it pushes inside.

Those frantic days were different. Needed to mount her from behind, needed to claim and breed and lose itself in pure instinct. Couldn't think, couldn't see, could only feel.

But this is different.

It can see her face now. Can watch the way her mouth falls open as it sinks deeper. Can see her eyes flutter closed, then open again to meet its gaze. Can watch her head tip back slightly, throat exposed, as she tries to take all of it.

And it likes this.

Likes seeing the pleasure written across her face. Likes watching the exact moment when it bottoms out and her breath catches. Likes the way her hands come up to grip its shoulders, nails digging in slightly.

"Alpha," she breathes, and her voice is already wrecked.

It pulls back slowly, almost all the way out, just to watch her expression change. The loss registers on her face, a little furrow between her brows, her hips shifting up like she's trying to follow.

Then it pushes back in. Steady. Deep.

Her mouth opens in a gasp, and her head falls back against the pillow.

This. This is what it wants to remember. Not just the feeling -though fuck, the feeling is incredible, tight heat and slick and home- but the visual. Her face. The way she looks when it's inside her.

It does it again. Slow withdrawal, watching her react. Watching her body arch slightly, seeking. Then the slow push back in, filling her completely, and the way her eyes roll back slightly when it hits deep.

Its gaze drops lower. Watches where they're joined -its cock disappearing into her, slick coating the shaft- then up to her breasts.

They move with each thrust. Gentle sway, nipples still hard and wet from its mouth, and it can't look away.

Beautiful.

It wants to touch, but its hands are occupied -one braced beside her head, the other gripping her hip- so it just watches. Mesmerized by the movement, by the visual proof of what it's doing to her.

Making her body react. Making her shake and gasp and take its cock.

"Look at me," it rasps, and it's surprised by its own voice. The command in it.

Her eyes snap open, locking onto its.

And it moves.

Still slow. Still controlled. But purposeful now, each thrust measured and deliberate. Angling to hit that spot inside that makes her gasp.

But it's not enough. Not deep enough. It needs-

Its metal hand releases her hip and slides down, hooking behind her knee. It pushes her leg up and out, bending it toward her chest, opening her wider.

The angle change is immediate and devastating.

It sinks deeper -so much deeper- and she cries out, back arching off the bed.

"Fuck! Alpha-"

Yes. This.

It does it again, pulling almost all the way out and driving back in at this new angle, and the sound she makes is perfect. Broken and desperate and so full of pleasure it makes something fierce and possessive burn in its chest.

Its gaze drops again, watching its cock slide into her at this angle, watching her body stretch to take it, watching the way her breasts bounce with each harder thrust now that it's found the right position.

The visual is almost too much. Her leg pushed up, held in place by its metal hand, opening her completely. Her hands gripping the sheets, knuckles white.

Taking everything it's giving her.

Mine.

The thought is absolute. Possessive. This omega, spread open beneath it, taking its cock, making those perfect sounds… all mine.

It hooks her ankle over its shoulder, and its hand slides between them, finding her clit.

The reaction is immediate.

She clenches around it, walls fluttering, and her whole body tenses.

"Alpha-fuck-I can't-I'm-"

It circles her clit in time with its thrusts, watching her face the entire time. Watching her pleasure build. Watching her breasts move with each impact of its hips against hers. Watching her get closer and closer to the edge.

Its thumb presses down on her clit, and that's all it takes.

She breaks.

Clenching down hard, her back arching off the bed, a broken cry escaping her throat. It can feel the rhythmic pulse of her orgasm, feel the fresh gush of slick, and it feels so fucking good-

Its own control fractures.

The measured thrusts become harder, faster. It grips her hip and the back of her thigh, holding her in place while it drives into her, chasing its own release while she's still coming, still squeezing around it.

When it comes, it's with its eyes locked on her face, watching her watch it fall apart. Its hips jerk forward, driving deep, and it barely manages to keep its arms locked so it doesn't collapse its full weight onto her.

The pleasure rolls through in waves, each one making its cock pulse inside her, and it can't look away from her face. Can't stop watching the way she's looking at it, eyes heavy-lidded, satisfied, something soft in her expression that it doesn't have words for.

Its hips give a few more shallow thrusts, riding out the aftershocks, and then it stills. Panting. Overwhelmed.

It starts to shift, pulling back, preparing to roll to the side, and her arms immediately wrap around its neck.

"No," she says, breathless but firm. "Stay."

It freezes, uncertain. Its weight is resting on her. Not all of it, its forearms are still taking most of the load, but still. It's heavy.

Her legs lift, wrapping higher around its waist, and the message is crystal clear:

Don't move. Stay exactly where you are.

"Please," she adds, softer now. "Just... stay like this for a minute."

It doesn't understand why she'd want this. Why she'd want its weight pinning her down, its softening cock still buried inside her, its sweat-damp skin pressed against hers.

But she asked.

So it stays.

Carefully, it lets more of its weight settle onto her and she makes a small, satisfied sound. Her hands slide from its neck into its hair, fingers combing through the damp strands.

"Better," she whispers. Then- "You okay?" she asks quietly.

It nods. Then, because that feels insufficient: "Yes."

Her thumb brushes across its cheekbone. The touch is gentle, reverent, almost.

"You did so good," she murmurs. "Made me feel so good."

Good.

Its throat feels tight. It doesn't know what to say, how to respond, so it just... stays as it is, letting her hold it. Letting her touch its face, stroke its hair, murmur soft praise that it doesn't know how to accept but desperately needs.

The chaos in its head is quiet now. Not gone, probably never fully gone, but... manageable.

HYDRA is gone. The handlers are gone. The structure that told it when to move, when to eat, when to breathe… all of it, gone.

And somehow, that's more terrifying than any mission it was ever sent on.

"Alpha," she whispers after a while, when his breathing has fully settled. "I'm glad you came back home."

Home.

The word lands strangely. Foreign. It tries to process it and can't quite make it fit.

Not base. Not safehouse. Not operational location.

Home implies... permanence. Belonging. Things it doesn't know how to conceptualize beyond the pull of the bond that says mine, stay, protect.

Her fingers card through its hair, gentle and soothing.

"We're going to have to talk eventually," she says. "Really talk. I need to understand you, and you need to understand me.

It nods against her shoulder because she's right.

The bond is real, undeniable, biological, absolute. But she's also a person, with thoughts and history and a life it knows nothing about. And it is... what?

Not a person. Not really.

Except-

The scene surfaces suddenly in his mind. Sharp. Unwelcome.

The man on the bridge.

Who said a name like it should mean something. Like the Asset was someone worth calling by name. The memory -if it even is a memory and not a construct of his fried brain- is fragmentary. Unreliable. Could be nothing.

But it knows what she said is true.

Eventually, she's going to need more. Need answers it doesn't have. Need it to be something it doesn't know how to be.

And it's terrified of what could happen when it can't give her that-

"Alpha?" Her voice cuts through the spiral, soft and concerned. "Where did you go?"

It shakes its head against her shoulder.

She doesn't push. Just holds it tighter, one hand rubbing slow circles on its back. Careful, always careful, lets itself sink into the warmth of her body, the rhythm of her breathing, the beat of her heart on her throat.

The future is uncertain, terrifying. Full of questions it doesn't have answers to.

It doesn't have commands anymore.

Just her hands in its hair. Her voice saying stay. And the pull of the bond that bypasses every fractured synapse in its brain.

So it does.

It stays.

Bucky sat at the small kitchen table, cupping a chipped mug. The coffee inside had gone lukewarm again. He’d already reheated it twice, which somehow made it worse: burnt and thin, like it resented being brought back.

He sipped it anyway.

The apartment was quiet, only pipes murmuring somewhere in the walls. A car alarm rose and died a few streets away. The refrigerator clicked on, then off. He could hear his own breathing, steady enough, even if it felt shallow.

He knew he had to go out. There were things he needed: food, soap, whatever ran out when you weren’t paying attention. He’d been putting it off all morning, letting the hours slide by because no one was telling him when to move anymore. Freedom did that.

The mug was lighter than he expected when he lifted it again. In Wakanda, mornings had smelled like earth, leaves, and something warm cooking nearby. People brought things without making it feel like charity. He hadn’t had to choose much. On the run, it had been easier. Anonymous cities, borrowed names, moving fast enough that no one looked twice.

Here, everything demanded a decision.

He set the mug down and rested his forearms on the table. The wood was scarred with old cuts and stains, and he traced one of them with his thumb without really noticing he was doing it, tracing someone else’s history.

Going outside meant eyes. Options. Shelves full of things that did the same job but insisted on being different. It also meant the chance -small, but never zero- that someone would recognize the shape of his face behind the beard and the long hair.

He stayed where he was a moment longer. The coffee had gone cold again.

Cold food had always meant it was time to move. He didn’t remember learning that, only that staying never ended well. Then-

A hand fisting his hair, yanking his head back. The MRE packet crushed against his mouth, thick paste forced down his throat before he could swallow. Not enough air. Never enough air between one mouthful and the next. They didn't stop until the packet was empty.

His jaw clenched. The mug was still in his hand.

He set it down carefully and pushed his chair back. Because choosing when and what he ate was the kind of freedom he'd burned too many memories to lose now.

The jacket hung by the door, waiting. He shrugged it on, checked for his wallet, and made himself move. The hallway smelled like someone else's cooking. He locked the door behind him and took the stairs down, footsteps echoing in the narrow stairwell.

He stopped on the building’s threshold for a breath, then another. He shoved his hands in his pockets and started walking, counting blocks in his head. Four. Just four.

The corner store was already busy when he pushed the door open. A bell rang overhead, sharp and tinny, and his shoulders tensed on reflex before he could stop it. The place was narrow, shelves packed too close together, boxes stacked wherever they fit. It smelled like coffee, cleaning products, and something fried that had seeped into the walls.

He took a step inside. Then another.

Someone bumped his arm almost immediately, a kid with headphones, eyes glued to his phone, who didn’t even look back. Bucky didn’t move. The kid did, rebounding off him without noticing, already gone, swallowed by the aisle.

He frowned. No apology, not even a glance.

The shelves pressed in on both sides. Too many labels. Too many colors. Everything was shouting for attention. He grabbed the first loaf of bread within reach without checking the brand, then a bottle of soap, then something that looked like it might be toothpaste. He didn’t stop to read. Reading meant choosing.

A woman with a plastic basket turned suddenly, catching him square in the arm. She muttered an apology and kept moving.

“Yeah,” he mumbled, though she was gone before the word fully left his mouth.

His pulse was up now, loud in his ears. He could feel the space shrinking, every movement around him unpredictable. He tried to keep his pace steady, but it kept breaking; someone stopping short, someone reaching across him, someone brushing past too close.

Maintain the objective. Ignore irrelevant contact. Complete the mission.

The words surfaced in his mind without permission: clear, cold, and automatic. He hated that they still worked. Hated that the Soldat's protocols were the sharpest tools he had to do a fucking grocery shopping. But his body obeyed anyway: muscle memory from places that had been loud, crowded and dangerous for different reasons, now burning itself down just to buy milk and eggs.

He focused on the floor instead. On the distance between the cooler and the register. Short. Manageable.

The cashier glanced at him once, then again, eyes lingering on his face just a second longer than necessary. Bucky looked away and shifted his weight, already counting the steps back to the door.

Outside, the noise hit him all at once again. Traffic, voices, a siren somewhere too far away to matter and too close to ignore. He stepped aside instinctively, letting a couple of people pass before he realized he didn’t need to.

He started walking, keeping his eyes on the pavement.

By the time he reached his apartment, he exhaled.

He unlocked the door and stepped inside, letting it fall shut behind him. Silence was already there. Familiar and heavy.

He set the bag on the counter and started unpacking. Bread, soap, eggs. Small things. Normal things.

The kind of things that shouldn't cost what they did.

Not money. Memories.

He'd burned through how many, just to walk four blocks? The MRE packet. The protocols. The coldness of a weapon pretending to be a person. All of it fuel, keeping him upright, keeping him moving when his own will wasn't enough.

He wondered -briefly, uselessly- what would happen when that ran out. When he'd used up every scrap of trauma, every cold instruction, every ghost of who he used to be.

Maybe that's what freedom was. Learning how to move once the fuel was gone.

He closed the refrigerator and stood there for a moment, hands flat against the door.

Outside, the city kept going. In a couple of days, he'd have to do this again.

One way or another, he’d keep moving.

He'd been quiet for a while, that comfortable silence they'd grown used to. The kind where neither felt compelled to fill the space with meaningless words. But her mind had been turning something over for days now, a question that kept surfacing like driftwood on the tide.

She finally dared to ask.

“Bucky?”

"Mm?" His eyes were closed, expression peaceful, almost drowsy. One of his hands rested loosely on her knee, fingers pressing in a gentle, unconscious claim.

Her heart picked up speed.

Just ask. He won't bite. Well, he might, but not for this.

"Do you remember when you were... attacked?"

His entire body went rigid. The relaxed line of his shoulders turned to stone, and though his eyes remained closed, she felt the change immediately: the way his breathing stopped for a half-second too long, the sudden tension in his jaw.

"Yes," he said carefully.

Her fingers didn't stop their gentle movement through his hair, a silent reassurance. "When I offered you my blood... I asked if your kind fed on humans. I made that connection because of the sirens. The stories about them."

Bucky's face twisted into a grimace, his nose wrinkling with distaste. Even with his eyes closed, the expression was almost feral. "We're not like those weak-"

"I know," she interrupted gently, her thumb brushing just behind his ear in the spot that usually made him melt. "But they do sing to lure sailors to their deaths, don't they?" She paused, choosing her words carefully. "Sometimes just for fun, from what I've read."

His jaw ticked, a muscle jumping beneath pale skin. The hand on her knee flexed once, fingers tightening briefly before relaxing again. Clearly not pleased with the comparison.

"Your lights," she continued, her voice soft and curious, "those blue orbs, they're for prey in the deep, right? But how do you lure humans specifically? Do you sing too?"

For a long moment, he didn't answer. She could feel the internal debate playing out behind his closed eyelids, the war between his instinct to keep this part of himself hidden and his growing trust in her.

Finally, "We use our voice, yes."

The admission came quiet, almost reluctant. Like he expected her to recoil, to see him differently now.

She processed that, her fingers never ceasing their gentle paths through his hair. So he can do it. He has that power. The thought should have frightened her, probably would have months ago. But now? Now it was just another facet of him. Another survival tool in his arsenal.

"Your kind… do you use it for other things? Like... mating season maybe? Or some rituals?"

"No." The answer was immediate, almost defensive.

He opened his eyes then, tilting his head slightly to look up at her. Those storm-blue eyes were guarded now, watchful. Waiting to see the judgment in hers.

"It's only for hunting," he continued, his voice low and rough.

"Okay," she said simply, and went back to stroking his hair.

He blinked, clearly having expected more questions, more probing. When none came, some of the tension bled from his shoulders. His hand on her knee relaxed again, thumb beginning to trace small, idle circles against her skin.

But she wasn't quite done yet.

She bit her lip, worrying it between her teeth as she worked up the courage.

Bucky recognized the gesture immediately. It meant trouble. It meant she was about to say something that would throw him completely off balance.

His entire body tensed again in anticipation.

"Would you sing for me?"

For a heartbeat, nothing.

Then he went completely still beneath her touch. A second later, he jerked upright so fast she had to yank her hands back. He twisted to face her, eyes wide with genuine shock, stormy blues gone almost black with the dilation of his pupils.

"No." His tone was absolute.

"Why not?"

"Because-" He shook his head firmly, brows furrowing into that stubborn scowl she knew so well. "You're not prey. I wouldn't use the old pull on you. It would be... disrespectful." His jaw set, that familiar mulish tilt of his chin. "Why would you even want that?"

Because I want all of you, she thought. Even the dangerous parts. Especially those.

"Because I want to hear you," she said simply, keeping her voice steady even though her heart was hammering.

Then, because she couldn't help herself, because she'd learned he responded to playfulness when he got too serious, she added with a mischievous glint in her eyes, "Besides, that... allure doesn't necessarily have to be used to eat me, right? Well, yes, you could, but..." She winked at him. "In a different way."

He stared at her, lips parted slightly, processing her words. She watched the exact moment comprehension landed, the way his eyes widened further, the way color flooded his face from his neck up to the tips of his ears.

"Mate!" The word came out half-scandalized, half-reprimand, his voice pitching higher with his shock.

She couldn't help it; she laughed softly, reaching for his hand before he could retreat completely. "What? I'm just saying it could be... interesting. From a completely academic perspective."

"Academic," he repeated, incredulously, though she noticed -with no small amount of satisfaction- how his fingers intertwined with hers almost unconsciously. Like his body couldn't help seeking her out even when his mind was reeling.

"Totally," she affirmed with mock seriousness. She bit her lip again, this time with genuine curiosity. "What would it be like? Is it like human singing or completely different?"

Bucky sighed, looking down at their joined hands. The flush was still high on his cheeks, but his expression had changed to something more contemplative.

"It's different," he admitted quietly. "There are no... words. It's deeper. It resonates."

He paused, his grip tightening slightly on her hand.

"But it's also..." His voice dropped even lower, became rougher, edged with something dark. "It's a form of violent submission. Forces the prey to come willingly. To want it." His eyes lifted to hers, and she saw the shadow there, the old pain. "It reminds me of what they did to me. I don't want to do that to you," he said firmly. "Ever."

The realization hit her like cold water. Oh, Bucky.

"I'm sorry," she said immediately, her face falling. "I didn't think- I should have connected the dots."

He shook his head quickly, almost violently. "I'm not angry."

"Still, I-"

"It's fine," he insisted, squeezing her hand hard enough to border on painful. His eyes were intense, boring into hers. Needing her to believe him.

She was quiet for a moment, studying his face, the way tension still lined his shoulders. Then, carefully, "It would be different, though, wouldn't be violent submission," she continued gently, before he could shut down completely. "I'm your mate. I've chosen you." She brought their joined hands up, pressing his scarred knuckles to her cheek, letting him feel the warmth of her skin. "And I'm the one asking. There's no force in that, is there?"

Bucky stared at her, caught completely off guard. His mouth opened slightly, then closed. She could see him processing, trying to find the flaw in her logic.

"I'm not prey being lured to my death," she said softly, holding his gaze. "I'm your partner, asking to experience something that's part of you." Her thumb traced over his knuckles, slow and deliberate. "That's not the same thing at all."

He opened his mouth again, then closed it, clearly struggling. The war played out across his face in micro-expressions: rejection, consideration, doubt, hope. His eyes searched hers desperately, looking for any hint of fear.

"I just..." He exhaled roughly, looking away, his jaw working. "I don't want you to feel like you have to come to me. Like you can't resist."

Oh, you stubborn, traumatized man.

"I already can't resist you," she said with a small smile. "And that has nothing to do with magic or songs. That's just... you."

He made a low, grumbling sound in his throat, that particular rumble that meant he was flustered and didn't know how to handle compliments.

But she caught it immediately: the way his chest puffed slightly, shoulders straightening just a fraction. The unmistakable flicker of pride that crossed his features.

His ears were still tinged pink, and the corner of his mouth twitched like he was fighting a pleased smile and losing.

Got you.

He huffed then, deliberately looking away from her, but his thumb was tracing idle circles on the back of her hand again. His body language betrayed him completely.

"...Fine," he muttered finally, the word dragged out of him like a reluctant confession.

Her face lit up with excitement. "Can you do it here?"

He shook his head, some of the wariness creeping back into his expression. "I need to be… me. We'll have to do it at the cave."

She blinked, surprised. "The cave? Why not at the beach?"

"Because the song..." He shifted uncomfortably, his free hand coming up to rub the back of his neck, a nervous gesture she'd learned to recognize. "It's not just sound. There are other... things. What you call bio-something… the light in my body becomes more intense. Patterns." His eyes flicked to hers, serious now. "Someone walking by the cliffs might see."

She nodded slowly with understanding. “Okay. The cave, then."

----

Night had fallen by the time they made their way down to the cave. The tide was low, water lapping far from the entrance with rhythmic insistence, and Bucky had already shifted.

The relief was immediate, his limbs unfurled in the saltwater, reacquainting themselves with their natural element. This was right. This was him.

He'd positioned himself in one of the deeper pools toward the back, where the stone chimney overhead let in slivers of moonlight that cut through the darkness in pale streaks. She sat on a flat rock nearby, legs crossed beneath her.

And watched him.

He could feel her gaze like a physical weight, tracking every shift of his limbs, every flicker of movement in the water, every subtle adjustment of his body. It made his skin prickle. Not unpleasantly, but he felt exposed.

He'd been stalling for the past five minutes, adjusting his position in the pool, pretending to settle when really he was just... avoiding. Coiling and uncoiling his tentacles. Finding reasons to delay.

Pathetic.

"Bucky?"

Her voice cut through the quiet, gentle but curious. Patient.

He didn't look at her. Couldn't.

"What."

The word came out rough, almost a growl.

"Is something wrong?"

"No."

A lie. She probably knew it was a lie.

"You're not looking at me."

Because he did, he’ll see the expectation in her eyes, and what if he couldn't meet it?

"You're staring too much," he muttered, finally flicking his gaze toward her before looking away again, focusing on the way moonlight rippled across the water's surface.

She tilted her head, and he caught the movement in his peripheral vision. A small smile played on her lips he could hear it in her voice when she spoke. "You usually don't mind being the center of my attention. In fact, you demand it most of the time."

He did. She wasn't wrong. He craved her attention, hoarded it like a precious treasure, and got irritable when she focused too long on anything that wasn't him.

But this was different.

This wasn't about impressing her with his strength or his skill, or claiming her body with single-minded possession. This was something older. Something that had been twisted and broken and used against him until he'd learned to hate it.

What if she didn't like it? What if it did scare her, despite everything she'd said? What if the sound was wrong, or weak, or he made a fool of himself, and she realized he wasn't as powerful as she thought? What if-

"Bucky."

Her voice again, softer now.

He exhaled slowly, forcing himself to meet her eyes.

She chose this. She asked for this.

He nodded once, more to himself than to her, and closed his eyes.

The lighting came first.

It always did, instinctive and automatic when the song began to build in his chest. Faint blue and silver light rippled across his limbs, the patterns traced along the black of his tentacles, whorls and spirals that pulsed in time with his heartbeat.

Ancient markings that had no meaning to humans but spoke of depths and darkness. The water around him began to glow, softly at first, then brighter, casting eerie, shifting shadows on the cave walls.

And then, he sang.

It started low, a resonant hum that seemed to come from deep within his chest, deeper still, from somewhere primal and old that existed before words, before thought.

The sound vibrated through the water, through stone. There were no words, no melody in the human sense. Just something, ancient, primal, layered with frequencies that shouldn't have existed together but somehow did. Harmonics that bypassed logic and spoke directly to something older in the brain.

It pulled.

Even he could feel it, the way the song reached out like invisible fingers, like hooks sinking into soft flesh. Coaxing, beckoning, commanding.

Come closer. Come to me. You want this. You need this.

And underneath it all, something darker stirred inside him.

Predator.

His pupils dilated, almost swallowing the blue. Every sense sharpened, hyper-focused. He could hear her heartbeat pick up speed, could smell the subtle shift in her scent as her body responded to the call.

That part of his brain -that was never fully dormant, never fully tame- woke with a vengeance.

Prey. Mine. Take.

She'd gone still. Her posture had changed, straightening her back, head tilting as if listening to something just beyond hearing. Her pupils were wide, and her lips had parted slightly.

Vulnerable.

Something hot and possessive swirled in his gut. Arousal mixed with the hunting instinct until he couldn't tell where one ended and the other began.

She was responding. And some ancient, satisfied part of his brain that existed before civilization, before morality, before his species learned to be anything other than apex predator, approved.

Come to me. You belong to me. My mate. Mine to take, mine to claim.

The song deepened, grew richer, more layered. He didn't hold back now, didn't temper it or try to make it gentle. The bioluminescence flared brighter, patterns racing across his skin in hypnotic waves that pulsed and shifted like a heartbeat made visible.

He called to her.

The sound was seductive and commanding all at once, a promise and a demand.

Come. Now. You want this. You need me. You can't stay away.

His tentacles shifted restlessly in the water, coiling and uncoiling, the suckers flexing in anticipation. His instincts screamed at him to take, to wrap around her and pull her under, to feel her struggle and then yield.

And she stood.

Slowly, as if moving through a dream, eyes fixed on him with that hazy, half-lidded focus that made his blood sing.

Yes. That's it. Come to your male. Come to me.

She reached the edge of the pool.

For a heartbeat, he thought she might hesitate. Might resist.

She didn't.

She sat on the rim, and then -without pause, without fear- she slid into the water with barely a splash. She swam toward him as the light reflected in her eyes, turning them otherworldly, inhuman.

Beautiful. Perfect. Mine.

When she was close enough to touch, his limbs moved on their own, pure instinct, pure need. They wrapped around her waist, her thighs, her arms, pulling her, cradling her against his chest with the possessive certainty of a predator securing its prize.

Caught. Mine. Finally-

And then, with a sharp jolt of panic cutting through the haze, Bucky forcibly cut the song off.

The silence that followed was deafening. The bioluminescence flickered and dimmed, though it didn't disappear entirely, the glow fading slowly like embers.

She blinked, slow and confused, like surfacing from deep slumber. Her gaze focused gradually on his face, sharpening by degrees, and for a long moment she just stared at him, eyes still half-lidded and dazed.

He was breathing hard, chest heaving with the effort of stopping. His heart hammered in an erratic rhythm. Every limb wrapped around her was trembling with restraint, suckers flexing and releasing against her skin in unconscious pulses.

Part of him was furiously aroused, body responding to having his mate in his arms, to the lingering effect of the song, to the fact that he had trapped her.

His cock was already emerging from its sheath, thick and eager, pressing against her hip beneath the water. He hadn't expected that, hadn't thought it would feel like this, and part of him just wanted to take her right now, claim her as was his right, his need-

But another part -the part that was still him, still thinking- was suddenly, sharply concerned.

"Are you alright?" His voice came out rough, urgent, more snarl than speech. He gave her a small shake, tentacles tightening fractionally. "Talk to me."

Prove you're still you. Prove I didn't break you.

She smiled then, slow and warm and entirely devastating, and kissed him. Her lips were soft, unhurried, and she hummed against his mouth in a way that sent heat pooling low in his belly, made his limbs reflexively squeeze.

He pulled back slightly despite every instinct screaming at him to deepen the kiss, searching her face for any sign that she was still enthralled, still caught in the pull.

Her eyes were clear. Sharp.

And when she arched her brows at him -amused, affectionate, entirely herself- the relief he felt left him almost dizzy.

He kissed her then, deep and claiming and desperate, one hand coming up to cradle the back of her head as his limbs tightened possessively around her body, wrapping her more securely against his chest.

When they finally broke apart, both breathing heavier now, she pressed her hand on his cheek.

"That," she whispered, "was the most beautiful thing I've ever heard."

Pride swelled in his chest. Warm, masculine, undeniably smug. He'd impressed his mate. The one person he'd wanted to please, to awe.

It was a strange feeling, this satisfaction. He'd never thought that something his captors had forced him to use, a hunting subterfuge they'd weaponized and twisted for their cruel purposes, could be... this.

Something innocent. Something shared willingly, something that made her look at him like that.

His throat tightened, and he ducked his head slightly, pressing his face into the curve of her neck to hide the sudden rush of emotion threatening to overwhelm him.

"You're a rare one," he muttered against her skin, voice muffled and rough. But there was no heat in it. Only wonder. Only disbelief that someone like her could exist, could be his.

She laughed softly, the vibration traveling through him where their bodies pressed together, chest to chest, his tentacles a living cage around her. "Maybe, but if we both weren't a little rare, there wouldn't be a 'we' at all, don't you think?"

His arms -and the limbs wrapped securely around her waist and thighs- tightened possessively at the possibility at the very thought of there not being a 'we’.

Unacceptable.

His cock pulsed against her hip, thick and insistent, a reminder of needs not yet satisfied. The thin fabric of her summer dress had billowed up in the water when she'd entered, floating around them like petals, which meant the only thing between his arousal and her skin was the soaked cotton now plastered to her body.

Her hand moved.

Slowly, deliberately, she reached down between their bodies until her fingers found him and wrapped around the thick shaft with confident possession, feeling the pronounced ridges, the heat of it even in the cool water.

"So eager to claim your prey" she murmured, teasing.

He froze.

The words short-circuited every thought in his head. That boldness of hers still threw him off balance. The fact that she would touch him like this, initiate like this, while calling him out so directly...

But he recovered quickly, faster than he used to. His tentacles flexed around her, suckers pulsing against her skin in unconscious response.

One thick limb slid between her legs with deliberate intent, pressing up through the layer of fabric, finding the heat even through the soaked cotton of her underwear. He ground against her slowly, feeling her warmth, the way her body responded even through the barrier.

"You shouldn't provoke me, mate," he growled against her ear, his voice dropping to something dark and promising. The tentacle between her legs pressed harder, rubbing in slow circles that made her breath hitch. "Unless you want to spend the next hour complaining about what salt water does to your clam."

The crude callback to his earlier comparison made her bark out a laugh, bright and surprised and utterly delighted.

But she didn't retreat. Didn't even hesitate.

Instead, she squeezed him harder, stroking along his length with more pressure, more intent. Her thumb found a particularly sensitive ridge and traced it deliberately, making his hips jerk forward involuntarily.

"What do you propose then, enchanter?" she murmured against his jaw, lips brushing his skin.

He went rigid again.

The word sent heat flooding to his face despite the cool water. She was calling him a seducer. A- fuck.

Embarrassment warred with arousal, making his tentacles twitch erratically around her body. He didn't have words for how that made him feel, exposed and seen and wanted in a way that felt too raw.

So instead of answering, he moved.

Without warning, without ceremony, he yanked her hand away from his shaft. Before she could protest, before she could do anything, his limbs were lifting her, hauling her up and out of the water to deposit her on the edge of the pool with zero gentleness.

She gasped at the sudden movement, water sluicing off her body, the wet dress clinging to her skin.

He surged up after her, powerful limbs propelling him out of the pool in one smooth motion. Water cascaded off his body, off his tentacles, the last flickers of bioluminescence casting everything in ghostly blue-white light.

A clawed hand went to her underwear.

One sharp tug, and the fabric tore like paper. He didn't apologize, didn't even acknowledge it beyond tossing the ruined scrap aside. Just grabbed her hips with both hands -rough, possessive- and manhandled her around until her back was to him.

His cock pressed against the curve of her ass, thick and hot and demanding. He ground against her slowly, letting her feel every ridge, every pulse, the sheer size of it. One hand pressed below her breasts, holding her in place, while the other came up to fist her wet hair.

His limbs were already moving, roaming across her body with renewed purpose. Wrapping around her thighs, her waist, sliding up to cup her breasts through the soaked dress, the suckers creating pinpoints of pressure against sensitive flesh.

He leaned in, mouth right against her ear, voice dropping to a dark rumble that vibrated through her spine.

"I'll show you enchantment, mate.”

And when he was done with her, she'd forget all about the song.

Before he realized it, he was inside. Not far, just enough to get a closer look at some zucchini hanging from their vines near the entrance.

"Can I help you?"

He tensed. A woman approached, wiping her hands on a dirt-streaked apron, a kind smile on her face.

He forced himself to speak. "I was just... curious. Saw it walking by."

"Locals rent plots to grow their own food.” She explained, gesturing around. “Are you from the neighborhood?"

"Moved about seven blocks away."

He looked again at the place, and Wakanda flashed in his mind. His hands in soil, the first peace he'd felt in decades.

"Well, if you're interested, we have plots available. There's a small fee for maintenance and tools."

Bucky's jaw clenched after hearing the number. Military pension. That's all he had right now. He took a step back. "I appreciate it, but-"

"Veterans get in free."

He looked at her.

She knew.

And instead of an excuse to make him leave, she was offering him a reason to stay.

He didn't know what to say.

"Look," she continued, "if it makes you feel better, we've got a few unattended plots. Weeds are taking over. You could help maintain those -prep the soil, pull weeds- You could do in one afternoon what takes me three, without a sweat."

Dr. Raynor's voice echoed in his head: Find something to occupy your time.

"I've got... some experience," he said carefully. Not mentioning how working the land was the only time he'd felt remotely human in seventy years.

"Yeah?" She tilted her head. "Then you're ahead of most people who start here. What do you say then?"

----

Saturday morning, she found him turning soil in his new plot. "What are you thinking of planting?"

He paused, leaning on the shovel. "Still deciding. Since the space is limited..." He surveyed the plot. "Want to plan it right."

"Makes sense." She crouched near the edge of his plot, pulling a stubborn weed. "Though, if you're worried about space, have you ever heard of hydroponics?"

He looked up, tilting his head and scrunching his nose.

"Growing plants without soil, just water and nutrients. You can stack systems vertically, control everything. Uses like 90% less water than traditional growing." She shrugged. "Some people do it in small balconies; you could grow a lot more than you'd think."

Bucky's mind latched onto every word. Water and nutrients. Controlled variables. Vertical systems.

The science nerd from the '40s -the kid who'd aced every math test without trying and the young man who'd dragged his dates to the Stark Expo- woke up.

"How does it work?"

She smiled, pensive, “Well, you have to consider pH levels, nutrient ratios, light cycles..."

By the time he got back to his apartment that evening, his brain was already three steps ahead. He pulled out his small laptop and started searching.

Hydroponics for beginners. From there, he entered a rabbit hole.

This wasn't just gardening. This was science.

----

After three weeks, Bucky's plot looked like a split personality.

In the front, tomato seedlings reaching for stakes, aromatic plants between them, lettuce sprouting in rows. In the back half: his experiment.

He'd mounted a shelving unit against the back fence. The cheapest beginner kit he could find with decent reviews. He followed instructions like fieldstripping a rifle.

It worked.

The lettuce seedlings shot up faster than their soil-grown counterparts. He'd check the system every morning, before most people arrived.

She'd noticed, of course, and was pleased he'd taken her suggestion and run with it. Also, gave him some advice.

----

Four days later, Bucky pushed through the garden gate just after dawn. The pump was silent, and the reservoir dry, a crusty ring of dried nutrients coating the inside. The seedlings hung limp and brown in their net pots. One of the plastic tubes had split along a seam.

Fuck.

He crouched there, staring at the wreckage of weeks' work. He'd done everything right. But the equipment -cheap, bargain-bin electronics- had failed.

"Hey."

He tensed. She was walking toward him, utensils in hand, looking concerned.

"What happened?"

“Just-” he motioned toward the scene.

She crouched next to him, looking at the disaster. "When did-"

"Don't know. I haven't been here in three days." Damn Sam.

She was quiet for a moment, turning the pump over in her hands. "Sometimes it happens with the cheap sets."

Bucky ran his hand through his hair. "Oh my god, this is worse than the bananas."

She blinked. "The… bananas?"

"An experiment that went wrong. Doesn't matter."

Coming home from a week away, confident his internet research had paid off, to open that tupperware in his fridge, finding rotting mush.

"Hardware failure isn't your fault." Her voice was gentle.

She stood, brushing dirt off her knees. "Look, if you want to try again... you could build your own system. Or-" she gestured at his plot, thriving in the morning light, "stick with this for now. There’s no wrong answer."

Bucky stared at the shelving unit. Part of him wanted to rip it all down. But another part, the one that had found peace in Wakanda's soil, wasn't ready to quit.

"I'd need to study what components to get," he said quietly.

"I can help with that. There's a hardware store in Sunset Park, and I know a guy who does aquaponics; he might have spare parts."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." She smiled, handing back the broken pump. "Next week?"

Bucky looked around the garden. Then, at her, standing there like this wasn't a burden.

"Next week," he agreed.

Soldat wakes to darkness. Not the murky orange light of a cryo chamber, or the sterile fluorescence of a holding cell. Just... night. The kind you could find in normal places where normal people sleep.

Normal.

Its eyes adjust instantly to the low light pouring through the window, and the first thing it processes is warm.

There's a body pressed against its side.

Omega.

Its omega.

The recognition is immediate and visceral. Her scent floods its system before conscious thought can catch up, brown sugar and yeast and the underlying sweetness that makes its chest constrict.

She's asleep, pressed against its side, one arm draped across its chest, her face against its shoulder. Breathing deep and even, completely unguarded.

Trusting.

The word makes its gut twist.

Its metal arm is wrapped around her waist, holding her close. The flesh hand is cradled against the back of her neck, its palm warm against her skin, like it fell asleep mid-touch.

Soldat doesn't remember doing that, doesn't remember falling asleep at all.

Its gaze tracks down the length of their bodies. Naked. The tactical gear is... somewhere, scattered across the floor in pieces it has no memory of removing.

The bed is destroyed.

Sheets twisted and half-pulled off the mattress, pillows on the floor. There are-

Its eyes catch on the evidence.

Empty cracker wrappers on the floor. Chocolate’s. A plate on the nightstand with apple cores and orange peels. An empty water bottle. Two more on the floor.

When did it eat?

Soldat doesn't eat or drink unless ordered to, or unless it is mission-critical.

But apparently, it did.

They did.

The memories are there, fragmented and hazy. Feeding her crackers between rounds because she was shaking. Peeling an orange with the metal hand while she watched, fascinated. Drinking water from the same bottle, her lips where its mouth had been.

Fucking her again. And again. And again.

The scent in the room is obscene. Sweat and sex and the mix of their releases, soaked into the sheets, coating their skin. It can smell itself on her, can smell her on itself, the mingling so complete there's no separation.

Mated.

The thought comes unbidden.

No, not mated. Can't be mated. Soldat doesn't-

Its heart rate kicks up.

The omega shifts against it, making a small sound in her sleep, burrowing closer to its warmth, and it finds itself tightening its arm around her automatically.

Mine, his inner alpha purrs. Safe. Stay.

But the conditioned part-

The conditioned part is starting to surface now that the rut fog is lifting.

And it's screaming.

Mission status: FAILED

Objective: COMPROMISED

Orders: IGNORED

Its breathing goes shallow.

How long?

How long has it been here?

The last clear memory before this is... the bakery vent. Following her home. That was… two days ago? Three?

The panic starts as a flutter and builds rapidly. It had no operations scheduled that night, but it was supposed to report back. There was a briefing the next morning about-

Helicarriers.

The word slams through its consciousness.

Insight. Project Insight. Helicarriers. Deployment sequence. Mission parameters. Operational intelligence. Pierce himself was leading the briefing, and Soldat-

Soldat didn't show up.

Its heart is pounding now. Actually pounding, loud enough that it can hear the rush of blood in its ears.

Missing in action. Unauthorized absence. Compromised asset.

Its flesh hand comes up, digging its fingers into its hair, gripping hard enough to hurt. The pain doesn't clear the panic. Doesn't slow the racing thoughts.

The handlers are going to… it doesn’t want to think about what they are going to do to it. And then, they're going to wipe it. Completely. Burn out whatever's left and start over, and-

The omega makes another sound. Her hand spreads flat over its chest, directly over where its heart is trying to punch through its sternum.

It looks down at her.

She's still asleep, relaxed in a way it's never seen on anyone touching it before.

Can't take her.

The thought surfaces cold and absolute.

Taking her back to base would be a death sentence. They would see immediately what she is: true mate. The biological call that HYDRA has spent seventy years chemically suppressing, and they would either kill her or use her.

Leverage. A new kind of leash. Soldat would do anything to protect her from that.

Anything.

Which means...

The logical conclusion forms with brutal clarity:

Eliminate the liability.

The words are in its head, calm and procedural. She's a loose end. A distraction and a weakness that others could exploit. Would take less than three seconds. Snap the neck. Quick and clean. She wouldn't even wake up.

Its fingers twitch, then its entire body goes rigid. The metal hand closes into a fist, servos whining softly with the pressure. It can feel the plates grinding together.

No.

The rejection is immediate and visceral. Every alpha instinct roars to the surface, pushing the conditioned thoughts with devastating force.

Mine. Protect. Cannot Harm.

She's not a liability.

The mission is her. Has always been her, from the moment it caught her scent. Everything else is just noise compared to the absolute certainty that this omega is the only mission that matters.

But HYDRA doesn't know that. And it’s waiting.

Soldat has to go back. Has to report. Has to... let them wipe its memory of her so it can't lead them back here? Has to pretend this never happened?

The thought makes its chest constrict painfully. It can't forget her.

Can't-

It has to move.

The decision doesn't feel like a decision. More like inevitability. Like gravity.

Report. Debrief. Comply.

The thoughts pull at it with the same inexorable force that instinct brought it here, except they are dragging it away.

Slowly -so slowly it's almost painful- Soldat extracts itself from her. The metal arm slides out from her waist. She makes a small sound, a sleepy protest, and it freezes.

Waiting. Watching her face for signs of waking.

But she just shifts, reaching for the pillow instead, hugging it like a substitute for the warmth she just lost.

Something in its chest cracks.

It stands, silent and controlled. Every movement is deliberate, even though its hands want to shake.

The tactical gear is scattered across the small apartment like evidence of a struggle. Pants near the foot of the bed. The vest by the window. Boots kicked off near the table.

It starts gathering pieces.

The pants and underwear first. Stiff with-

It doesn't let itself think about it. Just pulls them on, feeling the cold, uncomfortable press of dried release against its skin. The handlers are going to notice.

Going to ask questions it doesn't want to answer.

The undershirt is twisted in the sheets. It pulls it free carefully, trying not to disturb her, and the scent that rises from the fabric makes it stop mid-motion.

Her.

The shirt smells like her. Like them. Like everything that happened in place.

It pulls it on anyway.

The vest comes next. Then tactical webbing. Its hands fumble with the buckles. Twice. Three times. Fingers that can fieldstrip a weapon in the dark are clumsy now, shaking too hard to catch the clasps properly. Knives still sheathed. The gun- where's the gun?

Its eyes scan the room and find it on the kitchen counter.

When did it put it there?

Doesn't matter.

It crosses to the counter, picks up the weapon, and checks the chamber automatically. Loaded. Safety on. Exactly as it should be.

Then comes the boots.  It sits on the edge of the chair -the one with her jacket draped over the back- and laces them with a double knot. It is just standard protocol, except its hands keep shaking.

Just slightly. Just enough that the knot takes two attempts.

Compromised. Unstable. Requires intervention.

The words loop through its head in the handler's voice. Cold. Clinical. Describing it like a malfunctioning piece of equipment.

Which is what it is. What it's supposed to be.

Soldat stands and turns back toward the bed. She's still asleep, face peaceful with one hand under her cheek. The sheet has slipped down, exposing her shoulder, the curve of her neck.

It can see the faint marks there. Subtle, barely visible in the scarce light, but present. Its teeth. Not a bond bite -it didn't mean to bond her, some last shred of control kept it from that- but it didn’t matter in the end.

Because they're bonded anyway.

The knot did that. Biological inevitability. The moment it locked inside her and spilled, the bond formed, whether it understood it or not.

And now it's about to leave her sleeping and unprotected.

It should leave.

Needs to leave.

Every second it stays increases the risk. Increases the chances that HYDRA will find her. That they'll trace it back here and discover what it's been doing.

What it's become.

But it can't make itself move toward the door, can't make itself turn away from her.

It has never thought about what it wants.

Wants aren't part of what it is. Asset doesn't want. It complies. Executes. Completes objectives and awaits new orders.

But standing here, looking at her, the want is so overwhelming it feels like a physical thing. It wants to stay, wants to crawl back into that bed and wrap around her and never leave.

Wants to wake up every morning to her scent and fall asleep every night with her in its arms. Wants to learn what she likes, what she needs. Learn how to be something other than what it is.

The want is destroying it, fracturing its mind. Breaking something fundamental in the architecture of what HYDRA built.

Loyalty parameters supersede personal preference. Emotional compromise requires correction.

But she's breathing right there. Alive and safe and its in ways that have nothing to do with HYDRA and their ownership over it.

The war in its head is splitting it apart.

Go. Stay.

Report. Protect.

Comply. Want.

Its flesh hand reaches for the window ledge and stops.

It looks at her again.

She shifted in her sleep, and now the sheet has fallen further. It can see the curve of her breast. Can see the marks it left. Shadows of pressure, of grip, of the metal hand holding too tight and the flesh hand not knowing its own strength.

Evidence.

Proof that this happened. That for two days… three days? Soldat stopped being the Asset and became something else.

Someone else.

Alpha.

Just... alpha.

Her alpha.

And alphas protect their mates, even from themselves. Especially from themselves. Its hand finds the window ledge again, and this time, it slides it up. Then it steps into the fire escape landing and closes the window silently.

Then it stands there. Just stands. Staring at the closed window.

Five seconds pass. Ten.

Its forehead drops forward, touching the glass. Just for a moment. One breath. Two.

Then it forces itself to let go.

The outside air hits it like a slap as he moves, and it can smell itself, her scent clinging to its skin, soaked into the gear.

They will smell it and know. It needs to... clean up. Somewhere. Before it reports.

There's a gas station four blocks east. The bathroom is accessible from the outside. Single occupancy, a lock on the door.

It starts walking. The streets are empty. Just the Soldat and the pre-dawn dark and the pull toward base that feels like a chain around its throat.

Return. Report. Comply.

Every step away from her apartment makes the pull stronger.

Every step also makes something inside it scream.

----

She wakes to the absence of warmth that was there before.

And her alpha isn't in the bed.

The realization comes with a spike of something close to panic. Her hand reaches out automatically, searching the space beside her, and finds only cool sheets.

She sits up, and immediately regrets it.

Everything hurts.

Her thighs ache. Her hips feel bruised. There's a deep, pleasant soreness between her legs that makes her breath catch, and her shoulders protest when she moves. She's pretty sure she's done more physical activity in the last few days than she had in the past six months.

Worth it, her inner omega purrs smugly.

But where is he?

"Alpha?"

The word comes out rough. Her voice is wrecked, hoarse from screaming, probably. From all the sounds he pulled out of her.

No answer.

She looks around, and her stomach sinks.

His gear is gone. Even the strange polymer mask that she'd pulled off his face that first night.

All of it. Gone.

He left.

Her alpha left without saying anything. Without waking her up. Without even leaving a fucking note.

The rational part of her brain -the part that's been suspiciously quiet for days-starts to surface now that his scent isn't flooding her system. Now that his hands aren't on her, and his body isn't pressed against hers, and his pheromones aren't turning her into a needy, desperate mess.

And it starts cataloging.

She got out of the shower and there was a stranger in her apartment.

An armed stranger. With a metal arm and war paint and gear that screamed military or mercenary or something equally dangerous. And instead of running, instead of screaming, or throwing something at him, she-

Her gaze tracks to the state the bed is in.

And the smell.

Oh god, the smell.

Sex and sweat and the unmistakable musk of alpha mixed with her own scent. It's soaked into the sheets, thick enough that she can practically taste it.

Her eyes catch on her small dining table.

There are marks on the wooden surface. Dubious stains that she really doesn't want to examine too closely. And the window…

Her face goes hot.

The glass is smudged. Handprints. Smears made by skin against the fog of breath. Because apparently, at some point -multiple points, actually- neither of them gave a single fuck about doing it against the window.

She remembers being pressed against the cold glass, her breasts flattened, her face turned to the side, while he fucked into her from behind. Remembers the exhibitionist thrill of it, the knowledge that anyone walking by could look up and see.

Anyone in the building across the alley could have seen.

Probably did see.

The heat in her face intensifies.

Everything about the last few days was animal. Raw. Primal in a way she didn't know she was capable of.

And it was perfect.

She's never felt like this, so utterly satisfied. Every alpha she'd tried to force herself to want before was just... wrong. Wrong scent, wrong touch, wrong everything.

But him? He was right.

Except he doesn't have a name.

The thought made her stomach knot.

She asked him. That first night, after the initial frenzy calmed enough for words, his knot still inside her, and she'd whispered against her shoulder: "What's your name?"

He'd gone rigid. Tense in a way that made her immediately regret asking. Then, haltingly, struggling with the words like they were foreign: "Alpha."

Just that. Like it was the only designation he had. The only thing he knew to call himself.

She'd tried again. "But what do people call you?"

What she could grasp about his expression in the awkward position they were in was confusion, distress, and something that looked almost like pain.

"Soldat," he'd said finally. The word harsh and guttural. Russian, she thinks, though she doesn't speak it.

Soldier.

Not a name. A title. A function.

And when she'd pushed -gently, carefully- he'd just repeated "Alpha" like it was the only safe answer. Like everything else was locked behind walls he couldn't or wouldn't break down.

So that's what she's been calling him.

Alpha.

Her alpha, who spoke maybe two dozen words total over three days, half of them in Russian she couldn't understand. Who looked at her like she was the only thing in the world worth having. Who smelled like home despite being a complete stranger.

Her alpha, who's gone now.

She looks around the apartment again. At the evidence of what happened here. At the empty cracker wraps, the eaten fruits, and the water bottles scattered across the floor, because they barely stopped long enough to hydrate, let alone eat properly.

At the mess that is her bed. Her body. Her life now.

Because she's bonded.

She can feel it, the connection. It's like a thread pulled tight in her chest, stretching out into the city, tethering her to him wherever he went.

She doesn't know if he's coming back, doesn't know if he can.

Because there's something deeply wrong with her alpha. She knew it from the beginning, the way he moved, the way he touched her with such desperate confusion, like he didn't know what to do with his own hands. The way he looked at her with need and terror in equal measure.

The tactical gear. The weapons. The war paint.

He's running toward something.

And she was just... what? A detour? A mistake?

No.

Her omega nature rejects the thought immediately. Viscerally.

He wouldn't have knotted her if she were a mistake. Wouldn't have held her so carefully. Wouldn't have purred. Alphas don't purr, but he did, deep and constant and soothing against her skin.

He'll come back.

He has to come back.

The bond won't let him stay away forever.

...Right?

She wraps her arms around herself, suddenly feeling very small in her wrecked apartment with the evidence of her mate scattered everywhere except where she needs him to be.

Her gaze drifts to the kitchen counter.

There's bread there. The loaf from work, she'd brought it home after her last shift. It's hard now.

The sight of it reminds her she still has a job. Thank god she'd had the presence of mind to text her boss that first morning. A brief moment of clarity between rounds when she'd found her phone buried under the couch cushions.

Sorry, I won't be able to go for a few days. Unexpected heat.

Simple. Plausible. Heat leave is protected, and her boss -bless him- had just sent back a thumbs-up emoji and told her to take care of herself.

But that brief spark of rational thought was the only one. Everything after that was just... him. His scent. His hands. His body. The overwhelming, all-consuming need to be close to him, under him, filled by him.

Heats were supposed to be manageable. Uncomfortable but controllable with suppressants, or toys, and locked in her apartment.

But this?

She didn't go into heat.

He went into rut, and her body responded like it had been waiting her entire life for exactly this.

She should be horrified.

Should be spiraling about the fact that she let a stranger fuck her for days straight without even knowing his name.

But she's not.

Because omega nature is still purring with satisfaction, still flooded with the deep certainty that everything that happened was right.

Even if he's gone now.

Even if she doesn't know if he's coming back.

The thread in her chest pulls, and she presses her hand over her sternum like she can feel him on the other end of it.

Come back, she thinks desperately. Please come back.

----

The gas station bathroom is small and filthy, and smells like chemicals and piss. Soldat doesn't care. It strips, peeling off everything that touched her, everything that's soaked in her scent.

The liquid soap dispenser is half-empty. Pink. Artificial floral smell that makes its nose wrinkle. It pumps handful after handful, scrubbing at its skin, its hair, trying to wash away the evidence.

Brown sugar and yeast and omega. Her.

The soap helps, barely. The scent is embedded too deep, under its nails, coating the inside of its mouth. It scrubs harder anyway.

The water runs cold. Soldat doesn't feel it. Just keeps washing until the pink soap is gone and its skin is raw, and the mirror shows something that looks like its normal self. Wet hair and empty eyes.

The tactical gear is another problem. It can smell her on the fabric even after trying to rinse it in the sink. The undershirt is the worst, soaked through with sweat and slick and the unmistakable musk of sex. There's no time to wash and dry it properly. No time for anything except move.

Report. Now.

The Soldat wrings out the shirt as best it can, then finds the hand dryer. It's one of those old, weak models that barely pushes air, but it's something. It holds the fabric under the stream, methodically working through each section.

The shirt stays damp anyway, but at least it's not dripping, at least the scent is diluted enough that it might not be immediately obvious.

It pulls the shirt back on. Wet and cold against its skin. The vest goes over it. The weapons back in place. Boots laced. It looks almost normal. Except for the way its hands won't stop shaking.

Then it moves.

Shadows and alleys and rooftops, the city blurring past in the pre-dawn light. Distances don't matter; it can cover miles in minutes when it needs to, and right now, it needs to.

Late. Compromised. Failed.

The words loop through its head in time with its footfalls.

It should have been there. Should have attended the briefing. Should have been in position for Insight deployment. Instead, it was-

Don't think about it.

It does, anyway. Omega. Warm and soft and trusting in that bed.

Mission first. Always.

The Potomac comes into view. Paired with smoke.

Soldat slows down, then stops on a rooftop three blocks out. It just stares.

There's smoke rising from the Triskelion, thick and black against the dawn sky. Around it, there are police cordons and military vehicles. Something happened.

Something bad.

Its heart rate kicks up. It should have been there.

It moves closer, rooftop to rooftop. Silent. Invisible. Staying in the shadows while the chaos unfolds below. It gets close enough to see the whole scene, and its brain stutters.

The helicarriers. The three of them. Destroyed.

Massive chunks of wreckage scattered across the river and the surrounding area. Fires are still burning. The Triskelion itself is partially collapsed, whole sections reduced to rubble.

Soldat stares.

This is your fault.

It wasn't here. Wasn't in position. Wasn't doing its job.

Seventy years of operations, of perfect compliance. Of being the fist HYDRA wielded in the dark. And it failed.

Failed because it was too busy fucking an omega.

Its self-loathing skyrockets.

Worthless. Broken. Defective.

It should go down there. Should report to whatever's left of the command structure. Pierce is probably dead. The handlers are probably dead.

And it's the Soldat's fault for not being there. For choosing her over the mission.

Its metal hand grips the edge of the rooftop. The servos whine, and the concrete cracks under the pressure.

It did this. This destruction. This failure. All of it. Because it's weak.

The weight in its chest is crushing. Physical. Like something is trying to cave in its ribcage from the inside.

You failed. You failed. You failed.

It doesn't know how long it stands there, just watching the emergency response, the smoke, the evidence of a catastrophic mission failure.

Its fault. All its fault.

The bond in its chest pulls. Tight. Insistent. Omega.

It left her alone and unprotected to come here, to this. To the ruins of everything it was supposed to be, its purpose. And now-

Now what?

Soldat doesn't know. Doesn't know what it's supposed to do when the handlers are gone, and everything it was built for is just... ash.

Its legs give out, and it sinks, pressing its back against the concrete wall of the rooftop access structure, pulling its knees up to its chest. Its flesh hand goes to its hair and grips. Fists in the still-damp strands and pulls hard enough that the pain registers somewhere distant and irrelevant.

The metal hand mirrors the movement on the other side. Both hands now buried in its hair, elbows on its knees, and it starts to rock.

Forward. Back. Forward. Back.

Small movements. Unconscious. The kind of self-soothing behavior that HYDRA spent decades training out of it, but it's surfacing now anyway because the conditioning is fracturing, and it doesn't know how to stop it.

Failed failed failed worthless broken defective-

The thoughts spiral. Cascade over each other until there's nothing else, just the litany of failure and the weight of seventy years of programming screaming that it deserves whatever punishment comes next.

Except there's no one left to punish it.

It doesn't know what HYDRA is anymore.

Just knows that it failed them.

And the bond in its chest won't stop pulling.

----

It doesn't know how long it sits there. The sun is rising properly now, painting the smoke-filled sky in shades of orange and red. Emergency vehicles keep arriving. Voices drift up from street level, orders being shouted, radios crackling, the organized chaos of disaster response.

And the Soldat just... sits.

The absence of someone telling it what to do is deafening. Like standing in a room where a machine has been running for seventy years and suddenly, it's gone silent, and the quiet is somehow worse than the noise ever was.

What does it do now?

It's never had to ask that question before. There was always a directive. Always a purpose. Always something to execute.

Now there's just... nothing.

It's not the Asset anymore. HYDRA is gone, dead, scattered, or destroyed; it doesn't know and doesn't have orders to find out.

It's not a person. Doesn't know how to be a person. Doesn't have a life outside of missions and compliance protocols.

It's just... nothing.

Empty.

Untethered.

Free, some distant part of its brain whispers, but the word has no meaning. Freedom isn't a concept it has framework for. Freedom sounds like chaos. Like the absence of structure. Like drowning in open water with no shore in sight.

The bond pulls again. Insistent. Her.

Its hands slowly lower from its hair. She's there. Right now. In her apartment. Probably awake by now. Probably realized it left.

What does she want it to do?

The thought comes not as a tactical question but as something else. Something the conditioned part of its brain is trying to latch onto because it needs structure. Needs someone to tell it what to do, where to go, how to function.

And she's... what? Its mate. Its omega. But also-

The idea fractures before it can fully form, but there's something there. Something about her being the only anchor point it has left. The only voice that's ever asked it questions rather than given it orders. The only person who's touched it without flinching.

Maybe she'll tell it what to do now.

Maybe that's what mates do, provide direction when everything else is gone. Maybe it's supposed to go back to her and wait for instructions. Follow her lead because it doesn't have its own.

The logic is twisted. Broken.

Soldat knows that, on some level, but it doesn't care because the alternative is sitting on this rooftop forever with no purpose and no idea what the fuck it's supposed to be.

At least with her, there's... something. A pull that isn't just the bond or the biological imperative to protect and provide. These last few days, it felt… good.

Soldat doesn't have a reference for "good" that isn't the satisfaction of mission success or handler approval. But with her, pressed against its side, breathing her scent, feeling her hands on its skin without intention to hurt but to soothe…

That was good. Warmer. Softer.

And maybe that's enough. Maybe that's what it does now, goes back to the thing that felt good instead of the handlers who only ever made it feel pain and hollowness.

Protect the omega.

There isn’t an order from a handler. Just instinct combined with the memory of her smile. The way she called "Alpha" like it was something precious instead of just a designation.

That's a mission it understands.

Soldat stands on steady legs now. It has a purpose, even if that purpose is just her. Just getting back to her apartment and figuring out what comes next.

Because she's all it has left.

The only thing in decades that's ever felt like it mattered.

----

She's throwing the last of the wrappers into the trash when the whimper escapes her throat.

The sound catches her off guard, small and pathetic and omega in a way that makes her freeze mid-motion, hand still clutching the empty plastic packaging.

She hates that she made that sound.

Hates the way her body is reacting to his absence like it's a physical wound. Like he took something vital with him when he left, and now there's just this aching hollow where he's supposed to be.

The apartment is cleaner now, at least. She's wiped down the dining table, scrubbed away the dubious stains until her arms hurt, and the wood gleamed innocently as if nothing obscene happened there. Put the dishes in the sink.

The bed is still a disaster.

She should wash the sheets. Or burn them, maybe.

But she can't bring herself to touch them yet. Can't conceive of stripping the bed and stuffing those sheets into a laundry bag, sealing away his scent until it's just... gone. The thought makes her chest constrict painfully.

She needs to shower instead. Get clean. Wash away the evidence of three days spent doing nothing but him.

Yeah. Shower first. Deal with the bed later.

She's halfway to the bathroom when another whimper builds in her throat. She swallows it down forcefully, jaw clenching.

Stop it.

He's not here. That's fine. That's... fine.

Except it's not fine, and her omega senses know it. They're screaming about it. The bond in her chest is pulled so tight it hurts, stretching out into the city toward wherever he went, and the absence of him feels wrong.

He didn't seem angry when they finally collapsed into sleep. Didn't seem upset or regretful or any of the things that would explain why he'd leave without waking her.

He just seemed... exhausted. Sated. His arm heavy around her waist, his face pressed against her hair, and that impossible purr rumbling through both their chests.

So what changed?

Why did he leave?

The questions spiral through her head without answers, and it's frustrating because she doesn't understand. Can't parse his motivations when she barely knows him.

When he barely spoke to her except in broken Russian and single-word responses.

Is he coming back?

The uncertainty is worse than anything else. Worse than the physical ache of separation. Worse than the way her apartment feels too empty and too quiet now.

She doesn't know, and the not-knowing is eating her alive.

Another whimper.

This time she doesn't even try to stop it. Just lets the sound escape while she stands in the middle of her apartment, arms wrapped around herself, and tries not to fall apart.

The bond pulls.

Come back, she thinks desperately. Please come back.

But there's no answer, just the hollow ache and the terrifying possibility that he won't. That he's gone for good, and she's bonded to a ghost.

----

She turns on the shower and waits for the water to heat up, staring blankly at the steam starting to fog the mirror. While the pipes groan and settle, she pulls open her dresser drawer. Old joggers. Soft t-shirt. Comfortable clothes that don't smell like sex and sweat and him.

At least she's on birth control.

Not because her sex life is some celebration of joy -it's been decidedly mediocre for years- but because her doctor recommended them for hormonal regulation.

Thank god for that.

Because she knows exactly what he wanted the entire time they were fucking like rabbits. What her body wanted. What every cell in her omega biology was screaming for.

Breed me. Fill me.

The memories flood back with uncomfortable clarity. The way she begged. The way she tilted her hips and presented, the way she had grinded her ass against his hips, begging for his knot. The way her body clenched around him every time he came inside her like it was trying to hold every drop.

Heat crawls up her neck.

She always thought that stuff about true mates was bullshit. Fantasy nonsense peddled in romance novels and bad TV dramas to sell the idea of destined love. True mates are rare, vanishingly rare. She's never met anyone who claimed to have one. Never knew anyone who knew anyone.

It was fairy tale stuff. Omega porn. The kind of thing you read about in smutty paperbacks, not something that actually happened to real people.

But now, thinking with a clear head for the first time in days, remembering how she reacted to his presence in her apartment...

The way her body knew him before her brain did. The way his scent made her slick coated her thighs before he even touched her. The way every rational thought disappeared under the weight of pure, primal need.

Yeah.

Maybe the fairy tales aren't bullshit after all.

She enters the shower, the hot water hits her shoulders, and she groans. Everything hurts. Her thighs. Her hips. Places inside her that she didn't know could be sore.

She tips her head back, letting the water soak her hair, and tries not to think about how empty she feels now that he's gone.

Tries not to think about the bond pulling her chest, and about whether he's coming back.

The water runs over her skin, washing away sweat, dried slick and cum, but can't wash away the bond. Her hand presses against her chest, right over her heart, where the ache is worst.

Come back, she thinks again. Desperate. Pleading.

Please.

----

She stays under the spray longer than necessary, letting the water run lukewarm before she finally forces herself to turn it off. She dries off and pulls on the joggers and the soft t-shirt.

Comfortable clothes that don't smell like him. The fabric is warm and familiar and it should make her feel better, but it doesn't.

Then, she opens the bathroom door, and her heart stops.

He's there.

Sitting on the floor against the wall by the window. The same window he climbed through that first night. His tactical gear is still on, but the black is gone from his face. Just pale skin and those devastating blue eyes staring at nothing.

He looks haunted.

She freezes in the doorway, hand still on the handle, and just stares. He came back, and it makes her feel so relieved that her knees feel weak.

But something's wrong.

He smells different, cheap soap and… smoke?. Acrid, clinging to his clothes as he walked through a fire. And his own scent reeks of distress.

She can feel it, too.

Wrong wrong wrong, her omega instincts scream. Alpha is hurting.

Whatever she'd planned to say when she saw him again, all the questions, the demands for explanations, the hurt at being left without a word, evaporate.

Her instinct to protect, to nurture, to fix whatever's broken in her alpha obliterates everything else. She moves without thinking and crosses the small space toward him, bare feet on worn floorboards.

He tenses immediately, eyes snapping to her with something that looks almost like panic.

She stops.

Three feet away. Close enough to see the way his chest is rising and falling too fast. Close enough to see his pupils are blown wide again, but not with want this time.

With fear.

"Alpha," she whispers, and her voice comes out soft. Careful. The way you'd talk to something wounded and cornered.

He doesn't respond. Just stares at her with those wild blue eyes, utterly tense, like he might bolt.

Or break.

She takes a slow breath and sinks down to her knees, making herself eye-level with him.

"You came back," she says softly.

His eyes keep focused on hers, but he doesn’t speak.

"Alpha," she says carefully. "What happened? Where did you go?"

His jaw works. She can see him struggling with the words, trying to form an answer, but nothing comes out. Just a frustrated exhale through his nose.

"It's okay," she says quickly. "You don't have to-"

She reaches out without thinking. Just needing to touch him, to soothe the distress pouring off him in waves, and her hand lands on his knee.

The reaction is immediate. He doesn't flinch or pull away.

He goes very, very still. Like her touch flipped a switch. His eyes drop to where her hand rests on his tactical pants, and something in his expression changes.

Relief. Desperate, overwhelming relief.

Like he's been waiting for her to touch him. Like he needed permission and her hand on his knee gave it.

Before she can process it, he's moving. Not pulling away, but shifting forward, closing the space between them, and his forehead drops to her shoulder.

The position is awkward. He's too tall to be folding himself down to reach her. But he does it anyway, and the weight of his body against her is solid and real and she can feel the tension in him starting to ease.

"Alpha?" she whispers, confused. Her hands come up automatically, one pressing on his back, the other threading into his damp hair. "What do you need?"

He makes a sound. Low. Almost pained.

And then, halting and rough: "Don't know."

The words are barely there. Dragged out.

"Don't know what to do," he continues. Voice wrecked. "No orders. No... nothing."

Her heart clenches. Orders?

He's not just lost. He's untethered. Whatever structure he had -whatever gave him purpose and direction- it's gone. And now he's here, clinging to her like she's the only solid thing left.

"Okay," she says softly, still stroking his hair. "Okay, that's... we'll figure it out."

"Tell me," he says against her shoulder. Not a request. Almost a plea. "Tell me what to do."

She doesn't understand.

He's clearly capable. The tactical gear, the weapons, the way he moved these days. He's not impaired. So what is happening?

"I don't..." she starts, then stops. Takes a breath. "Alpha, I don't know what you need. I can't tell you what to do because I don't know what's wrong."

His grip on her tightens. Not painful, just desperate. Like he's afraid she's going to pull away.

"Something happened," she says carefully, still stroking his hair. "When you left. Something scared you. Or hurt you. I can smell it. But I can't help if you don't tell me what's going on."

He's quiet for a long moment. She can feel him breathing against her shoulder, can feel the tremor in his frame.

"Gone," he finally says. Voice rough. Broken. "Everything's... gone."

"What's gone?"

He shakes his head against her shoulder. She's not sure if he can't explain or won't, but either way, she's not getting more than that.

She’ll let it slide for now. There are other pressing matters, like getting him out of those wet clothes. The reasoning cuts through her omega instinct screaming to hold him and purr until whatever's broken inside him stops hurting.

But he's shivering slightly against her. The gear is damp, cold, and reeks of a lot of things. He can't stay like this.

"Alpha," she says softly, still stroking his hair. "Your clothes are wet. You need to take them off."

He doesn't respond. Just turns his face, pressing his nose and mouth directly against her scent gland, breathing her in.

She tries a different approach. "You must be uncomfortable. Cold."

A pause. Then a small nod against her throat.

Progress.

"Okay," she says gently. "Let me help you, then. We need to get this gear off."

She starts to pull back, intending to give herself room to work, but his arms immediately band around her waist, keeping her exactly where she is.

"Please," he rasps against her skin, and the desperation in his voice makes her chest ache. "Just... stay."

"I'm not leaving," she says quickly, her hands coming back to rest on his shoulders. "I'm right here. I just need space to help you with the vest."

His grip loosens fractionally. Not letting go, but allowing her a few inches of movement.

She'll take it.

"Okay," she murmurs, keeping her voice low and soothing. "Arms down for me."

He complies immediately. His arms drop from around her waist, hanging at his sides, and he lifts his head just enough to look at her. Waiting. Like he's waiting for the next instruction.

"Good," she says softly, reaching for the buckles on the tactical vest. "Stay still."

Her fingers work at the clasps. They're hard to unbuckle, but she manages. The vest comes loose, and she helps him out of it, tossing it aside.

The undershirt beneath is damp and clinging to his skin. She can see the outline of his chest, the definition of muscle.

"Arms up," she says.

He lifts them without hesitation.

She grabs the hem of the undershirt and pulls it up and off. The fabric is cold and wet in her hands, and she drops it on top of the vest.

Tell me what to do.

The memory of those words suddenly clicks into place, and she pauses.

He's an alpha. Clearly capable of doing whatever the hell he wants. She experienced that firsthand: the strength, the intensity, the sheer physical dominance.

And yet here he is, following her instructions without question. Docile in a way that feels fundamentally wrong for what he is.

Something happened to him. Something that broke whatever made him capable of autonomous decision-making. The thought makes her chest tighten, but she pushes it aside. Later. She can unpack that later.

And then she sees him.

Really sees him, without the haze of his rut and the hormonal desperation clouding her vision.

The scars.

She’d spent three days with her hands all over his body, her mouth on his skin. But she hadn't really looked. Hadn't processed what she was seeing beyond the broad strokes of alpha, strong, mine.

Her brain had catalogued them dimly as occupational hazards. The kind of damage that came with a dangerous job. But now, looking at him with clear eyes and a clear head, she realizes how wrong that assumption was.

These are the scars of someone who was broken.

Methodically. Repeatedly.

The worst are where the metal arm connects to his body. Angry, raised tissue that looks like it was never meant to heal right. Like someone carved into him and bolted the prosthetic on without anesthetic or care for anything beyond functionality.

And the rest…

Thin white lines crisscross his ribs. Burn marks, some circular like cigarettes, others larger and more diffuse. Surgical scars that don't follow any logical medical pattern. Bullet wounds.

Her hand moves without conscious thought, tracing one of the longer scars across his ribs. It's old, long-healed, but still raised enough that she can feel the texture under her fingertips.

He goes very still under her touch.

"Does it hurt?" she asks quietly.

He shakes his head. A small, almost imperceptible movement.

She wonders if that's true, or if he's just so used to pain that he doesn't register it anymore.

"Okay," she whispers, pressing her hand against his chest, feeling the steady thud of his heartbeat beneath her palm. "Boots next."

He doesn't move, so she realizes she needs to be more specific.

"Sit down," she says, nodding toward the bed.

He obeys immediately, crossing to the bed and sitting on the edge, back straight, hands resting on his thighs. Like a soldier awaiting orders.

The thought makes her stomach twist, but she pushes it aside.

She kneels in front of him, unlacing the first boot with quick movements. It comes off easily, and she sets it aside before moving to the second one.

His eyes are on her the entire time. She can feel the weight of his gaze, heavy and focused, like she's the only thing in the world that matters.

When both boots are off, she stands, brushing her hands on her joggers.

"Pants," she says simply.

He stands without a word, hands going to the waistband. The buckle is quick work, and then he's pushing the tactical pants down his hips, stepping out of them.

He's in his underwear now. The fabric is stiff and stained, and the sight makes her face heat despite herself.

"Those too," she says, keeping her voice steady.

He hesitates for half a second. Then he hooks his thumbs into the waistband and pushes them down.

She clearly has seen him naked, but this feels different. Maybe because he's not rutting and desperate. He's just... standing there, vulnerable, letting her take care of him, because he doesn't know how to take care of himself.

"Good," she says softly, her hand coming up to cup his face, thumb brushing across his cheekbone. "Now get in bed."

He looks at the bed, then back at her.

"Go on," she says, nodding toward the mattress. "I'll get you some water. And food, if you're-"

"No."

The word is quiet but firm.

She blinks. "No?"

"Stay," he says, and the plea is back in his voice. Raw. Desperate. "Please."

Her heart clenches.

"I'm just going to fetch the things," she says gently, nodding toward the counter. "I'll be right-"

"No." His hand shoots out, catching her wrist. "Stay."

She looks at him and sees the fear in his eyes.

"Okay," she says softly, letting him pull her toward the bed. "Okay, I'll stay."

She climbs into the bed first, settling against the pillows, and he follows immediately. But instead of pulling her against him, he crawls up beside her and lowers himself down, his head coming to rest on her upper chest, just below her collarbone, close enough that his nose brushes against the side of her neck.

His arm rests across her stomach, holding her in place, and the full weight of his body settles against her side.

She buries her hand in his hair, threading her fingers through the damp strands, and breathes him in. Beneath the cheap soap and the smoke, his scent is still there, gunmetal and leather, and that undercurrent of alpha that makes her omega purr with satisfaction.

Mine. Safe. Here.

He presses his face harder into her neck, mouth against her scent gland, breathing her in like he's been starving for it.

"Rest," she murmurs, her other hand coming to caress his back, tracing idle patterns across his scarred skin. "I'm not going anywhere."

His breathing evens out, slow and deep, and the tension in his body gradually bleeds away under her touch.

The grip on her doesn't loosen. His arm stays banded around her waist, his face pressed to her throat, and after a few minutes, the faint rumble of a purr starts up in his chest.

She feels the vibration against her skin and lets out a breath she didn't know she was holding. Whatever storm was raging inside him is starting to calm.

She doesn't know what happened out there. Doesn't know what "gone" means, or why he came back smelling like he does. Doesn't know who hurt him badly enough to leave those scars, or why he doesn't seem to know how to make his own decisions.

But right now, none of that matters, because he's here. He's safe. He's hers.

She presses a kiss to the top of his head and lets herself believe that for now, it's enough.

She heard him dust his boots heavily on the porch, then the door opened, and he stepped inside, bringing the cold air and the smell of pine and sweat with him. His eyes found her immediately, still standing by the stove where she'd been keeping the stew warm.

For a moment, neither of them moved.

She felt her face heat under his gaze, and her hands tightened on the wooden spoon she was holding.

"You're home," she managed, and immediately felt foolish. Of course he was home. She could see him standing right there.

But his expression softened slightly, and he set down his lunch pail by the door.

"I am," The words came out rough. Like he'd been working hard. Or thinking hard. Or both.

He shrugged out of his coat, hung it on the peg, and crossed the small space between them in a few strides.

She tensed with anticipation, expecting him to reach for her, to pull her close the way he had last night. But he stopped just in front of her, close enough that she had to tilt her head back to look at him, and his hand came up to cup her face instead.

Gentle. Almost careful.

"Feelin’ alright?" he asked quietly.

The question caught her off guard. She'd expected... well, she wasn't sure what she'd expected. But not that.

"I'm fine," she said honestly.

His thumb brushed across her cheekbone, and something flickered in his eyes. Guilt, maybe. Or concern.

"Any discomfort?"

She shook her head.

He studied her face for another moment, like he was checking for signs she might be lying to spare his feelings. Then he leaned down and pressed a kiss to her forehead -brief, almost chaste- before stepping back.

"Smells good," he said, nodding toward the stove. "What is it?"

"Stew," she answered still processing the gentleness of that kiss. "It's been ready for a while. I was just keeping it warm."

"Sounds good." He moved past her toward the washbasin, rolling up his sleeves. "I'm starvin’."

She turned back to the stove, ladling stew into bowls, and tried to ignore the way her heart was still racing.

It was so stupid that the fact that he was careful and gentle with her still affected her, but she was still getting used to it. To matter. To have a voice. To like and dislike things and be checked on. To be cherished.

“Do you want to wash after you are done?” she heard herself ask without thinking.

He paused, his hands stilling in the basin where he'd been splashing water on his face. Then he straightened, reaching for the towel she kept hanging nearby, and turned to look at her.

"After dinner?" he repeated, like he was making sure he'd heard her right.

She nodded, focusing very hard on ladling the stew into the second bowl. "I could heat water for the tub. If you'd like."

There was a pause, just long enough that she glanced up to see if something was wrong.

He was watching her with an expression she couldn't quite read. Something between surprised and... pleased, maybe.

"Yeah," he said finally, his voice a little rougher. "That'd be good."

She nodded and carried the bowls to the table, setting them down with hands that were steadier than she felt.

Offering to heat his bathwater wasn't scandalous. It was a perfectly normal thing for a wife to do for her husband after a long day of work.

Except they both knew what had happened the last time she'd helped him bathe.

When she'd washed his back with careful hands. When he'd been sitting in the tub and she'd been close enough to feel the heat radiating off his skin. When the air between them had been charged with something unspoken and inevitable.

And now -after last night- there was nothing unspoken left.

She sat down across from him at the table, smoothing her skirt unnecessarily, and picked up her spoon.

He did the same, taking a bite of the stew and making a low sound of approval.

"This is good," he said. "Real good."

"Thank you."

They ate in silence for a few minutes. Not uncomfortable, exactly, but weighted with awareness. Of each other. Of what had happened. Of what would happen again.

Eventually, he cleared his throat.

"Had a hell of a time concentratin' today," he said, not quite meeting her eyes.

She looked up. "Oh?"

"Yeah." He took another bite, chewed, swallowed. "Miller nearly had to pull me out of the way of a fallin' log. And Davidson caught me splittin' the same piece of wood three times without realizin' it."

Her eyebrows rose. "That doesn't sound like you."

"It ain't." He finally looked at her then, and there was something in his gaze that made her stomach flip. "Kept thinkin' about last night."

Heat flooded her face instantly.

"About you," he continued, his voice dropping lower. "About comin' home to you."

She didn't know what to say to that. Didn't know if she was supposed to say anything.

But he didn't seem to expect a response. Just went back to his stew, though she could see the tension in his shoulders. The way his jaw worked as he chewed.

Like he was holding himself back from saying -or doing- something more.

They finished the meal in that same charged silence, and when he pushed his bowl away, she stood to clear the table.

His hand slowly caught her wrist as she reached for his bowl.

She looked at him, her pulse jumping.

"I meant what I said," he said quietly. "About givin' you time. Few days, at least."

She swallowed. "I know."

"But… that ain't mean I don't wanna touch you." His thumb brushed across the inside of her wrist, a slow movement that made her skin tingle. "If that's alright."

She thought about the way he'd looked at her when he came home. The careful way he'd touched her face. The kiss to her forehead that had been almost reverent.

She thought about the fact that she'd spent the entire day thinking about him too. About last night. About the future.

"It's alright," she said quietly.

His expression changed -something dark and satisfied crossing his face- and he released her wrist.

"Go on then," he said. "Heat the water. I'll clear the table."

"You just got home," she said, already moving toward the stove to check the water she'd kept simmering. " I'll handle it."

"If I help, you can get started sooner," he countered, already standing and reaching for his bowl. "And honestly, the idea of a bath sounds real good right now."

She couldn't argue with that logic.

They worked in tandem, her hauling the tub from its spot in the corner while he carried the first pot of hot water, both of them moving anticipating each other's movements.

By the time the tub was half-full, she'd settled onto the chair nearby the fire, waiting as he added the last pot of cold water to temper the heat.

He straightened, testing the temperature with his hand, then started unbuttoning his shirt.

She didn't look away.

There'd been a time when they'd given each other privacy for this. When she would've turned the chair to face the wall, or busied herself with some task on the other side of the room.

But that time had passed.

Now she watched as he shrugged out of his shirt, the firelight playing across his shoulders, highlighting the old scars she'd traced with her fingers more times than she could count. And the new ones, faint red lines down his back where her nails had raked him last night.

He glanced at her over his shoulder, catching her staring, and the corner of his mouth quirked up.

"Ain't fair, you know," he said, reaching for his belt. "You gettin' to look while I can't."

"I'm not the one getting in the bath," she deadpaned.

"True." He unfastened his belt, pushed his trousers down, and stepped out of them. Then his drawers followed, and he was bare, crossing the short distance to the tub without a hint of self-consciousness.

She'd seen him naked before. Many times, especially over the past two months. But there was something different about watching him now, in the firelight, knowing what it felt like to have that body covering hers. Inside hers.

He stepped into the tub with a low groan of relief, sinking down into the water until it lapped at his chest.

"Christ, that's good," he muttered, his head falling back against the rim.

She stood, collecting his discarded clothes and adding them to the basket near the door, very aware of his eyes tracking her movements.

When she turned back, he was watching her with an expression that made her stomach flip.

"You gonna help me?" he asked.

She raised an eyebrow. "Help you?"

"Yeah." He shifted in the tub, settling deeper. "I'm real tired. And last time you helped -when I had that cut on my hand- it was..." He paused, and she could see he was fighting a smile. "Real helpful."

She crossed her arms, trying to hide a smile. "You seem perfectly capable of washing yourself."

"Do I?" His voice had dropped lower, rougher. "Because I'm rememberin' how good it felt when you did it. Your hands in my hair. On my back."

Heat crept up her neck at the memory. At the intimacy of it, of touching him like that, tending to him.

"That was different," she said. "You were actually injured."

"I'm injured now," he said, deadpan. "Emotionally. From workin' all day thinkin' about my wife and not bein' able to do anythin' about it."

Despite herself, she felt her lips twitch.

"That's not a real injury."

"Feels real to me." He held her gaze, and the playfulness faded slightly, replaced by something more serious. More intent. "Come here."

It wasn't quite a command. More like an invitation. A request.

She crossed to the tub without hesitation and knelt beside it. His eyes tracked her movements, and when she reached for the soap, his hand caught her wrist.

Gently. Like he'd done at the dinner table.

"I promised I'd give you time," he said quietly. "And I meant it. But I want to touch you. Want you to touch me. That alright?"

She looked at him, at the heat in his eyes, at the tension in his jaw, at the way he was holding himself still despite clearly wanting more.

He was asking. Checking. Making sure she was comfortable.

Just like he had last night.

"It's alright," she said quietly.

His grip on her wrist loosened, and he released her with what looked like effort.

"Good." he said, his voice rough.

----

She worked the soap between her hands until it lathered, then pressed her palms to his back. He made a low sound -half groan, half sigh- and let his head fall forward, giving her access.

She started at his shoulders, working the soap across the muscles, feeling the tension there start to ease under her touch. Then down his spine, she let her thumbs press on either side, the way she'd discovered he liked weeks ago and felt him exhale slowly, deeply.

Her hands knew this body now. Knew the old scars, the puckered one on his left shoulder blade, the long raised line that ran from shoulder to spine. Knew the new marks too, the faint red scratches she'd left last night, already fading but still visible in the firelight.

Evidence of what they'd done. What they'd become to each other.

"Lean forward," she said quietly.

He did, bracing his forearms on his knees, and she reached for the cup sitting beside the tub.

She poured water over his head slowly, watching it darken his hair from brown to almost black, watching it run in rivulets down his neck and shoulders. Then she set the cup aside and worked the soap through the wet strands.

Her fingers found his scalp, and she began to massage in slow, deliberate circles.

The sound he made was involuntary. Deep and rough and so unguarded that it sent a flutter through her stomach.

"That's..." He trailed off, seeming to lose the words.

"Good?" she offered, her fingers still working, applying gentle pressure as she moved across his scalp.

"Yeah." His voice had gone thick. "Real good."

She took her time with it. Working the soap through every strand, her nails scraping lightly against his scalp in a way that made his breathing deepen. She'd done this once before when he'd injured his hand, but that had been different. An assistance.

This was something else.

When she was satisfied, she rinsed his hair carefully, filling the cup again and again, pouring the water slowly so the soap wouldn't run into his eyes. Making sure to get every bit of lather out, combing through the strands with her fingers.

She set the cup aside and sat back slightly, her hands stilling.

He started to reach for the soap, but she picked it up first.

His hand stilled in mid-air, suspended between them.

"I can-" he started, his voice careful.

"I know you can," she said simply.

She dampened and worked more soap in her hands until they had a lot of lather, and waited.

For a moment, he just looked at her. She could see him processing what she was offering. What she was saying without words.

That she wasn't finished. That she wanted to keep touching him.

Then, slowly, like he was afraid sudden movement might break whatever spell this was, he settled back against the tub. His arms came to rest along the rim, palms up, open.

Giving her access.

She brought the cloth to his chest, and his breathing changed immediately, deeper, more controlled, as she began to work the soap across his skin.

She started at his collarbone, tracing the hard line of it from shoulder to shoulder. Then down, over his chest, feeling the solid muscle beneath. She could feel his heartbeat under her hand, strong and steady but faster than normal.

He was affected by this. By her touch.

She moved her hand in slow, careful circles. Across to his left side, feeling his ribs expand and contract with each breath. Then back to center and across to the right. Thorough. Methodical.

But not impersonal.

She was hyperaware of every point of contact. Of the way his skin felt warm and slick from the water. The way his muscles tensed slightly when she touched certain spots. Of the way he was watching her through half-lidded eyes, his jaw tight.

His eyes had closed at some point, but she could see his hands gripping the edge of the tub, knuckles pale. He was holding himself very still. Letting her work. Not reaching for her even though she could see he wanted to.

She moved lower.

Over his stomach, feeling the muscle shift under her touch. Her hand traced the line where his torso met his hips, where the hair grew thicker, and she felt him tense.

His eyes opened.

She met his gaze -steady, deliberate- and brought her hand beneath the water.

Down, over his hip. Along his thigh.

And then, because there was no reason not to, because this was part of washing him, just like everything else, she brought it between his legs.

His breath caught audibly when her fingers made contact.

She worked carefully, the same way she'd washed the rest of him. Trying to be practical about it, though there was nothing clinical about the way her own heart was racing now. About the way her face felt warm despite the cool air in the cabin.

She felt him harden under her touch, the change immediate and undeniable, but kept her movements steady. Thorough. Washing him the way he'd need to be washed, trying not to think about the fact that she was touching him there.

When she shifted slightly to reach more thoroughly, his hips shifted forward involuntarily,  a sharp, sudden movement that made the water slosh slightly in the tub.

Chasing the contact.

He caught himself immediately, forced his hips back down, and she heard him exhale through clenched teeth.

"Can't help it, sweetheart," he said, his voice wrecked. Strained. "You touch me like that, I-"

He cut himself off, gripping the tub harder, his whole body gone rigid with the effort of not moving. Of not reaching for her. Of not asking for more than she was offering.

"I know," she said quietly, and meant it.

She could see what this was doing to him. Could see it written in every line of his body, the tension, the restraint, the way he was barely holding himself together.

But he wasn't asking her to stop, or to do more. He was just letting her touch him, letting her explore. Letting her learn him at her own pace.

She finished washing him, moving the cloth down his thighs, along his calves, even taking each foot in turn and working the soap carefully between his toes.

When she was done, she rinsed her hands and rested it in her thighs, very aware that her sleeves were damp from the water. That her face was heated. That her breathing wasn't entirely steady.

And he was sitting there in the cooling water, his eyes on her, his chest rising and falling with breaths that were deeper than they should be.

Then he exhaled slowly and opened his eyes fully.

"Thank you," he said.

She nodded, not trusting her own voice, and stood.

"I'll get you a towel," she managed.

She crossed to the chest where they kept the linens, taking perhaps a moment longer than necessary to find one. Using the time to steady herself. To slow her breathing.

Behind her, she heard him shift in the water. Heard the quiet splash and the sound of water streaming off his body as he stood.

When she turned back, towel in hand, he was standing in the tub, water sluicing off his skin in rivulets that caught the firelight.

She could see all of him.

His broad shoulders. His chest. His stomach. The dark hair that trailed down from his navel. His thighs, thick with muscle.

And between them, the evidence of exactly how much her touch had affected him.

Still hard. Still wanting.

She felt her face heat again, felt that now-familiar flutter low in her belly, but she didn't look away, didn't drop her gaze or pretend she hadn't seen.

Just held out the towel.

He stepped out of the tub carefully, water dripping onto the floor, and reached for it.

But instead of taking the towel immediately, his hand caught hers.

Gently. The way he'd done at the dinner table earlier.

He brought her hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. Slowly. His lips were warm and soft against her skin.

His eyes held hers the entire time.

"You're gonna be the death of me," he said quietly, his voice still rough with want. With restraint. "You know that?"

She didn't know what to say to that.

Didn't know if there was anything she could say that would adequately express what she was feeling, the strange mix of power and vulnerability, of curiosity and nervousness, of wanting to touch him more and being afraid of what might happen if she did.

So she just stood there, her hand still caught in his, her heart pounding.

Then he released her and took the towel, wrapping it around his waist with movements that were just slightly less controlled than usual and walked to the bed.

"Come here," he said quietly.

She complied, and he reached for her hand, pulling her down to sit beside him. For a moment, they just sat there. Close but not touching beyond where his hand still held hers.

Then he brought their joined hands to his lap and traced his thumb across her knuckles.

"You didn't have to do that," he said quietly. "Wash me like that."

"I know."

"But you did anyway."

She nodded.

"Why?"

The question was gentle, curious. Not demanding. She considered it for a moment, then chose to be honest.

"Because I wanted to," she said finally. Simply. “Wanted to help you, and… wanted to touch you.”

His thumb stilled on her hand.

"You wanted to," he repeated, like he was testing the words.

"Yes."

He was quiet for a moment. Then: "You tell me, sweetheart. Am I pushin' too hard? Askin' for too much?"

She looked at him, at the genuine concern in his eyes, the way he was watching her like her answer actually mattered, and felt something warm settle in her chest.

"No," she said firmly. "You're not."

"You'd tell me if I was?"

"I would."

He studied her face for another moment, then nodded, seeming satisfied.

"Good," he said. "Because the last thing I want is for you to feel like you have to... like any of this is somethin' you're doin' out of duty."

"It's not," she said quietly. "I promise."

He swallowed, and she watched his throat work with the motion. Then he shifted slightly on the bed, his thighs separating just enough that the towel around his waist loosened, falling open slightly.

The evidence of his arousal was impossible to miss.

His hand tightened on hers for a moment, then released.

"Then," he said, his voice rough. "Would you be willin' to... help me with my situation?"

Her eyes flicked down, then back to his face.

She'd done this before. Multiple times, actually, in the weeks leading up to last night. He'd touched her, and both had discovered what she liked, what made her gasp and arch into his hand. And she'd explored him in return, learned the weight of him in her palm, the rhythm he preferred, the signs that told her he was close.

It had been part of learning each other. Part of him making sure she was comfortable with intimacy before they took that final step.

But somehow this time felt different. Maybe because now she knew what it felt like to have him inside her. Knew what he sounded like when he lost control completely.

"Alright," she said quietly.

His eyes darkened, and she saw relief and want on them.

She moved to stand between his knees, and he reached for the towel, pulling it away completely and tossing it aside. Then his hands came to rest lightly on her hips.

"You don't have to," he said, even though she'd already agreed. "If you're too tired, or if-"

"Bucky," she interrupted gently. "I said alright."

He exhaled slowly, and his grip on her hips tightened slightly.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, okay."

She started to reach for him, but the angle was awkward; she'd have to bend forward, lean down, and her back would start protesting within minutes.

He seemed to realize it at the same time she did.

"Here," he said, releasing her hips. "Get the stool. You'll be more comfortable."

She retrieved the small wooden stool they kept by a corner and positioned it between his knees. When she sat, his hands settled on her thighs this time, palms warm even through her skirts.

She wrapped her hand around him, and he made a sound -low and rough- that sent heat pooling down her belly.

"Christ," he muttered, his head falling back slightly. "Your hand’s so warm..."

She knew what he liked. Had learned it over the course of multiple evenings spent exploring each other, his patient instructions guiding her until she understood the pressure he needed, the rhythm that worked.

So she started the way she always did, slow and firm, her hand moving from base to tip and back again in long, steady strokes.

His hips shifted forward slightly, following the movement, and his hands tightened on her thighs.

"That's good," he said, his voice strained. "That's real good, sweetheart."

She kept the rhythm steady, watching his face. Watching the way his jaw clenched, the way his breathing went ragged, the way his eyes drifted closed.

His hands slid higher on her thighs, gripping through her skirts like he needed something to hold onto.

"Tighter," he said after a moment. "Can you- yeah, like that."

She adjusted her grip, and he groaned.

"Faster?"

"Not yet," he said, his voice tight. "Want it to last."

So she kept the pace slow. Deliberate. Let him feel every stroke.

One of his hands left her thigh and came up to cup her face, his thumb brushing across her cheekbone in a gesture that was tender despite the explicit nature of what she was doing to him.

"You're so good to me," he said quietly, his eyes opening to meet hers. "So damn good."

She felt her face heat at the words, at the sincerity in them.

His hand slid from her face down to her neck, then lower, curving around her waist. His other hand stayed on her thigh, grounding, possessive in a way that made her stomach flutter.

"Okay," he said after another minute, his breathing harsher now. "Okay, faster now."

She increased the pace, her wrist working in the rhythm she knew he needed, and felt him tense beneath her touch.

"God, yes," he muttered. "Just like that, sweet girl. Don't stop."

His hips started moving in small thrusts, matching her rhythm, and she could feel him getting closer. Could see it in the way his whole body tensed, in the way his fingers dug into her waist, in the way his breathing had turned ragged and uneven.

"Darlin’," he said, his voice breaking slightly. "I'm gonna-”

He was trying to warn her. Trying to give her time to move her hand and let him take over, grab the towel, to do whatever she needed to do.

But she didn't pull away.

Just kept moving her hand, moving, steady and sure, the way he needed.

"It's alright," she said quietly.

His eyes locked on hers, and something in his expression shifted. Went dark, intense and full of want.

"Fuck," he breathed, and then his whole body went rigid.

She felt him pulse in her hand, felt the warmth spill over her fingers as he spent, his hips jerking forward with each wave. He made a sound -low and broken- and his hand came up to cover hers, holding her in place while he rode it out.

When it was over, he slumped forward slightly, his forehead pressing against her shoulder, his breathing ragged against her neck.

They stayed like that for a moment, her hand still wrapped around him, his face buried in the curve of her neck, both of them catching their breath.

Then he lifted his head and looked at her, his eyes still dark but softer now.

"Sorry," he said, his voice rough. "Should've grabbed the towel, I just-"

"It's fine," she said.

He reached for the towel anyway, gently taking her hand and cleaning it carefully. When he was done, he cupped her face in both hands and kissed her. Slow and deep and grateful.

When he pulled back, he was looking at her with an expression she couldn't quite read.

"You should get into your nightgown," he said finally. "Get comfortable."

She nodded and stood, retrieving her nightgown from beneath her pillow where she'd tucked it that morning. She crossed to the corner near the dresser where a small peg rack hung on the wall, beginning to unbutton her dress.

----

Behind her, she heard him move, the creak of the bed as he stood, his footsteps crossing to the water bucket. The sound of him drinking deeply, then setting the dipper back with a soft clatter.

Then she heard him chewing biscuits.

She rolled her eyes. They'd just eaten. The man had put away two full bowls of stew and half a loaf of bread less than an hour ago.

More drinking. Another swallow. Then silence.

She'd worked her dress off and draped it over the peg, then the petticoat, the corset. Her fingers moved to the ties of her drawers when she heard his footsteps again.

But they weren't heading back to the bed.

They were coming toward her.

She stilled, her hands on the waistband of her drawers, and then she felt him behind her. Close. Not touching yet, but close enough that she could feel his body heat.

His hands settled on her bare skin, one at the small of her back, the other at her shoulder blade, and began to stroke her naked skin in slow strokes. She shivered despite the warmth of the cabin.

"Wanna touch you now," he said quietly, his voice rough and low near her ear. "Is that alright?"

She almost chuckled. So that's why he'd told her to change.

She finished pushing her drawers down her hips and stepped out of them, straightening fully. His hands were still on her back, waiting for her answer.

"More than alright," she said.

She heard the shift in his breathing. Felt one hand slide around to her hip, holding her in place.

"Yeah?" His other hand moved up to her shoulder, his thumb stroking along her collarbone. "You sure?"

She hesitated, feeling heat creep up her neck. Then, because he'd been honest with her earlier about being distracted at work, she made herself say it.

"You're not the only one who spent today thinking about last night, Bucky," she admitted quietly. "I was... distracted too."

His hand on her hip tightened, and she felt him step closer. Close enough that his chest was nearly pressed against her back.

"That right?" he said, and she could hear the satisfaction in his voice.

She nodded.

His hand slid from her hip upward, gliding over her side, until it cupped her breast. His palm was warm and calloused against her soft skin, and when his thumb found her nipple and began circling the areola in slow, deliberate strokes, she couldn't quite suppress the small sound that escaped her lips.

"What were you thinkin' about?" he asked, his mouth close to her ear now. "Specifically."

His thumb continued its maddening circles, not quite touching where she was starting to want him to touch, just tracing around and around until she felt her nipple tighten in response.

She swallowed, trying to find words while his hands were on her like this.

"About..." She paused, her breath catching when his thumb finally brushed directly over the peaked bud. "About how it felt. What you did."

"What I did," he repeated, his voice a low rumble against her back. His thumb rolled over her nipple again, more deliberately this time, and his other hand slid from her shoulder down to join the first, cupping her other breast. "Gonna need you to be more specific than that, sweetheart."

Both hands now, both thumbs working in tandem, and she had to brace one hand against the wall to steady herself.

"When you..." She took a shaky breath. "When you touched me. Before. And during."

"Durin’," he said, and there was something almost predatory in his tone now. Pleased. "You mean when I was inside you?"

"Yes," she managed.

His hands stilled for a moment, and then he turned her around to face him.

She found herself looking up at him, at the heat in his eyes, at the focus written across every line of his face.

"And what exactly were you thinkin' about that?" he asked, one hand coming up to cup her face while the other settled at her waist. "That… you wanted me to do it again?"

The directness of the question should have embarrassed her. Would have embarrassed her, even just yesterday.

But there was something about the way he was looking at her. The way his thumb was stroking along her cheekbone. The way he was asking instead of assuming.

"Eventually," she said honestly. "When... when it doesn't hurt anymore."

Something flickered in his expression, that guilt again, brief but unmistakable.

"It's gonna be a lot better next time," he said quietly.

"I know."

"When we do it again," he continued, his hand sliding from her waist to the small of her back, pulling her closer, "it's gonna feel good. Real good. I'm gonna make sure of it."

She believed him. Because he'd already shown her what good felt like, with his hands, with his mouth, with the patient way he'd learned what made her gasp and arch into his touch.

"But right now," he said, his voice dropping lower, "I just wanna make you feel good. Can I do that?"

"Yes," she said.

His mouth curved into something that wasn't quite a smile.

"Good," he said. "Now come here."

He guided her backward toward the bed, and she went willingly, her heart already racing in anticipation of what came next.

He stood in front of her for a moment, just looking. His eyes traced over her, bare and exposed in the firelight, and she fought the urge to cover herself.

She'd been naked in front of him many times before. But it still made her feel vulnerable in a way she couldn't quite explain.

"Lie back," he said quietly.

She did, scooting further onto the bed and settling against the pillows. He followed, moving onto the bed with her, bracing himself on one arm beside her while his other hand came to rest on her stomach.

"You're tense," he observed, his palm warm against her skin.

"I'm not-"

"You are." His hand moved in a slow circle, soothing. "Relax, sweetheart. I'm just gonna make you feel good. That's all."

She took a breath and tried to let the tension ease out of her shoulders.

His hand moved from her stomach upward, sliding over her side, until it cupped her breast. The touch was gentle at first, exploratory, almost.

"I didn't pay enough attention to these last night," he said, almost to himself. His thumb brushed across her nipple, and she felt it tighten in response. "Was too focused on gettin' inside you."

His hand shifted, and he cupped her other breast, giving it the same careful attention, testing its weight.

"But I got time now," he continued, his voice dropping lower. "And I'm gonna take it."

He lowered his head, and she felt his breath ghost across her skin a moment before his mouth closed over her nipple. The sensation made her gasp, wet heat and gentle suction that sent a jolt of feeling straight between her thighs.

His tongue slowly circled the peaked bud, and then he sucked again, harder this time, and her hands flew to his shoulders without conscious thought.

"Bucky-"

He hummed against her skin, and his hand came up to tend to her other breast while his mouth stayed busy.

His fingers found her nipple and pressed firmly under it, making her arch slightly into the touch. Then he pulled gently, tugging just enough that the sensation rode the line between pleasure and something more intense.

She whined  -helpless and uncontrolled- and felt him smile against her breast. He switched sides then, his mouth moving to the breast his hand had been tending while his fingers took over where his mouth had been.

The pattern repeated, his tongue circling and flicking, his lips suckling, his teeth grazing so lightly she barely felt it. And his hand, always his hand, pressing and tugging and coaxing her body to respond.

She could feel herself getting restless beneath him. Could feel heat building low in her belly, her thighs shifting against each other, seeking friction that wasn't there.

"Easy," he murmured against her skin. "Not rushin' this."

His mouth stayed on her breast, working her nipple with single-minded focus until it was hard and sensitive and slick from his attention. Then he moved to the other side again, giving it the same thorough treatment until both peaks were tight and aching and she was breathing harder than she meant to.

When he finally pulled back, she looked down to find him watching her with dark, intent eyes. Her breasts felt hot from his attention, her nipples darker and visibly wet, and she felt heat flood her face at the sight.

"Look at you," he said quietly, his hand coming up to cup one breast again, his thumb brushing over the sensitized peak and making her shiver. "So responsive. My wife."

He leaned down and pressed one more kiss to each nipple -soft, almost reverent- and then his hand began to move lower.

Down her stomach. Over her hip. Along her inner thigh.

"Now," he said, his voice rough with want, "let me take care of the rest of you."

His hand moved higher on her thigh, and she felt her legs part without him having to ask.

"That's it," he murmured, his palm warm against her inner thigh. "Just like that, sweetheart."

But then his other hand joined the first, and he pressed gently, urging her to open wider, spread more. She expected him to lower his head. To put his mouth on her the way he'd done before, the way that had made her forget her own name.

But he didn't.

Instead, he just... looked.

His thumbs traced along her soft curls, and then he gently parted her. Spreading her open. Exposing her completely to his gaze.

She felt her whole body tense with something that went beyond nervousness into outright mortification. It was one thing to let him touch her. To let him use his mouth on her. She'd gotten used to that over the past weeks, had learned to relax into the pleasure of it.

But this was different.

This was him looking at the most intimate part of her body with the focus he usually reserved for checking a piece of wood for flaws.

"Bucky," she managed, her voice thin. "What are you-"

She tried to close her legs, instinct taking over, but his hands stayed firm on her thighs.

"Wanna look at my wife proper," he said quietly, his eyes still fixed between her legs. "Wanna see if… if you're hurt. From last night."

The admission made her relax a little. He was just checking on her, making sure he hadn't done more damage than he'd realized.

"What's bothering me is inside," she said quietly. "I don't think you can see it."

He looked up at her then, and she saw something flicker across his face. Maybe the realization that he wasn't entirely sure what he was looking for.

"Right," he said after a moment. "Yeah, that makes sense."

He seemed almost sheepish about it, and despite her discomfort, she felt a small flicker of affection.

Then his thumbs moved again, stroking gently along either side of her entrance.

"I'm not gonna use my fingers today," he said, lowering his head. "Just want to make you feel good. That alright?"

"Yes," she managed.

And then his mouth was on her.

The first touch of his tongue made her gasp, a broad, flat stroke that started low and dragged upward with deliberate slowness.

He did it again. And again. Long, slow licks that covered every inch of her, and made her remember with what made her twitch, what made her breathing hitch, what made her hands fly to his hair without meaning to.

His tongue circled her entrance gently, and she tensed slightly at the sensation.

He must have felt it, because he moved away immediately. Shifted his focus higher, to the small bundle of nerves that made her fall apart when he paid it the right kind of attention.

He settled there now, his tongue working in slow, deliberate circles while his hands held her thighs open. Keeping her spread for him. Keeping her exactly where he wanted her.

"Bucky," she breathed, and she felt him hum against her in response.

His hands moved from her thighs to her hips, holding her down. Not rough, but firm, keeping her still while he worked.

His tongue flicked faster now, more focused, and she felt that familiar tension start to build low in her belly. The sensation coiled tighter and tighter with each pass of his tongue.

She was dimly aware that her fingers had tightened in his hair. That she was making sounds she couldn't quite control. And he just kept going. Patiently. Thoroughly.

Like he had all the time in the world and was determined to use every second of it, making her feel good.

She gasped hard when he started to suck gently, his lips closing around that sensitive spot and creating pressure that made her vision blur, her hips grinding shamelessly against his mouth.

"Let go, sweetheart. I got you." He murmured against her skin.