Whiskey and the Wild Rose

“Are you fucking kidding me?” you groan aloud, nearly spilling your wine all over your expensive Moroccan rug.

The alarm doesn't stop. It wails with a violent, ear-splitting urgency that vibrates in your teeth. You slam the wine glass down on the counter, your heart kicking into a frantic, panicked rhythm against your ribs. You grab your phone, slide your bare feet into a pair of slip-on Converse sneakers, and bolt for the door. You don't even think to grab a coat, completely forgetting you are only wearing a thin tank top.

Throwing the heavy door open, you're immediately hit by the chaotic din of the hallway. Neighbors are spilling out of their apartments, eyes wide, voices overlapping in confused, sleepy panic. There’s no thick, suffocating smoke rolling down the ceiling, but there is a distinct, pungent odor wafting through the air, burnt plastic and cheap, stale weed.

You push through the milling crowd toward the end of the hallway where the heavy, reinforced fire escape door leads out to the iron stairwell. It’s supposed to be the fastest way out for the fourth floor, bypassing the narrow, claustrophobic central staircase that is already clogged with people from the upper floors.

You reach the heavy metal door, grasping the emergency push-bar. You shove your weight against it, but the mechanism is stubbornly jammed. The ancient hinges groan, resisting your effort. Panic flares hot in your chest as the alarm continues its deafening, relentless assault. You hit the bar again with the heel of your hand, swearing violently under your breath. “Come on, you piece of shit, fucking open!”

“Hey, back up. Let me get it.”

The voice is deep, calm, and immediately recognizable. A large, warm hand clamps down over your bare shoulder, gently but firmly pulling you back. The touch sends a jolt of electricity straight through your system. You stumble slightly, looking up to see Bucky Barnes stepping in front of you.

He looks like he threw his clothes on in a matter of seconds, but somehow he still looks effortlessly magnetic. He’s wearing a battered, heavy leather jacket zipped hastily over a dark grey hoodie, clearly his go-to “emergency” grab, paired with dark jeans. His dark hair is a messy, beautiful tangle falling into his striking, sharp blue eyes. He doesn't look panicked at all; he just looks mildly annoyed at the inconvenience.

Bucky places his hand, his knuckles dusted with faint scars, flat against the door. His other hand grips the heavy iron bar. With a sharp, sudden flex of his broad shoulders beneath the layers of leather and cotton, he shoves. There’s a loud, metallic crack as the rusted latch finally gives way, and the heavy door flies open, letting in a violent rush of crisp, freezing night air.

“Ladies first…” Bucky says, his voice a low, rough rumble over the screeching alarm. He throws you a quick, reassuring smirk that makes your stomach do a completely unhelpful flip.

“Thanks…” you breathe out, stepping past him onto the grated iron platform of the fire escape. The sudden, brutal drop in temperature immediately bites through your thin tank top, raising goosebumps all over your arms. You shiver instantly, crossing your arms over your chest. The city below is alive, a swirling mass of neon lights, honking cabs, and the distant, rapidly approaching wail of fire sirens.

Bucky steps out right behind you, his large frame blocking a bit of the wind. The platform isn't exactly spacious. You’re forced to stand close together, backed against the rough brick wall of the building as a few other neighbors push past, hurrying down the zigzagging iron stairs to the narrow alleyway below.

You stay put on the landing, the cold metal of the railing biting into your lower back. Bucky leans casually against the brickwork beside you, entirely unbothered by the frantic exodus of the rest of the floor. He pulls a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his leather jacket, snapping a Zippo lighter open with his thumb. The flame illuminates the sharp, strong lines of his jaw and the relaxed, easy set of his mouth.

“You're not going down?” you ask, your teeth beginning to chatter slightly as the autumn wind whips around the building.

He takes a slow drag, blowing the smoke out into the chilled air, the plume mixing with his breath. He shakes his head, his blue eyes dropping to meet yours. “Nah. We’re on the fourth floor, Y/n. If the building was actually going up in flames, you'd feel the structural heat by now. Look down there.” He gestures lazily over the railing with his cigarette.

You uncross your arms for a second to peer over. The flashing red and white lights of a massive fire truck are already bouncing off the damp brick walls of the alley. Firefighters are piling out, moving with practiced efficiency, but there’s no frantic shouting, no rushing of heavy water hoses. They look bored.

“It's that little shit, Tyler, from the third floor…” Bucky says, a lazy, amused grin spreading across his face. “The twenty-something kid with the terrible bleach job?”

You snort, leaning back against the wall next to him. “The one who constantly leaves his empty, greasy pizza boxes in the stairwell?”

“That’s the one!” Bucky laughs, the sound deep and rich, settling warmly in your chest despite the freezing temperature. “Fucker bought some bad shit, got paranoid, and tried to hotbox his walk-in closet to hide the smell from his roommate. Dropped his lit joint into a pile of synthetic nylon gym bags. Smoked up the whole damn floor. Fucking idiot.”

You can't help it, you let out a loud, genuine laugh, the tension bleeding out of your shoulders. “Are you serious? God, I thought my night couldn't get any more ridiculous. I was exactly halfway to the sofa with a very necessary, very expensive glass of wine.”

Bucky’s eyes drag over you, slow and deliberate, taking in your messy bun, your thin white tank top, the faded sweatpants, and your bare ankles above your sneakers. There’s a sudden, heavy shift in the air between you, the kind of charged, undeniable electricity that has always simmered beneath the surface during your brief hallway encounters, but amplified tenfold now that you are isolated above the city streets.

He notices you shivering, your shoulders hitched up to your ears. Without a word, he unzips his leather jacket, shrugs it off his broad shoulders, and drapes it heavily over yours. The jacket is massive on you, smelling incredibly of rich leather, expensive cologne, and a faint hint of darkroom chemicals. It’s wonderfully, instantly warm from his body heat.

“Shame to interrupt a good drink…” he murmurs, leaving him in just his dark grey hoodie. His voice drops an octave, rumbling low. “Especially after the week you've had. I saw the layout for the September issue you pushed through. You completely gutted the initial spread and rebuilt it. It’s sharp as hell, Y/n. Visceral. I liked it.”

You stare at him, genuinely shocked, pulling the lapels of his leather jacket tighter around your chest. “You read my editorials? I didn't think big-shot, high-fashion photographers cared about the text formatting or the written features.”

“I care when the text is actually worth reading.” he replies smoothly, stepping just a fraction of an inch closer, holding your gaze intently. “Most of the shit in that magazine is vapid, corporate garbage aimed at selling insecure women overpriced handbags. But you actually give a fuck. You write about the clothes like they’re armor. Like they matter to a person's identity. It's good. Fucking brilliant, actually.”

A flush that has absolutely nothing to do with the freezing wind creeps up your neck and colors your cheeks. You’ve worked your ass off for years to get to this position, battling rampant sexism and corporate greed, and hearing validation from someone whose artistic eye you deeply respect, someone who usually terrifies the industry’s top editors with his uncompromising, brilliant vision, feels incredibly intoxicating.

“Well…” you manage to say, fighting down a proud smile, “coming from the guy who shot the entire Milan campaign in a literal abandoned slaughterhouse just to prove a point about the brutality of fast fashion, I'll take that as a massive compliment.”

Bucky chuckles, tossing his cigarette over the edge and watching the glowing ember fall into the darkness. “It was a statement. And the creative director almost had a fucking aneurysm on set. It was hilarious. I thought the guy was going to actually weep when I brought the fake blood out.”

You spend the next forty-five minutes just talking. It’s remarkably, dangerously easy. The cold air bites at your exposed face, but wrapped in Bucky's heavy leather jacket, with the heat radiating from his large frame beside you, you feel perfectly anchored. You talk about the industry, tearing down the inflated egos of terrible designers, laughing at the sheer, unadulterated absurdity of the fashion world. He is completely unfiltered, swearing casually, his observations sharp, cynical, and ruthlessly funny. You find yourself matching his energy, completely dropping your polished professional mask. You let out your own frustrations about your boss, the agonizing late nights, the constant, draining pressure to be perfect in an industry that profits off imperfection.

It's liberating. Here on this rusted fire escape, suspended above the noisy, chaotic city, stripped of your titles and your pristine outfits, you are just you and Bucky. Two overworked, exhausted people finding a bizarre, unexpected sanctuary in a false alarm. You realize you haven't talked to anyone this easily in months. Maybe years. Every time he looks at you, his blue eyes are heavy with a quiet, intense interest that makes your pulse hammer in your throat.

Down below, the fire truck’s massive diesel engines roar to life, shaking the pavement. The firefighters have cleared the building, evidently dealing with Tyler and his melted nylon bags, and are slowly backing the massive rig out of the narrow street. The flashing red lights click off, plunging the alleyway back into its usual, shadowed dimness.

“Looks like the show's over…” you say, a strange, totally unexpected pang of disappointment tightening your chest. You don't want this bubble to pop. You don't want to go back to being just passing strangers in the hallway.

Bucky looks down at the departing truck, then back at you. His eyes linger on your lips for a fraction of a second longer than is strictly polite before he offers a soft, entirely devastating smile. “Yeah. Suppose we should get back inside before you freeze to death, even with my jacket. I'll let you get back to your wine. Though, honestly, I've got a bottle of rare Kentucky bourbon in my place that easily beats whatever vintage you’re currently drinking.”

You raise an eyebrow, a bold, teasing smirk playing on your mouth. “Is that an invitation, Barnes? Are you trying to get me drunk on a Tuesday?”

“Maybe…” he says softly, turning toward the heavy metal door, his shoulder brushing against yours. “Depends entirely if you can handle your liquor. I don't drink with lightweights.”

He reaches out, his large hand grasping the iron handle of the fire escape door. He pulls.

Nothing happens.

He frowns, his jaw tightening. He grips the handle with both hands, planting his heavy boots firmly on the grated metal floor, and gives it a massive, violent yank. The door rattles loudly in its steel frame, echoing in the quiet night, but it doesn't budge even a fraction of an inch.

The quiet amusement instantly vanishes from Bucky's face. He drops his hands, staring at the thick, unyielding metal.

“What's wrong?” you ask, stepping closer, your heart skipping a nervous beat.

Bucky turns his head, looking over his shoulder at you. The easy, flirtatious energy has completely evaporated, replaced by a grim, deadpan expression that would be terrifying if it wasn't so incredibly hot.

“Some paranoid fucker closed the door behind us.” Bucky says, his voice completely flat.

“Okay, so... just push the bar from this side?” you suggest, your voice pitching up slightly in alarm.

“It's a one-way emergency exit…” Bucky sighs, dragging his hand heavily down his face in deep, profound aggravation. “It only opens from the inside. When the door shuts, the deadbolt drops automatically so people can't use the fire escape to break into the building from the alley.”

You stare at him, the reality of the situation slowly crashing down on you like a bucket of ice water. The freezing air suddenly feels ten times colder. The distant, mocking noise of the city seems to laugh at you.

“Are you... are you fucking kidding me right now?” you ask, your voice trembling between genuine panic and absolute disbelief.

Bucky leans back against the door, crossing his arms over his chest, his grey hoodie pulling tight over his biceps. He lets out a long, heavy breath, a dry, humorless chuckle escaping his lips as he runs a hand through his messy hair.

“Well, shit…” he mutters, looking at you with a mixture of apology and dark, undeniable amusement. “Looks like we’re officially locked out. Good thing you've got my jacket, doll, because it's going to be a long fucking night.”

Taglist- @blackhawkfanatic @ordelixx @sapphirebarnes @ilovetaquitosmmmm

@differenttyphoonwerewolf @vicmc624 @thezombieprostitute @nekoannie-chan @ozwriterchick

@saiyanprincessswanie @mercurial-chuckles @writing-for-marvel

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@bucks-babe @lolzies123r @kandis-mom @purplecolordeer @avioletkurt @sebastians-love

@pattiemac1 @lovely-geek @hzdhrtss

A/N: this was originally supposed to be a one-shot part of a collection inspired by that picture of seb up there, but the plot got a little out of hand. and honestly? I don’t feel like cutting scenes just to fit tumblr’s ridiculous 1000-block limit. so here we are! hope you’ll enjoy 🌊 the art of devotion masterlist

⤷ PARTS ༄.° PART 1 ༄.° PART 2 ༄.° PART 3

The thing about Bucky Barnes is that he doesn't cry. It's not a point of pride, not some rusted-on remnant of the 1940s masculinity that Steve sometimes still wears like a too-tight suit jacket, though God knows Steve has tried to talk to him about it. It's not that he thinks less of men who do, or that he's swallowed some poison pill about real men not shedding tears. It's simpler than that, and infinitely more devastating. The part of him that knew how to cry has been broken for so long, he's not sure it ever existed in the first place.

Or maybe it did. Maybe once, a very long time ago, in a brownstone in Brooklyn with chipped wallpaper and the smell of his mother's pot roast bleeding through every floorboard, he cried. He has a fragment of a memory—sharp and strange, like a piece of glass he's afraid to touch—of a lollipop. A green one. Apple-flavored, he thinks. He wanted it at the corner store, the one with the bell on the door that always made him feel like a grown-up when he pushed it open. His mother said no. Her voice was tired, not cruel, but he was four, or maybe five, and the injustice of it had been a burning, cosmic wrongness. He'd cried then. Big, gulping, snotty sobs that had made his father look up from his paper with something like alarm before his mother had scooped him up and laughed, actually laughed, and kissed the top of his head and said, "Oh, my beautiful boy. The world will break your heart so many times. Save your tears for the things that matter."

He doesn't remember if he got the lollipop. He suspects he did. His mother had a soft heart under all that starch.

He didn't cry when the recruiter came to the door. He wasn’t a naive young boy but he sure as hell was scared stupid, and his stomach was clenched so tight he thought he might vomit. His mother had stood behind him, her hand a warm, steady pressure on his shoulder blade, and he'd signed the papers with a dry-eyed terror that felt like swallowing broken glass. He didn't cry during the war. Not when Dugan took a bullet to the shoulder, not when the Howlies sang raunchy songs around a fire in some frozen French forest, not even when he held a dying man's hand—a kid from Ohio who couldn't have been more than nineteen—and lied to him about the war being almost over. His eyes had burned, his throat had closed up like a fist, but the tears hadn't come. They'd retreated somewhere deep, some subterranean vault where he locked away everything too heavy to carry.

And he certainly didn't cry during the Hydra years.

He doesn't remember much of those decades in a clean, linear way. It's more like a collage of pain—electricity and ice and the particular, soul-flaying horror of watching his own hands do things he would never, in any universe, have chosen to do. He was scared. God, he was so scared. He was scared in a way that went beyond the body, beyond the screaming nerve endings. It was a metaphysical terror, the slow, grinding erasure of himself. But he never cried. He couldn't. They wouldn't have let him, even if he'd tried. The chair didn't care for tears. The chair just wanted compliance.

After Wakanda, after the thawing and the slow, brutal work of untangling the barbed wire in his head, he thought maybe the tears would come. Shuri had told him, gently, that emotional release was part of the healing process. She'd said it like it was a good thing, a sign of progress. And he'd sat in his white-walled room, staring out at the lush, impossible green of the Wakandan forest, and he'd tried. He'd thought about Steve. About the way Steve had looked at him after the whole Thanos’ fiasco, after everything, when they'd finally had a moment alone and Steve had just grabbed him by the back of the neck and held on like Bucky was the only thing keeping him tethered to the earth. He'd thought about the ice. The fall. The long, silent years of nothing before Hydra fished him out.

Nothing. Not a single drop. His eyes had felt like two stones in his skull.

So he'd stopped trying. He'd accepted it as part of his new shape, the way he'd accepted the metal arm. He was a man who didn't cry. It was a fact, like gravity or the undeniable truth that Steve Rogers still made terrible coffee even after a century of practice. He didn't examine it. He just lived inside it.

Then he moved into the apartment across the hall from you.

The apartment itself was a victory. Not a hard-won one—those kinds of victories he was used to. This was a different kind of victory, the quiet, mundane kind that Sam insisted he needed to learn how to celebrate.

"It's got a dishwasher," Sam had said, standing in the middle of the empty living room with his hands on his hips, looking around with an approval that was almost comical. "And in-unit laundry, Buck. Do you understand what a privilege that is in this city? I've been fighting the basement washing machine in my building for three years. THREE YEARS. It eats quarters like they're peanuts and then just... stops. Mid-cycle. With all your clothes inside. You have no idea how good you have it."

Steve had been there too, leaning against the kitchen counter with his arms crossed, that particular softness in his eyes that only ever appeared when he was looking at Bucky in a domestic setting. Like he couldn't quite believe they'd made it here, to a place where Bucky could have his own apartment with a dishwasher and a view of a small courtyard instead of a view of a battlefield.

Natasha had been the one to find it, actually. She had opinions about real estate—strong, specific opinions that she wielded like weapons. "No basement units," she'd said, scrolling through listings on her tablet while perched on the edge of Bucky's temporary couch. "No ground floors. Nothing with a fire escape that connects to the roof. And for God's sake, Bucky, get a place with decent light. You've spent enough time in the dark."

So he had. The apartment was on the third floor of a solid brick building in a neighborhood that had been quietly up-and-coming for about fifteen years and had finally, grudgingly, arrived. The building wasn't fancy—no doorman, no elevator that worked consistently, no gym or rooftop terrace with a grill. But it was well-maintained, with clean hallways and windows that actually sealed against the winter draft and someone who responded to maintenance requests within forty-eight hours, which Natasha had assured him was practically a miracle.

His apartment had two bedrooms—one for sleeping, one for the punching bag and the small collection of weights that Sam had insisted were 'essential for mental health'—and a bathroom with a shower that had excellent water pressure and heated floors that Bucky still wasn't over. The kitchen was open to the living room, with dark granite countertops and stainless steel appliances that had come with the unit and made him feel vaguely like a person who had his life together. The living room was big enough for a couch and his grandmother's armchair—the one piece of furniture he'd had shipped from storage, the one that still smelled faintly of her lavender sachets even after all these years. There were windows on two walls, facing south and west, and in the afternoons, the light came in golden and thick, pooling on the hardwood floors like honey.

It was more than he'd ever expected to have. More than he deserved, probably, but Steve had given him that look—the one that said don't even start—and Bucky had signed the lease without arguing.

The building was quiet. Respectable. Full of people who had normal jobs and normal lives and no idea that the Winter Soldier lived three floors up from the laundromat. There were young couples with strollers, a retired librarian on the second floor who left baked goods in the hallway during the holidays, a graphic designer on the fourth floor who played video games at full volume until 2 AM but always apologized profusely the next morning.

And there was you. 3A. The one with the coconut shampoo and the terrible singing voice and the inexplicable, devastating lack of fear.

He noticed you the second week. Not in a romantic way, not at first. He noticed you because you were loud. Not aggressively so, but you existed with a kind of cheerful, oblivious volume that grated on his hyper-vigilant nerves. You sang while you cooked—terrible, off-key renditions of pop songs from the last decade that you clearly sing every single word, even the guitar sounds. You watched movies with the bass turned up, and the low thrum of explosions bled through the walls. You had friends over sometimes, and their laughter was a bright, jarring thing that made his jaw clench and his fingers twitch toward a knife he no longer carried.

He told Steve about you, sort of. Not in so many words. They were having dinner at Steve and Natasha's place—a brownstone in Brooklyn that Natasha had decorated with ruthless efficiency and surprising warmth—and Steve had asked how the new building was treating him.

“It's fine,” Bucky had said, poking at his pasta. “Quiet.”

Steve had raised an eyebrow. Steve had known him for over a hundred years. Steve could read the lie in his voice the way other people read headlines.

“But?” Steve had prompted.

Bucky had shrugged. “There's a woman across the hall. She's... loud.”

Next to Steve, Natasha had smirked into her wine glass. “Loud how?”

“I don't know,” Bucky had said, irritated by the question and by his own inability to answer it. “She just... exists loudly. She sings. She laughs. She leaves her groceries for quite some time in the hallway like she's not worried someone's going to steal them.”

Steve and Natasha had exchanged a look. A long, meaningful, infuriating look that Bucky had pretended not to see.

“That sounds terrible,” Natasha had said, deadpan. “A woman who laughs and sings and isn't afraid of her own shadow. How do you survive?”

“Shut up,” Bucky had muttered. But he hadn't been able to stop thinking about it. About you. About the way you'd smiled at him that first time in the hallway, holding your too-heavy grocery bag, like he was just a guy and not a weapon.

The first time you talked to him, he almost didn't respond.

You were coming out of your apartment just as he was coming out of his. You were wearing a dress and your hair was down, and you looked so startlingly pretty that he forgot how words worked for a solid five seconds.

“Hey,” you'd said, locking your door. “You're the new guy, right? I heard 3B has a bigger kitchen somehow.”

He'd nodded. His mouth had been dry.

“I'm your neighbor,” you'd said and let him know your name and then you'd laughed—that bright, unguarded laugh he'd heard through the walls—and stuck out your hand. “I'd say I'm friendly, but honestly I'm just nosy. I like to know who's living within screaming distance.”

He'd shaken your hand. Your grip had been firm, your palm warm and dry. You hadn't flinched at the metal. You hadn't even glanced at it.

“Bucky,” he'd said. His voice had come out rougher than he'd intended.

“Just Bucky?” you'd asked, tilting your head. “Or is there a last name you're holding out on me?”

He'd hesitated. “Barnes.”

You'd nodded, like that was a perfectly normal thing for a man who looked like he'd walked out of a World War II documentary to say. “Well, Bucky Barnes, welcome to the building. Fair warning, the walls are thin, I cook real Mexican food at least three times a week, and I have absolutely no shame about singing along to ABBA at full volume. If any of that is a problem, you should probably request a transfer now.” You were clearly joking.

And then you'd winked at him. Actually winked. And walked off down the hallway toward the stairs, leaving him standing there with his keys in his hand and his heart doing something strange and irregular in his chest.

He'd closed his apartment door, leaned against it, and texted Steve.

Bucky: I think I'm in trouble.

Steve: Define trouble.

Bucky hadn't answered. He hadn't known how.

Over the next few months, you became something he couldn't explain. Not a friend, exactly—not yet. He kept you at a careful distance, the way he kept everyone, because letting people in meant giving them the power to leave, and he wasn't sure he could survive another goodbye.

But you were persistent. Not in a pushy way—you never demanded his time or his attention or his story. You just... existed. You said hello in the hallway. You knocked on his door when you'd made too much food, pressing tupperware containers into his hands with instructions to return the container, not the food, because the food is a gift and gifts don't come back. You invited him to building events—the holiday party in the lobby, the impromptu rooftop gathering when the weather turned warm—and when he declined, you just shrugged and said, "Maybe next time," like you actually believed there would be a next time.

You told him about your life in bits and pieces. Your job at the marketing firm, which you liked well enough but didn't love. Your parents, who lived three hours away and called every Sunday without fail. Your black cat, a grumpy rescue named Anakin Skywalker who had opinions about everything and was currently on a hunger strike because you'd switched his food brand.

“I'm being held hostage by a twelve-pound grumpy baby,” you'd told him once, sitting cross-legged on your kitchen floor while Anakin glared at you from atop the refrigerator. “This is my life now. I've accepted it.”

He'd laughed. Actually laughed—a real one, not the hollow, automatic sound he usually produced when someone said something vaguely amusing. You'd looked up at him with wide eyes, and for a second, he'd seen something flicker across your face. Surprise. And then something softer. Something that looked like hope.

He'd looked away first. He always looked away first.

Steve noticed. Of course Steve noticed. Steve noticed everything, and he had no compunction about pointing it out.

“You're different,” Steve said one afternoon. They were at a diner, the kind of place that served breakfast all day and had waitresses who called everyone "hon." Bucky was pushing scrambled eggs around his plate. Steve was watching him with that steady, patient gaze that had always made Bucky feel like he was being X-rayed.

“I'm not different,” Bucky said.

“You are.” Steve leaned back in the booth, stirring his coffee. “You're calmer. More present. You actually looked at me when I walked in instead of scanning the room for exits first.”

“I always scan for exits. That's not going to change.”

“No, but you used to do it like you were expecting someone to come through the door with a gun. Now you do it like you're just... checking. Like it's a habit, not a survival mechanism.”

Bucky put his fork down. “What's your point, Steve?”

Steve's mouth twitched. “No point. Just an observation. I'm allowed to observe things.”

“You're allowed to mind your own business, too.”

“Where's the fun in that?” Steve took a sip of his coffee, made a face—it was too hot, or too bitter, or too something, because Steve's relationship with coffee was complicated and mostly unhappy—and set the cup down. “Natasha thinks you're in love with your neighbor.”

Bucky's hand froze halfway to his water glass. “Natasha doesn't know my neighbor.”

“Natasha knows everything. It's her thing.” Steve shrugged. “She says you get a certain look on your face when you talk about her. She says it's the same look you used to get when you talked about that girl from the USO. What was her name?”

“There was no girl from the USO”

“Lorraine. That was it. The brunette with the long legs.” Steve was grinning now, the bastard. “You were gone for her. Completely gone. And you've got the same look now. Well, Nat says now it’s even worse, you know?”

Bucky stared at him. “I don't have a look.”

“You have a look. It's a very specific look. Slightly constipated, mostly lovestruck. It's a whole thing.”

“I'm going to kill you.”

“You've been saying that for a hundred years. I'm still here.”

Bucky picked up his fork again, mostly so he wouldn't throw it at Steve's head. But Steve's words rattled around in his brain for the rest of the day, and the day after that, and the day after that. In love. He wasn't in love. He didn't even know you. Not really. He knew that you took your coffee with oat milk and a splash of vanilla. He knew that you cried at some videos in that app you like a lot—not the sad ones, the happy ones, the ones were kids are adopted or parents teaching their kids to ride bikes or any kind of animal being in a happy home. He knew that you had a birthmark on your left wrist that looked like a tiny heart, and that you always, always knocked three times before opening a door, like some kind of ritual you'd never explained.

He knew that when you smiled at him, the world got quieter. The noise in his head—the static, the memories, the endless loop of everything he'd done and couldn't undo—it all faded to a low hum, manageable, almost peaceful. You make the world quiet. So quiet.

That wasn't love. That was just... comfort. Safety. The feeling of being seen without being judged.

It was love. Of course it was love. He'd known it for months, probably. He just hadn't been brave enough to name it.

The crying doesn't happen on a significant day. That's the thing about grief, he'll learn later. It doesn't wait for anniversaries or milestones. It doesn't knock. It just shows up, sits down on your couch, and refuses to leave until you've bled out every last drop.

It's a Tuesday. A normal Tuesday, the kind of Tuesday that has no business being the setting for a man's emotional undoing. He's been to therapy that afternoon—a mandatory thing, arranged by the government, with a nice woman named Dr. Simmons who asks him how he's "feeling" as if feelings are something you can just reach into your chest and pull out like loose change. He'd sat in her office for an hour, staring at the framed picture of her and her husband Fitz and their golden retriever on her desk, and he'd told her he was fine. Fine. The word felt like a lie wrapped in a shrug.

He's not fine. He hasn't been fine since 1943. But fine is a language he knows how to speak. Fine keeps people from looking at him with that particular brand of pity that makes him want to put his fist through a wall. So he'd said fine, and she'd nodded, and he'd left her office with the taste of decaff on his tongue and a headache blooming behind his eyes.

He stops at the grocery store on the way home. Not because he needs anything—his refrigerator has eggs, yogurt, the sad remnants of a rotisserie chicken he'd bought three days ago and mostly forgotten about—but because the thought of going straight to his empty apartment makes his chest feel like it's caving in. He wanders the aisles like a ghost. He doesn't buy anything. He just looks at things—the bright packages, the gleaming produce, the families picking out cereal together. A little girl, maybe five years old, is crying because her mother won't buy her the sugary cereal with the cartoon mascot. Her face is red and blotchy, her little fists balled up in helpless fury, and her mother is trying not to smile as she kneels down to her level and says something too quiet for Bucky to hear.

He has to leave. He abandons his empty basket by a display of discount Halloween candy and walks out of the store with his hands shaking.

He doesn't remember the walk home. He doesn't remember unlocking the front door of his building or climbing the stairs. He doesn't remember standing in front of his apartment door, key in hand, unable to turn it because the silence on the other side is suddenly too loud, too much, a vacuum that will suck him in and leave him floating in the dark. But he’s a grown man and goes inside.

It's late—almost nine. The news has been on in his apartment, some anchor droning about political scandals he can't bring himself to care about. He's been sitting on his floor, back against the wall, staring at nothing, for two hours. The headache has spread to his whole body, a dull, pervasive ache that feels like it's coming from somewhere deeper than his muscles. He's been thinking about Steve. About the bench at the compound, about the quiet conversation they'd had after Thanos, when Steve had looked at him with those old, tired eyes and said, "I'm not going anywhere, Buck. Not ever. We're a package deal, you and me. That's never going to change."

He'd believed Steve. He still believed him. But belief and fear were not mutually exclusive, and somewhere in the deep, dark part of his brain that Hydra had carved out and filled with cement, there was a voice that whispered that "Everyone leaves. Everyone. It's only a matter of time."

He'd pushed the voice down for months. Years, maybe. But tonight, sitting in the dark of his living room with the sound of your muted television bleeding through the wall (a laugh track, then a commercial jingle), he realizes he's been lying to himself. The voice isn't gone. It's just been waiting. Patient. Inevitable. And now it's here, and he's alone, and the apartment that usually feels like a sanctuary suddenly feels like a cage.

He quickly walks out of his apartment and knocks on your door. You open mere seconds after. You're in sweatpants and an oversized sweater with a photo of your Anakin wearing sunglasses. There's a smear of what looks like tomato sauce on your cheek. Your hair is in a messy bun, and you're holding a wooden spoon, and behind you, he can see the steam rising from a pot on your stove. Anakin is perched on the back of your couch, watching the hallway with the haughty disdain that only felines can truly master.

“Bucky?” Your voice is confused but not alarmed. You've learned, over the months, that he shows up at odd hours sometimes. You've stopped asking why. “Everything okay?”

He opens his mouth to say fine. It's right there, on the tip of his tongue, a reflex so ingrained it's practically a tic. Fine. I'm fine. Sorry to bother you. Good night.

What comes out is a sound. Not a word. Just a small, broken thing, a gasp that cracks in the middle like old ice.

Your face changes. The confusion softens into something else, something careful and gentle, and you set the wooden spoon down on the little table by your door. You step back, widening the doorway. “Come in,” you say. Not an invitation. A command, but a kind one. “I'm making soup. It's not good soup—I forgot to buy vegetable and I hate the frozen ones, so it's mostly just water and hope—but it's hot. You look like you need something hot.”

He steps inside. His legs feel disconnected from his body, like he's piloting a meat suit from a great distance. Your apartment is warm and lived-in, the kind of space that feels like a hug—books stacked on the coffee table, a pink blanket crumpled on the couch, three different mugs with small bouquets on the side table. There are framed photos on the wall, pictures of people he doesn't know but assumes are your family, and a small plant on the windowsill that is either thriving or dead; he can't tell which. It's so aggressively, beautifully normal that it makes his chest ache.

“Sit,” you say, pointing at the couch. “I'll get you a bowl.”

He sits. The couch is soft, and it smells like you—coconut and laundry detergent and something vaguely spicy, like the candles you burn sometimes. He sinks into it like it's swallowing him whole. His hands are still shaking. He folds them together in his lap, metal and flesh, and tries to breathe.

You come back with two bowls of soup. You set one on the coffee table in front of him, then sit on the other end of the couch, tucking your feet under you. You don't say anything. You just start eating your soup, making small, appreciative noises that seem entirely performative, given your earlier description.

He stares at the bowl. The soup is orange-ish, with sad little flecks of parsley floating on top. There are noodles that have gone soft and bloated. It looks terrible. It looks like something his mother would have made on a night when money was tight and the cupboards were bare, and she'd called it "experimental" and made everyone say thank you before they took a bite.

Something hot and horrible rises in his throat. Not the soup. Something else. Something that's been living in his chest for so long he'd forgotten it was there.

“I can't,” he says. His voice is wrecked, scraped raw. “I can't eat.”

You set your bowl down. You don't look at him with pity. You just look at him. Present. Steady. Like you're saying, without words, I'm here. I'll stay here. You don't have to perform for me.

He doesn't know why that's the thing that breaks him. Maybe it's the soup, or the cat, or the way the light from your kitchen turns everything soft and golden. Maybe it's the little girl in the grocery store, crying over cereal. Maybe it's Steve, alive and well and in love with Natasha, living his life without Bucky's demons dragging him down. Maybe it's all of it, seventy years of all of it, finally pressing down on that hairline fracture until the whole vault shatters.

The first tear surprises him. It's hot, almost burning, as it tracks down his cheek. He blinks, and then another one falls, and another, and then he's crying—really crying, the way he hasn't cried since he was five years old and the world's greatest injustice was a green, apple-flavored lollipop. His shoulders shake. His breath comes in ragged, ugly hitches. He tries to stop, tries to shove it all back into the vault, but it's too late. The dam has broken, and everything is pouring out—the war, the fall, the chair, the faces of the people he killed, the names he can't remember, the ones he can't forget, the endless, screaming loneliness of being a man out of time, out of place, out of hope.

He's making sounds now. Actual sobs, raw and animal, tearing out of his chest like they've been clawing to get free for decades. He's hunched over, his face in his hands, and he can't breathe, can't think, can't do anything but sit here in this warm, cluttered, impossibly normal apartment and fall apart.

And then you move.

You don't say "It's okay," because it's not okay, and you're smart enough to know that. You don't pat his back awkwardly or offer him a tissue. You just shift closer on the couch, slow and deliberate, and you wrap your arms around him. Not tight. Not confining. Just... there. A solid, warm presence against his side. You rest your head on his shoulder, and your hand finds his flesh hand, and you hold it. He feels your fingers that are very soft, and warm, and so, so gentle.

He cries into the crook of your neck. He cries until his throat is raw and his eyes are swollen and his whole body feels wrung out, empty, like someone has reached inside him and pulled out every organ. He cries for his mother, who died while he was on ice, who never got to see him come home. He cries for his father that probably tried to be strong for his wife that lost his son and his three girls that lost their old brother. He cries for his sisters, Becca and the two younger ones whose names he sometimes forgets on bad days, and then he hates himself for forgetting, and then he cries harder. He cries for Steve, for the friendship that has spanned a century and survived war and ice and brainwashing and time travel, for the fact that he loves Steve like a brother and that love is the only thing that has never been taken from him. He cries for himself, for the boy who wanted a lollipop, for the man who was unmade, for the ghost who is still trying to figure out how to be a person again.

And then, buried under all of that, he cries for Maggie.

The thought comes out of nowhere, sharp as a blade. Maggie. His baby sister. The one who used to follow him around like a shadow, who used to climb into his bed after nightmares and whisper "Jamie, I'm scared" into his shoulder until he woke up and held her. The one with the gap-toothed smile and the endless questions. The one who, by every law of time and nature, should be an old woman now. Or worse.

But she's not. He knows she's not. Because after Wakanda, after the snap, after everything, Sam had done the research. Quietly, carefully, without making a big deal of it. He'd handed Bucky a folder one afternoon, thick with papers and photographs, and said, "Your people, Buck. They're still out there. Some of them, anyway."

And Bucky had opened the folder with shaking hands and learned that Maggie was alive. Ninety-four years old. Widowed twice. Mother of four, grandmother of eleven, great-grandmother of six. Living in a small town in upstate New York, in a house with a porch and a garden that her grandchildren apparently fought over who got to tend. Ruth had passed away in the eighties—cancer, quick and merciful, according to the obituary. Becca had made it to ninety-one before her heart had given out, surrounded by children and grandchildren and, if the photos were to be believed, an absolutely ridiculous number of cats.

But Maggie was still here. Maggie, who had been almost ten years old when Bucky left for war. Maggie, who had sent him letters covered in crayon drawings of stick figures and hearts. Maggie, who had waited for him to come home, who had probably mourned him, who had lived an entire life without him in it.

He knows where she lives. He knows her phone number. He knows the names of her children—James, and Deborah, and David, and little George who wasn't so little anymore, who was sixty-seven years old with grandchildren of his own. He knows all of it. The information sits in his brain like a stone, heavy and immovable.

And he hasn't done a damn thing about it.

Because what would he say? "Hi, I'm your brother. The one who died eighty years ago. Surprise, I'm actually a brainwashed assassin with a metal arm and a century of trauma. Can I come to Thanksgiving?"

He imagines showing up at her door. He imagines the look on her face—confusion first, then recognition, then something else. Something that might be joy or might be terror or might be the particular, gut-wrenching grief of seeing a ghost made flesh. He imagines her children, her grandchildren, all those strangers with his family's blood in their veins, looking at him like he's an intruder. Because that's what he would be. An intruder. A specter from a past that should have stayed buried.

He's seen the photos. Maggie at her wedding, young and radiant in white, standing next to a man with kind eyes and a strong jaw. Maggie holding her first child, her face transformed by a love so fierce it makes his chest ache. Maggie at fifty, at seventy, at ninety, her hair gone silver and her face lined with years he wasn't there for. She looks like their mother. She looks like a stranger.

He doesn't know her. That's the worst part. He loves her—of course he loves her, she's his baby sister, she was born when he was fourteen years old, holding that tiny baby as if his life depended on it, she's the little girl who used to hold his hand when they crossed the street—but he doesn't know her. He doesn't know what makes her laugh now, or what she's afraid of, or whether she still hums when she bakes. He doesn't know if she thinks about him. He doesn't know if she's made peace with his death, if she's built a life that doesn't have a space for him in it.

And he's terrified that if he shows up, if he opens that door, he'll find that the space has been filled. That she's moved on. That she's happy, and his return would only complicate things, would only drag up old wounds and old grief and old questions that no one can answer.

So he hasn't gone. He's told himself he will. Someday. When he's less broken. When he has words that make sense. When he can look at her without falling apart.

But someday keeps not coming. And Maggie is ninety-four. And time, which has been his enemy for so long, is running out.

He's sobbing now, harder than before, his whole body shaking. He's not sure if he's said any of this out loud. He's not sure if you can hear the thoughts screaming inside his head. But your arms are still around him, and your hand is still holding his, and you're not going anywhere.

He chokes out your name. Just your name. And then, because he can't hold it in anymore, because it's bursting out of him like everything else, he says, “She's still alive. Maggie. My baby sister. She's still alive and I haven't—I can't—”

He can't finish the sentence. The tears are too thick, the shame too heavy.

But you understand. Of course you understand. You've always understood, even when he didn't give you the words.

“Bucky,” you say softly. Not pushing. Just saying his name like it's a lifeline. “How old is she?”

“Ninety-four,” he whispers. “She's ninety-four and I'm wasting time. I'm wasting the only time I have left with her because I'm scared. Because I feel like—” He stops. Swallows. Forces the words out. “Like I'm an intruder. Like I'm some stranger showing up at her door, demanding a place in her life when I don't deserve one. She has children. Grandchildren. A whole life she built without me. What right do I have to walk back in and—”

“You're her brother,” you interrupt. Quietly. Firmly. “You're not a stranger, Bucky. You're her brother. She grew up with you. She loved you. She probably spent decades wishing you'd come home. And now you can. You can actually go home. And I know it's scary. I know it feels like you're crashing a party you weren't invited to. But you were invited. You were invited the day she was born. That invitation doesn't expire.”

He shakes his head, a jerky, desperate motion. “You don't understand. I've missed everything. Her wedding. Her children. Her whole life. I wasn't there. I wasn't there for any of it.”

“No,” you agree. “You weren't. And that's awful. That's a grief I can't even imagine. But you're here now. And she's still here. And you have a choice, Bucky. You can keep staying away, and you can keep regretting it, or you can go. You can show up. You can let her see you. Even if it's hard. Even if it's messy. Even if you cry the whole time.”

“I will cry the whole time,” he says, and it's almost a laugh, broken and wet.

“Then you'll cry the whole time,” you say simply. “And she'll probably cry too. And then you'll hug, and you'll talk, and you'll figure it out. Because that's what family does. They figure it out.”

He looks at you. At the tears on your cheeks, the steadiness in your eyes, the way you're holding him like he's something precious instead of something broken. And he thinks about Maggie. About her gap-toothed smile. About the way she used to say his name—Jamie, Jamie, Jamie—like it was the most important word in the world.

“I don't know if I can do it alone,” he admits. It's the hardest thing he's said all night. Harder than the crying. Harder than the confession.

You don't hesitate. “Then don't do it alone. I'll go with you. If you want. I'll hold your hand the whole way. I'll sit in the car while you're inside, or I'll come to the door with you, or I'll stay here and make soup and wait for you to come back and tell me everything. Whatever you need. I'm here.”

He closes his eyes. The tears are still coming, but they're different now. Lighter, somehow. Less like drowning and more like rain.

“Okay,” he whispers. “Okay.”

He doesn't say when. He doesn't make a plan. But something shifts in his chest, something loosens, and he knows—he knows—that he's going to call Maggie. That he's going to drive upstate and knock on her door and let himself be seen. That he's going to meet his nieces and nephews, his great-nieces and great-nephews, the whole sprawling, impossible family that carries his blood and his name.

He's going to do it. Because you're right. Because the invitation doesn't expire and because Maggie is ninety-four, and time is the one enemy even he can't defeat.

He doesn't know how long it lasts. Time has never been a straight line for him; it's a tangle, a knot, a loop that folds back on itself. He cries for a while longer, but the sobs are quieter now, the edges softer. You hold him through all of it, your fingers tracing patterns on his hand, your breath warm against his neck. Anakin has given up on dignity and is curled up at his feet, purring like a tiny motor, and somewhere in the kitchen, the soup has gone cold on the stove. His breathing evens out. He's left with a kind of exhausted stillness, a post-storm calm that feels almost sacred.

He pulls back, just enough to look at you. His face is a mess—tears, snot, the whole ugly package. He's never felt more pathetic in his life. Not when he was strapped to a table, not when people looks weird at him, not when he looked in the mirror and didn't recognize the face staring back. This—being seen, truly seen, at his most broken—this is worse. He’s never felt more exposed in his life. But when he looks at you, you’re not looking at him with pity or discomfort or any of the things he fears.

You’re looking at him like he’s the only person in the room. Like he’s worth the mess. You don't look away. You look at him with those soft, ordinary, extraordinary eyes, and you don't flinch. You don't recoil. You just wait.

“I'm sorry,” he chokes out. His voice is a ruin. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—”

“Don't,” you say. Quietly. Firmly. “Don't apologize for that. Ever.”

He shakes his head, a jerky, desperate motion. “You shouldn't have to see this. I shouldn't—I'm not—” He doesn't know what he's trying to say. He's not safe? He's not worth it? He's not human enough to cry without it being a sorry spectacle?

You reach up and wipe a tear from his cheek with your thumb. The gesture is so tender, so achingly intimate, that his breath catches all over again.

“Bucky,” you say, and it's the way you say his name—not like a question, not like a diagnosis, just his name, like it belongs in your mouth—that finally, finally makes him feel like maybe he's not drowning. “You're allowed to be sad. You're allowed to be a mess. You've been holding this in for so long, and I can't even imagine what it is you're holding, but you don't have to do it alone. Not with me. Okay? Not with me.”

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, because old habits die hard.

You press a finger to his lips. “What did I say about apologizing?”

He huffs out something that might be a laugh. “Not to do it.”

“Correct.” You pull your hand back, but you don't move away. You stay close, your knee touching his, your shoulder brushing his arm. “So what are you going to do instead?”

He thinks about it. About Maggie. About you. About the terrifying, exhilarating prospect of a future that includes both.

“I'm going to call my sister,” he says. His voice is still rough, but it's steady. “And then I'm going to make you better soup. Because that stuff on the stove is a war crime.”

You burst out laughing. It's bright and loud and so utterly you that his heart clenches. “It is NOT a war crime. It's rustic.”

“It's an abomination.”

“It's innovation, Bucky.”

He shakes his head, but he's smiling. Actually smiling. The tears have stopped, finally, and there's a strange lightness in his chest, like the vault has been cracked open just enough to let in some air. And you just hold him. You don't let go. Your thumb traces small circles on the back of his hand, and your breathing is slow and even, and you smell like coconut and soup and home.

He thinks about his mother. About her hands, which had been rough from washing clothes and scrubbing floors, but had always been so gentle when she touched his face. He thinks about the way she'd hummed when she cooked, off-key and cheerful, and how she'd never once made him feel like his feelings were too much. He thinks about his sisters, about Becca braiding his hair those times his parents let him grow it a bit, about Ruth teaching him to dance on the roof of their building, about little Maggie who used to follow him around like a shadow, asking a million questions he never got tired of answering.

And he thinks about his father. George Barnes. A serious man, by all accounts. Reserved with strangers, stern with salesmen, the kind of father who believed in a firm handshake and a hard day's work. But at home, with his family, he'd been different. He'd laughed at Bucky's terrible jokes. He'd carried Becca on his shoulders through the park. He'd sat up with Bucky one night when he was eleven, after a nightmare, and he hadn't said much—just sat there, a heavy, warm presence, and hold him until everything was gone. And when Bucky had apologized, mortified, for being such a baby, his father had just looked at him with those steady, serious eyes and said, "You're my son. You don't have to be anything but yourself in this house."

He'd never said I love you. Not in so many words. But he hadn't needed to. It had been in every action, every quiet moment, every time he'd pulled Bucky aside to teach him something—how to throw a punch, how to tie a tie, how to be a man who wasn't afraid to feel.

Bucky opens his eyes. He's still looking at you—at the small, worried furrow between your brows, at the way your lower lip is caught between your teeth, at the utterly ordinary miracle of your face. And he knows, with a certainty that terrifies and exhilarates him in equal measure, that he loves you. He's been loving you for months, probably, in the quiet, incompetent way that he does everything these days. He loves the way you leave your groceries in the hallway. He loves the way you sing off-key. He loves that you invited him in without hesitation, that you held him while he cried, that you're looking at him right now like he's not a weapon, not a ghost, not a cautionary tale. Just a man. A sad, broken, beautiful man.

“I need to tell you something,” he says. His voice is still wrecked, but it's steadier now. “And you don't have to say anything back. I just… I need you to know.”

You tilt your head. Waiting.

He wipes his face with the back of his flesh hand. It comes away wet. He doesn't care anymore.

“My mother,” he says. “She would have loved you.”

Your eyes widen, just a fraction.

He swallows. The words are coming now, spilling out of him like the tears did, like they've been waiting just as long. “She was a force of nature. Winnifred Barnes. She didn't take crap from anyone, and she had this laugh—this big, loud, unladylike laugh that she only let out when she was really happy. And she would have taken one look at you, at the way you are—the way you're so unafraid, the way you just… exist, without apologizing for it—and she would have pulled you into a hug so tight you would have felt it in your bones. And then she would have fed you. That's what she did. She fed people she loved. She would have made you her pot roast, the one with the carrots that were always a little too soft, and she would have asked you a million questions and actually listened to the answers, and by the end of the night, she would have been calling you her lost daughter.”

Your eyes are shining now. Not with pity. With something else. Something that looks suspiciously like the way he feels when he looks at you.

“My sisters too,” he continues, because now that he's started, he can't stop. “Becca—she was the oldest, the one closest to me in age. She was smart. Smarter than me, that's for sure. She would have cornered you in the kitchen and gotten all your secrets out of you in ten minutes flat, and then she would have told you every embarrassing story about me from when we were kids. The time I climbed a tree and got stuck. The time I tried to shave for the first time and cut my chin open. The time I—” He laughs, a wet, broken sound. “The time I cried because Mom wouldn't buy me a lollipop. She would have told you that one. She never let me live it down even if she wasn’t even alive when that shit happened.”

You smile. It's a small, watery thing, but it's real.

“And Ruth,” he says. “She was quieter. She was the one who taught me to dance. She would have liked you because you're not loud about it, but you're steady. You're the kind of person who stays. She would have noticed that immediately, and she would have trusted you for it. And Maggie—God, Maggie. She was the baby. She would have followed you around like a puppy, asking you to do her hair or play cards or just… talk to her. She was lonely, sometimes. The age gap was hard. But she had the biggest heart. She would have loved you because you have a kind face. That's what she always said about people she liked. 'They have a kind face.' And you do. You have the kindest face I've ever seen.”

He pauses. His throat is tight again, but it's a good tight now, a tight that feels like the beginning of something instead of the end.

“And my dad,” he says, quieter. “George. He was… he was a serious man. That's what everyone said about him. 'George Barnes, he's a serious and somehow scary man.' And he was, to people he didn't know. He had this wall up, this way of looking at strangers like he was measuring them, trying to figure out if they were worth the effort. But once you were in, you were in. He wouldn't have hesitated with you. He would have taken one look at the way you make me—” He stops. Swallows. “The way you make me feel like I'm not broken. And he would have pulled out a chair for you at the dinner table so fast your head would have spun. He would have made you part of the family. Not because he was soft—he wasn't, not with anyone outside our door—but because he could see. He saw things. And he would have seen you, really seen you, and he would have known that you were one of the good ones.”

He's crying again. Not the ugly sobs from before, just a quiet, steady stream of tears that he doesn't bother to wipe away. You're crying too—he can see the tracks on your cheeks, the way your lips tremble. But you're still holding his hand. You haven't let go. Beans has jumped down from the couch and is winding between your ankles, meowing plaintively for attention that neither of you is giving him.

“They're all gone,” he whispers. “My whole family. Every last one of them. I've outlived everyone I ever loved, and I don't—I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to keep losing people and still get up in the morning. I don't know how to let new people in when I'm so scared of watching them leave. I don't know how to be anything other than this—this broken, pathetic, crying-on-his-neighbor's-couch version of myself. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry that you have to see this. I'm sorry that I'm dumping all of this on you when you never asked for it. I'm sorry that I—”

You kiss him.

It's not a grand, cinematic kiss. It's soft, almost chaste, just the brief press of your lips against his. It's messy. You pull back after a second, your face inches from his, and you're crying and smiling at the same time, and you look so impossibly, devastatingly beautiful that he forgets how to breathe.

“Stop apologizing,” you say. Your voice is shaky, but your eyes are steady. “Stop apologizing for being a human being who feels things. You're not broken, Bucky. You're not pathetic. You're a man who has been through hell and back, and you're still here, and you're still trying, and that is the bravest thing I have ever seen. And I don't care if you cry. I don't care if you fall apart. I don't care if you show up at my door at three in the morning and stay until sunrise. I just—” You exhale, a shaky, laughing breath. “I just want to be here. With you. If you'll let me.”

He stares at you. His heart is pounding so hard he can feel it in his throat. Beans, defeated by the lack of attention, has flopped onto his side in the middle of the floor and is washing his face with an air of profound indifference.

“I don't know how to do this,” he says again. But this time, it doesn't sound like a confession. It sounds like a question. Like an outstretched hand.

“Me neither,” you say. And you smile—that wide, unguarded smile that he fell in love with somewhere between the broken buzzer and the pickle jar. “We can figure it out together. If you want.”

He thinks about Steve. About the bench at the compound, about the quiet promise that had passed between them—not a promise of forever, because neither of them was naive enough to believe in that, but a promise of now. Of showing up. Of not leaving. He thinks about Natasha, who had pulled him aside after a mission gone wrong and said, "You're not alone anymore, Barnes. I know it feels like you are, but you're not. We've got you." He thinks about Sam, who annoyed him into feeling human again, one sarcastic comment at a time.

He thinks about his mother's hands, his father's steady gaze, his sisters' laughter. He thinks about seventy years of silence, of tears unshed, of a vault so full of grief he didn't think there was room for anything else. He thinks about Maggie, waiting for him upstate, unknowing and beloved, with a porch and a garden and a lifetime of stories he's desperate to hear.

And then he thinks about you.

He thinks about the way you look in the morning, your hair messy and your eyes still heavy with sleep, holding out a cup of coffee like it's a peace offering. He thinks about the way you laugh, bright and unguarded, like you've never learned to be quiet, like the world hasn't taught you to be afraid. He thinks about the way you said his name—Bucky—like it was the easiest word in the English language, like it cost you nothing to trust him.

“I want that,” he says. His voice is barely a whisper. “I want to figure it out. With you. If you'll have me.”

You don't answer with words. You just lean forward and kiss him again—longer this time, softer, your hand coming up to cup his jaw, your thumb brushing over the sharp line of his cheekbone. He kisses you back like a man who's been starving, like a man who's forgotten what it feels like to be held, like a man who's finally, finally allowing himself to want something good.

When you pull back, you're both breathless. Your forehead rests against his, and your breath is warm on his lips, and somewhere in the background, Anakin has given up on dignity and is loudly demanding dinner.

“Your cat is judging us,” Bucky murmurs.

“Anakin is always judging us,” you say. “It's his primary form of entertainment.”

Bucky laughs. It's a real laugh, full and surprised, and it feels so foreign in his chest that he almost doesn't recognize it. But you're laughing too, and then you're both just sitting there on your couch, crying and laughing and holding onto each other like you're the only two people in the world.

Later—much later, after the soup has gone cold and Anakin has been fed and the two of you have migrated to the kitchen to make new soup, better soup, soup that involves chopping vegetables and standing close enough that your shoulders brush—Bucky will think about how strange it is, how impossible, that a Tuesday night in a normal apartment in a normal building could be the start of something new. Not the end of his grief, not the erasure of his past, but something else entirely. Something that looks like hope.

He'll think about calling Steve tomorrow, about telling him that maybe Natasha was right. About the look on Steve's face when he says the words out loud: I think I'm in love with my neighbor.

He’ll think about Maggie. He’ll imagine picking up the phone. He’ll imagine hearing her voice—old now, probably, weathered by time, but still hers, still the voice of the little girl who used to hold his hand. He’ll imagine driving upstate, knocking on her door, standing on her porch with his heart in his throat. He’ll imagine her opening the door, and the look on her face, and the way she’ll say his name—Jamie—like she’s been waiting to say it for eighty years.

He’ll imagine all of it, and his chest will ache, but it won’t be the bad kind of ache. It will be the kind that means something is healing.

And he’ll think about his mother, and he’ll wonder if she’s watching, wherever she is. He’ll imagine her smiling that big, unladylike smile, her hands on her hips, saying, Finally. It took you long enough.

And he’ll think about you, standing at the stove, stirring the soup with that wooden spoon, your hair falling out of its bun, your feet bare on the heated floor. You’ll turn and catch him looking, and you’ll smile—that smile, the one that undoes him every time—and you’ll say, “What?”

And he’ll say, "Nothing." And then, because he’s learning, because you’re teaching him, he’ll tell the truth. "I’m just glad you’re here."

And you’ll cross the kitchen and wrap your arms around him, and you’ll hold on, and he’ll hold on back, and for the first time in seventy years, he won’t be afraid of what comes next.

Because you’re here. And he’s here. And maybe—just maybe—that’s enough.

You'd imagined it to feel at least a little weird. It doesn't. If anything, this is the most comfortable you could've felt moments before your first time having sex. 

Yes, the final lesson. Probably gaslighting yourself by calling it a lesson, but then this is you. 

The most alarming thing you can say about the moment is that it feels completely, devastatingly ordinary. Like you've been here a hundred times. Which you kind of have, just not like this. 

Not with that small square of foil sitting on his nightstand being very loud about itself.

Bucky's talking. He's doing the responsible thing, the Bucky thing, making sure you have the information you need. And you're listening, because he's right about all of it. 

Condom, doesn't matter what the guy says, non-negotiable. 

Yes. You're nodding. 

But he keeps saying 'the guy'. He. Some future hypothetical person standing in this exact spot who you'll have to talk to. And something about that specific word keeps catching in your chest, snagging on a part of you that you have been carefully not naming for weeks.  

You'd really rather it stopped. You're not going to say anything about it. There's nothing to say. You came to him with a very specific ask and he said yes and that's the entire thing, start to finish.

You're not going to make it weird by having feelings about a pronoun.

You're not.

"Hey." His hand finds your jaw and tips your face up. Of fucking course he caught it. One moment you zone out, and get caught. His eyes move over your face with attention. You feel like being read by someone who's already a few pages ahead of you. "Talk to me."

"I'm fine."

"You just went somewhere."

"Bucky." He's starting to pull the thread until it unravels. And because you can already see it happening, you lean in and kiss him. 

Because it's easier than explaining. Because you've learned by now that this is the fastest way to shut down a conversation you're not ready for.

It's a deflection. You know it's a deflection. The difference between kissing him to avoid something and kissing him because you want to is fucking massive.

Only it doesn't go the way you planned. He kisses you back in a way that feels like being held still. Whatever you were going to outrun dissolves. Something blooms in its place that you don't have a category for and don't try to make one.

When he pulls back, he looks at you. Something in his expression that he keeps mostly to himself.  

Then he tips you back. Everything after that stops being about thinking.

His mouth is warm on your jaw, your collarbone, and lower. His tongue drags over your nipple and you make an embarrassing noise. He repeats it, to embarrass you further, you think. Only it's slower, sealing his mouth around it and sucking until it's aching and tight.

Equal attention is given to the other one. 

By the time he starts moving lower, you've got a fist in his hair and a completely unreasonable amount of feeling in your chest for someone in the middle of an educational exercise.

Educational. Right.

His mouth presses into the soft of your stomach, the skin below your navel, making you jerk. He smiles against you, which you feel more than see. You feel it everywhere. You feel everything. His mood through the room, his attention like a physical weight, his amusement before it reaches his face. You've been feeling him for longer than you want to admit.

Without any hurry, his hands are spreading your thighs and his breath is on your inner thigh and all of that thinking goes quiet. Everything else goes quiet. 

He looks up at you from between your legs, and the look on his face makes something clench in your chest that has nothing to do with what his mouth is about to do. It's want, is what it is, and it's not just the physical kind. You are not going to look at that right now because his face is between your thighs and this is not the moment.

Bucky drops his head and noses through your folds. When you make yet another embarrassing sound, he groans back.

Like you just gave him something good, and licks up through you in one long drag that has your hips lifting off the bed.

The noises he makes when he eats you out are something you are going to be thinking about for a very long time. Sounds of a man who is genuinely, thoroughly into what he's doing. Tongue working through your folds and circling your clit and sliding down to your entrance and back up. Drinking you.

You can hear how wet you are. A week ago that would have mortified you. Right now it barely registers because he makes that greedy, wanting sound every single time and presses closer, like the answer to you is more of you.

When your fist tightens in his hair he groans straight into your cunt. Vibration everywhere. Your thighs clench around his head before you can stop them.

His lips seal around your clit, sucking with with intent, and you actually cry out this time. He does it again and keeps doing it, tongue working against you while he holds the suction.

You realise your thighs are shaking on either side of his head, hips rolling into him. Holding them with his forearms, he keeps going. Like he made a decision and he's seeing it all the way through.

There's something devastating about his certainty. He always knows what he's doing. He always knows what you need before you've fully understood it yourself. That quality, which you have admired in him for years — not in this context though — is currently taking you apart.

Two fingers press inside you to curl. "Just stay with me."

You don't have much choice. The whole world has narrowed down to his mouth and his hand and the devastating combination of his tongue working your clit while his fingers find that specific spot inside you with the ease of someone who has been paying very close attention. You're gripping his hair with both hands now and making sounds that you'll think about with mild horror tomorrow. But right now tomorrow doesn't exist. 

Right now there is only this, him. The tension coils tighter and tighter, everything pulling to one point, and then everything snaps.

You come with his name somewhere in your throat. He works you through every single wave of it, slower and softer as you come down, drawing it out until you're shaking and your hands in his hair have gone slack. 

Pulling weakly at his hair to get him to stop doesn't seem to faze him, even then he presses a last kiss to your inner thigh before he moves.

You hear the soft tear of foil and press your face into the pillow for those few seconds because you need them. Your heart is doing something with a lot of force and nowhere particular to put it. 

The specific feeling of not knowing what to do with how much you feel is not a new one. By this point, you've been managing it for the past several weeks with varying degrees of success. But it's never been this loud before. It fills up the room. It fills up the pillow. The pillowcase smells like him and that is not helping.

He settles between your thighs, but looks at you. The reading-you look. "Still with me?"

"Uh-huh. Yeah."

His hand presses flat against your lower belly, all five fingers spread across your skin. He holds it there while he lines himself up. Like he wants to feel what's about to happen from the outside too. Like that's something he wants. 

You don't know what to do with that so you just feel it. You feel his palm pressing warm against you, the blunt pressure of him at your entrance, the gravity of the moment without any of it needing to be said out loud.

"Breathe," he says.

"I'm breathing."

He gives you a look. Look that says 'don't start shit now'. 

You breathe.

He pushes in. Slow. So careful. The stretch of him opening you up is significant and new. You make a sound that you've never made before in your life, this broken wrecked thing. He just stops. Palm still flat on your stomach. Holding you, letting you have a second.

"You okay?" 

The far end of your brain wants to laugh, a little. Because the answer is yes and also something much larger than yes, something that doesn't fit inside okay. The far end of your brain tells you that nobody would compare to him. Nobody would ask you this, nobody would be considerate of you like this. 

But the part that's currently in control of your body is not the one. It's the one that breathes, "don't stop. Just — don't stop."

He searches your face. Whatever he finds there must be sufficient because he pushes in, impossibly slow, the fullness building and building until he's all the way seated. The exhale that comes out of him sounds like something leaving him, something he'd been holding for longer than just tonight.

He drops his forehead to your shoulder. His weight settles against you. You feel his heart going fast against yours, faster than his breathing would suggest. 

His heart going fast. His heart going fast because of you.

There's something warm at the corner of your eyes at this information. Completely uninvited there are tears you didn't anticipate. You blink hard at the ceiling trying to sort yourself out. Before he notices.

But Bucky lifts his head and goes completely still.

"Did I hurt you?" His voice has changed. Softer, lower, stripped of the easy composure. 

"No."  

"Tell me the truth —"

"You didn't." Your hand goes to his face. Cups his jaw, and he stops talking. His eyes find yours and they search, careful and very blue and intent. "I promise. They're good tears. I'm okay."

For what, you can't say. You're not going to say. His palm has been on your stomach this entire time, and he stopped the moment he heard something in your voice. Right now, he's looking at you like your answer is the only thing in the room that matters. Like he would wait all night for it.

You've spent the last however many weeks telling yourself this is a practical arrangement. A smart, useful, sensible arrangement that you came up with yourself and that made complete sense at the time. Clean and contained. 

Somewhere in the middle of all of it you stopped believing that. You can't remember exactly when. The crying is just your body being honest in a way you haven't been letting yourself be.

You don't say any of that.

"Good tears," you manage. "Really."

He holds your gaze for a long moment. Long enough that you think he might push it, might ask the actual question underneath the one you answered. The real question — what are you crying about? 

If he asked it, you genuinely don't know what you'd say. Something true, probably. Something that couldn't be forgotten.

But he doesn't. He leans down to kiss you instead and starts to move.

Long, slow drag, his cock pulling back until just the head remains, then pushing home again just as slowly.

The fullness of it, the completeness of it. You don't think there's a word for it. His hand stays flat on your stomach and you feel him through it, feel the movement from the outside and the inside simultaneously, feel your own body accommodate him. It is an almost absurd amount of sensation. Not just physical. All of it, all at once, too much to sort through while it's happening.

He mouths at your throat, comes back to your lips. The kissing gets less careful the longer he moves, goes softer and messier and more real. You feel the difference between careful-Bucky and less-careful-Bucky. 

Less-careful-Bucky is catastrophic.

You have thought, a lot, over the past weeks, about what it means to be careful with someone. He's been careful with you from the start. Patient. Never rushing, never making you feel like you owed him anything, never letting the patience have a price. And you categorised that under 'he's a good person'. You categorised everything under 'he's a good person'. What you didn't think about  was why he is specifically like this with you.  

But he's less careful now, and that is also him being specifically like this with you, and you are going to need to deal with that later.

His hips find a rhythm. The drag of him hits somewhere deep and your cunt clenches in response and the sound you make into his mouth is not measured. His breath catches, a short, almost surprised sound. His grip on your hip tightens a fraction, like he didn't expect that. Like your body surprised him. The thought that you could surprise him, that there are things about you he's still discovering, makes you feel warm inside. 

"More." You didn't plan to say it out loud. It just comes out.

His eyes, which were focused on the place you two were joined, leave it reluctantly to look at your face. The longest he's ever taken to look at you. There's a question in them. 

"Harder. Please."

At that, his hand tightens on your hip and he gives you what you asked for.

Your breath punches out. Wherever your hands land, you grab. His shoulders, the plane of his back. His cock drives through your slick with this obscene, wet sound you've never heard before and the drag of it hits that deep spot with every stroke and your brain is nowhere useful, it's just gone. There's nothing here but sensation and Bucky and the specific sound of his breathing coming apart.

He's making sounds now. Barely contained. Hearing him like that is almost as good as the rest of it combined. Maybe better. You've been collecting his composure slipping in pieces for weeks and this is all of it at once. He's not controlling it anymore, he's just in it, with you.  

His thumb finds your clit without warning. "Look at me." 

You whimper into his ear. He makes a sound low in his chest like you just handed him something he badly needed.

His lips find your forehead. There's this soft, unbearably tender kiss that has absolutely no business existing alongside everything else he's doing to you. His voice goes rough. "Cum for me."

You cum for him. His eyes are almost black and he's looking at you like you're the most precious thing in the room. Thing is he's not doing anything to hide it. That is what that tips you. His thumb and his cock would be contributing factors, sure. But the way he's looking is more than anything physical ever could be.  

"Bucky—"

"I've got you." Against your mouth.

Your walls clench tight around him, as he buries himself and stills. You feel him throb inside you while you're still shaking. 

There's nothing else except the two of you, and this fragile thing that could end any moment.  

His weight on you is the heaviest you've ever carried. Nothing physical in this too. You think the weight of it comes from knowing this could be the last. The thought evaporates when his lips nip at your throat. 

You hold him. Both arms. You don't decide to do it, your arms just do it. Your hands press into his back and hold, like you could keep him here, like you could make this not end.

He lets you.

For a moment that goes on longer than a moment, everything stills. His breath is warm on your skin. You feel his heartbeat starting to slow under your hands. Something fragile exists in this room and you are aware of it.

You don't think about that. You think about his heartbeat instead. You think about the fact that his breathing is still a little uneven, and that you did that. That you are the reason his breathing is uneven. 

You have spent a significant amount of time over the past weeks thinking about how you were learning things. Processing experiences in the tidy way of someone taking notes. The date on the beach — lesson. The kissing — lesson. All of it, catalogued and labelled and filed away under something that felt safe.

And somewhere it stopped being safe and you kept going anyway.

You can feel him tense, not wanting to pull out. You want to clutch at him, tell him that you don't want that either. What you want is what you have. 

But you don't say that. 

He pulls out. 

It is so careful, tears threaten to spill out. You close your eyes, you will not let him see that. 

The absence of him is physical in a way you weren't prepared for, a hollow feeling that has nothing to do with the physical and everything to do with something you still haven't put a name to. It claws at your chest. It is like giving away something that's been yours all along. Takes everything in you to not reach out, not grab him, not push your face into his neck. 

You don't do that. He walks away. 

Faint sounds of him running the tap.  

He comes back with a cloth, warm from the tap, the right kind of warm. Like he stood there testing the temperature until it felt exactly right.

Sitting beside you, he's close enough that his thigh brushes yours. His other hand rests on your knee the whole time, thumb stroking slow little circles.

"How’re you feeling?" His voice is rough from everything you just did to each other. You mumble a little 'fine’ and he huffs a soft laugh. 

The cloth drags gently over your inner thighs first, wiping away the slick. Then he folds it and presses it right against you, the tender skin around your entrance, from the crease where your thigh meets everything that’s still throbbing and sensitive. 

What you're doing is something entirely different. You stare at the wall and blink and think about literally anything else.

You physically cannot bring yourself think about anything else.

You think about how nobody has ever done this. Not because the chance hasn't come up. Obviously the chance hasn't come up, that's entirely the point of the last few weeks.

But even imagining it, you wouldn't have imagined this. Someone sitting beside you after and just quietly, without being asked, taking care of you like it is simply what you do for a person. Like not doing it would be the strange thing.

There's not going to be another person like him. That's the thought you've been keeping in a box with the lid pressed firmly down. It's out now.  

He takes his time, folding the cloth again when it gets too wet, going back over every inch like this is the most important thing in the world right now.

You feel yourself twitch under the warmth of it and he murmurs, "Easy… I’ve got you," like he can read every tiny reaction your body makes.

"So I take care of you every time we do something, right?" He's still focused on wiping you clean. "That’s called aftercare."

"That’s — that’s a thing?"

He huffs a soft laugh that’s mostly breath, eyes still on what he’s doing between your legs. "Sorry. I forgot to tell you." The words come out so easy, like it never even occurred to him that this part needed explaining. Like he’s been doing it on instinct every single time and didn’t stop to think it was something he had to teach you. 

The realization settles warm and a little devastating in your chest. He didn’t see this as a lesson. It was just second nature to him. Taking care of you like this was never part of the curriculum. It was just Bucky.

He keeps talking, voice never rising above that low murmur. "After sex, after something this intense, your body goes through a lot. Sometimes you feel strange or sad or cold for no reason. Sometimes you cry, like you did earlier. It’s normal. Just your system coming down. Needs a little tending." He folds the cloth one last time and presses it gently over you, letting the warmth soak in. 

"So what do you do for it?"  

"Water first, always. Warmth. Touch. Doesn’t have to be anything fancy. Main thing is you don’t disappear on each other. You stay. The other person needs to know you’re still right here."

He sets the cloth aside but doesn’t move away. His hand stays on your knee, thumb still moving in those slow circles.

He's still there. He's stayed. He's taken care of you. 

He's taken care of you every time. Every single time, without fail, without exception. And you have done none of it in return. You never thought to ask what he needed. You never thought to stay and take care of him the way he's taken care of you.

"What do you need?" When he holds your gaze, you continue, "For aftercare. What do you actually need?"

The question surprised him, you can see that. He's been very thoroughly in the mode of what you need and coming at it from this direction might be unfamiliar ground. It requires him to be on the receiving end, he doesn't live there.

There's a small internal thing happening that you can see clearly and he probably thinks you can't. 

"I like to cuddle."  Without any of the careful composure he sometimes wraps around the things.

Not even a second is needed for you to process this, you open your arms.

He looks at them. One beat. One second of stillness that you read as surprise, or something softer than surprise, something that looks a lot like being moved. Then he comes down. Head to your chest, arm across your stomach. Your chin finds the top of his head.

The long breath he lets out when he settles. Something goes out with it. You feel it in his shoulders, the way they drop, the way his hand on your stomach stops holding anything and just rests.

Your hand moves up his back in slow passes. His hair is soft under your jaw. He's very warm, almost too warm. It makes you want to stay put indefinitely. His heartbeat under your palm is steady and slowing.

His hand finds yours after a while. Folds your fingers into his.  

The thing you've been struggling with is still there. It's been there longer than tonight. You've been careful about it, genuinely careful, because you're not an idiot and you knew what you were walking into and you were going to be sensible about the whole thing.

You were so sensible. Right up until you weren't.

Twenty years old and, in the notable absence of any prior romantic experience, you went and fell for the one person you specifically arranged things with in order to avoid exactly this. The irony is not lost on you. Steve would absolutely never let you hear the end of it. Steve cannot ever find out about any of this.

You press your lips to the top of his head. Barely a thing, just for a second, because the feeling needs somewhere to go and this is the least damaging option available.

He makes a soft sound and pulls you fractionally closer, arm tightening across your stomach. Reflex, probably. Something that happened without him deciding to do it.

There's always a moment with Bucky, when he's coming out of sleep, where his face does something unguarded. Where all the easy competence he walks around with during the day hasn't quite loaded yet. He's just a person, blinking at the room, figuring out where he is. 

You've seen it a handful of times now and every single time it does something to you that you'd rather it didn't.

He looks at you.  

"Morning."  

"Morning." His voice is rough with sleep, different from his regular voice. Softer. You've thought about this voice, oftentimes than you'd like to admit. "How'd you sleep?"

"Fine. Good." Both true. You slept better than you have in weeks, actually, which is information you're keeping to yourself. "You?"

"Yeah." He scrubs a hand over his face. "How're you feelin'? You sore?"

He's been awake for approximately twelve seconds and that's what surfaces first.

He thought of that before anything else. Before his brain had fully loaded. You didn't think of it first. Your first thought this morning was not about whether your body was still feeling last night. You're not sure what your first thought was. Something less generous to yourself. But his was this.

"A little bit," you say.

The corners of his mouth pull down. The softest frown, private, the kind you only see on someone who doesn't know they're being watched. "I'm sorry, baby." Quiet. The soft version of his voice, the one he doesn't use for everything, just for when he means it.

"Bucky, it's fine—"

"I am sorry."

"You were—" careful, you want to say. You were so careful, and patient, and you went so slow that it almost felt like being taken apart by someone who actually gave a damn whether you were still in one piece after. You also want to say his hand on your stomach was the best and worst thing that has ever happened to you simultaneously. But you say, "you didn't do anything wrong. First time is just — first time. It's a body thing."

"I know what it is."

"Then stop doing that with your face."

"I'm not doing anything."

"You're —"

He looks at you sideways. The face is still happening. You reach over and push at his jaw with two fingers, gently, like you're trying to manually rearrange the expression. Catching your hand, he presses his lips to it. For one second, just held there against your palm. Nothing about it is incidental.

"I'm fine. Really." You might be fine from the soreness, but you sure aren't fine from that gentle press of lips. 

His thumb moves over your knuckles, and you let him. You feel that thing in your chest that you decided not to think about until you got home, doing its thing anyway without your permission.

"Guess I'll have to deal with Jenna's scrunchie situation again." You don't entirely mean to say it. It just sort of comes out, like your mouth was filling the silence while your brain was doing something else. You hear it the second it drops and you hear exactly how it sounds and you cannot take it back.

"What do you mean?" His body goes still beside you.

Here you are. Standing at the edge of something, the words already out there, sitting between you both. You can see exactly where they came from. Probably from the feeling you've been carrying since the beach, maybe earlier, maybe much earlier, looking for any door that might lead somewhere without you having to walk through it directly. Poorly disguised as a casual observation. Even you are not entirely sure what you were hoping for when you said it. Something. Anything. Some signal.

You're not brave enough to say it plainly. But you're past pretending it wasn't anything.

"I mean— I mean you've kind of — taught me everything." A small, careful shrug. Casual. Like it's just an observation, like your heart isn't doing something extremely loud. "So."

You look at him.

He looks back at you and for a second — one second — there's something in his face that you can't read. Something that moves across it fast, like a thing he almost lets out but doesn't. And then he gets it under control, or puts something back in place, or whatever the thing is that he does when he decides to be Bucky-who-is-very-calm about something.

He looks unaffected.

It stings so badly you feel it in your stomach.

"So I should be able to, like. Date. Go out there. All of that." Your voice comes out completely fine, which is impressive because nothing inside you is fine. "That's the whole point, right? We're obviously done with lessons."

Something about saying it out loud — lessons — makes you feel sick. Like the word is a trap you built yourself and walked into with your eyes open. You handed him the word and he used it and now you have to live inside it.

He opens his mouth. You wait. You are waiting very hard, in a way that probably shows, in a way that you'll be embarrassed about later, but you wait. You wait with everything you have.

"Yeah." One syllable. Like it's the most uncomplicated answer in the world.

All the air leaves your body at once.

You stare at the wall where there's a photo of him and Steve. You look at it very carefully because it's better than looking at him.

Yeah.

Yeah, obviously, yes. That was the point, that was always the point. You came to him with a specific ask and he fulfilled it. Now you've asked if you're done and he said yeah. That's the appropriate answer, that's the correct answer, that's the answer you should've been hoping for. You knew this. You went in knowing this.

Your heart doesn't agree. Your heart is being extremely unhelpful.

The warmth of his skin where it's touching yours is suddenly too much. Last night you would have stayed here indefinitely. Now the room is too small and he's too close and that word is sitting in the air between you and you need to leave. You need to be somewhere that isn't next to him while you figure out what to do with the fact that you've been an idiot.

You sit up. The sheet catches and drops. Half a second where you're just there, bare in the grey light, all of you in front of him.

You grab for the sheet. Too late, but you grab it and pull it up to your chest with a speed that you'll be mortified about later, like something happened in between last night and this morning, like there's a rule about daylight that nobody told you but you feel it anyway. He saw everything last night, has seen everything multiple times over. He was inside you less than six hours ago. Yet you still you grab for it like it matters. Your body making its own decisions about vulnerability without consulting you.

He doesn't look at you the way you expected. He looks at your face — once, just your face — and then looks away. His jaw does something. Like he started to say a thing and decided against it. Like he weighed it and found the moment wasn't right or the words weren't ready or some other reason he is keeping to himself, because that's Bucky, he holds things until he's sure about them. You don't see what his face does after that because you're looking at your hands.

Bucky pushes back the covers on his side and swings his legs off the bed. You realise after a second that he's giving you space. Going to the bathroom so you can get dressed without feeling looked at. 

A small courtesy, a Bucky courtesy, and it makes something in your chest ache so badly you want to laugh at yourself.

You hear the bathroom door.

You move fast. Faster than you probably look cool doing, but he's not watching so it doesn't matter. Underwear, jeans, your shirt from yesterday, shoes. Phone off the nightstand. One look around the room for anything else that's yours. 

There's a moment where you think about waiting for him to come back out, where you think about the conversation you could maybe have, where you think about the look on his face before he got it under control and what might have been on the other side of it.

But you walk away. 

Out the front door and down the steps and out onto the path. The morning is bright and completely indifferent to the fact that you just made a very cowardly exit from the apartment of a man who is not your boyfriend and never will be. 

The walk back to your dorm takes ten minutes.

It feels both longer and shorter than that. You're fine.

You're going to be fine.

This was always going to be the ending of this particular thing, and you knew that, and you were always going to have to walk home the next morning and feel however you feel about it, and now you're doing that, so. Progress.

When you get back, Jenna is asleep and the room is dim. You sit down on the edge of your bed and look at the photo on your nightstand. It's the same one on his wall. Steve and Bucky.

Two days.

Two days of checking your phone and then putting it face down and then picking it up again, like something might have changed in the eleven seconds since you last looked. 

Two days of Jenna asking if you're okay and you saying 'yeah just tired', which is technically true, you are tired, you're tired in a way that has nothing to do with sleep. 

You sit at your desk and open your book and read the same paragraph four times without absorbing a single word of it. You have no idea what it says. You close the book. You open it again. You close it again. You put it on the floor so it stops looking at you.

Jenna makes you a cup of tea on the morning of day one. You say thanks, and she sets it on your nightstand, and it goes cold while you stare at the ceiling. She doesn't push it. She's perceptive in that quiet specific way and she knows when to leave someone alone.

On the afternoon of day one you get up and go for a walk because lying still is making you feel sorry for yourself in a way that's becoming circular. The campus is busy in the end-of-classes way. People in groups, the noise of uncomplicated days. You walk until your feet hurt and then you go back and lie down again.

On the morning of day two you pick up your phone, look at his name in your contacts, and put it face down. You are not going to be that person. You went in knowing how this ended, you made a decision, and you are going to get through the next few days without doing anything embarrassing.

The plan does not account for the fact that you still have his hoodie in your bag because you left in such a hurry that you forgot to give it back. You have put it at the bottom of the bag. You are not thinking about it.

But this situation in itself is embarrassing. And there's nobody you can tell about it. Which makes it worse. Because at least if you could tell someone you could be embarrassed out loud and get it over with. 

Instead you're just sitting here being embarrassed at yourself in private, which is somehow the worst version.

The thing is, it was always going to end like this. You wanted lessons, he provided lessons, lessons concluded. That's not a tragedy, that's just a transaction completing.

So the part you can't figure out is at what point your brain decided to stop treating it like that.

Because something went wrong in the gap between what you told yourself this was and what it actually became.

And you can trace it. If you're honest with yourself — which you haven't been — you can trace it all the way back to a parking lot and a bunch of hydrangeas in one hand.

It was a lesson, you reminded yourself at the time. You just didn't file it properly. You put it somewhere mislabeled and kept going.

That's your own fault. That's entirely your fault and you know it. You can't even be angry at him about it because he didn't do anything. 

He did exactly what you asked. He was kind and patient and thorough and he told you the truth at every step. 

Never once — not once — did he say anything that suggested this was anything other than what you agreed it was. 

If anything, he was more careful than he had to be. He gave you just pleasure an innumerable number of times before he let things go any further. He was careful with you. He was so careful with you.

And the fact that he was careful with you is part of the problem. Because it made it very easy to forget that being careful with someone isn't the same as wanting them.

There will not be another person like him.

That's the real damage. You went in with no experience and he's what you got, and now you have a reference point. Now you know what it feels like to be with someone who puts you first without making a thing of it. Who would rather wait another week than rush you through something. Who puts his mouth on you for your benefit, not as a warm-up for something else.

You remember every single time. The tent in his sweats, the controlled breathing, the way he always made sure you finished before he even came close to thinking about himself. You filed it away under 'body being body', under 'he's experienced he can handle it'. 

You did not let yourself think about what it meant that he lay next to you hard enough to be uncomfortable and not doing a single thing about it except holding you.

Body being body needs relief. That's just biology. He could have asked. You would have. Obviously, eagerly. Hell, he didn't even have to ask. 

But he didn't. 

He never once made you feel like you owed him anything, like the patience had a price, like the patience was even something he was exercising rather than just something he had.

There's not going to be another person like that.

The sad little story goes like this : She wanted experience, she got it, and somehow managed to ruin herself for everyone who comes after.  

Congratulations. Growth.

You walked in wanting a lesson and fell in love with the teacher. Which is the most clichéd possible version of this story, by the way. You'd hate yourself for it if you had the energy.

Tired of sitting still, you decide you'll go see Steve. 

He's been texting all month asking if you've settled in and you've been saying 'yeah, great, so busy', which is the oldest deflection in your sibling playbook. He buys it every single time because Steve is earnest and takes people at their word. You could use some of that energy right now.  

The bus gives you an hour. An hour of towns sliding past the window and music you're not actually listening to. Your brain is doing a thing, where it is turning the whole situation over and over like it's looking for an angle that makes you look less stupid. 

It hasn't found one yet. You're starting to think it's not going to.

Here's the thing you've been trying not to look at.

You've always liked Bucky.

The whole tape, you're running it back now. He's there earlier than you want him to be. Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, Steve bringing him over and you finding reasons to be downstairs. 

Bucky was older and loud and took up all the air in whatever room he walked into. You told yourself you found that annoying. You did find it annoying. You were also ready in ten minutes every time Steve said he was coming over. Which is not the behaviour of someone who finds a person annoying.

You were seventeen when you saw him talking to a cheerleader at one of Steve's games. Long legs, laughing at something he said. And you felt  something. Something you classified as 'general bad mood' and immediately forgot about. You were in a bad mood that whole week. Funny, that.

Because here's the thing about Steve always bringing Bucky. Here's the thing about all those years of hanging around whenever he came over. You told yourself you were just being sociable. You liked having people around. You liked Bucky's stupid arguments about films and the way he laughed when something caught him off guard. You liked him the way you like someone who's been around since you were small enough that they're just part of the furniture.

Except the furniture doesn't make you feel like hell when it talks to a cheerleader. The furniture doesn't talk to a cheerleader. 

You put your headphones in and stare at the window.

The boys you didn't date in high school. You've spent years blaming Steve for that. Watchful eyes and warning looks. And Steve was a factor, you're not letting him off the hook entirely. But you're on this bus right now and you're turning the question over properly for the first time and you're wondering : Was it Steve?

Or was it that none of them were Bucky?

Was it that you'd had Bucky as some kind of baseline since you were fourteen, all that warmth and sharpness and the way he actually listened and remembered things. And every boy your age just felt thin by comparison? Was it that you set an impossible standard completely by accident and then spent years confused about why nobody was clearing it?

Your stomach turns over.

And then, because your brain apparently hasn't finished being cruel to you today, it offers up the next one.

College. New place. Clean slate. Steve an hour away. Finally, finally some room to breathe, finally a chance to figure all of this out without his shadow in the frame.

And you came here and knocked on Bucky's door inside of a week.

You went to Bucky.

You told yourself you wanted experience. Told yourself you were being practical, that you picked him because you trusted him and he was close and you'd known him forever and it just made sense. 

All of that was true. But you could've done any number of things. Downloaded an app. Gone to a party. Done literally anything that normal people do when they want to figure this out.

You went to Bucky.

You wanted Bucky.

If you're being fully and completely honest with yourself, you've always wanted Bucky. And your brain  built a whole reasonable-sounding explanation for why going to him was the logical choice. You'd bought it completely, and walked into his apartment and asked him to teach you to kiss and told yourself it was educational.

You are so stupid.

You are so fucking stupid.

The bus pulls into the stop and you get off. You've made a decision on the way here. You're going to tell Steve. Not everything. Obviously not everything, there are details that you should be taking to your grave. But something. 

You've been carrying this alone for two days and it's pressing against your ribs. You need to put it down somewhere, even briefly, even partially. And Steve is your brother and he loves you and he'll know what to say or he won't and you'll feel better anyway because he's Steve.

Third floor. You know this building. Your feet know this building.

You knock.

The door opens.

Bucky's standing there with a mug in his hand and his hair doing the morning thing and a grey shirt that's seen better decades. And he looks at you.

The floor drops out from under your stomach so fast you actually put one hand on the doorframe.

The universe has a genuinely terrible sense of humour.

Steve's voice carries through the apartment before Bucky's even finished stepping back from the door.

"Is that — oh my god!"

You hear the genuine delight in it when he calls your name.

Bucky is not looking at you, and that's the first thing you notice. Not your brother.  

"This is literally the best day of my life," Steve says, from the couch, with the energy of a golden retriever who just saw two of his favourite people walk side by side. 

He looks between you and Bucky and back, radiating a happiness that is completely disproportionate to what is actually happening in this room.

"Hi, Steve." You sit in the armchair. The armchair is good. The armchair is far away from the kitchen — where Bucky currently is — and gives you a clear sightline to the door if you need to leave quickly.

"You look terrible." Steve tells you, which is his version of concern.

"Thanks."

"No, I mean — are you sleeping?"

"I'm fine."

"You look—"

"Steve." You give him the look. He subsides. He's known you long enough to know when the look means drop it. To his credit he usually does.

Bucky comes back from the kitchen with a glass of water and sits at the other end of the couch from Steve. 

He hasn't looked at you once. He looks at Steve, at the coffee table, at some middle distance that isn't your face. You, on the other hand, look at your own hands. And Steve looks between the two of you with an expression you can't quite read from this angle and choose not to try.

There are two people in this room actively not acknowledging something, and the third is Steve. Who is either genuinely oblivious or performing oblivion with professional precision. With Steve it's sometimes impossible to tell which.

He talks. He tells you about the internship, something about a project that went sideways and then un-sideways. You listen and nod and make the right noises and in your peripheral vision Bucky sits at the other end of the couch with his elbows on his knees and his eyes somewhere that isn't you.

This is fine. This is completely fine. You've been in rooms with Bucky before. You've sat on this couch with him three feet away, you've watched bad television next to him for hours. You know how to be in a room with Bucky Barnes.

You just haven't done it … since you-know-what.

Steve somehow doesn't notice what's happening here. 

You've always marvelled a little at Steve's skill for that. For being so thoroughly good that he just assumes everyone around him is also okay, that the world is basically fine, that people he loves are probably not sitting six feet apart doing an extremely committed impression of strangers.

"Hey," he says suddenly. The way he sounds when something's occurred to him. "Buck, who's this girl Sam keeps going on about?"

Your hand goes very still.

Bucky glances up. "What girl?"

"The one you've been hanging out with? Sam said something about it."

"Sam needs to mind his own business."

"So there is a girl."

"There's not a—" Bucky stops himself. "It's nothing. It was nothing."

"Sam said you were sneaking around."

"I was not sneaking around."

"Said you're being weird, Buck."

"I'm not weird, I'm just—" His jaw works to spit out the rest of the sentence. "It's nothing. Drop it, Steve."

Steve, with the particular stubbornness of a man who has known Bucky Barnes his entire life and has never once successfully dropped anything, looks at him for a long moment and then does something shocking. He drops it.

He turns to you instead. "What about you? How's things? You seem off."

Your brain is doing several things at once right now. It is attempting to formulate an answer for Steve. It is also replaying the last thirty seconds on a loop — was nothing, it was nothing — and trying to figure out what nothing means and who nothing was. And whether the timing of it lines up with anything. 

Nothing. He said it in the voice of someone saying something they don't mean, the voice of someone getting the word out because it needs to be said and not because it's true. You know his voice. You have been listening to his voice since you were eight years old and there are versions of it you know as well as your own. That was not his honest voice. That was his covering voice. You know the difference.

"I'm fine," you come back from your head to tell Steve.

"You keep saying that."

"Because I am."

Steve gives you the look that is his version of your look, which you've been on the receiving end of since you were approximately six years old and it has never once stopped working. "Something happen?"

"No."

"You sure?"

"Steve, I'm—"

"She said she's fine," Bucky says, from the other end of the couch. Like he's doing you a favour, giving you the exit.

You look at him.

He looks at you.

It's the first time he's looked at you properly since you walked in, and it lasts about two seconds, and then he looks away again. 

But two seconds is enough. Two seconds is more than enough because you've gotten very good at reading Bucky's face over the past few months and what you just saw on it was in fact, not nothing.  

Unaware, yet again, Steve starts talking. "Hey, you know Jenna's boyfriend? The one from your dorm?"

Something about the subject change is so random that you answer without thinking. "Yeah, the one who kicks me out of my own room every other night."

"Right." Steve nods. "He works part-time in my building, actually."

"How does he even have time for work anyway?" Bucky quips, and you want to throw a throw pillow at him. 

You don't. 

"Saw him in the lift the other day," oblivious-Steve continues. 

"Small world."

"Yeah." He pauses. "He was saying he hasn't been able to visit Jenna for two days because her roommate's been in the room the whole time. Moping, apparently."

Your mouth goes dry.

"Wouldn't leave. Just lying there all day." Another pause. Steve is looking at absolutely nothing in particular, which is how you know he's being very intentional. "Funny, right?"

Your jaw is doing something. You're fairly sure Bucky has gone completely still on the other end of the couch.

"Steve—"

"I know," Steve says.

Two words. The calm of someone who has been sitting on this information for a while and chose this exact moment to put it on the table.

The silence that follows is genuinely one of the more extraordinary silences you've ever sat in.

"How long?" Bucky asks because you currently cannot bring yourself to speak.

"Buck, I've known you since we were eight." Steve looks at him with a fondness that is also, honestly, a little smug. "You think I couldn't tell?" He looks at you. "And you're my sister. You really thought I don't notice?"

You think about every time you found a reason to be downstairs when Bucky came over and told yourself it was nothing. You think about Steve, who notices everything and says nothing, who has apparently been sitting on all of this like a very patient man waiting for everyone else to catch up.

"You didn't say anything," you say.

"Wasn't mine to say." He stands up. The smug falls away and what's underneath is just Steve, your brother, Bucky's best friend, who loves you both and has clearly been quietly hoping about this for longer than you knew. He puts one hand on your shoulder and one on Bucky's.  

"Talk it out."

He picks up his jacket, his keys, and he leaves.

The door clicks shut.

You and Bucky sit in the wreckage of that. Both still sitting in the positions you were in when he stood up, like neither of you quite knows how to be the one who moves first. 

You become aware, slowly, that you are gripping the arm of the armchair.

Bucky shifts on the couch. "You know, you should be out there dating." He says it like he's picking up something he set down earlier, like it's a thought he's been turning over. "Isn't that what all of this was for? Why are you moping around your dorm room?"

And there it is. The tone. The slightly pointed tone that you know as well as you know your own name, that you've been on the receiving end of since you were old enough to give it back.

You take the bait. You always take the bait with him, that's the whole problem, that's been the whole problem since you were fourteen years old and you didn't know it. Now you know, and do it anyway. "Go back to your girl."

"What?"

"Go back to your girl." You parrot. 

Confusion paints his face. "What girl?"

"The one Sam told Steve about. The one you've been seeing this whole time —" You want to complete the sentence by saying 'behind my back', but even you know that you don't have any rights for that. 

"Jesus." He drags a hand through his hair like he can't quite believe what's coming out of your mouth. "Can you not?"

Fury comes from somewhere specific, somewhere you'd been keeping a lid on, and it tastes a lot like hurt. "Seriously, Buck. Go back to your girl."

"Why —" He looks pained as he runs his hand through his hair again. "Why can't you just fucking understand?" 

"Understand what?" 

"You're the girl." His voice isn't by any means muffled, but it still reaches your ear warbled. 

"What?" 

"You." He looks right in your eyes for the first time since you walked in. "Are. The. Girl."

The thing that happens to your chest is immediate and enormous and you don't do anything with it yet because you're still processing the words. You. Are. The girl. The one Sam mentioned. The one Bucky's been sneaking around with. The one who he'd said was nothing, but there was something. 

"I don't—" You shake your head. "What does that even mean? We were just — I just asked you for help. I asked you to teach me —"

"Can we stop?" He says that like someone who has run out of patience for the performance of it. "Can we just stop doing this?"

"Doing what, I'm not doing anything —"

"You're doing everything! You did everything! You ran out on me." His elbows come to his knees as he leans forward, pinning you under his gaze. "I came out of the bathroom and you were gone. Your shoes were gone, your phone was gone, you were just… gone. Why?"

"Because you said I was ready to date." You cross your arms in front of you. "Why do you care if I left?"

"Because it was the morning after the best night of my life." He says it like he'd rather not be saying it but he's saying it anyway. "I was already sitting there feeling like shit because you were sore, and then you came out with —" his voice shifts, doing something that is a deeply unflattering impression of you, "I guess I have to go deal with Jenna's scrunchie situation again."

"Don't do the voice."

"You said it like you couldn't wait to leave."

"I said it because I wanted you to say something!" The words come out louder than you meant. You correct yourself, lower your voice. "I was testing the waters. I wanted to see if you'd—"

"And then," he keeps going like he needs to finish, "you asked me point blank if you were ready to go out there and date other people." He looks at you like he still can't quite believe it. "What was I supposed to say?"

"Something other than 'yeah' maybe?" The yeah is intentionally higher in octave, mocking him. 

He doesn't take the bait like you. "What would you have had me say?"

"I don't know, something! Anything! You could have — I don't know, pushed back, said wait, said—"

"You covered yourself."

That stops you. "What?"

"The sheet." His voice is quieter now, different. "You sat up and you grabbed the sheet and you pulled it over yourself. And I've — we'd just — I've seen you. All of you. Every single part of you, and you looked at me like you needed to hide, and I thought—" He stops to catch his breath, voice dropping lower. "I thought you'd already decided something and I wasn't going to be the guy who makes that weird."

The memory of it is very specific. The grey morning light. The sheet slipping. The way you grabbed it like you didn't want to be seen. 

"I covered myself because you said it was fine for me to date." You bring up technicalities even though he probably knew it himself. Like talking about the timeline of it all could shift the blame. "Not before. You asked me to date other people and I felt about this big— " you bring your pointer finger and your thumb together to specify that you felt so small. The gesture softens something in his eyes, in him.  "— and I didn't know what to do with my hands so I grabbed the sheet. That's the only reason."

When he opens his mouth, you continue. "You looked completely fine about it. You were just… fine. Like it was the obvious answer. And I thought 'okay, that's it then, that's where we actually are', I left because I didn't know what else to do."

"I looked fine because you asked me like it was a real question." His voice has lost the edge now, the flatness of it gone. "Like you'd made up your mind already and were checking in. What was I supposed to do — tell you 'no, don't go date anyone, stay here'?"

"Yes! That's what I wanted you to say."

He looks at you like he cannot quite believe the audacity.

"I wanted you to say no." You're past the point of dressing it up. "I wanted you to say you didn't want me going out there with someone else. I wanted you to ask me to stay instead. I didn't know how to just ask for that so I asked a question I thought might get there eventually, and it didn't."

Bucky is quiet for a moment, where he sighs like he has to deal with this shit. "That is the most complicated route you could have possibly taken."

"I —"

"You could have just said—"

"Could I have?" You look at him straight. "You had the same information I had. You knew how the morning was going. You could've said something before I even asked the question. You could've said it the night before. You could've said it any of the other times we were sitting in your apartment" You watch him clench and unclench his jaw. "But you didn't. So we're the same amount of stupid and I think we have to just accept that."

"You know, you really wanted them to be lessons."

"Bucky."

"The beach —"

"James Buchanan Barnes."

"Okay," he says. "Okay, fine. We're the same amount of stupid."

"Thank you."

"It's not a compliment."

"Right."

He leans back against the couch. You sit in the armchair. The gap between you is exactly the same as it's been all afternoon and somehow it feels different now.

"Why were you moping?" This time it's not pointed, it's just a question.

You look at your hands. At the armchair arm. At the bookshelf full of Steve's books on the wall behind Bucky's head.

"Because I've always liked you." It's easier when you're not looking at him. "I think I've liked you for a long time. Way longer than I realised." You inhale and exhale once. "I always wanted to hang out with Steve because you were there. I think that's been true for years and I just didn't look at it directly." You do look at him then, because it feels cowardly not to. "And I think when I came to you about all of this — about the lessons, about teaching me — I think I came to you because it was you. Not because I needed teaching. I did need, that's besides the point, but I could've done a million other things, but I came to you — I think I just wanted an excuse to —" You stop because that was long and you need a breath. You need a breath because what you're about to say might be the truest thing you've ever said. "It was always you, Buck. I think it's been you for a long time." And, you try to deflect with sarcasm, true to self. "Possibly since you used to steal my Halloween candy when I was eight. I'd like to have some words about that, actually, but probably not right now."

Bucky doesn't say anything. But he does something you weren't expecting, which is that he gets up from the couch, crosses the space between you, and drops down to kneel beside the armchair so he's at your level. He looks at you from there, close enough that you can see the exact colour of his eyes in Steve's place. "It's always been you too."  

Something in your chest cracks open in the quietest possible way. "Wha —"

"At first —" He almost smiles, but it's too soft to be a smile, it's something adjacent to one. "At first it was just Steve's little sister that I couldn't get rid of. You were everywhere he was and you had opinions about everything and you'd argue with me about anything and I thought, fine, annoying." His eyes stay on yours. "And then I went to college and you weren't around and I —" A moment he takes to gather his words, but his eyes don't leave yours. "I missed you. One second, you were there, and then you weren't. And, God I missed you. I tried not to, I tried telling myself you were just Steve's little sister. But you were never just that."

"Bucky—"

"When Steve told me you were coming here," he continues, "I took the internship at the same campus. Originally, I was supposed to go with Steve. But I took this because you were coming."

You stare at him, thinking you like his voice. You've always liked his voice. Now you like it exceptionally more, because his voice is saying things about you. Nice things. 

"My allotted dorm was on the other side of town," he confesses. "Did you know that? I moved off campus because your dorm was ten minutes from the apartment and I wanted —" He shakes his head slightly, like he's still getting used to saying this out loud. "I wanted to be close."

"Your apartment is ten minutes from my dorm," you repeat.

"Yeah."

"You moved there on purpose."

"Yeah."

"You absolute —" You don't finish that sentence because you don't have a word big enough. "I think I chose this college because of you," you say instead. "I told myself it was because Steve studied here. Because the programme was good. Because I knew the area, because it made sense logistically. Those are all true. But —"

"What?" His turn to look surprised. 

"I knew you would be here, and I wanted to be close to you."

He looks genuinely thrown. Like he didn't expect that particular surprise from this conversation, like he'd braced for other things and not this.

You look at each other from about eighteen inches apart. The whole weight of the last however many years sits in the room with you. 

And it's a lot, and it should probably feel heavier than it does, except that it just feels true. Like something that was always going to lead here, just took the scenic route.

"We've been so stupid," you break the minute long silence.

"Yeah."

"Years of stupid."

"To be fair—"

"No, there's no fair. It's been years, Bucky."

"Okay, yeah." The almost-smile again. "Years."

The afternoon light comes in through Steve's window and does something to the angles of his face. You've been cataloguing those angles without meaning to for six years now and you're done pretending you haven't.

You lean forward. You're not asking if you're doing it right this time. Because it's not him teaching you. 

This is your decision, your need to be close to him, to close the distance and meet his mouth with yours. He makes a sound and kisses you back immediately, his hand coming up to your jaw. 

It is different from every other time, it is completely different, because this time you both know what it is.

His thumb traces your cheekbone and he kisses you just as slowly. "Go on a date with me," he says against your mouth, your lips moving with his.

"No." You reply against his mouth too. 

Bucky pulls back. "Sorry?"

"No."

"What do you —" He looks at you, and you can see him trying to figure out if you're joking. The look on his face is so genuinely confused that you'd feel bad about it if it weren't also the funniest thing you've seen in two days. "I just — we just —"

"You can take me on a date… after you ask me to be your girlfriend."

The confusion rearranges itself. The corner of his mouth starts to commit to something, his hand still at your jaw. His eyes are doing several things at once.  His face is fond and exasperated and something much softer underneath both of those things. "Will you be my girl?"

"Yes."  

"Thank god." He kisses you again, speaks against your mouth like it's the only way he knows now. "I moved across the entire city."

"I know. It's very romantic."

"You should have seen my commute."

"I'll make it up to you," you reply. He laughs against your mouth, the one that gets all the way to his eyes, the one you've been storing up without knowing you were storing it.

Time becomes a foreign concept now. For you don't know if it's been minutes or hours. 

From somewhere down the hallway comes the unmistakable sound of a door, and then Steve's voice, entirely too casual. "So should I come back later or —"

Bucky doesn't stop kissing you. "Later, Steve," you say into his mouth.

"So how did the two of you start anyway?"

Steve's looking at you both with this expression that's mostly fond but also slightly curious. Like he has most of the pieces but still not the whole picture.

You're sitting on his couch, Bucky's at the other end, and there's approximately three feet of space between you that feels like it's doing a lot of work right now.

"I asked Bucky if he could teach me dating."

The words come out before you've really thought about whether this is information Steve needs. But here you are, might as well commit.

Steve looks at you like you’ve grown two heads. "Teach you dating?"

"Yeah, Steve." Your tone is pointed. "For people who are so inexperienced because of an older brother, there should be lessons for these kinds of things."

In your peripheral vision, Bucky has gone very still. When you glance at him, he's looking at the coffee table like it's the most fascinating thing in the room. There's a flush creeping up the back of his neck.

Steve's eyebrows are doing something. "No, I mean — why did you ask him to teach you?"

"Because he's Bucky."

"Precisely why you shouldn't have asked him."

Bucky shifts, opens and closes his mouth before he decides to speak. "I think what he's trying to—"

“Why?” You ask, cutting him off exactly the same moment Steve says, "he's never dated anyone."

What?

Your head whips around to look at Bucky. He's still staring at the coffee table, but now the flush has spread to his ears.

"Sorry, what?"

Steve's looking between the two of you like he's watching something unfold that he finds deeply amusing. "Yeah, he was too busy pining over you to actually date anyone in college."

A deadly silence follows.

Bucky looks up at Steve with something between betrayal and resignation. "I'm sorry, how did you know I was pining over her?"

"Guys. You really aren't that slick. Both of you.” He points at Bucky, “especially you.”

You're still processing. The whole time — every single lesson — you'd assumed he was this experienced person showing you the ropes because he'd done all of this a hundred times before. And he just... hadn't?

You turn to Bucky. "So you've never dated anyone?"

He finally looks at you. His eyes are doing that thing where they're very earnest and also slightly embarrassed. "Yeah..."

"What about the other stuff?"

Steve's up and out of his chair in half a second. "Aight, I'm out. I don't need to hear this."

"I've kissed a girl once." Bucky’s voice has gone quieter.

The words register slowly at first. Then all at once. "So that's why you came in your pants!"

Steve, who's almost made it to safety, stops dead in his tracks. His shoulders go rigid. "You did what—" Then he shakes his head violently, like he's trying to physically dislodge the information from the crevices of his brain. "You know what, I don't wanna know."

He disappears into the kitchen. You hear the tap running far too loud. The sound of a mug being set down too hard.

You're still looking at Bucky. He's looking back at you with this sheepish expression, but also something else.

"What about—" You lower your voice even though Steve's clearly trying to give you distance. "What about when you... with your hand. You definitely said you'd done it before."

His mouth twitches into a half formed smile. "My hand's met my dick many times."

"Bucky!"

"What? It has."

"No, you were — you said that about blowjobs. Said you’d done it before."

Bucky exhales loudly like a child caught in a lie. You don’t know how exact that analogy is going to be, to the point where it’s not an analogy anymore, just the truth.

He closes his eyes for a second before meeting yours again. "I lied."

There's something blooming in your chest that you're trying to figure out what is and falling short. Something warm and a little bit ridiculous.

"You what?"

"I lied."

"Why?"

"Because — " he takes a deep breath like that could help and continues, "you’d asked me to help you and I just — I just couldn’t say no. You came to me. And I didn't want you to know you were my first everything too. Seemed like a lot of pressure to put on the whole thing. You were already nervous enough without knowing I was figuring it out same time as you."

"But you—" You gesture vaguely at him, at the space between you. "You were so good at it. Like you knew exactly what you were doing."

"I watched porn."

A laugh startles out of you. "You watched porn?"

"I watched an unhealthy amount of porn." He scrubs a hand through his hair. "I spent about three weeks on some deeply questionable websites making sure I wasn't going to fuck it up when you actually let me —" He stops himself to clear his throat. "Yeah."

The warmth in your chest is spreading. It's taken up residence in your ribs, your throat, behind your eyes, making him blurry.

"So all my firsts… are your firsts too."

"The ki—"

"Except the kiss." You cut him off because you know where that's going. "You kissed a girl once. I'm not counting that."

"It was in eighth grade and it lasted maybe two seconds."

There's something in his expression that's so open it makes your chest ache. Like he's giving you every single card in his hand and trusting you not to do anything terrible with them.

From the kitchen, you hear Steve muttering something that sounds like "...should've shut this shit down when I saw those hickeys..."

Your brain catches on the word. "You showed him your hickeys?"

"He facetimed me."

"And you answered with those hockeys?"

"I forgot about the — I wasn't thinking, baby."

You lean in closer, try dropping your voice to a whisper. "So that's how he figured it out."

"Guys." Steve's voice carries from the kitchen, done with it but fond at the same time. "You genuinely aren't slick. Like at all."

  Main Masterlist || Series Masterlist

EXTRAS. Dedicated to this anon (adding this here bc I didn’t want to spoil anything lol)

Thank you for reading this. I told myself I would never start another series because babydoll gave me such burnout. But this idea got rooted into my head and just wouldn’t leave. I got so many comments and asks, and it genuinely made me so happy. I appreciate each and every single one of them. Thank you, thank you 💕 I truly hope I met your expectations. I also HAVE to know if you saw those two things coming (not me thinking I’m that slick lol). If you don’t like the last scene, pretend it didn’t happen. Personally, I just fancy the idea of a guy being so in love with his girl, he doesn’t even try. Less realistic, more endearing and romantic — basically me. Any asks and requests for these two babies are always welcome. Please send some, they will genuinely make my day.

The thing about Bucky Barnes was that he remembered too much. That was the problem everyone expected. The seventy years of ice and fire, the ghost of a face on a train, the cold whisper of a voice that wasn’t his own telling him who he was supposed to be. The weight of it was a physical thing, a granite slab on his chest that made the simple act of drawing breath a conscious effort on the bad days.

You had known about that weight from the start. You’d seen it in the way he’d sometimes stare at a steaming cup of coffee, his flesh hand frozen halfway to the handle, his eyes seeing not the chipped ceramic but the snows of the Alps. You’d learned to navigate those moments with a quiet that was louder than any words, a gentle press of your hand to the small of his back, a low hum of a song you knew he’d liked from a time before. You were patient. You were a shoreline, and he was a battered ship, and you let him come to rest against you in his own time.

But what neither of you had anticipated, what the files in Wakanda and the gentle questions from Dr. Raynor hadn’t fully prepared you for, was the forgetting.

It wasn’t the big, dramatic erasures of his past. It was the small things. The tiny, silverfish moments of the life you were painstakingly building together that would sometimes slip through the cracks of his miraculously repaired but still irrevocably damaged mind.

The first time it happened, you’d been together for eight months. He’d walked into the kitchen, a threadbare grey henley clinging to his shoulders, his hair still damp from the shower, and he’d opened the refrigerator. He’d stood there for a long moment, the cold air ghosting over his face, before pulling out a jar of pickles. Not just any pickles—the brand of spicy bread-and-butter pickles that you had spent three weeks searching for after he’d mentioned, in a rare moment of unguarded nostalgia, that his Ma used to make something like them.

He held the jar up, turning it over in his metal hand, a faint line appearing between his brows. “Hey,” he said, his voice still rough with sleep. “Since when do we have these?”

You looked up from the stove where you were scrambling eggs, a spatula frozen mid-air. Your heart gave a strange, lurching stumble. “Since last Tuesday, love,” you said, keeping your voice light, your eyes searching his face. “We went to that farmer’s market in Park Slope, remember? You said they were the closest you’d found to your mom’s.”

He stared at the jar for another beat, then at you. The confusion in his eyes was not the deep, haunted fog of a PTSD episode. It was… blank. A tiny, pristine patch of white where a memory should have been. “Park Slope?” he echoed, the words tentative.

You set the spatula down, wiping your hands on your jeans. “Yeah,” you said, moving to stand beside him. You didn’t touch him, not yet, just leaned a shoulder against the refrigerator. “You told me about the time you and Steve tried to make her recipe and nearly burned the whole apartment down.”

He looked from your face back to the jar. For a terrifying second, the blankness remained, a void that made your stomach clench. Then, slowly, something flickered in his eyes. A spark, then a glow. He let out a breath that was almost a laugh, a sound that was still too rare. “Right,” he said, the word a quiet exhalation. “The fire department came. Mrs. O’Malley from downstairs was convinced we were running a bootleg operation.” He put the jar back on the shelf and closed the fridge door, turning to face you. He didn’t apologize. You’d agreed early on; No apologies for the scars the world had carved into him. Instead, he reached out and tucked a stray strand of hair behind your ear, his flesh fingers lingering on the curve of it. “Scrambled eggs?” he asked, his voice soft, the question a gentle redirection, a way of saying I’m back.

You leaned into his touch for a second, letting the solid warmth of him reassure the frantic beat of your heart. “With the good cheese.” you confirmed, and went back to the stove, your movements deliberate.

That was the pattern. It wasn’t a deluge; it was a slow, persistent drip. A leak in the foundation of his present.

A month later, you were on the couch, a documentary about deep-sea creatures playing on the TV. He was sprawled out, his head in your lap, your fingers absently carding through his hair, which was getting long enough to curl at the ends. You loved this, these quiet evenings where the world outside your apartment ceased to exist. He was relaxed, a rare and precious state, his vibranium arm a cool, heavy weight across your thighs, his flesh hand resting on your knee, thumb tracing lazy circles on your jeans.

“Look at that,” you murmured, as a bioluminescent jellyfish bloomed across the screen, a cascade of otherworldly light in the abyssal dark. “It’s like a tiny galaxy.”

He hummed in agreement, his eyes half-lidded. “Steve would’ve hated this,” he said, a hint of old affection in his voice. “Too quiet. He’d be itching to go fight it.”

You smiled. “Not everything needs to be fought, Buck.”

“Tell that to him,” he muttered, but there was a smile tugging at his lips.

A comfortable silence settled over you, broken only by the narrator’s low voice and the crackle of the sea. Your fingers continued their path through his hair, tracing the shell of his ear, the strong line of his jaw. You felt the exact moment it happened. The thumb on your knee stopped its circling. His body, which had been loose-limbed and heavy, went taut, just for a second.

He sat up slowly, his movements careful, as if navigating a room in the dark. He looked at the TV, then around the living room—at the framed print of a French market you’d hung, at the well-worn copy of The Hobbit on the coffee table he’d been rereading, at the soft throw blanket you’d bought because he was always cold.

He looked at you.

“Hey,” he said, and his voice was different. It wasn’t panicked, but it was… cautious. As if he was testing the ground. “What are we watching?”

You felt the familiar lurch in your chest, but you’d learned to hide it, to smooth it over with a calm you’d had to cultivate. “Deep-sea documentary,” you said, keeping your voice as even as the ocean the narrator was describing. “The one about the Mariana Trench.”

He nodded slowly, his brow furrowed. He looked from your face to the TV and back again. He lifted his metal hand, looking at it as if it might provide answers. “Right,” he said, but it was hollow. He didn’t remember.

You didn’t reach for him. You’d learned that, too. Sometimes, touch felt like a trap when his mind was playing tricks on him. “You picked it,” you said, a gentle prompt. “You said you wanted to see if they’d finally found anything weirder than a Hydra science division.”

His gaze sharpened on you, a flicker of the old Bucky—the one with the sharp wit and the quick grin—cutting through the fog. “That’s a low bar,” he said, the ghost of a sardonic edge to his voice. He looked at the screen again, where a frilled shark was gliding through the inky water, its prehistoric form eerie and magnificent. “I… I remember the shark,” he said slowly, the words coming with effort, like he was pulling them up from a deep well. “The one with the… the frilly teeth.”

You nodded, a small smile on your face, your heart aching. “You said it looked like something that would’ve given Steve nightmares.”

A real laugh then, short and rusty, but real. He rubbed a hand over his face, the gesture exhausted. “Yeah,” he breathed. “Yeah, I did.” He leaned back against the couch, not quite returning to his previous position, but settling his shoulder against yours. He let his head fall back, staring at the ceiling. “It’s gone,” he said, the admission a whisper. “I was watching it. The jellyfish. The pretty ones that look like stars. And then… it just… wasn’t there anymore.”

You turned your head, your cheek almost brushing his arm. You could feel the tension still humming through him, a low-voltage current of frustration and fear. “It came back,” you said. “The shark. The joke about Steve.”

“It did,” he agreed, his jaw tight. He turned his head to look at you, and in the dim light of the TV, he looked younger, and more lost than you’d ever seen him. “But what if next time it doesn’t?”

It was the question that hung between you, unspoken, every time. The fear that one day, the blank spaces wouldn’t just be about pickles and documentaries. That he’d look at you and see a stranger. That the life you’d so carefully woven together would unravel in his mind, thread by thread.

You didn’t give him platitudes. You’d never lied to him. “Then we’ll build it again,” you said simply. “We’re good at that.”

He stared at you for a long, breathless moment. Then, slowly, the tension in his jaw eased. He reached for your hand, his flesh fingers intertwining with yours, squeezing tight. He didn’t say thank you. He didn’t need to. He just pulled your hand to his chest, pressing your palm flat over the steady, sturdy beat of his heart, and turned his attention back to the screen, where the trench was giving way to a coral reef, a riot of color and life in the sunlit shallows.

The worst one, the one that carved a new worry-line beside your mouth, happened on a Sunday.

It was a good day. The best kind. You’d woken up late, tangled in the sheets, the morning sun painting golden stripes across the bedroom floor. He’d made breakfast—actual pancakes, from scratch, a recipe he said his sister Rebecca used to make—and the apartment had smelled of vanilla and maple syrup. You’d eaten on the small balcony, even though it was October and the air was crisp, huddled together in a thick blanket, sharing a mug of coffee. He’d been laughing, really laughing, at some story you were telling about your own disastrous attempt to impress a high school crush with homemade pasta, his smile wide and unburdened, his eyes crinkling at the corners.

It was in the afternoon that it slipped.

You were cleaning up. A mundane, domestic task. You were at the sink, washing the pancake-mottled mixing bowl, humming a song that had been stuck in your head all week. He was beside you, drying a plate with a dish towel, the easy rhythm of your bodies moving in the small space a choreography born of months of proximity.

He was telling you about a new training protocol Sam had been developing, something about aerial combat maneuvers that sounded, in his words, "like a recipe for a spectacularly painful face-plant".

You laughed, rinsing the bowl. “I’m sure he knows what he’s doing.”

“Yeah, well, ‘knowing’ and ‘doing’ are two very different things when a vibranium wing pack is involved,” he grumbled, but there was no heat in it. He set the plate in the cabinet, his movements easy.

You handed him the now-clean bowl, and as he took it, his fingers brushed yours. A casual, everyday touch. His hand paused on the bowl. He didn’t take it.

You looked up, expecting to see him lost in another memory, a distant look in his eyes. But his gaze wasn’t distant. It was focused entirely on you, but with an intensity that was new, unsettling. He was looking at your face as if he were seeing it for the first time.

“Hey,” he said, his voice soft, questioning. He put the bowl down on the counter without looking. His flesh hand came up, hovering just by your cheek, not quite touching. “You’ve got… there’s flour, honey.” He gestured vaguely. “On your… here.” His fingertip finally made contact, brushing gently over the apple of your cheek.

You smiled, leaning into the touch. “I know. You’re the one who flicked it at me, remember? When I said the batter was too runny?”

He blinked. His hand dropped back to his side. The flicker of confusion was there, the blank patch spreading across his features like a stain. He looked from your face to the bowl, to the batter-splattered counter, to the sun streaming in from the balcony where you’d been huddled together not two hours ago. It was all there, the evidence of your shared morning, but his eyes said it didn’t compute.

“We… made pancakes?” he asked, the question small, uncertain.

Your stomach dropped. This was different. This wasn’t a detail from a week ago. This was just couple hours ago. A memory still warm, still fragrant with maple syrup, and it was dissolving in his mind.

“Yeah,” you said, keeping your voice steady, though your hand trembled slightly as you reached for the dish towel. “You made your sister Rebecca’s recipe. You said she used to make them on Sundays when your parents were at church.”

He stared at you, a war playing out behind his eyes. You could see him reaching, grasping for the thread of it. His jaw worked, a muscle ticking in his temple. He looked at his own hands, the flesh one and the metal one, as if they might hold the answer.

“Rebecca,” he repeated, the name grounding him, a rock in the shifting sands. “Becca.” His gaze softened, a memory of the memory taking hold. “My Becks, she—she would always put too many chocolate chips in mine. Ma would get mad at the mess.”

“You put chocolate chips in mine this morning,” you said, your voice barely a whisper. You took a step closer, closing the small distance between you. You placed your hand on his chest, over his heart, feeling the rapid, anxious beat. “And then you flicked flour at me.”

He closed his eyes. His hand came up to cover yours, pressing it harder against his chest. He stood there for a long moment, just breathing, his forehead dipping to rest against yours. You could feel the fine tremor running through him, the sheer force of will it was taking for him to hold onto the present moment.

“I’m sorry,” he finally rasped, the words you’d told him he never had to say.

“Don’t,” you said, your own voice thick. “What did we say?”

“No apologies,” he recited, the words automatic, but his voice was strained, cracking at the edges. He pulled back just enough to look at you, and the expression on his face was one of raw, unvarnished terror. “It’s getting worse.”

“It’s not getting worse,” you countered, though a cold tendril of fear coiled in your own gut. “It’s the same. It’s just… it’s a good day, Buck. A really good day. Your brain is…” you searched for the right word, “…relaxed. Sometimes the holes are bigger when you’re relaxed.”

He let out a humorless laugh. “A great system. I have to be on guard against happiness.”

You framed his face with your hands, your thumbs stroking the sharp line of his cheekbones. “No,” you said firmly. “You don’t. Because I’m here. And I’ll remember for both of us.”

He looked at you for a long, agonizing moment, the fear slowly receding from his eyes, replaced by something deeper, something that looked like gratitude and love and a bone-deep exhaustion all mixed together. He turned his head, pressing a kiss to your palm.

“The pancakes were good,” he said, his voice hoarse but steadier now. “Becca’s recipe. I remember… I remember they were good.”

You smiled, and it was watery, but it was real. “They were perfect.”

He pulled you into his arms then, a full-body embrace, wrapping himself around you like you were the only solid thing in a world made of shifting sand. You held him back just as tightly, your cheek pressed to his chest, listening to his heartbeat slow from its frantic pace to a steady, grounding rhythm.

It became your secret. Yours alone. He didn’t tell Sam, who would look at him with that earnest, worried frown and start talking about support groups and neurology specialists. He didn’t tell Steve, who was on the moon or in another dimension or whatever it was that retired super-soldiers did, and who would drop everything to come back and try to fix it with a stubborn optimism that Bucky no longer had the energy for. He didn’t tell the Wakandans, who would see it as a flaw in their programming, a bug to be fixed, and would whisk him away to a sterile lab.

He told only you.

And you held it for him. You held the memories of the Saturday mornings and the spontaneous walks in the park and the inside jokes that were born and died in the span of a single conversation. You became the archivist of your life together.

You kept a journal. Not a secret one, but one you left on the coffee table, its cover worn, its pages filled with your neat handwriting. You’d never told him about it, but you knew he’d seen it. He’d never said anything, but you’d seen the way his eyes would linger on it sometimes, a mix of curiosity and something like relief.

It was a safety net. A map back.

October 14th: Tried to make Becca’s pancakes. Bucky flicked flour at me. I retaliated with maple syrup. The kitchen is a disaster zone. Worth it.

October 21st: Walked to the pier. Bucky fed the seagulls even though I told him not to. He says they’re “veterans of the sky.” One of them stole his hat.

November 5th: Movie night. He picked 'Mean Girls' just because. He laughed at all the right parts. He held my hand the whole time. He said Regina Georgehas nothing on him. I said I know.

November 18th: Found him standing in front of the open fridge again, staring at the pickles. He asked if we’d always had them. I said yes. I told him the story about the farmer’s market again, and about Steve and the fire department. He listened like it was the first time he’d ever heard it. When I finished, he said, “You have a good memory.” I said, “I have to. One of us does.” He didn’t laugh. He just pulled me into a hug and held on for a long, long time.

Some nights, he’d find you writing in it. He’d lean against the doorframe of the living room, arms crossed over his chest, watching the pen move across the page. He never asked what you were writing. He didn’t need to.

One night, he walked over and sat on the couch beside you, close enough that his thigh pressed against yours. He was quiet for a long moment, the weight of him a familiar, comforting presence. Then, without a word, he reached for the journal.

You let him take it, your heart suddenly pounding in your chest.

He didn’t open it. He just held it in his hands, running his flesh thumb over the worn cover, feeling the impressions your pen had left on the pages beneath. He stared at it for a long, silent minute, the lamplight catching the blue of his eyes, making them look almost translucent.

“I’m scared,” he said, his voice so low it was almost lost in the quiet hum of the apartment. “That one day I’ll look at you and I won’t just forget the pancakes or the pickles or the damn jellyfish.” He finally looked up, meeting your eyes. “I’m scared I’ll forget… this. Us. What it feels like to… to be here. With you.”

Your throat tightened. You’d had this fear too, of course you had, but hearing him say it, hearing the raw, unguarded terror in his voice, made it real in a way you’d been fighting to keep at bay.

You reached out, taking the journal from his hands and setting it aside on the coffee table. Then you took his face in your hands, the same way you had in the kitchen that Sunday, forcing him to look at you.

“Then I’ll remind you,” you said, your voice fierce despite the tears you could feel pricking at your eyes. “Every single day. I’ll tell you about the first time you let me touch your metal arm. I’ll tell you about the way you look when you laugh at your own jokes, even when they’re not funny. I’ll tell you about the night you woke up screaming and I held you for three hours and you told me about Steve, about falling, about all of it, and then you fell asleep with your head in my lap and I never moved, not once, because I didn’t want you to wake up alone.”

A tear slipped down his cheek. He didn’t wipe it away.

“I’ll tell you,” you continued, your voice breaking, “about how you make pancakes on Sundays and flick flour at me. About how you think seagulls are veterans of the sky. About how you hold my hand when we watch old movies. I’ll tell you until my voice gives out, Buck. I’ll tell you until you remember, or I’ll tell you until it becomes a new memory, and then I’ll tell you again. I’m not going anywhere.”

He made a sound then, something between a sob and a laugh, and he pulled you into him, burying his face in your hair. His arms wrapped around you, the metal arm cool through your shirt, the flesh arm burning hot, and he held you like you were the only thing anchoring him to the earth.

“I love you,” he whispered into your hair, the words muffled but unmistakable. “I don’t want to forget that I love you.”

You squeezed your eyes shut, the tears finally falling, soaking into his shirt. “You won’t,” you said, and you willed it to be true with every fiber of your being. “Because I’ll be here to remind you. Every day. As many times as you need.”

He held you tighter, and for a long time, neither of you spoke. The only sounds were the soft hum of the refrigerator, the distant wail of a siren from the street below, and the steady, synchronizing rhythm of your breathing.

Eventually, he pulled back, just enough to look at you. His eyes were red-rimmed, his cheeks wet, but there was something in his face that hadn’t been there before. A loosening. A letting go. He looked at you—really looked—and a small, tremulous smile touched his lips.

“You have flour on your cheek,” he said, his voice rough.

You let out a startled laugh, wiping at your face with the back of your hand. “It’s not flour, it’s—“

“I know,” he said softly. He reached up, his flesh hand cupping your jaw, his thumb brushing away a tear. “I’m just… I’m making a new memory.”

Your breath caught in your throat. You stared at him, at the man who had been broken and rebuilt and broken again, who had more reasons than anyone to give up, and you saw him choosing, in this moment, to hold on. To you. To this. To the life you were building in the spaces between the seconds he lost.

You turned your head, pressing a kiss to his palm. “That’s a good one,” you whispered. “A really good one.”

He leaned forward, resting his forehead against yours, and for a moment, the world outside the small circle of lamplight ceased to exist. There was no Hydra, no Winter Soldier, no blank spaces or lost memories. There was only him, and you, and the quiet, radical act of staying.

“Tell me another one,” he murmured, his eyes falling closed. “From the journal. The one about the seagull.”

You smiled, shifting closer, letting your body curve into his. Your fingers found his, intertwining, and you began to speak, your voice a low, steady current in the quiet room.

“October 21st,” you said, and you could feel him settle against you, the tension draining from his shoulders, his breath evening out. “Walked to the pier. Bucky fed the seagulls even though I told him not to…”

And as you spoke the memory back into existence, weaving it into the air between you with the patient, practiced ease of someone who had become fluent in the language of remembering, you felt him squeeze your hand.

He was listening. He was holding on.

And for now, for tonight, that was enough.

Last night, after Feyre had removed the glass from your clumsy feet and calmed you, she shared the plan. Rhys was going to delve further into Azriel’s mind after contacting Helion. Your mate had been on a small peninsula between the coasts of Day and Night to investigate conflicting reports from the dwindling population settled there. It had all been very official; an organized contract was written up between the courts, with Azriel as the linchpin. He was to go to the sliver of land and collect information, and then report back to both High Lords. 

He had missed the check-in with Helion. 

You never knew what Azirel was doing when he went off for long stretches. He told you as little as possible to satisfy your worries. He never wanted you involved in court politics or spying or anything that could lead to danger. 

Elain probably knew more than you. 

You shook the thought away. It had become so easy for you to revert to old habits, to compare yourself to Elain and measure all of your shortcomings. You supposed everything would start to feel as it used to. Your relationship with Azriel certainly fell backward—rife with insecurity and uncertainty. 

It was neither of their faults. You picked at the skin of your thumb and took in steady breaths as you reminded yourself that this was all a fluke. This wasn’t evidence of your shortcomings or of betrayal. This was a situation with a solution, with a cause. 

“Mor,” Azriel gently warned, his gaze still fixed on you. Mor had started a new story, you vaguely recognized, and the distraction had stopped working about five minutes ago. From the corner of your eye, you saw the pair share a look. Azriel shook his head softly. 

Mor blew out a breath and sank back in her seat. “Well, if Rhys would hurry up,” she muttered under her breath. 

“It’s a long way to Day,” you hummed, looking back down at your fingers. “Probably a lot to talk about.” 

“He’ll be back soon. I believe it would be difficult to side-track him right now,” Azriel reassured. 

You raised your brows at his explanation. To him, you needed the context. To him, you hardly knew the High Lord. You let the redundancy simmer low in your chest and reminded yourself that staying back had been difficult for Azriel, too. His knee was shaking, and he’d had to stay home while his High Lord gathered intel. 

None of this was right.

“Right, of course,” was all you uttered back. 

You still stared down at your hands. Azriel still stared over at you. 

Azriel’s shadows created a faint hum in the room. You usually couldn’t hear them, but they were lingering around your shoulders and refused to abide by their master’s incessant calls to return.  You could see each tick of his head that went unanswered and felt a small sense of satisfaction that at least something was choosing you. Even if that was childish. Even if it was unwarranted. 

Rhysand returned to the House without much fanfare, his collar loose and his hair mussed. Feyre was quick in her step behind him, looking more determined than her mate. The energy in the room perked up in a dreary way as Cassian stomped in soon after. 

He clapped, startling the shadows until they wrapped you closer. “Everyone here?” Cassian assessed. 

“Everyone that needs to be,” Mor huffed out, sitting straighter. She was unwavering in her place next to you, Azriel in the chair across the room. 

“Great,” Cassian grinned. “So, that’s not Azriel.” 

A pause. The humming stopped. You could hear Feyre let out a delicate sigh and barely caught how she pinched the bridge of her nose, but you felt frozen. Azriel himself was frozen, unmoving. 

“I do not recall that being the way we were going to deliver the information, Cassian,” Rhysand chastised. 

“Better to get it out all at once.” 

“What?” Azriel hissed out, rising from his seat. You stared after him once his back was turned, analyzing every inch of his shoulders and wings and his hair. It looked like him. It was— “Are you accusing me of being a spy against you? A fake?” 

Cassian raised his hands. “No—Well, not exactly. It’s different.” 

“It’s entirely different. Which is why you should stop talking,” Rhysand directed, rubbing his hand over his jaw. He let his gaze trail over you before he spread his fingers out and curled them into his palms. “That is Azriel. You are. But you just—or it’s Helion’s theory that—you are not our Azriel.” 

“And whose Azriel is he then?” Mor scoffed, an air of concern washing over the contempt. She had risen from her spot beside you.

“That gets complicated,” Feyre offered. “Azriel was gathering intel on disappearances in the peninsula, but it wasn’t just that. The citizens were saying that people were going missing, but also that sometimes they would return… different. Maybe from poison or contamination. It seemed like a farce because of the recent unrest in the area. They want more resources from both Rhys and Helion since they’re technically on the border, so making up a lie for funds to investigate a fake issue wouldn’t be unusual.” 

“So you sent Az to look into it,” Mor nodded. 

“So we sent Az.” Rhysand sounded defeated. He rubbed at his face again. “Turns out it was an actual issue.” 

“Poison?” you murmured, the only one sitting in the room. Several eyes turned to you. You clutched the cushion beneath your legs. “How does that—I don’t—” 

“Not poison,” Feyre gently corrected. “That’s why it’s complicated.” 

You kept your gaze locked on the ground, but within that line, you saw Azriel move. He took a step back, heel clicking towards you, but then he stayed. 

“Explain it.” 

Azriel sounded defensive already, brimming with assurance that he could refute any points made. Rhysand cleared his throat, and Cassian leaned a shoulder against the wall. 

“There’s a rift—a split between Day and Night. The locals have said it feeds things in and spits them out. That it’s a warped tear in the sky that clashes and makes the ocean thrash when it’s open,” Rhysand recounted, eyes hazy as if recalling exact memories. 

“Sounds like a story to scare the local children into listening,” Mor quipped. 

“I thought the same. But we saw it,” Rhysand shook his head. “Or I saw it. From one of their minds. And when they were explaining how people came back from the rift, it sounded—” 

Cassian jerked his head towards Azriel. “Sounded like you.” 

You finally looked up, fingers aching from your grip on the couch. Azriel was stiff and unrelenting as he stood before the group, but he was deflating, slowly, his head making the smallest movements. Everyone watched him as if he were going to implode, and you watched him as if you couldn’t remember the last time anything made sense. 

“So you think he entered this rift?” you quietly asked. Azriel’s chin jerked to the side when you spoke, but he didn’t turn completely. 

“Yes,” Feyre nodded. “When Rhys checked his mind, there was nothing about the mission or… anything from the past few years. Not even anything hinting at locked-away memories. Or missing memories.”

“It was like there was a gap. But that gap wasn’t supposed to be filled yet,” Rhys finished. 

“Where am I supposed to be then?” Azriel bit out, rough now, maybe scared. “What’s the theory?” 

“You’re supposed to be in the past. You were switched.” 

Rhysand’s words were an echo, and then they were a raucous clanging in your mind. Azriel—your mindful, cautious Azriel—seemed actually to implode, his shadows bursting from your shoulders and clinging to their master. They swirled around him and coated his skin, blocking him and surrounding him and protecting him from words. 

“Switched?” Azriel breathed out. “I was not. I am not—an incorrect version of myself.” 

“That’s not what we’re saying,” Feyre comforted. 

“It is.” 

“Az, take a moment and think about—” 

“No, Cassian.” Azriel shot his hand through the air. “I’m not—this is something inside of my mind. I know it is. I can pinpoint it.” 

“Can you?” Rhysand asked, braving a step towards the agitated Shadowsinger. “How?” 

Azriel paused, his shoulders heaving. He didn’t have an answer, and Rhysand knew that. The High Lord looked to you, then, conveying something with his eyes that might have spelled an apology. You attempted to parse out the meaning, but too much was happening. Too much, and also not enough. 

Rhysand said your name. Attention turned to you. “When you feel the bond—when you look at Azriel, does it feel how it’s supposed to?” 

You wet your lips and blinked. “Supposed to?” 

“Does it feel complete when you look at him? Alive?” 

“It doesn’t feel broken, if that’s what you mean.” You furrowed your brows and searched inward. A directive question actually felt nice, even though it was making you focus on something you had tried hard to push to the side. “It feels distant. Far away.” 

“Far away?” Mor repeated, breathless. “What does that mean?” 

Rhysand turned to Azriel. “And what do you feel?”

“He doesn’t feel anything,” you answered for him, disconnecting from the crushing feeling that accompanied the words. “He told me last night.” 

Azriel was quick to refute. “That’s not true,” he said, staring at you. He looked to Rhys next. “That’s not true. I feel… I feel like I’m supposed to feel something for her. Protect her.” 

Rhysand nodded softly. “You feel drawn to her. You know very little about her, but something is bringing you in.” 

“Yes. So it is there.” 

“No, Az. That’s the before. Before the bond is realized.” 

Azriel’s hand flew to his chest, his head turning down. He looked searching, maybe hoping that he would find the bond, because that would prove he was who he wanted to be. That he belonged in the now. But you knew he didn’t, because he felt far; Rhys made you aware that Azriel felt far away, and there was a man in front of you who looked just like him, but he didn’t look at you like he loved you. Not yet.

“Where is he?” you whispered, feeling your eyes burn. Tears fell as you searched for Rhys, for Feyre, for the people who seemed to know how to get him back. “If he was switched, where is our Azriel? Is he okay?”

“He was likely sent to the past,” Feyre explained. She was the soft one in this, offering gentle truths while Rhysand conveyed the big ones. The hard ones. “He’s probably in the same situation we are in now. Trying to figure this out.” 

“How can we bring him back?” you panicked. “What if he doesn’t know how to get himself back?” 

“Hey, we’re going to figure this out,” Cassian tried to comfort. He moved to calm you, but Azriel stepped in his path. 

You stood from the couch and paced around the length of the carpet before stopping in front of Rhysand. “You can send me to the rift. I can go and get him and explain. He doesn’t have as much context as we do. He would need me.” 

“You’re not going to throw yourself into that thing,” Azriel growled from behind you. “It would make sense for me to go back through it. To undo it.” 

“No!” you stressed, grabbing Rhysand’s arm. The High Lord covered your hand with his and tried to speak, but you were too heightened, too afraid. “It might not work. I should go.” 

Rhysand lowered his head, voice calm. “And then we might lose you, too.” 

“That doesn’t matter!” 

Mor shot out your name in a gasping breath, but you kept your gaze unyielding on Rhysand. “It could switch me, yes, but that would be better. I could tell Azriel what’s happening and bring him back safely.” 

“What if that’s not what happens? What if you are just gone? Lost?” 

You reared back, hand covering your mouth. “Don’t say that. Don’t—because then you think Azriel could be lost, and he’s not.” 

“We wouldn’t chance it,” Rhysand affirmed, shaking his head, putting his foot down. “We wouldn’t want to lose you both.” 

You turned your attention to Azriel—an Azriel. Maybe not yours, but he said he felt something for you. Your Azriel would give you anything; this one could be the same. 

You spun on your heel and charged at the Shadowsinger, capturing his arms in your hold and not caring that it didn’t feel right. “You came from there. You could take me back,” you beseeched him. “Take me. You don’t want to be here, I know it.” 

Azriel took you in, brows furrowing as he scanned every corner of your face. The muscles of his arms jumped beneath your fingers, and he didn’t mirror your desperation, but something flickered on his face that you couldn’t place. It had been too long since you’d seen it. 

“I won’t put you in danger,” he seemed to wince. “I won't.” 

“I wouldn’t be in danger. He would find me. He would protect me.” 

Azriel knocked your hands from his arms and held the sides of your head, capturing your attention and forcing you to ground. “I am right here. No version of me would let my mate throw herself into the unknown. How am I supposed to have a life with you if you’re gone?” 

“You don’t want me,” you whispered, eyes flashing between each of his. 

Azriel struggled to find words. He kept searching your face, holding you steady, his expression pressed into a near-permanent wince. You thought you might have felt his thumb brush against your temple, but too many thoughts were roaring in your head for you to notice it. 

“Let me go,” you urged. 

But Azriel was already shaking his head. “I can’t.” 

Your breath came out as a hopeless, anguished sound. Knowing where your mate was and not being able to get to him, to fix this, was enough to make your chest pound with an uncomfortable weight. You pressed back from Azriel and tried to reconcile how you were so close to him, and yet, he was further away than he’d ever been. Azriel’s hands dropped to his sides as you left him. 

His gaze went over your head. “You must have some form of a plan.” 

Rhysand was still staring after you as Azriel spoke, conflict raging on his face. His head tilted to the side, and he rolled his shoulders back. “Helion is looking into it more. I’d also like to search your memories more for the moment the switch happened—if it was a switch. See if there are any leads.” 

Your breathing was becoming erratic, your chest heavier. You squeezed your eyes shut and pressed your hand to your ribs, tears continuing to fall. They hadn’t stopped. 

“Done,” Azriel confirmed. “What else?” 

“That’s it. For now,” Rhysand said. His voice felt distorted. 

You leaned over as your head began to spin, hands on your thighs. Immediately, Azriel had you in his hold again. You felt fingers cover yours. He came down to his knee and stared up at your face. He was blurry. Everything was blurry. 

“It’s okay,” Azriel softly assured. 

“It’s not,” you got out. “He’s—” 

He never answered the same way and still, she tried.

She learned the rhythm of his silences long before she learned how to fill them. Learned which days his shadows curled tighter around him, which nights he disappeared for hours and returned with blood on his hands and nothing in his eyes.

She never asked questions he didn't want to answer. Instead, she stayed. Always, she stayed.

There had been a night, long ago, when he returned worse than usual. Shoulders stiff, wings slightly dragging, shadows restless and sharp as blades. No one else noticed. Or maybe they did, and knew better than to interfere.

Y/N didn't.

She followed him quietly to the balcony, a blanket draped over her arm, a cup of tea warming her hands. "You shouldn't be out here," she'd said gently, stepping into the cold beside him.

Azriel didn't look at her. "Neither should you."

But he didn't tell her to leave. So she didn't.

She set the tea beside him. Draped the blanket over the back of a chair, not touching him, never forcing closeness he hadn't given.

"I thought you might want this," she murmured.

"I didn't ask for it."

The words should've stung. They did.

But Y/N only smiled, soft and unwavering. "I know."

And that was the problem. She always knew.

Knew he wouldn’t thank her. Knew he wouldn’t look at her the way she looked at him. Knew that every small kindness she offered would be met with indifference at best, quiet dismissal at worst.

And still, she came back the next night.

And the next....and the next.

Centuries of quiet offerings. Of standing at his side when he allowed it, and a step behind when he didn't. Of loving him in all the ways he never asked for, never returned.

There were moments, small and fleeting, that she held onto like they were something more. A glance that lingered a second too long, a rare and tired "thank you", the absence of rejection, they were enough for her. They always had been.

Even when he turned away first, even when he chose others over her, again and again. Even when it became painfully, undeniably clear that Azriel did not love her.

And perhaps he never would.

The words had been waiting long enough. Though, Y/N didnt plan to say them at night.

It wasn't supposed to happen like this, on the edge of a war-camp clearing, the air thick with ash and lingering magic. Everything was too loud, too chaotic.

Too real.

But maybe that was why the words finally slipped free. "Azriel- "

He was already turning away and that is when something in her snapped.

"I love you."

It cut hrough everything. Through the crackling embers, through Cassian's voice, through the ringing in her own ears.

Azriel stilled. Slowly, so slowly, he looked back at her. There was no surprise on his face.

He knew and didn't care.

That was what hurt the most.

"You shouldn't," he said.

Not cruel, not loud. Just...final.

Y/N felt it like a physical blow, like the ones she took a few hours ago when they were on the battlefield. But she didn't look away, not this time.

"I know you don't feel the same," she said, her voice steadier than she felt. "I'm not asking you to. I just- I needed you to hear it once. Truly."

His hazel eyes held hers, unreadable. Distant.

Cold.

"I've heard it," Azriel replied. "For centuries."

Her breath caught.

"And it hasn't changed anything," he continued, quieter now, but no softer. "It won't."

There it was. No anger, no hesitation.

Y/N swallowed, her chest tightening, something fragile inside her finally, finally, cracking.

"Right," she whispered.

For a moment neither of them moved.

Then, with a small nod, more to herself than to him, she stepped back and this time, she didn't stay.

It happened minutes later, maybe even less.

Cassian shouted something, her name, she thought, but it was drowned out by the surge of darke magic ripping through the clearing. A trap.

"Down!" Mor yelled, her shield raised up as she turned...too slow.

The blast was aimed for Azriel. Not Rhysand.

Y/N didn't think, didn't hesitate. Didn't remember the way his words had hollowed her out only moments ago. She moved.

"Y/N!" Rhysands voice cracked.

Power collided with her body like a storm unleashed. White-hot. Binding, endless.

For a second, just a second, everything went silent. Then, pain.

Agonising and consuming. She felt herself being thrown back, felt something in her mind tear, like threads snapping one by one. Distantly, she heard shouting.

"Y/N!"

This one sounded closer. Desperate.

Familiar strong hands caught her before she hit the ground.

Her vision blurred, edges darkening, the world slipping through her fingers like sand. She forced her eyes open, just once more. Azriel's face hovered above hers.

Not distant, not cold.

Something else, something she'd never seen before, fractured across his expression.

Fear.

Her lips parted, but no words came. Strangely, she couldn't remember what she wanted to say. Only that it had once meant everything.

His name lingered on the edge of her mind and then, nothing. Darkness swallowed her whole.

Azriel had seen war before.

He had stood in blood-soaked fields, heard the screams of the dying, felt the weight of lives lost settle into his bones like something permanent.

None of it compared to this. Y/N lay too still on the narrow cot inside the healer’s tent. Too pale, too quiet.

Wrong.

Azriel stood at her bedside, hands clasped behind his back so tightly his knuckles ached beneath his leathers. Not a single tremor showed in his posture. Not a flicker of panic crossed his face.

But inside...inside everything was unraveling.

You shouldn't.

The words echoed over and over, sharp as a blade driven between his ribs.

It won't.

He could still see her face when he said it. The way something in her had...given way. And then she'd still chosen him.

Still stepped in front of that magic. Still-

Azriel's jaw tightened. He didn't deserve that, he never had.

"Where the fuck did that magic come from?!"

Rhysand's voice cut through the tent, quiet, sharp, furious, edged with something dangerously close to fear. Azriel didn't look away from Y/N.

Cassian swore under his breath somewhere behind him. "I’ve never seen anything like it- just came out of nowhere- ”

“It didn’t come out of nowhere,” Mor snapped, pacing. Golden power flickered faintly at her fingertips, unstable. “Someone set that trap. Deliberately.”

Amren's voice, cool and cutting: "Then someone wanted Azriel dead."

Azriel didn't hear the rest, didn't care.

All of it, strategy, enemies, blame, it faded into nothing beneath the steady, fragile rise and fall of Y/N’s chest.

Barely there.

His shadows hovered restlessly, brushing against her like they didn’t understand why she wasn’t responding. Why she wasn’t smiling at them, the way she always did.

Why she wasn’t-

Azriel swallowed, his gaze traced every inch of her face, as if committing it to memory. As if bracing for the possibility that--no. He forced the thought down. She wasn’t gone. She couldn’t be, not like this.

Not after....his throat tightened, something unfamiliar clawing its way up his chest.

Regret.

It settled heavy and suffocating. Centuries of it, all at once. Every time he'd turned away, every quiet offering he'd dismissed, every soft "Azriel" he'd ignored. And that look on her face, right before she stepped back, right before she left. His chest felt too tight. Too small.

"She took the full hit."

Mor's voice broke slightly now, closer than before. "If she hadn't, Azriel, that would've been you."

He knew. The Cauldron damn him he knew.

That knowledge sat like poison in his veins. He didn't move. Didn't speak. Because if he did, if he opened his mouth, he wasn't sure what would come out.

Rhys exhaled sharply, dragging a hand through his hair. "Madja, how bad is it?"

The healer didn't answer immediately.

Azriel finally shifted, just barely, as she moved closer to the bed, her magic a soft, steady glow as it hovered over Y/N.

“She’s alive,” Madja said at last.

Alive. The word didn’t ease the pressure in his chest.

“But,” she continued, quieter now, “the damage was not only physical.”

Azriel stilled completely.

“What do you mean?” Cassian demanded.

Madja’s eyes flicked between them. “That kind of magic… it didn’t just strike her body. It struck her mind.”

Something cold slid down Azriel’s spine.

“She may not wake as she was.”

Silence fell again. Heavy and final. Azriel’s gaze snapped back to Y/N. Not as she was. His stomach turned.

“No,” he said.

The word was quiet, controlled. But it wasn’t a suggestion. Madja didn’t argue, didn’t soften it. “I will do what I can.”

Azriel stepped closer to the bed without realizing it. Just a fraction.

Just enough that if she reached...

But she didn’t, of course she didn’t. Minutes stretched, or hours. He didn’t know. Time had lost meaning the moment she fell. Then...a shift. So small he almost missed it. A breath, deeper this time.

Madja straightened immediately. “Careful.”

Y/N stirred. A faint sound left her lips, barely more than air.

Azriel’s entire body went still.

Her fingers twitched against the blanket.

Cassian leaned forward. “Y/N?”

Her lashes fluttered, once. Twice.

The slowly, her eyes opened. Relief hit the room like a breaking wave. Mor let out a shaky laugh. "Thank the Mother."

Rhys stepped closer. "Easy, you're alright,"

Y/N's gaze moved sluggishly between them, confused and dazed.

But alive.

She looked at Cassian and gave him a faint, tired smile. At Mor, another smile.

Even Rhys and Amren, she recognized them too.

Azriel didn't breathe. Her eyes moved again, and then...they landed on him. Everything in him stilled and waited.

Her brows drew together slightly. Not in hurt or longing. In confusion. Her lips parted, voice weak, unsteady-

"Who...are you?"

The world stopped. And this time, Azriel felt it break.

The words lodged somewhere between his ribs and his lungs, sharp enough to steal breath, heavy enough to keep it from returning. Is this how she'd felt?

Rhys answered for him.

"He's...one of us, don't you remember him?" Rhys asked carefully, stepping in before the silence stretched too long. "You're safe. That's what matters right now."

Azriel didn't look at him, didn't look at anyone.

His gaze remained locked on Y/N, on the absence in her eyes, where there had once been something so constant it had felt...inevitable.

She shook her head slightly in response to the question. And then she looked away like he didn't matter enough to question further.

“It’s selective.”

Azriel stood rigid as Madja spoke, her voice calm in a way that grated against something raw inside him.

“The magic did not erase her entire memory. It disrupted… connections. Emotional imprints, most likely.”

“Meaning?” Cassian demanded.

Madja glanced toward Azriel, just for a second.

“Meaning she remembers what happened. She remembers all of you.” A pause. “But whatever tied her to him… is gone.”

Gone. Not buried, not hidden. Gone. Azriel’s shadows recoiled as if the word itself burned.

“Can it be fixed?” Mor asked, softer now.

Madja didn’t answer immediately. “Perhaps,” she said at last. “Or perhaps her mind has simply… let go of something it deemed too painful to keep.”

Azriel flinched barely, but it was there.

Velaris welcomed them home like it always did--golden, untouched, too peaceful for what they carried back with them. Y/N walked beside Mor through the streets, wrapped in fresh clothes, hair clean, skin no longer pale with blood loss.

She smiled at everything.

At the Sidra, at the lights, at the people.

At them.

Cassian got a grin. Mor got her arm hooked through hers. Even Amren earned Y/N's usual curious questions.

Azriel...Azriel got nothing. Or worse, he got civility.

"Thank you," she said once, when he handed her something Mor had asked for. Her fingers brushed his and there was no spark, no lingering, no softening in her gaze. Just a brief, genuine and courteous smile. The kind one gives a stranger. Azriel pulled his hand back like it burned.

He tried, The Cauldron help him, he tried.

First attempt came with a small, safe cup of tea. The same blend she'd always brought him--over and over, for years. He set it on the small table in the balcony, exactly where she used to place it.

"You like this," he said, voice low, controlled.

Y/N glanced at the cup, then back at him. A polite tilt of her head. "Do I? How do you know?"

Something in his chest twisted. "You used to," he said.

A mistake.

He saw it the moment the words left his mouth. Her expression shifted, just slightly. Not recognition, but discomfort.

"I'm sorry," she said gently, like he was the one being inconvenienced. "I wish I could understand what you mean. I don't remember ever meeting you before, let alone telling you about what I like."

Azriel forced himself to nod. "It's nothing. We had only ever crossed paths few times anyway. You mentioned it in passing."

She smiled again. Small, kind and distant.

And then she left the tea untouched.

"You're going about this wrong."

Azriel didn't look up from the blade he was cleaning. "Then enlighten me."

Rhys leaned against the doorway, arms crossed. "You're trying to make her remember."

Azriel's jaw tightened. "Shouldn't she?"

Rhys's voice softened, just slightly. "No. Why would you think that?"

That made him look up. "Because it's the truth."

"And the truth," Rhys said carefully, "is that you spent centuries pushing her away."

The words landed clean, precise. Unavoidable.

Azriel said nothing. Rhys stepped further into the room.

“If she remembers everything exactly as it was, Az, she remembers the rejection too. Over and over again. Why hurt her again?"

Azriel’s grip on the blade tightened.

“She deserves the choice,” Rhys continued. “Not a return to something that only hurt her.”

Silence stretched.

Then, quieter, “You could start over.”

Azriel let out a humorless breath. “With someone who doesn’t even know me?”

Rhys held his gaze. “Maybe that’s the only way she ever will.”

Time did not heal this, it sharpened it. Every interaction was a reminder, every glance that didn’t linger. Every moment she chose someone else to stand beside. She laughed more with Cassian. Walked often with Mor, listened when Amren spoke.

With Azriel, She was careful, respectful, distant.

She never sought him out. Never said his name like it meant something, never looked at him like she was waiting. And that...that was what broke him the most. Because he saw it now. All the things she used to do, all the ways she had loved him, they were gone. Not dulled, not hidden. Gone.

He found her in the training ring alone this time.

Moving carefully, still recovering, but stubborn as ever.

Azriel stepped forward. “You’re not supposed to be training yet.”

She glanced at him, slightly breathless. A small smile. “I don’t like sitting still.”

He almost said I know. Stopped himself.

Instead: “You’ll reopen the injury.”

“I’ll be careful.”

Always that politeness, that distance.

Azriel hesitated. “I can help you.”

She paused and studied him. For a moment, something flickered in her expression. Not recognition. Something… assessing.

“Alright,” she said finally.

Not warm, not cold. Just… neutral. Azriel stepped closer, positioning himself behind her. Careful not to touch.

“Your stance,” he said, voice low. “You’re putting too much weight forward.”

She adjusted slightly. “Like this?”

“Not quite.” He reached out, slowly, giving her time to pull away.

She didn’t.

His hand hovered at her waist, barely brushing, guiding her back a fraction. Her body went still. Not tense, just aware. Like she would be with anyone.

Azriel’s chest tightened. “Better,” he murmured.

She nodded. “Thank you.”

Two words. So simple, so empty.

It wasn't just that she didn't remember him. It was that she had no reason to choose him. Not anymore, at least.

No history, no devotion.

No years of quiet, unwavering love tipping the scales in his favor. Azriel stood at the edge of the training ring long after she'd left, shadows restless around him. For the first time, he understood.

What it feels like to want someone that didn't want you back. To stand close to her, to reach and have nothing in return.

And the worst part?

He would do it. All of it.

Again and again and again. If it meant one day she might look at him like she used to.

It started small. So small Azriel almost missed it.

"Azriel,"

His name, from her mouth. He froze.

Not because she said it--she'd said it before, in that same polite and detached way.

But this time, it sounded different.

Softer.

He turned slowly.

Y/N stood a few steps away, fingers loosely clasped in front of her. There was no urgency in her posture, no expectation, but her gaze lingered just a second longer than usual.

"Yes?" he asked, voice quieter than he intended.

She hesitated.

“I- ” A faint crease appeared between her brows. “I had a question about something Rhys mentioned. About… shadows.”

Azriel’s shadows stilled around him, as if they, too, were listening.

“You came to me?” he asked before he could stop himself.

A flicker of something crossed her face. Not offense, not confusion. Something almost amused.

“Well,” she said lightly, “you are the one with them, aren’t you?”

Not my shadowsinger, not anything that belonged to her. Still, she had chosen him.

Azriel inclined his head. “Ask.”

She stepped a little closer. Not close enough. Never close enough, but closer than before.

And as she spoke--curious, thoughtful, engaged--Azriel found himself watching her in a way he hadn’t allowed himself to in centuries.

Not dismissing, not avoiding. Watching, memorizing.

There were moments, brief and fleeting, where her expression would shift. Where her gaze would linger just a heartbeat too long, like something in her was trying to reach for a memory that refused to come.

Each time, something in his chest tightened with fragile, dangerous hope. Maybe...maybe it wasn’t all gone.

The second time, it was quieter. More accidental.

She laughed at something he said.

Azriel hadn’t even meant it to be funny.

But the sound left her--soft, surprised, real--and it struck him harder than any blade ever had.

For a split second, it felt like before. Like maybe...maybe he could build something new from this. Something...his. Not born from her endless giving. But chosen, earned.

"You're different with her,"

Azriel didn't look away from the window. "Am I?"

Amren leaned beside him, following his line of sight to see where Y/N stood across the riverbank.

"She's different with you too," Amren said.

Azriel's gaze sharpened. Y/N was speaking, animated now, her hands moving slightly as she explained something to someone.

She glanced up, and for a fraction of a second, her eyes met his across the distance. She didn't look away immediately. Azriel's breath caught.

Then, she smiled. A real smile. Something in his chest lifted.

"See?" Amren murmured. Azriel didn't answer, he couldn't.

Because for the first time since she woke, hope didn't feel like a mistake.

And then, everything shifted.

The day Helion arrived per Rhysands request, the air in Velaris felt differen.

Brighter. Warmer. Annoyingly so.

Everyone knew of him, of course. The most effortlessly harismatic High Lord. Charming and powerful.

The kind of male who walked into a room and owned it without trying. The kind of male Y/N would have once-

Azriel's jaw tightened. Would have once ignored, because of him.

He saw it the moment they met. Y/N had been standing beside Mor, listening politely as Rhysand was speaking with him.

And then, Helion's golden gaze landed on her, and sharpened with interest. Not subtle, not restrained, interested.

"Well," Helion drawled, a slow smile forming, "you sure have changed for the better since the last time I saw you, Y/N. You're practically glowing!"

Y/N blinked, caught slightly off guard. Then, she smiled. Not polite, not distant. Genuine. Azriel felt something cold settle in his chest.

It started harmless. Conversations, longer than necessary. Helion asking questions, not surface-level, but deeper, engaging ones.

Y/N answered. Easily, freely. She laughed again, more often now.

And Azriel...Azriel watched. From across rooms, from shadows, from distances he had once chosen. Now forced upon him.

"You're staring." Azriel didn't bother denying it.

Cassian followed his gaze and winced slightly. "Oof."

He leaned closer to Y/N, saying something low enough that only she could hear. She huffed out a laugh, nudging his arm lightly. Lightly.

Like she was comfortable, like she spent years with him.

Azriel's shadows coiled tighter.

"That's new," Cassian muttered.

Azriel's voice was quiet, controlled. "She is happy with him."

Cassian glanced at him sideways. "You never gave her much to be happy about, brother."

The words landed hard.

The worst part wasn’t Helion. It wasn’t the way he looked at her or how easily he drew her in.

It was the way she didn’t look for Azriel anymore.

Not even out of politeness, not even out of habit. The fragile thread that had begun to form between them snapped clean and effortless. Like it had never been there at all.

Azriel found her alone once. Rare occurrence, these days.

She stood on the balcony, overlooking the city, the wind tugging gently at her hair. For a moment, he just watched. Memorized.

Then, quietly, "Y/N."

She turned. And for a heartbeat, just one, something flickered. Recognition?

No.

Not quite.

"Azriel," she said softly.

Almost like before but with less feelings.

He stepped closer. "I haven't seen you much, thanks to Helion."

A mistake.

Her expression shifted, subtle.

Distance slipped back into place.

"Helion has been quite the good company. Rhysand says he is the one that called him to discuss some trade issues in person but it seems like Helion is prolonging his stay for me."

Azriel's anger slowly started sipping in. "What?"

She shrugged, lips turning up in a small smile as she looked back at the city. "I know, that's a crazy assumption. I told Rhys that it's not possible. There is probably some other things he must do before he goes back into Day Court."

Azriel's heart plummeted. Rhysand is a good observer. One that doesn't just throw out random assumptions.

And Y/N knows it too.

Azriel nodded once. "Do you..." he stopped.

Started again, quieter. "Do you enjoy his company?"

Her lips curved slightly. "Yes."

One word. It shouldn't have meant anything.

But it meant everything.

Azriel inclined his head and stepped back. "Good."

It was the right thing to say, the only thing to say. Even as something in his chest quietly, finally, broke.

The garden was everything Y/N had hoped it would be.

Sunlight spilled over the neatly trimmed hedges, catching the petals of the early blooms like scattered gold. She had found a small spot near the fountain, canvas balanced on her knees, paints spread around her like an open rainbow. The air smelled faintly of jasmine and wet earth, the breeze brushing her hair across her face in gentle waves.

For the first time in… she didn’t know how long, she felt light. Free. Happy. Unburdened. No weight pressed down on her shoulders.

She dipped her brush into soft lavender, sweeping it across the canvas. The strokes were confident, playful, unthinking, each one landing exactly where she wanted it. Her mind was quiet, peaceful.

A shadow fell across her work.

She looked up.

Azriel.

He stood there, hands clasped behind his back, shoulders tight, eyes dark and sharp. The sunlight caught the angles of his face, but there was no softness. No casual calm like everyone else.

She blinked. “Oh. Hello.”

He didn’t answer immediately. He didn’t smile. He just watched.

Y/N tilted her head. “Do you… like gardens?” she asked lightly, because that seemed safe. Neutral.

Azriel’s jaw tightened. “Not particularly.”

She laughed softly, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “Me neither, really. I just like painting them.”

He shifted slightly, closer--but not close enough to invade her space. "You're...good at it," he said, finally, voice low.

Her brush paused mid-stroke. "Thank you," she replied politely, wondering why he was suddenly so...intense.

The silence stretched and he didn't leave. She felt no threat, only that strange pull of attention, heavy and charged, that she had no context for.

"I...I need to tell you something, I just can't go on like this." he said finally.

She lifted her head, curious. "Oh?"

His shadows flickered around him, restless, taut with something she didn’t recognize. “You… you need to know. About me. About… us.”

Y/N’s brow furrowed slightly. “Us? I… I’m sorry, I don’t- ”

“No,” he snapped, suddenly losing the careful control he’d kept all this time. “You need to hear this. I can’t- Gods, I can’t stand seeing you act like I’m just some stranger when…” His voice cracked for the briefest second, and then steel returned. “When I’ve spent centuries, centuries watching you. Letting you love me. Ignoring you. Rejecting you. And now… now you’re safe, alive, and you don’t even remember it!”

Y/N flinched. The words hit her like a slap. Her hands tightened around her brush.

“I- I don’t understand,” she whispered. “I… I don’t remember…?”

“Of course you don’t!” His shadow flickered sharply, dark as storm clouds. “Because you were hurt by me. Because I was too blind to care about what you felt! Because I- ” He stopped himself, breathing hard, his eyes on her. “Because I loveyou! I’ve loved you for centuries, not even realizing it, not daring to accept it, and you… you don’t even know me!”

The words tumbled out faster now, unrestrained, desperate. Every confession, every regret, every guilt-ridden truth spilled over her, crashing into her mind like a storm she couldn’t weather.

Y/N stumbled backward instinctively, eyes wide. Her chest tightened. She coughed, short, panicked breaths filling her lungs.

“Azriel… I- what- ” she tried to say, but her voice faltered.

“You have to know! You have to understand!” he shouted, stepping closer, shadows flaring, the edge of desperation sharp in his movements. “I was an idiot! I was blind! I didn’t- gods, I didn’t realize I- ”

Her hands flew to her head. The world tilted. Her stomach lurched. The sun and the garden, the canvas, the paint, everything spun.

Azriel froze, his heart lurching in tandem with hers.

“Y/N?” His voice softened, but the panic still rang through it. “Stay with me. Look at me.”

But she couldn’t. She couldn’t process it. Centuries of memories she didn’t have, of emotions she couldn’t feel yet, came crashing all at once.

Her knees buckled. She gasped, gripping the edge of the fountain. The air wouldn’t fill her lungs properly. Her vision blurred, dark spots crawling at the edges.

Azriel dropped to one knee, hands hovering, trembling as he reached for her without touching. “Y/N, please. Don’t- breathe. Look at me. Stay with me.”

She shook her head, panic rising, body trembling, tears welling unbidden. “I- I don’t- I can’t- ”

He cursed under his breath, shadows hissing around him. He had done exactly what he feared.

Not gentle. Not slow. Not patient. Too much, too fast. Too desperate.

She stumbled backward again, pressing her hands to her ears, gasping, utterly unmoored.

Azriel froze. Every fiber of him screamed. Stop. Stop. You’re hurting her.

But he couldn’t. Not yet. Not when he could see the faintest flicker of recognition, a heartbeat of something buried deep beneath the chaos in her mind.

“Y/N… please,” he whispered, quieter now, shadows retracting slightly. “I just… I love you. That’s all. I’ve always, always loved you. I was just too much of a coward, an idiot to accept it. I’m here. I’m here.”

Her body shuddered violently, and the panic overtook her. She sank to the ground near the fountain, gasping, clutching herself, tears streaking her cheeks.

Azriel dropped beside her, careful now, silent but close enough she could feel the warmth radiating from him.

He’d broken the rules. He knew it.

But he couldn’t stop himself. Not when seeing her alive and safe, yet terrified because of him, felt like a blade through his chest.

He wrapped his arms loosely around her trembling form, not forcing anything, not saying more, just letting her know he was there, he wouldn’t leave.

Even if she didn’t remember.

Even if she hated him for a moment. Even if he had just nearly destroyed her calm, happy world. Because for the first time in centuries, he couldn’t hold it in.

Azriel’s chest tightened as she shrank from him, trembling but sharp, like a cornered storm. He had been holding her, wrapping her in what he thought was safety, what he thought was comfort, but it wasn’t.

“Y/N…” he breathed, voice low, calm, desperate.

She pushed him away. Hard. One sharp shove that made him stumble back a step.

“Get away from me!” she shouted, voice cracking with fury and fear both.

Azriel froze, eyes wide. “What?”

“Get away from me!” she repeated, louder, more frantic. Her palms pressed against his chest, forcing him to step back further.

He did, slowly, carefully, taking in the sight of her face. Tears streaked her cheeks, but her eyes burned with anger, sharp as flint.

“How dare you!” she spat. “How dare you?”

Azriel’s heart stopped. He opened his mouth. Closed it. Nothing seemed enough.

“Who do you think you are?” she continued, voice shaking with heat and pain. “I said I don’t know you! I don’t remember anything about you! And here you come, spewing all these… these lies, these made-up fantasies about me that are never going to be true! They… they were never true!”

Her hands clenched at her sides, trembling, and her shoulders shook with the force of her emotions. Azriel swallowed, trying to process her words, to think of anything to say that could fix this--anything--but there was nothing.

The shouting drew attention.

Voices. Footsteps.

“Azriel? What in the…” Rhysand and Helion emerged into the garden, both looking shocked, assessing instantly the situation. Mor and Cassian followed, eyes wide.

Y/N’s gaze didn’t soften. It swept past Azriel as she turned to Helion. “Helion.”

The black-haired High Lord looked slightly startled, but intrigued. “Yes?”

“Take me with you when you go to the Day Court. Please,” she said, her voice steady, deliberate.

Azriel’s shadow coiled, tight, restless. His chest felt like it was breaking.

“Why would you want to go with him?” His voice was low, sharp, rigid with disbelief.

“I need time away,” she said, unwavering. Her gaze snapped back to him, anger still blazing. “I’ve had enough with you. Now I understand why you constantly try to get into my good graces, why you hover, why you push… it’s because you’ve done nothing but try to control me. I don’t… I can’t. Not like this. Not ever again.”

Azriel’s throat went dry. He turned slightly to Rhys, desperation in his eyes. Don’t allow this. Don’t allow this to happen.

Rhysand exhaled, calm, patient, almost tenderly. “Very well, Y/N. You may leave and come whenever you please.”

Azriel froze. The words landed like a dagger.

Helion’s smile widened, warm and genuine. “Well,” he said softly, stepping closer, “if that’s what you want, I’d be honored to take you with me."

Y/N nodded, eyes bright, fierce, but steady. “Let me go pack my things,” she said, voice calm now, resolute.

Azriel’s chest felt impossibly tight. The world had shifted under his feet in seconds.

He looked at her, at Helion, at Rhysand, and for the first time in centuries, he felt utterly powerless.

The shadows around him stirred, restless, coiling, mirroring the turmoil inside him. He wanted to speak, to stop her, to make her see, but every rational thought, every instinct, every ounce of restraint screamed: she doesn’t remember. She doesn’t know. Anything he says now risks breaking her further.

He swallowed.

She was leaving with Helion.

And there was nothing he could do.

Azriel’s fists clenched at his sides. Shadows flickered with rage, guilt, and despair. He wanted to reach out, to call her back, to scream at the injustice of it all.

But he didn’t.

He could only watch her go.

Step by determined step.

And with every one, the weight of centuries of unspoken love, of rejected devotion, of pain he had buried in silence, pressed down on him like a stone he could never lift.

She looked back once, just briefly, but her expression was resolute. No longing. No hesitation. Azriel exhaled slowly, shadows curling tighter around him. The garden seemed impossibly quiet.

There was no accusation in your voice. Just a quiet sort of certainty, as if his presence had become something expected rather than intrusive. As if he had been… anticipated. You looked beautiful under the candlelight.

“I didn’t realize I had a pattern,” he said eventually.

“You do,” you replied lightly, turning back to the table. “You show up when I forget to take care of myself.”

There was a soft rustle behind you – fabric shifting, measured footsteps crossing the room.

Then the quiet, deliberate sound of something being set down beside your elbow. You glanced down.

A cup of still warm tea.

You huffed a small, amused breath.

“See?”

Azriel didn’t respond. He moved to stand beside you, close enough that you were aware of him, but not so close that it crowded you. The same careful distance he always kept. His gaze dropped to the map, taking in the overlapping lines, the revisions layered one over the other.

“You’ve redrawn this section three times.”

“It’s wrong,” you murmured, leaning forward again, resting one hand lightly on the table. “Or no. Not wrong. Just incomplete.”

He didn’t interrupt. He never did.

So you continued, quieter now.

“The terrain doesn’t match the reports. The elevation shifts too quickly here.” You traced the line with your ink stained finger. “There’s something I’m missing, I just can’t see it yet.”

Azriel watched the movement of your hand.

 “You’re tired,” he said.

You smiled faintly.

“ But I’m close, I can feel it.”

Silence settled between you again.

Azriel leaned in slightly, one hand bracing against the edge of the table as he studied the map more closely. His shadows slipped forward with him, curling along the parchment, tracing the lines you had drawn with slow, deliberate intent.

You watched them this time.

“They’re beautiful,” you said, almost absentmindedly.

Azriel stilled. Something warm started blooming in his chest. It always had in your presence and it scared him a little. Because you were everything he was not. Soft. Gentle. Fragile. And he was not good with fragile things. He didn’t know how to handle you without crushing your light.

“They stay longer on this section.” Your voice was thoughtful and gentle. “Like they’re trying to understand it.”

His shadows stilled as if they were caught.

Azriel’s jaw tightened just slightly, trying to ignore the loud thumping of his heart.

“They’re gathering information,” he said flatly.

“Mm,” you murmured, though the soft curve of your mouth said you still didn’t quite agree.

You leaned a little closer to the map, your shoulder brushing, just barely, against his arm.

It was a small unintentional thing that you didn’t even seem to notice but Azriel did. He always did. He could smell your sweet vanilla scent and feel the warmth of your body.

Every muscle in his body went aware of you.

The point of contact was fleeting, gone as soon as you shifted again, but it lingered in a way that had nothing to do with physical sensation.

His shadows recoiled a fraction. Then, slowly, drifted back.

You exhaled softly, unaware of the shift you had caused.

“I think…” You hesitated, frowning slightly at the map. “I think I’ve been approaching it wrong.”

Azriel forced himself to focus.

“Why?”

You glanced at him briefly, as if checking he was truly listening, before turning fully toward the map again.

“I’ve been trying to make it make sense,” you said quietly. “Trying to force it into something consistent. But maybe it isn’t meant to be.”

Your fingers traced the uneven lines again, slower now.

“Some places aren’t stable. They change and shift. You can’t map them the same way you map everything else.”

Azriel watched you but his attention had begun to split, caught between your words and the way you spoke them.

There was no frustration in your voice. No impatience. Just quiet acceptance.

You leaned back slightly, your gaze softening as you looked down at the map.

“You just… have to let them be what they are.”

The words settled in the space between you.

Azriel felt something in his chest pull tight. Not sharply. Just enough to be noticed.

Because it wasn’t about the map. He knew that. You weren’t looking at him but it felt like you had said it to him.

You blinked, as if only just realizing how quiet the room had become. Your gaze lifted to meet his and for a moment, something uncertain flickered across your expression.

“Was that–” you hesitated, a small, self-conscious smile forming. “–too philosophical for cartography?”

Azriel didn’t answer right away. He was still looking at you. Really looking, now.

At the softness in your expression. The openness. The way you didn’t seem to guard your thoughts before offering them.

His throat felt unexpectedly tight. Something that felt, unmistakably, like the beginning of a fall.

“No,” he said finally, voice quieter than before.

A beat.

 “It wasn’t.”

You studied him for a second longer, like you were trying to read something beneath the surface, before your smile returned, softer now.

“Good,” you said lightly.

And just like that, the moment shifted again. You turned back to the map, reaching for your quill and stretching your fingers with a soft exhale–

And your elbow caught the ink pot.

“Oh–!”

The small container tipped. Ink spilled in a dark, sudden wave – across the edge of the parchment, over the table– and onto him.

You froze horrified.

“Oh no– Azriel, I’m so sorry–”

The stain spread across the side of his hand, dark against his skin, a streak trailing toward his wrist. A smaller drop had caught the fabric of his sleeve.

Azriel didn’t move. Just looked down at it, as if it took him a moment to process what had happened.

You were already reaching for him.

“I didn’t mean to– I wasn’t paying attention–”

Your fingers closed gently around his wrist, pulling his hand toward the candlelight without hesitation, your focus entirely on the mess you’d made.

“There’s– hold on–”

Azriel went still.

Your touch was quick at first, flustered– grabbing the cloth, coming back to him without letting go.

But then it slowed and softened.

His wings twitched behind him.

“Sorry,” you murmured again, quieter now, your thumb brushing faintly along his scarred skin as you wiped the ink away. “I’ll fix it.”

Bu he wasn’t listening to the words, he was watching you.

The way your brows drew together in concentration. The careful precision of your movements, even now. The gentleness in your touch, despite your embarrassment.

As if you couldn’t help it, as if softness was simply part of you.

His shadows stirred. They slipped closer, curling faintly around your wrist where you held him, brushing against your skin like a question.

Your gaze flicked briefly toward them but you didn’t pull away and didn’t tense.

“It’s alright,” you murmured softly, almost absentmindedly.

And whether you meant him or them, he didn’t know.

Something in his chest tightened.

You turned his hand slightly, angling it toward the light, your thumb brushing more deliberately now across his palm as you cleaned the remaining ink. It was careful and unhurried.

And then–

You slowed because you felt his stillness and the way he hadn’t moved.

The way his gaze had settled on you, something deep. Something that made your breath catch.

You looked up.

Oh.

He was closer than you realized and your fingers were still wrapped around his wrist.

His hand warm beneath yours.

Neither of you pulled away and then the space shifted quietly.

You leaned in just slightly.

Azriel’s breath faltered and his gaze dropped briefly to your lips.

So close.

For one fragile, suspended heartbeat, he let himself want it. And just for a moment Azriel let himself feel it. All of it. The want. The pull. The dangerous, fragile thing blooming in his chest that had nothing to do with control and everything to do with you.

And it terrified him because he knew the moment he crossed that line there would be no going back.

His fingers turned beneath yours, just enough to brush against your palm, closing the distance further. He felt your soft and warm skin under his scarred fingers.

And that was what broke him. He pulled back firmly. Like he had forced himself to stop something already in motion.

You don’t touch something that you don’t deserve to hold, he told himself. You’re not about to ruin it.

Your hand slipped from his. The warmth of his fingers gone too quickly.

“I–” you started softly, breath uneven. “I’m sorry, I didn’t–”

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

His voice was low and controlled.

Silence followed.

You nodded faintly, stepping back just enough to put some space between you.

“Alright,” you said gently.

And because you didn’t push, you never did, you turned back to the map.

Azriel didn’t move. His shadows were no longer calm. They shifted restlessly around him, unsettled, as if reacting to something he refused to name.

Because now he knew, exactly how easily he could lose control around you. How little distance it would take to ruin you.

His shadows hovered close to you like they had chosen a side.

And something in his chest, something tightly bound, carefully controlled had shifted. It loosened enough to be dangerous because now he knew exactly what it felt like to be touched by you. And worse to be left without it.

So he did one thing he was exceptionally good at. He blended into shadows leaving you alone because he hadn’t so much courage to reach for you again.

At first, you told yourself nothing had changed.

That it had simply been a moment, misread, misstepped, easily tucked away and forgotten if you just let it be. You were good at that. At letting things be.

So the next evening, you returned to the cartography room as you always did. You lit the candles. Laid out your work. Dipped your quill into ink with steady hands.

You did not think about the way the door remained closed.

It was quiet. But this quiet was empty and it stretched too far.

But you had to work anyway. Your focus was sharp, deliberate, the lines on your map precise as ever but every now and then, your attention drifted. Just briefly. Just enough to notice things you hadn’t before.

The absence of a second presence near the table. No shadows curling lazily at the edges of your parchment. No cup of tea placed silently at your elbow. You told yourself it didn’t matter.

The next night, he still didn’t come. By the third, you stopped expecting him. It was a small shift. So small, perhaps, that no one else would have noticed it. But you did. You stopped glancing at the door. Stopped leaving space at the edge of the table. Stopped speaking your thoughts aloud into the quiet, as if someone might be listening.

But you worked later than before. Stayed longer as if some part of you still hoped–

No.

You didn’t let yourself finish that thought.

Days passed.

And when you did see him, it was different.

The first time was in the hallway. You had turned a corner too quickly, your attention elsewhere, and nearly walked straight into him. You stopped short.

For a heartbeat, you were close enough that you could see the faint scar along his jaw, the shadows already curling faintly at his shoulders.

Close enough that it felt… familiar.

“Sorry,” you said softly, stepping back.

Azriel inclined his head. A polite acknowledgment. Nothing more.

“I didn’t see you.”

“You’re fine.” His voice was even and neutral.

When silence lingered for a moment too long, you offered him a small smile. The same one you always had. Soft and easy. But this time, it didn’t quite reach your eyes.

“I hope you’re doing well.”

Azriel’s gaze flickered, briefly, to your face.

 “It is.”

The pause was painful.

“I’m glad,” you said.

And because there was nothing else to say, you stepped around him and continued down the hall.

Azriel didn’t turn to watch you go but his shadows did.

And After that, it became a pattern. A painful one.

He was still there. In the townhouse. In the city. In the spaces you moved through. But never with you.

If you entered a room, he would leave shortly after. If you lingered, he found reason not to stay. If your paths crossed, his words were brief and measured. Just enough to be polite. Never enough to be anything more.

So you adjusted. Of course you did. You always did.

You spoke less when he was near. Stopped looking for him in crowded rooms and wondering if he would appear at the doorway while you worked late into the night.

But sometimes… just sometimes…

Late, when the candles burned low and the room felt too large for just one person, you would pause with quill hovering over parchment and think that it meant something.

But at last you always shook the thought away. It didn’t. It couldn’t have. You had simply misunderstood.

And so you did what you had always done when something didn’t fit. You let it go. Or at least, you tried to.

But the space he left behind did not disappear.

Across the city, high above the gentle glow of Velaris, Azriel stood alone on a balcony, shadows restless at his shoulders.

He hadn’t meant for it to go this far, for the distance to feel so final. But every time he thought of returning, of stepping back into that room, into that quiet space beside you, he remembered the way you had looked at him.

Soft. Certain. Too trusting.

And the way he had almost–

His jaw tightened.

It was better this way. It had to be. Because you were already beginning to let him go. He had seen it in the hallway, in the way your smile no longer lingered.

And that was safer. Even if it felt like something inside him was being carved out slowly, piece by piece, with every step he took away from you.

Azriel exhaled sharply, his shadows curling tighter around him with displeasure. They still drifted toward you when you were near. Still lingered in the spaces you left behind. As if they hadn’t understood why he had walked away from something that had never once feared them.

Azriel closed his eyes for a moment and wished, dangerously, uselessly wished that he didn’t understand it either.

Time has been passing in a haze of maps and ink and you adjusted.

You learned how to fill the silence he had left behind, focusing on your work, steadying your thoughts, telling yourself that nothing had really changed. That whatever had existed between you had never been something you were meant to hold onto.

But still, sometimes, your hand would pause mid-line, your attention drifting, not to the map, but to the doorway just for a moment. Just long enough to notice it remained empty.

You stopped expecting him. Or at least, you tried to.

It happened gradually after that.

The shift.

Not in you, not entirely, but in the way the world seemed to press in around the absence he left behind.

So when someone else stepped into that space…

You didn’t turn away.

He introduced himself easily, like he belonged there, voice warm, smile practiced, the kind that didn’t hesitate. He spoke of your work with interest, with admiration that felt immediate and unguarded in a way Azriel had never been.

Damien.

You found yourself nodding along, answering, letting the conversation carry where silence had once settled.

And he stayed, closer than necessary sometimes. Leaning over your shoulder to study your maps, his presence filling the space that had once felt… different and quieter.

“This line–” he said one afternoon, reaching past you to guide your hand, his fingers brushing yours. “You’re overthinking it.”

His touch lingered just a fraction too long but you didn’t pull away because it was easier not to.

“You’re good at this,” he added, voice light, approving. “Better than most I’ve seen.”

The compliment landed differently than it should have. But still it filled something, even if only for a moment.

You told yourself it was fine. That this was normal. That this – conversation, attention, presence – was what you had been missing. Not something quieter. Not something harder to name.

And yet… There were moments. Small ones. Where something just felt… off.

The way his smile lingered just a little too long, like it expected something in return. The way his hand would guide yours, not gently, but with a subtle insistence, as if correcting rather than helping. The way his voice, sometimes, edged just slightly, not enough to call it unkind, but enough that it left something uneasy behind.

But you let it pass.

Because somewhere, quieter than all of that, was the memory of a different kind of touch. Careful. Gentle in a way that never asked for anything back.

You didn’t let yourself dwell on it.

But sometimes… Late, when the room grew still and the candlelight softened everything into something almost unreal… You felt it. Not him. Not really. But something close enough to make your chest tighten.

A shift in the air. A faint flicker at the edge of your vision. The quiet, familiar sense of being… watched.

His shadows.

They lingered, even when he did not.

And that was the hardest part because it meant he was still there somewhere and still aware, still close enough to know. Just not close enough to stay.

But you swallowed this thought down.

And when Damien appeared again, leaning easily against the edge of your table, offering that same easy smile, you didn’t hesitate this time.

“Go out with me,” he said lightly. “You spend too much time in here.”

You should have thought about it. Should have weighed it. Should have listened to the small, quiet instinct that whispered something wasn’t quite right.

But instead, you thought of empty doorways. Of silence that stretched too long. Of a touch that had almost meant something–

So you smiled and said:

“Alright.”

And somewhere, unseen, the shadows shifted restlessly as if they understood something their master refused to face.

The cartography room had always felt like a sanctuary. Soft candlelight. Quiet focus. The steady rhythm of ink against parchment.

But tonight, something in it felt… off.

Damien stood beside you again, leaning over your shoulder as you worked, his presence pressing into your space in a way that made it harder to breathe and harder to think.

“No, no–” he sighed, reaching for your hand, guiding it without asking. “Like this. It’s not that complicated.”

His fingers tightened slightly around yours as he adjusted your line. Not gently.

You tried to follow, to focus, but the terrain blurred beneath your gaze.

“I– wait,” you murmured softly. “I just need a second to–”

He let out a short, sharp laugh.

“A second?” he repeated. “Gods, are you even trying?”

Your hand stilled. Something in your chest tightened. You have been dating him for a couple of months now but it still wondered you that he got irritated and angry this easily.

“I am,” you said quietly.

He leaned back slightly, looking down at the map, then at you– his expression shifting into something edged, something impatient.

“It’s simple,” he said. “You’re just… overthinking it. Or maybe you just don’t see it.”

A pause.

Then, almost under his breath:

“Honestly, maybe you’re just stupid.”

The word landed harder than it should have.

Your fingers curled slightly around the quill and for a moment, you said nothing.

Then he straightened, already losing interest, already stepping away.

“Forget it,” he added with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I’ll come back when you’ve figured it out.”

And just like that, he left, closing door behind him with a soft click.

Silence filled the room again.

Your hand trembled slightly as you set the quill down. You stared at the map, but the lines didn’t make sense anymore. Not the way they had before. Your chest felt tight. Too tight.

“You’re not stupid.”

You froze.

The shadows near the far wall shifted and then he stepped out of them.

Azriel.

You didn’t turn immediately not trusting your voice.

“I heard him,” he continued, quieter now, but no less firm. “And you shouldn’t let him speak to you like that.”

You let out a small breath, something between a laugh and a scoff.

“You don’t get to say that,” you replied softly.

That made him still.

You turned. There was something sharp in your expression, not anger, not fully, but something close enough to cut.

“You don’t get to disappear,” you went on, voice still quiet but no longer soft, “and then come back just to tell me how I should let people treat me.”

Azriel’s jaw tightened.

“I’m not telling you what to do,” he said, more controlled than he felt. “I’m telling you he’s not a good male. And you shouldn’t–”

“Shouldn’t what?”

You stepped toward him now, frustration finally breaking through the careful calm you always carried.

“Shouldn’t spend time with him?” you asked. “Shouldn’t let him near me?”

A bitter edge slipped into your voice.

“Because you decided you didn’t want to?”

That hit him like a slap. Azriel went still.

“You say things like that,” you continued, your voice wavering just slightly now despite your effort to keep it steady, “and then you leave. You pull back like none of it meant anything.”

“It did mean something,” he said, sharper now.

“Then why did you walk away?”

The question hung there in the silence, heavy and unanswered.

You swallowed, shaking your head slightly.

“I can handle myself,” you said more quietly now. “I don’t need you stepping in only when it’s convenient.”

Azriel’s shadows curled tighter around him restlessly.

“It’s not about convenience,” he said, voice lower now. “It’s about you being hurt.”

“I’m already hurt,” you replied before you could stop yourself.

The words slipped out too fast from your mouth.

Then silence followed. Your breath caught and looked away first.

“I have work to finish,” you said softly, retreating back toward the table, toward something safe, something you could control.

Azriel didn’t move.

He watched you. The way your shoulders had drawn in just slightly. The way your hands weren’t quite as steady as before. And something in him, something tightly held, carefully restrained, strained harder against its limits.

Because he had done this. He had left you to fill the silence with someone who didn’t deserve you.

And now he was standing here, watching the result of his own distance.

Azriel exhaled slowly, shadows shifting. He wanted to say more.

To fix it. To undo it.

But he had already taught you not to expect him to stay.

So this time he didn’t reach for you.

And for him that might have been worse than leaving you at all.

The knock was barely there. So quiet it might have been missed if he hadn’t already been awake.

Azriel opened the door almost immediately and everything in him went still.

You stood there like something fragile that had been handled too roughly. Small and shaking.

Your cheek was bruised and the mark along your throat was unmistakable; your breath uneven like it hurt to take in too much at once.

Your eyes found his and that was all it took.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered.

Azriel’s world narrowed to just you.

He stepped forward instantly, one hand coming up to cradle the back of your head, the other steadying your arm as he guided you inside.

“Hey… hey,” he murmured, voice low, soft in a way that barely contained what lay beneath it. “You’re alright. I’ve got you.”

You didn’t resist.

You let him pull you in, let him close the door behind you, let him guide you toward the bed like you didn’t have the strength to do it yourself.

 “Sit,” he said gently.

You did.

For a moment, he just looked at you. At the bruising. The way your hands trembled faintly in your lap. The way you kept your gaze lowered, like you didn’t quite deserve to meet his eyes.

Something dark and violent stirred deep in his chest but he swallowed it down and forced it still.

For you.

“What happened?” he asked quietly.

You shook your head at first. A reflex.

But his hand came to rest lightly over yours, warm and steady.

“I didn’t… want to,” you said finally, voice small and fragile. The words seemed to cost you something.

“I told him I didn’t want to be–” you faltered, swallowing hard. “I didn’t want to be close like that. And he–”

Your breath hitched.

“He got angry.”

Azriel’s fingers tightened slightly around yours.

His shadows surged – wildly, sharply, furiously.

He forced them back. Forced himself still.

“Look at me,” he murmured.

You hesitated. Then slowly, you did.

There was no judgment in his gaze. No anger directed at you. Only something steady. Something grounding. Something that made your chest ache.

“You did nothing wrong,” he said firmly.

“You hear me?”

Your lip trembled.

“I should’ve listened to you,” you whispered. “I shouldn’t have been angry. I just—”

Your voice broke.

“I thought… I just… It was childish of me to be angry with you just because you didn’t want me.”

That was it. That was the thing that broke whatever restraint he had left.

Azriel went very still.

 “Don’t,” he said, voice low, rough in a way you had never heard before. “Don’t say that.”

Your brows pulled together slightly, confused.

“Don’t say that I didn’t want you.”

“I pulled away because I was afraid,” he continued, his hand lifting carefully to your cheek but stopping just short of touching the bruise. Afraid to hurt you.

“Not because I didn’t want you,” he said. “Gods… it was the opposite.”

Your breath caught.

“You’re soft,” he went on quietly. “And good. And I didn’t trust myself not to ruin that. Not to… take too much. To want too much.”

His jaw tightened.

“I thought staying away would protect you.”

Your eyes filled again, but not the same way as before.

 “You didn’t ruin anything,” you whispered. “You just… left.”

That hit him harder than anything else.

“I know,” he said.

And after the beat he added:

“I won’t do that again.”

His hand finally moved, brushing lightly, so lightly, against your uninjured cheek.

“May I?” he asked quietly, nodding toward the bruises.

You nodded.

He moved slowly after that.

Cleaning the cut at your temple. Adjusting your sleeve to check your arm. His touch impossibly gentle, like he was afraid you might break under anything harsher.

Every now and then, you flinched. And every time, you saw it. The way something in him snapped tighter. Barely contained.

But he never let it spill onto you and made you carry that weight.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered again at some point, your voice quieter now.

His hands stilled.

“Don’t apologize for coming to me,” he said, firm but soft. “Not for this. Not ever.”

Your gaze lifted to his.

“I didn’t know where else to go,” you admitted.

Azriel exhaled slowly. Something in his expression softened further.

“Then you came to the right place. I’ll always take care of you.”

When he finished patching you up, he didn’t move away. Didn’t put distance between you again. Instead, he gently guided you back onto the bed, pulling the covers over you with quiet care.

“You need to rest,” he murmured.

You hesitated, your fingers catching lightly around his wrist before he could step back.

“Will you… stay?”

The question was small and vulnerable.

“Please?”

Azriel didn’t hesitate.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Your grip loosened, but you didn’t let go entirely. Not until your eyes began to close, your breathing evening out slowly as exhaustion finally claimed you.

He stayed exactly where he was.

Sitting beside you, his hand remained in yours.

And as you slept, something in him shifted.

Because the softness he had tried to protect by staying away… Had come to him anyway. Broken and hurt.

And he would never–

Never–

If the dying fire in the hearth was any indication of how much time had passed, the Inner Circle spent the entire night drinking. The sun would rise in just a few drowsy hours, dousing Velaris with its buttery light, wrapping the sitting room of the townhouse in ribbons of pale gold. 

Velaris’ hardest working citizens would be awake early enough to see it– the farmers, the bakers, the teachers and the rubbish collectors– while their High Lord and his Lord of Bloodshed would be passed out like a pair of bums on the couch in last night’s clothes until lunchtime. 

The thought made Azriel laugh. 

She sat beside him, leaning against his side as the vibrations of his laugh went straight to her lower belly. She leaned back to look up at him and he met her gaze instantly. The thin strap of her top slipped off her shoulder with the movement, and without removing his eyes from hers, his nimble fingers slid the strap back up her shoulder but made no further move to leave her skin. 

Her skin pebbled in response like she was the static to his looming lightning strike. Every touch between them was like standing on the precipice of a story so damning, so wild, it terrified her to let it exist unbound. All it took was a single push of courage. A single breath of wind toward an already wavering resolve.

But it never came. These boundaries that defined their relationship were elastic. Azriel pushed the line, she shoved it, but it never snapped. It was a delicate little art, but they were so profound at this dance that it was all they knew. As treacherous as their will-they-won’t-they was, they had to have derived some pleasure, even a little bit, to be able to sit there, in a room filled with their closest friends, drunk, flushed, knee to knee, skin to skin, and still call themselves the best of friends. 

A tale as old as time. A game they’ve played for years. A song whose words they could sing in their sleep. It was all of it and none of it. 

With as many drinks as she’d had, definitely three or four ahead of Azriel, she slanted into his warmth like a cat bowing its head into a tender palm. His arm draped against the back of the couch, allowing her body to nestle into his in the most casual, most friendliest, most normal of ways. The back of her hand rested on his thigh as she threw her head back in laughter at something Cassian said. 

If he was any more sober, his senses would have snapped to attention at the contact, but he couldn’t bring himself to be so skittish now. He savored the touch, the weight of her hand against his strong thigh, and had to reach for his glass just to take away the thought of holding her hand there with his own. 

“You’re staring,” She looked up at him to find his gaze already locked on her features, assessing, admiring.

“I am?” His eyes were dark, shimmering with reflection of the licking flames in the hearth. “You’ll have to forgive me if I can’t help myself.”

He couldn’t explain where he found the audacity to be so bold with a woman so beautiful. But her eyelids fluttered as she regarded him through her eyelashes, and her smile was so damning he suddenly couldn’t even remember what he’d said. 

“You’ll give our friends the wrong idea.” 

He lowered his drink to his other thigh, tightening his grip around the thick crystal-cut glass to contain himself, to contain the heat racing up and down his spine like a bucking racehorse. “What’s so wrong about it?” The side of his full lips curved upward into a playful smile but he was sincere. 

Azriel was fanning the flames of a dangerous fire. Again, they were standing at the brink of something so dangerous, so perfect, either of them could simply push a little farther and everything could finally be different. 

But no. They both enjoyed the strain for it was its own type of pleasure. 

She tried to steady herself, but with the heat of the fire, the multiple drinks, Azriel’s body heat, and mostly her own fluster, she was burning up. 

To break the intense stare neither of them could pinpoint how much time they’d spent locked in, he volunteered to refill her drink in the kitchen. As soon as his broad, black-clad frame disappeared behind the threshold of the sitting room, her shoulders drooped and she ran her palms over her face in frustration. 

It was such a tease, this whole situation. Like a cruel little joke, even if they did find some sick indulgence in it. 

When she thought about it– which she tried not to do too often– it was downright treacherous what they were doing to each other. All of this had to mean something, right? Two people don’t just touch each other on purpose, hold each other's heavy gazes in crowded rooms, for no reason, right?

“Where’d your boyfriend go?” Mor demanded, plopping down beside her where Azriel had just sat. The tequila sloshed over the lip of her glass with the heavy landing. 

“He’s not my boyfriend,” she replied with little conviction. As much as it was the truth, it felt ridiculous to say it. 

“Everyone sees the way he looks at you. The way you look at him. He can hardly breathe right if you aren’t in the room. It’s not a secret, if you both are keeping it one,” she took a sip of her drink, repainting the bright red lipstick mark on the rim that became her signature. Sometimes she envied Mor’s effortless femininity, her languid sensuality, that poised her at the receiving end of many amorous advances and escapades. As hard as she tried, she couldn’t be as casual as Mor was. She needed commitment, stability, and unconditionality from the one person she would give her everything to. 

Which is why, as much as she loved Azriel, he bothered her. It was more than obvious they were more than friends– the way they touched each other, the things they told each other, the time they spent together– there was no logical way to deny it. But they’d never talked about putting a name to whatever this was or committing themselves to each other. She was lucky enough to find herself in that god-awful middle ground, the foggy, gray, no-man’s-land that every non-committal male sought refuge in when things got even mildly serious. She couldn’t understand why it was so hard to move past this purgatory when it was clear enough to her that she wanted no male more deeply, more dangerously, than she wanted Azriel. 

“We haven’t talked about it,” was all she said, suddenly uncomfortable. She loved Azriel, but it would destroy her if all this was to him was a “good time.” There was nothing inherently wrong with one night stands or friends with benefits, but there was when her heart was a part of it too. Suddenly, the thought that his might not be stirred the alcohol in her stomach. 

“But you are having sex?” Mor asked, a little louder than necessary. She was no longer lounging into the couch– she was fully sat up, legs tucked under her body, and spine rod-straight with attention. 

“Mor!”

“Okay, you’re right I didn’t need to ask that. For such a big, beautiful house, the walls are quite thin,” she chuckled to herself. 

“What, do you think he’s using me?” She couldn’t be bothered to feign mortification at the revelation that apparently the entire house could hear the two of them sharing beds. 

Mor’s face softened immediately, sobering slightly at the sight of her friend in visible distress. “Oh, darling. Azriel is a good man–”

“He’s very kind.”

“The kindest,” Mor pursed her lips, pausing for a beat, before setting her glass down on the floor beside the couch. She took both of her friends’ hands in her own, forcing their gazes to align. “But he is a male, at the end of the day. And they often think with their dicks first, brains second.”

“Azriel is sensible…” she reasoned, not sure where Mor was going with this. 

That was a terrible lie, though. She knew exactly what Mor was insinuating because she thought about it every day too. Every time he left her bed, every time he touched her, every time he said something that just-friends don’t say to each other, she wondered what his intentions were. 

In her reckless need for him, she’d abandoned all expectations, all reservations, and given herself to Azriel wholly. She’d closed her eyes and leaped. When it came to Azriel, there was no thinking, no calculating, and she hadn’t registered how foolish that might be until now. 

—-

Speaking of foolishness. 

That train of thought crashed and burned, a smoking pile of faraway fears, when his hot lips bit at the soft spot behind her ear.

“Azriel,” his name was a breathless sigh on her tongue. 

“Tell me to leave, and I will,” he murmured, his voice a deep husk of what it usually was, the pitch reaching so deep into her that it pulled and twisted her gut into a tangle of nerves, raw and fervent, like matchsticks ready to light from the mere breath of fire alone. 

This was so bad. She should’ve been embarrassed how easy it was to get here. Azriel brought her back a drink but she couldn’t finish it when the conversation with Mor suddenly left her sick to her stomach (but no less sober). She tried to get away– tried to remove herself from his proximity for the night by feigning exhaustion– but of course she couldn’t deny him when he offered to walk her upstairs, a hand on her lower back. Of course she couldn’t deny him when he followed her into the room, sat next to her on the bed, then looked at her with those deep, conversational eyes that said so much more than he ever did, a man of few words that he was. 

“Stay.” she heard herself say before her mind could even understand what her heart had demanded first.

And it was all he needed to hear before pushing his body on hers and slanting his perfect lips over her own. The way they came together, the way their bodies fit, was otherworldly. Each time their bodies meshed it was so good it almost felt instinctual, like they’d done this in a previous lifetime. 

He savored the feeling of their chests pressed against each other and his heart palpitated like uneven footsteps, frantically searching for hers to match. Sobered from the alcohol and now drunk off her taste, there wasn’t one part of him that would not give anything to have her like this forever.

She could have floated between worlds with how weightless she felt as Azriel’s plush lips moved against hers, tasting her and taking his time. It was sweet, and admiring, and a little desperate, the way they exchanged breaths and looked for each other through touch and taste alone. 

Azriel clutched the back of her neck to support her as he slowly pushed her down into the mattress, never once coming up for a breath. She was the air he breathed, the oxygen in his lungs, what else did he need?

He anchored himself above her with a knee between her legs and a strong hand at her hips. One of her hands flew to the nape of his neck and tangled in his mess of curls there while the other hooked onto the front of his shirt, trying to pull him closer, but popping open a few more buttons instead. 

She sighed as he shifted peppering kisses from the corner of her mouth to the soft skin behind her ear again, arching into his body against her better judgment, feeling his strong thigh against her. Like a wave in the ocean curling up towards the moon, she sought to be swept up into his gravity. Governed solely by the intoxicating scent of the crook of his neck, she lifted her hips to feel his strong thigh again, to touch her chest to his. She needed more friction and he groaned with the knowledge of it, shifting one hand under her hips to prop her up against the thigh he moved closer. 

Any inhibitions that reappeared between her sobering up after the conversation with Mor and Azriel kissing her tonight were discarded like dirty laundry somewhere far, far away. 

This is right, she told herself over and over again, the mantra chiming like worship bells in her mind. Nothing wrong could feel this good. 

“I can never get enough of you,” he murmured against her flushed skin, taking in her scent as if he’d run out of breath without it. 

“Are you saying–” she pushed the words out between breaths of hot air, too afraid to waste time talking and miss even a second of this. “– you think of me? Even when we aren’t in the same room?” It was a teasing tone, but she meant every word. She needed to know. 

“All the fucking time. I thought that was obvious.”

It was as if the confession ignited a second fire within him. Azriel carried the kiss from behind her ear, down the side of her neck, to her exposed shoulder and collarbone, daring to bite, as if to test her willingness. 

She sighed as she felt his low groan against her skin, the vibration piercing down to her very bones, searching for his lips until they found each other again. His thumb found the strip of bare skin between the hem of her shirt and the waistband of her pants. The feeling of his skin there sent a jolt through her system. Azriel slowly pushed his hand upwards, bunching her shirt between his thumb and forefinger as he went. As his hands slid her shirt up her torso, he kissed the skin as it revealed itself to him, warm and soft like the petals of a summer flower. 

With feverish need, Azriel brought his lips back to hers as his hand slipped completely under her shirt, softly grabbing her, wanting to feel her moan into his mouth as she always did when he touched her there. He held her like no one else could ever manage.

A brush of his thumb sent a jolt of awareness through her, like a splash of ice cold water to the face. 

“Wait,” she breathed out, as if it took every ounce of willpower to stop him. It did. She didn’t want him to stop, but she knew he should. 

Azriel’s hand slid out of her shirt immediately, and he lifted his head just enough to read her eyes. They were darkened with something he couldn’t place, and her eyebrows knitted so low on her forehead, it took everything in him not to reach out and smooth the crease between them.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry, I just–” 

“Don’t,” he shook his head, fixing the strap of her right shoulder as he smiled ever so softly. “Don’t apologize.”

“What is this?” She blurted out.

Azriel paused, unable to follow. “What is…this?”

“I mean,” she sighed, frustrated at her sudden inability to source words and form coherent thoughts. She was doing this now, it seemed. “What do you want from this? You and I?”

“I want you.” Azriel replied incredulously, as if it was painfully obvious. He dipped his head to place a kiss on the edge of her lips and his hand slid up the plane of her exposed belly. Methodically, he pressed his thigh between her legs again, as if to remind her. As if she could forget, underneath him like this. 

The sigh that escaped her lips was involuntary, but as quickly as she felt her need overtake, she tamped it back down.

Impatiently, she swatted his hand off and pushed her blouse down. “Azriel, listen to me. I mean, where do you see this going?” After some initial hesitation- “What do you see us becoming?”

Azriel shouldn’t have laughed. He knew that as soon as it escaped his lips and her eyebrows furrowed in response, but it was too late. He didn’t even mean to, his body only reacted to the panic it felt when she asked such a question, and Mother above, was he incredibly dense for that. 

“Get off of me.” She deadpanned, pushing her hand against his chest. 

She’d never felt more vulnerable. Underneath this man she loved like she hadn’t loved anyone else, to have him laugh in her face when she tried to bear her heart to him was like a terrible dream come true. One she’d convinced herself many times impossible of materializing.

“I didn’t mean to laugh–“

“Azriel, get off of me.”

She pushed against his chest again and he sat up immediately. He flexed his hands, suddenly cold from the loss of her skin against his. 

She sat up as well, adjusting her top. “Azriel, I need to know if you’re serious about me. I feel like we always tiptoe around whatever this is between us, but I can’t keep doing it if this isn’t serious to you.” 

She needed to know that he felt the same, or everything had to stop. Even if she could never love another male the same ever again. That’s the price she had to pay, she supposed, for loving so wholly, so stupidly, before she even knew if he was ready to do the same. 

It was everything he’d been waiting to hear. Dreaming of, praying for, almost convincing himself that her loving him was only a fairy tale that existed for his indulgence, and nothing more. But fear was taking over him as well. 

“Of course I enjoy being with you.” 

“That’s not what I asked.”

Azriel ran a hand through his disheveled curls, shaking his head. Say the right thing. Say the right thing. Say what you’ve been waiting to say. But no.  “Where is this coming from?”

“Why can’t you answer my question?”

“Because I don’t understand what’s changed for you, all of a sudden. You know how I feel about you, isn’t that enough?” He didn’t mean it- the question or the accusatory tone it carried. It was a valid question– he was wondering when she’d put an end to this. She needed more than just a physical connection to be truly fulfilled- she needed him to be the emotionally available male she deserved. 

“I–,” she bit her tongue before the word love could follow. “I just need to know if you’re serious about me because Azriel– fuck I just can’t ever seem to stop thinking of you. The thought that I just might be a ‘good time’ and nothing more to you makes me fucking sick, because I’ve never felt like this about anyone else. So I need to be sure… I need to be sure you’re not fucking around with me before I let you have me. All of me.”

Azriel was stunned into silence. Completely mute. Words failed him. Grammar failed him. He could barely get a syllable out and he’d never felt more foolish in his life. The sight of her vulnerability dried his throat and shallowed his breathing. An absolutely terrible time to go completely dumb, he recognized that, but she had this effect on him– made him lose touch with himself, lose his grasp on reality. 

Everything he’d ever dreamed of– really, it was only her he dreamed of– flashed before his eyes like a moving picture. The love of his life, the very same one he’d convinced himself would never love him back just confessed that she did. That she wants for no other male but him. All those years he’d spent dreaming of her, awake or asleep, of sharing a life were not so self-indulgent after all. Even with this revelation that filled him with such a happiness it made him nauseous, he felt it all wrong. 

Wrong, wrong, wrong. 

She was wrong. There was no way someone like her– as intelligent, independent, and kind-hearted as her– could truly desire someone like him. 

Perhaps it was only a phase. They shared every single thought, and occasionally beds, with each other- she could easily confuse those feelings with something else. It was the only thing that made sense to Azriel, for the man could not fathom someone loving him of their own volition, with their own sound mind. He felt the need to protect her from the evil in the world, and in his mind, that included him. He would not ruin her, would not deprive her of the things he couldn’t give her. The Mother knew there was nothing in this world she wouldn’t have if she asked Azriel for it, but he just couldn’t give her this one thing. 

But even that thought filled him with a newer rage. The thought of another male holding her, touching her, listening to her thoughts and secrets, another man protecting her, providing for her, loving her and waking up everyday with the privilege of getting to share this life with her. It made him want to crush the mountains that surrounded this house with his bare hands until they were nothing but powder on the ground. 

Azriel couldn’t think about that right now, though. She could be much happier without his burdens, and he resolved a long time ago that this was the way he would love her. From afar. Even if it hurt him, that’s what you do for the people you love, he told himself. 

He knew what he had to do. 

So he shook his head, slowly stretching one leg at a time over the edge of her bed until he was standing next to it, leaving her sitting there with her shoulders slouched forward, eyes never leaving his. They pleaded for him to say something she wanted to hear, to confirm that everything they’d been doing these past years meant something. That he hadn’t led her on. It never came. 

“You don’t mean that.” was all he said. It tore him in two to say it, serrated his irregular heart into messy, darkened halves. 

She deserved better than what he had to offer. If it meant that he had to hurt her to protect her, he would do it. Azriel never claimed to be a hero or a villain, something in between better suited him, but he would gladly become the villain in her story to protect her. To make hating him easier. He saw the way she looked at him, noted how she told him things she never told anyone else. The details of her childhood, her day, asking for his opinion on things even though they had different tastes. He saw it now– she really was in love. 

“I don’t know if she’s just being kind,” Azriel shrugged one day a few months ago, lounging in the chair opposite from Rhys’ desk. 

“When a woman like that loves someone, she can’t hide it,” It was all Rhys had to say to confirm what Azriel already knew. Rhys knew as much as any of their friends did how she felt. Azriel did too. But his self-loathing was a cruel thing. 

Her eyebrows furrowed and she sat up straighter. “Of course I do, Az. I wouldn’t make that up.” She reached her arm out, intending to take his hand in her own, but he pulled back and she too yanked her arm back in response, as if burned at the fingertips by his sudden aversion. 

“It’s understandable to want more when we’ve already bared so much ourselves to each other,” He stepped backward. “But I see now that we aren’t on the same page.” 

She saw the lie in his eyes like she could see stars in the sky. A bright, blinking lie. Of course she could, she knew him like she knew the sun rose in the east and set in the west. She just didn’t understand why he was pushing her away. But more than that, his rejection burned like acid in her gut, eating her from the inside out. The pit in her stomach grew deeper, hotter, as he backed up. 

If she asked for the moon, Azriel wouldn’t think twice to grab it with his bare hands and pull it down to earth. If she asked for the stars he’d spend centuries collecting each of them one by one. But if she asked for him, all of him, his pain, his joy, his trauma, his hopes, he couldn’t promise it to her. He would not allow her to shoulder his burdens, to feel the pain he did. Because she would truly feel all of it. That’s the person she was and he could not let her put herself through that.

There was no easy way to break her heart, but perhaps making her hate him would be one last kindness he could afford her. This disappointment would just be one of many if he allowed her to love him, and she’d be unhappy soon enough. 

“Azriel,” her voice cracked and she bunched up the fabric of the duvet in her fist to ease the burning in her throat. A telltale precursor of a breakdown, he knew. “I don’t understand. You said–”

“We both said a lot of things,” Azriel said simply, unable to meet her eyes. “But at the end of the day, they’re all just words, are they not?”

“Just words?” She furrowed her eyebrows, pushing the tears to her waterline as she did. “I pour my heart out to you every day for years, and they’re just words to you?”

“That’s not what I meant–” Fuck. It was coming out all wrong. Or maybe it was coming out perfectly– the more Azriel could fuck this up, the easier it would be for her to forget him. 

“You are my best friend. But we’ve done things and told each other things best friends don’t. Why are you denying all these years of our relationship, Azriel? What are you running from?” She pleaded. Her voice was raw, throat hoarse. Azriel had kept her closer than the rest but still struggled with shutting her out when she got too close. In hindsight, knowing this about him, she didn’t understand how she could’ve thought this conversation could’ve gone any differently than this. “Just talk to me.”

Those four words were a last ditch effort, a final rap of her knuckles against his tightly shut doors, to be let in. They could just talk about this. 

He couldn’t bring himself to say what he wanted to say, even if she asked for it. So he resorted to hurt once again. 

“I care about you very much, but … we are not on the same fucking page.”

Azriel watched her face crumple and she turned her head away, unable to keep the single tear at her waterline from trickling over. Angrily, she wiped it away. 

“You’re an asshole for lying to yourself. To me.” The words were gritty and edged with grief. No one’s dead, but something that was once very much alive here is gone. 

So maybe he did love her. But his decision, the resolve in his eyes, to live and make peace with the cowardice that told him to walk away from something so beautiful, she realized, he did not love her enough. 

The conclusion hit her as if she’d flown straight into the side of Ramiel, ramming into the rock and tumbling down the face of the mountain uselessly until she was a pile of heartbreak at the bottom. 

“I just need some time.”

“Get out.”

Azriel was silent, but made no move to leave. Suddenly he was rethinking everything, wondering if he made a grave mistake. In an instant, she was changed. The light in her eyes was gone, the glow in her skin had dulled, and she looked so very tired. When her gaze held his, there was no warmth, no recognition, no love. He felt like a stranger under her watch, and he suddenly had the feeling that he was intruding. 

Azriel told himself that he was doing it out of love. That these are things you do, sacrifices you make, when you love as hard as he loved her. 

“Get out!”

Azriel stayed for a few more seconds, as if he wanted to memorize her as much as he could. The sight of her hair slightly disheveled, looking absolutely flushed from his doing, with eyes and skin so unbelievably soft only inches away from his reach, would haunt him asleep or awake, dead or alive. 

Then he was gone, closing her door softly behind him. The click of the latch solidified the finality of his actions. His regret would live within him– a living, breathing, hideous thing– forever. 

If he couldn't have her, he could never love anyone else again.

She wanted nothing else in this world more than she wanted him to stay, to say he had made a stupid mistake and meant none of what he said, to get under her blankets, and hold her until the sun stopped rising, the moon stopped setting, and the rest of the world fell away. 

If she couldn't have Azriel, she could never love anyone else again.

——- 

Breakfast was quiet. Everyone was hungover and exhausted. Rhys sat at his chair, quietly making conversation with Feyre who kept going for another cup of coffee. Cassian slumped over his plate of eggs, but still made the most conversation. Whether anyone was actually listening was another story. Mor pretended to nod but she couldn’t care less. 

Elain sat beside Feyre quietly, breaking apart a piece of toast. She spent the night in her room reading so she was far from hungover, but she refused to make eye contact with anyone at the table. It was strange, considering how much progress she was making with everyone, but bad dreams happened and the Mother knew she was probably having her fair share of them recently.

Amren was the only one sitting rod-straight, a book in her hands, sipping her special little drink from her cup. Rhys was more than kind to let her drink it at breakfast when there were more than one queasy stomachs at the table. Not that she needed his permission anyway. 

The only person missing was Azriel. She felt his absence heavy in her chest. Not just from the table, but from her life, now, it seemed. She didn’t even realize Feyre was calling her name until the fourth time she said it.

“Hmm?” She forced herself back into the present, eyes darting to Feyre’s.

“Are you okay?” Feyre asked, holding her gaze.

Azriel’s husky voice asking the same question filled her head without warning, invading her memories and her reality once again. 

She was not fine. She felt the ghost of his touch and breath, his familiar warmth, wash over her body. The way he looked at her as if she was the first time he saw anything in color.  

She remembered his rejection, too.

Feyre called her name again and she snapped to attention, shaking her head. “I’m fine.”

“Some night you must have had,” Feyre chuckled.

“I told you Winter Court wine will fuck you up. You don’t know it’s working until it’s too late,” Rhys laughed, pouring her a glass of water and handing it to her from across the table. “Drink up everyone, we’re due at the Day Court by sundown.”

“Kallias has a very acquired taste, I’ll give him that,” she sighed, gratefully accepting the cold glass and downing half of it in a second. 

“They need to stay warm up there somehow,” Cassian chimed in, ever the selective academic he was. 

As the water cooled her nerves slightly, Azriel appeared in the doorway to the dining room and she was damned to hell all over again.

Everyone greeted him and even though he replied to them all, his eyes only sat on hers. The only open spot at the table was the one directly across from her and he sat, rigid and unflinching, unable to meet her gaze anymore from such a close proximity.

“Good morning,” his voice was low and aimed only at her. If she had any more energy, she would’ve laughed that that’s the first thing he chose to say after their conversation last night. She broke apart her toast with no acknowledgement of his attempt to break their stalemate.  

“What the fuck is that?” Cassian’s loud voice broke her from her trance.

Rhys winced, holding his head. “Not so loud, we talked about this.” 

“Az, you cheeky bastard, what did you crazy kids get up to last night?” Cassian’s eyes darted between her and Azriel, pointing out the dark mark on his neck.

“What are you on about?”  

Azriel started, as if remembering it was there all of a sudden, pulling his shirt collar tighter around his neck and clearing his throat.

Rhys whistled upon realization and Feyre and Mor’s eyes darted to hers in silent awe. 

She squinted at the mark, assessing. Did she do that? It was a dark, angry little spot that sat at the base of his neck, fresh enough that it was obvious it was made only a few hours ago. 

With frigid realization, she knew she hadn’t done that. He’d kissed her neck last night, but she hadn’t kissed his. 

She slowly looked up at Azriel for the first time that morning. His eyes were downcast as he poured his cup of tea. If she blinked, she would’ve missed his fleeting glance in Elain’s direction. But she didn’t miss it, and she quickly looked to Elain, who was red as a beet and hiding behind a curtain of her unbound, chestnut hair. 

Cassian didn’t miss a beat either– he had a sixth sense for this kind of thing. “No way,” he whispered.

“What?” Feyre demanded.

Her eyes focused on the mark on his neck again. Maybe she did do it. She had a lot to drink. But no. They never left marks where others could see them. The angry little thing on his skin was amateur at best. 

Small giggles sprouted from different ends of the table, but it was all a blur to her. 

“No fucking way.” Cassian repeated himself, louder. 

“Spit it out.” Amren demanded, but Amren’s eyes were on her, clocking the silent horror that molded her features rather than the surprise or amusement that defined everyone else’s 

“Nothing. Mind your own business,” Azriel’s voice was thick and stern and nowhere as warm as it was last night.

“You and Elain??” Cassian cried in disbelief. 

Forks clattered clumsily on their plates. The laughter stopped like someone sucked the air clean out of the room. No one moved, but she couldn’t even breathe. Elain? 

Feyre snapped her head toward her sister, eyes wide. “What?”

“What?” Rhys echoed through bitten teeth, clenching his jaw, his gaze burning holes in the side of Azriel’s face who suddenly did not have the balls to return the look. 

Elain shrugged sheepishly in her seat, gripping her teacup hard enough that her knuckles turned white. “When you feel that attraction, you can’t deny it. You understand that.” She watched as Elain finally lifted her head, staring doe-eyed at Azriel. A small smile graced her lips, shy and soft. 

“Attraction?” She whispered in disbelief. 

“Oh my god.” Cassian breathed.

“Cassian, shut the fuck up.” Azriel snarled. 

She felt her heart stutter before it burst, like a glass vessel under pressure. Delicate, fragile, irreparable. Nothing could calm the wave of nausea that rose and fell in her stomach- if she was going to throw up, it would be straight bile and vodka, and it would be all over this breakfast table. 

Breathe. She pleaded with herself to get a grip but she just couldn’t do it. Azriel sat in front of her, shoulders wound up tight, this time staring directly at her. His eyes were pleading as he tried to lock their gazes but she wouldn’t meet his. 

Him and Elain was a mistake, one he made when he wasn’t thinking clearly at all, and one he regretted as he started and ended the night in her bed. But most of all, one he never meant for her to know of. He wanted to make their break as clean as possible, but this was more than he bargained for. This was just plain cruel. 

He spoke her name once, desperately, but she barely registered it. The room fell away for both of them. He just wanted to get through to her, and she just needed to get out of there. 

The flashbacks from all of their days and night that gave her butterflies at one point suddenly turned into moths– unwelcome, fluttering pests that tainted her memories of the years they spent so close, years building something so entirely untrue that it hurt her heart to reminisce for too long. 

For him to open up to her and get her to open up to him, to then push her away, throw away everything she thought they had, to finally fuck another female right after, she decided she probably never knew him. Disgust flooded her and she felt like she needed to shower his touch from last night off of her instantly. She’d never felt so used in her life. 

“Fuck.” Cassian muttered. Nesta and Feyre would not take their eyes off Elain, and Rhys’ eyes bore holes in the side of Azriel’s head. Cassian was the only one who looked at her. He watched her face fall, her mind turn, as the events unfolded. The regret that gripped his heart was crushing. He reached out a hand to her knee in a show of support but she flinched involuntarily at the contact and he quickly retracted his hand to a fist against his chest.

It was embarrassing. Mor was right, everyone knew how Azriel and her had felt about each other, otherwise this wouldn’t be so tense. And as much as she knew it wasn't pity that her friends felt for her, it was something pretty damn close because how could they not feel bad for her in such a fucked up situation? That sickened her more. 

“Excuse me,” she muttered, standing up from the table and leaving the room as quickly as she could. The eyes of everyone at the table followed her out and she felt the familiar yanking in her throat before the tears pushed against her waterline. Last night already left her feeling so raw. To know Azriel had kissed her like a male deprived then gone off and fucked another woman– not just any woman, but Elain– made it hard to breathe. 

The loud screech of a skidding chair came from the dining room and heavy footsteps caught up with her in the hallway. In a moment of desperation, Azriel grabbed her arm to stop her but she whirled around, yanking her arm out of the hands that had sent her to heaven and then straight to hell all in one night. 

“Don’t fucking touch me,” she churned the words out through gritted teeth. 

“I can explain,” Azriel replied lamely, immediately feeling as dense and useless as he sounded. 

“I don’t care, Azriel. You’re a grown man, you’re free to kiss and fuck as many women in the same night as you want,” She didn’t mean it though, not after she laid her heart bare to him just a few hours ago. 

“It didn’t mean anything, I– I don’t know why–” 

“You don’t know why you went and fucked another woman after I told you you are all I can think of last night?” 

“That’s not- I didn’t mean to-”

“You didn’t mean to fuck her?” She laughed, but there was no humor or joy to be found in her eyes.  “Did you not mean to fuck me the countless times you did, then? Did you not mean to get so close to me, allow you to see me at my worst and my best? Did you not mean to just tell me those things you haven't even told Rhys and Cas? It was all a happy accident?”

“That’s not-”

“No! It’s not, you’re right, you did just say last night, more or less, all of those years we spent together, it was all just a good time to you. Right? Well, I guess you got everything you’ve ever wanted.”

She couldn’t be further from the truth. This was so much worse than what Azriel bargained for when he’d decided her hatred was easier to swallow than her disappointment. But now, regarding her sleepless face, beautiful as ever of course because it was her, he faced both her hatred and her disappointment. And now he’d hurt her in a way he never ever meant to. 

“I’m sorry.” It was all he could say. 

“Not just any woman, Azriel. Elain.” She cried incredulously. She didn’t even realize the tears were coming until her voice gave out on the sister’s name. “Three sisters for three brothers, right? You never did let that go.”

“It would’ve been easier if you told me you didn’t love me and left it at that.”

“It’s not my responsibility to make this easy for you when it hasn’t been easy for me all this time. I’ve loved you for so long and I continued to even when I wasn’t sure if you felt the same. Because that’s what you do for the people you love, you’re there for them and you continue to love them especially when it isn’t easy.”

“I never meant to hurt you, I just thought I… I wanted to believe I-” he carded his hands through his thick black hair in frustration, searching her eyes for anything other than hurt and anger, but that’s all he could find. “I thought I was doing you a favor.”

“You were being a coward. You are a coward.” She spat. “You may not have meant to, but you used me, and you of all people know how I feel about that.”

He nodded. He’d turned himself into an amalgamation of everything that had ever hurt her before, landing his blow square into her chest when she’d come so far.

“You don’t deserve this. You don’t deserve me.”

“That was never for you to decide, Azriel. These years should have been proof to you that I’d loved you exactly as you were, and it’s not your job to protect me from whatever it is you think I need protection from. I can handle it. I can handle you.”

“You can. I know you can. I’ve fucked up, truly and honestly, I don’t know how to make it up to you. Please tell me how I can make it up to you.” 

He made a step toward her out of instinct when the tears rolled down her cheeks but she stepped back as if he’d shoved a torch in her face.

“Just leave me be. You said it yourself, we aren’t on the same page. We never were, it seems.”

He took her name gently, pleadingly. She dared to look up at him once more, but he still couldn’t meet her gaze head on. It was no use talking to him when he couldn’t even look at her.

With the new wave of tears she felt coming on, she turned in her heels and took the stairs two at a time to her room before he could see anything more.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. It’s what she’s known all along. It’s exactly as she’d told herself all these years. It was never going to be you. 

That did not make it any easier though. If anything, it was a worse pain to be proven right. 

Anyway, there was no time to self-pity. 

She unlocked the screen, squinting against the brightness, and her heart did a little flip.

One unread message.

Bucky: Hey. You want to grab coffee this afternoon? I can pick you up around 3.

Sent at 8:04 AM.

She stared at the message, something warm and relieved blooming in her chest. He'd texted her. Hadn't woken up this morning and decided last night was a mistake. He'd asked her to go out.

She smiled, reading the message again, and then the time stamp caught up with her.

8:04 AM.

It was almost 10.

Fuck.

She sat up quickly, her brain scrambling, and typed out a response.

Yes! Sorry, just woke up. 3 works perfectly.

She hit send, then immediately second-guessed the exclamation point. Too eager? No. It was fine. It was coffee. She was allowed to be enthusiastic about coffee.

She set the phone down on the nightstand and exhaled, staring at the ceiling for a moment while her brain caught up with the rest of her body.

He'd texted her first.

That had to mean something, right? That he wasn't spiraling. That he actually wanted to see her.

Her phone buzzed.

She grabbed it.

Bucky: No problem. See you then.

She smiled, setting the phone back down, and then reality hit her like a truck.

Work.

Her deadline. The one she was supposed to be finishing today.

The translation she'd been working on all week was still sitting on her laptop downstairs, exactly where she'd left it before everything went sideways.

She'd just agreed to coffee at 3 without even thinking about it.

She groaned, dragging a hand down her face.

Okay. She could make this work. The translation wasn't massive, just wrapping up the final chapters, doing a polish pass to make sure the dialogue flowed naturally. She'd been on track to finish by early afternoon anyway.

She had a little over five hours to shower, get ready, knock out the rest of the work, and not overthink this coffee thing.

Totally doable.

Probably.

----

She'd said yes.

He'd been checking his phone every ten minutes since he sent the message two hours ago, even though he knew she was probably still asleep. It was Saturday. Normal people slept in on Saturdays.

But still.

The wait had been killing him.

He typed back quickly -No problem. See you then.- and shoved the phone back in his pocket, a small smile blooming at his lips despite himself.

She'd said yes.

He turned back to the display case, adjusting the position of a tray of scones that didn't really need adjusting, and allowed himself a moment to just... feel good about this.

He'd put himself out there. Sent the text. Asked her to coffee like a normal person instead of overthinking himself into a spiral.

And she'd said yes.

Last night had been a disaster in a lot of ways -the fight, the blood, the mortifying way it had ended in her kitchen- but she'd told him it was okay. That the night had been good. That she wanted to see him again.

And he'd chosen to believe her. That felt like progress.

The bell above the door chimed, and he looked up.

Dotty.

Of course.

She walked in with that same bright smile she always had, tucking her purse under one arm, moving toward the counter like she had all the time in the world.

She had come yesterday. He knew perfectly well that she didn't need anything.

He straightened, his good mood dimming slightly. "Morning, Dotty."

"Morning, James," she said warmly. Then, almost as an afterthought, "I need some of those plain crackers. The salted ones. Graham's stomach is acting up."

Bucky raised an eyebrow. "Again?"

"He eats like a seventeen-year-old boy," she said with a sigh. "I keep telling him to slow down, but does he listen? No."

Bucky set the bag on the counter, ringing it up. "You spoil him."

"Someone has to," she said lightly.

She leaned against the counter then, casually, like she was just making conversation, and Bucky immediately knew something was coming.

"So," Dotty said, her tone deceptively innocent. "A bar fight? Really?"

He froze his hand on the register, and he looked up at her. "How did you-"

"Small town, James," Dotty said, her expression maddeningly calm. "Linda's nephew was there. Said you decked Bill Hunter right in the middle of Will's."

Bucky exhaled through his nose, his shoulders tensing. "It wasn't-"

"Over a woman, apparently," Dotty continued, twinkling her eyes with barely concealed amusement.

Bucky's ears went red. "Dotty-"

"The same one who just moved to River Street, if I'm not mistaken."

He didn't answer, just turned back to the register and punched in the total with more force than necessary. Then, a sigh.

"Can we not do this right now?"

"Why not?" Dotty asked, genuinely curious. "You like her and finally did something about it, like going out. And apparently defended her honor. That's good, James. I'm proud of you."

He looked at her, caught off guard. "Proud?"

"Yes," Dotty said firmly. "You put yourself out there. That takes guts. Especially for you. And… you didn't shy away when that jerk needed more than a few words to cut it out."

Bucky clenched his jaw. "You know perfectly well I haven't been that kind of person in a long time."

Dotty's expression softened. She did know. This wasn't about the hockey scraps when he was a teen, the hot-headed kid who'd throw down his gloves at the slightest provocation.

She knew he meant after.

After he came back. After the discharge. After the long stretch of months -years, really- where he'd been moving through life on autopilot, just trying to get through each day without falling apart.

"No," Dotty said quietly. "You haven't been. Which is why last night matters."

He frowned, not following.

"You cared enough to react," she said simply. "You felt something strongly enough to do something about it. That's not nothing, James."

Bucky looked down at the counter, his throat tight.

"I'm not saying fighting is the answer," Dotty continued, her tone gentle but firm. "But you stood up for someone. You let yourself feel something other than... whatever it is you've been feeling these last few years." She paused. "That's progress."

He didn't know what to say to that.

Dotty reached across the counter and patted his hand. "Just don't overthink it, okay? You have a habit of doing that."

He huffed a quiet laugh despite himself. "Yeah. I know."

"Good," Dotty said, picking up the bag of crackers. She turned to leave, but paused at the door, glancing back at him with a knowing smile.

"And James?"

"Yeah?"

"Next time, try flowers instead of fists."

The door chimed as she left, and he stood there, shaking his head.

----

He pulled up in front of her house at 2:58 PM.

Two minutes early.

He sat in the truck for a moment, staring at the dahlia on the passenger seat.

It was a deep burgundy, almost wine-colored, with a few sprigs of delicate fern tucked around it, all wrapped in clear cellophane with a simple twist of twine at the base.

He'd bought it on impulse.

After Dotty left, her parting words had stuck with him -try flowers instead of fists-and when he'd closed the bakery at 2:30, he'd found himself driving past the small flower stand outside the general store.

Before he could talk himself out of it, he'd pulled over.

Now, sitting here with the thing in his hand, he wasn't sure if it was too much.

Or too old-fashioned.

Or just... weird.

People didn't do this anymore, did they? Show up with a single flower for coffee?

Maybe she'd think it was cheesy. Or that he was trying too hard.

Maybe-

He cut himself off, exhaling through his nose.

Too late now.

He had it. He was here. And he wasn't going to sit in his truck overthinking a damn flower. So he climbed out, and walked up to her door.

His knuckles were still sore from last night -stiff and swollen enough that he'd had to work carefully all morning to avoid aggravating them further- but he managed to ring the doorbell without wincing.

Then he stood there, the dahlia in his hand, feeling like an idiot.

She was going to open the door, see the flower, and think-

The door opened.

----

She'd been ready since 2:30.

Which was ridiculous, considering he wasn't picking her up until 3.

But she'd finished the translation with twenty minutes to spare, sent it off to her boss, and then spent the remaining time changing shirts twice, and trying not to pace around her living room like a nervous wreck.

When the doorbell rang at exactly 3:00, her heart did something stupid in her chest.

She took a breath, smoothed down her shirt one last time, and opened the door.

And there he was.

Bucky. Standing on her porch in a black henley that fit him just right, not too tight, but enough that she could see the breadth of his shoulders, the soft curve of his arms. Pulling his hair back in a low ponytail, a few strands falling loose around his face.

He looked good.

Really good.

And he was holding a flower.

Her brain short-circuited for a second.

A dahlia. Deep burgundy, almost wine-colored, with delicate sprigs of fern wrapped around it in clear cellophane.

"Hi," he said, his voice a little rough. He shifted his weight, holding the flower out toward her. "I, uh... brought you this."

She stared at it, then at him, her heart doing that stupid fluttery thing again.

"I don't know if it's too old-fashioned or-" He stopped himself, his ears already turning red. "I just thought-"

"I love it," she said quickly, taking the flower from him before he could spiral.

He blinked. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." She smiled, looking down at the dahlia, her chest feeling warm and tight in the best way. "You just earned, like, a lot of points with this."

His mouth curved. Just slightly, but it was there. "Yeah?"

"Definitely." She stepped back, gesturing toward the inside of the house. "Come in for a sec? I need to put this in water."

He hesitated for just a moment, then nodded and stepped inside.

She closed the door behind him and headed toward the kitchen, glancing back when she realized he'd stopped just inside the living room doorway, his hands already going to his pockets like he was planning to wait right there.

"Come on," she said, gesturing for him to follow. "I'm not leaving you standing in the doorway like a door-to-door salesman."

His lips twitched, and he followed her into the kitchen.

She grabbed a tall glass from the cupboard and filled it with water, unwrapping the cellophane carefully before setting the flower inside.

The burgundy petals looked almost dramatic against the clear glass, the fern adding just enough softness to keep it from being too formal.

"It's beautiful," she said, adjusting it slightly on the counter. Then she turned to look at him. "Really. Thank you."

He was standing just inside the kitchen doorway, his hands in his pockets, looking like he wasn't quite sure what to do with himself.

But he was smiling. Small, a little shy, but there it was.

"You're welcome," he said quietly.

For a moment, they just stood there, looking at each other, and she felt it again, that pull. That same warmth that had been there last night, underneath all the chaos.

She cleared her throat softly. "Ready to go?"

"Yeah," he said. "Let's go."

----

The café was on the opposite side of town, on a corner with large windows and wooden tables that looked worn from use but well cared for.

Bucky parked the truck and killed the engine, turning slightly toward her.

"You want to sit outside or inside?" he asked.

She looked at the patio tables -open, visible from the street- and then at the interior of the café, more secluded.

Inside seemed more... intimate. Less exposed.

"Inside," she said.

He nodded and climbed out of the truck.

Turned out inside felt a lot more exposed than she'd anticipated.

The moment they walked through the door, she felt it.

Eyes.

Not obvious staring. Nothing that aggressive. But she could see it in her peripheral vision, the way conversations paused just slightly as they passed. The way a woman at a corner table glanced over, then leaned toward her companion to whisper something. An older man near the counter doing a double-take when he saw Bucky.

Small town.

Everyone knew.

Of course they knew.

Bucky seemed to feel it too. His shoulders were tense, and he clenched his jaw as they followed the hostess to a table near the back, tucked against the wall.

He settled into his chair across from her, resting his hands on the table for a moment before he started pulling them back into his lap.

She could see him withdrawing. Already.

Fuck that.

She reached across the table and took his hand.

Just like that. No hesitation. Sliding her fingers over his knuckles -still swollen, still bruised from last night- and closing them around his palm.

He snapped his eyes to hers, surprised.

She didn't let go.

Instead, she gave his hand a small squeeze and kept her gaze steady on his.

After a beat, something shifted in his expression.

He turned his hand over, lacing his fingers through hers properly, brushing his thumb along the side of her hand.

The tension in his shoulders eased. Just slightly.

She smiled.

A server appeared then -a young guy, maybe early twenties, with a name tag that read Tyler- holding two menus.

"Hey, folks," he said cheerfully, setting the menus down on the table. "I'll give you a minute to look over the menu, and I'll be back to take your order."

"Thanks," she said.

Their hands separated as they each reached for a menu, but the warmth of his palm lingered on hers.

She glanced up at him as she opened the menu and caught him looking at her.

His ears were a little red, but he was smiling.

Small. Almost shy.

The server came back, took their orders -coffee for both, a slice of apple pie for her, nothing for him- and disappeared again.

She looked at him across the table, dropping her eyes to his hands where they rested near his menu.

"How are they?" she asked, nodding toward his knuckles.

He glanced down, flexing his fingers slightly. The bruising had darkened overnight, purple and blue spreading across the swollen skin.

"Not as bad as they look," he said.

She raised an eyebrow.

"Okay," he admitted. "They hurt. But I've had worse."

"Hockey?" she asked.

He looked up, a little surprised.

"It was mentioned last night," she said. "At Will's. I was curious, but-" She hesitated. "Is that a touchy subject, or can I ask about it?"

He was quiet for a moment, working his jaw slightly, like he was deciding how much to say.

Then he exhaled and leaned back in his chair.

"No, it's... it's fine," he said. "I mean, it was a long time ago."

She waited, giving him space to continue.

"I got into it in high school," he said eventually. "Had a friend who convinced me to try out because they were short on players. Thought it'd last a couple months, maybe a season." His mouth twitched. "Ended up playing all four years."

"Were you good?" she asked. "Your team, I mean."

"Yeah," he said, and there was something almost proud in his tone, faint but there. "We were pretty good. Usually finished in the top three in regionals."

"Regionals?"

"County-wide," he clarified. "Small schools, mostly. But it was competitive."

She smiled. "What position did you play?"

"Defense."

She tilted her head, considering that. "That takes a lot of stamina, doesn't it?"

"Yeah," he said. "A lot, actually."

She leaned forward slightly, a teasing glint in her eye. "So you were a big guy on the team. Good stamina. Top three in regionals." She paused. "I bet you had a lot of fans at school."

His ears went red immediately.

"Some," he muttered, looking down at the table.

"Some?" she echoed, grinning now. "Come on. I bet half the school had a crush on you."

"I didn't really have time for that," he said quickly, drumming his fingers once against the table. "The bakery took up a lot of my time. Grandpa needed help, and I had practice, games, school... there wasn't much left over."

Her smile softened. "You were pretty young for that kind of responsibility."

He shrugged. "Felt like I owed it to him. He took me in after my parents-" He stopped himself, clenching his jaw briefly. "Anyway. He needed the help, so I helped."

She didn't push. Just nodded.

"That must've been hard," she said quietly.

"It was what it was," he said, not quite meeting her eyes.

The server returned with their order, setting down two mugs of coffee and her slice of pie.

She thanked him, wrapping her hands around the warm mug, and when she looked back at Bucky, he was watching her.

Not in the distant, guarded way he sometimes did.

Just... watching. Like he was trying to figure her out.

"What?" she asked, a small smile tugging at her lips.

He shook his head. "Nothing."

"Bucky."

"Just..." He hesitated, then said, "You're easy to talk to."

Her chest tightened in the best way.

"So are you," she said softly.

He looked like he didn't quite believe her, but he didn't argue.

She took a sip of her coffee, then set the mug down carefully.

"So," she said. "That idiot -Bill- mentioned you kept playing after high school. How'd that work?"

Bucky's expression shifted slightly, like he was deciding how much to share.

"I stuck around for a couple of years after I graduated," he said. "Worked at the bakery full-time with my grandpa. Then I enlisted."

She nodded, encouraging him to continue.

"When I wasn't deployed or on leave, I'd try to play with a local team back here. Guys I knew from school, mostly. They kept me on the roster even when I wasn't around." His mouth twitched. "It was good. Kept me... grounded, I guess."

"Do you still play?" she asked.

He clenched his jaw. He looked away, wrapping his fingers around his coffee mug.

"No," he said quietly. "Not since I was discharged."

The word slipped out before he could stop it.

Discharged.

Fuck.

She didn't miss it. Her expression shifted. Not with pity, exactly, but something softer. Careful.

"Were you injured?" she asked gently.

He was quiet for a long moment, tracing the rim of his mug with his thumb.

He could lie. Could deflect. Could change the subject.

But she'd been honest with him. About why she moved here. About needing space.

And she was sitting here, with him in a café where half the town was probably watching, after he'd gotten into a bar fight and come in his pants in her kitchen.

If she could handle all that, maybe she could handle this, too.

"Not physically," he said finally, his voice low. "It was... a mental health thing."

He didn't look at her. Couldn't.

Just kept his eyes on the mug in his hands, waiting for her to say something.

Waiting for her to pull back.

To realize this was more than she'd signed up for.

But she didn't.

"Okay," she said softly.

That was it. Just okay.

Not I'm sorry, or that must've been hard, or any of the usual platitudes people offered when they didn't know what else to say.

Just... acknowledgment.

He glanced up, and she was still looking at him the same way she had been a minute ago.

"Thank you," she said after a moment. "For telling me."

His throat felt tight.

"Yeah," he managed.

She reached across the table again, brushing her fingers over his.

Not holding his hand this time. Just a touch. Grounding.

"For what it's worth," she said quietly, "I'm glad you're here. Back here, I mean. In town." She paused, a small smile tugging at her lips. "It let me meet you."

He looked at her, and his throat felt tight in a completely different way now.

"Yeah?" he said, his voice rough.

"Yeah."

He was quiet for a moment, then cleared his throat.

"Thank you," he said. "For what you're doing at the center. The library thing."

She blinked, a little surprised.

"It's... it's good," he continued, tapping his fingers once against the table. "Having that space. A lot of the older guys are not really into technology. They like having actual books to read. Something to escape into for a while." He paused. "The younger ones too, I guess. But I mean the guys who don't have as many options."

She nodded slowly. "Do you go often? To the center?"

"Once a week," he said. "Wednesdays, usually. There's a group that meets."

"Do you like it?"

He hesitated, working his jaw slightly.

"Most of the time I don't want to go," he admitted. "But I make myself. Because even if I don't always talk, it helps to... to hear what other people are dealing with. Know I'm not the only one stuck with certain shit."

Her expression softened.

"That makes sense," she said quietly.

He looked down at his coffee, then back at her.

"I've talked more about myself today than I have in the last few years," he said. "At least, from what I remember."

She smiled slightly.

"So it's only fair," he continued, "that you tell me what you were up to in high school. Since I told you about the hockey thing."

She let out a soft snort, shaking her head.

"It's way less stellar than yours," she said.

"Try me."

"I hung out with my friends, played D&D, watched movies." She shrugged. "That was pretty much it."

He raised an eyebrow, something like amusement flickering across his face.

"So you see," she said, a wry smile at her lips, "I don't think we would've hung out back then."

"Why not?"

"Come on," she said. "You were the big hockey player with fans. I was the girl rolling dice in someone's basement."

"And?" he said, his tone genuinely curious.

She blinked. "And... we ran in different circles."

"Maybe," he said. "But I would've noticed you."

Her heart did something stupid in her chest.

"Yeah?"

He nodded, drumming his fingers once against his mug.

"I mean, I was kind of in that whole popular thing, but I wasn't really," he said. "I always put the bakery first. Hockey second. Everything else..." He trailed off, shrugging. "There wasn't much room for anything else."

"What do you mean?"

"I got a reputation for being difficult," he said, and there was something almost wry in his tone. "People thought I was stuck-up. Like I didn't want to hang out at parties or-" His ears went a little red. "Or when girls would... you know. Try. I'd say no most of the time because I actually didn't have time, but they thought it was because I thought I was too good for them or something."

She tilted her head, studying him.

"So what you needed back then," she said slowly, "was something calmer."

"Yeah," he said quietly. "Exactly. I was running on fumes half the time between school, work and practice. The last thing I needed was... chaos." He looked at her directly then. "So don't think I wouldn't have noticed someone outside all that shit. I would've. Probably would've preferred it, actually."

Her chest felt warm.

"Huh," she said softly.

"What?"

"Nothing. Just..." She smiled. "Teenage you sounds exhausted."

"Teenage me was exhausted," he said. "Adult me isn't doing much better."

She laughed, and his mouth curved in response.

"Well," she said, "for what it's worth, I think adult you is doing pretty okay."

He looked at her for a long moment.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "Maybe."

She took another bite of the apple pie, chewing thoughtfully.

Bucky was saying something about how the bakery used to be busier on weekends when his grandpa ran it, but she was only half-listening now, her attention caught on the taste in her mouth.

Something was... off.

She swallowed, then took another small bite, trying to pinpoint what it was.

"You okay?" Bucky asked, his voice pulling her back.

She looked up. He was watching her, tilting his head slightly.

"Yeah," she said. "It's just-" She set her fork down, frowning at the pie. "The filling tastes weird."

"Weird how?"

"Like..." She poked at it with her fork, lifting a piece of apple to examine it. "It's kind of slimy? And it tastes too sweet, like it came out of a can or something. Doesn't taste fresh."

Bucky shot his eyebrows up, and he leaned forward slightly, looking at the pie.

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah." She turned the plate toward him so he could see. "Look at it. The apples are kind of mushy, and the sauce is like... gelatinous."

He stared at the pie for a moment, then back at her, something close to horror dawning on his face.

"They're serving canned filling?"

"I think so."

"Here?" He gestured vaguely at the café around them, like the very idea was a personal affront.

"Here," she said, pushing the plate toward him. "Try it. See if I'm right."

He hesitated. "You sure?"

She picked up her fork, scooped up a small piece, and held it out to him.

"Bucky," she said, with a small smile. "We made out last night. I think sharing a fork is way less intimate than that."

His ears went red immediately.

But he leaned forward and took the bite off her fork.

She watched as he chewed, his expression shifting from neutral to mildly appalled in the span of about three seconds.

He swallowed, grimacing slightly.

"Yeah," he said. "That's definitely canned filling. And the crust is..." He paused, like he was trying to be diplomatic. "It's not great."

"Not great," she repeated, grinning. "That's baker-speak for 'this is shitty,' isn't it?"

His mouth twitched. "I didn't say that."

"You didn't have to. Your face said it."

He huffed a quiet laugh, shaking his head. "It's just... it could be better. A lot better."

"Could you do better?"

"Yeah," he said, no hesitation. Then he seemed to realize how that sounded and added quickly, "I mean- not to sound like an ass, but yeah. Definitely."

She laughed. "I believe you. And for the record, I wasn't fishing for you to bake me a pie."

"I know," he said. But there was something in his expression, like he was filing that information away for later.

----

He paid for the coffees, and when they stepped outside, he realized he didn't want this to end yet.

The café had been good. The conversation had been good.

But sitting across from her under the weight of half the town's stares had been exhausting in a way he hadn't fully registered until they were out in the open air.

"You want to walk around a bit?" he asked, before he could second-guess himself.

She looked up at him, a little surprised, then smiled. "Yeah. I'd like that."

"Is there anywhere in town you haven't seen yet?" he asked as they started walking.

She thought for a moment. "There's this old arcade I passed the other day. Looked kind of run-down, but I was curious. I just felt weird going in by myself."

"The one on Fourth Street?"

"Yeah, that's the one."

"It's still open," he said. "Want to check it out?"

Her face lit up. "Really?"

"Yeah. Come on."

----

The arcade was exactly as she'd described it: run-down, dimly lit, with carpet that had probably been installed in the eighties and never replaced. But it was open, and there were a handful of machines still running.

"This place is perfect," she said, looking around with delight.

Bucky couldn't help but smile. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. It's like a time capsule."

They wandered through the rows of machines. Old racing games, a busted air hockey table, and a few classic arcade cabinets that still worked if you hit them the right way.

She gravitated toward a Pac-Man machine, and Bucky watched as she fed it a quarter and started playing, poking her tongue out slightly in concentration.

"You're terrible at this," he said after she died for the third time.

"I know," she said, laughing. "I never said I was good."

"Here." He stepped closer, leaning over her shoulder. "You're taking the corners too wide. You have to cut them tighter, or the ghosts catch you."

She tried again, this time making it a little further before dying.

"Better," he said.

"Your turn," she said, stepping aside.

He played a round -got significantly further than she had- and she smacked his arm lightly.

"Show-off."

"You asked," he said, grinning.

They moved through the arcade, trying different games, laughing when things didn't work, competing over high scores on the ones that did.

And then she spotted it.

The claw machine.

It was tucked in the back corner, filled with an assortment of stuffed animals in varying states of wear. Most of them looked like they'd been there for years.

But right near the top, visible through the glass, was a black cat plushie.

She stopped in front of it, tilting her head.

"You want it?" Bucky asked.

"I mean..." She laughed. "I'm not going to win it. Those things are rigged."

"Let me try."

"Bucky, you don't have to-"

He was already feeding quarters into the machine.

The first attempt, the claw grabbed nothing but air.

The second attempt, it caught the edge of the cat's ear and dropped it immediately.

"This thing is definitely rigged," he muttered.

She was biting back a smile, watching him.

Third attempt.

The claw descended, grabbed the cat around the middle, and -miraculously- held on long enough to drop it down the chute.

She let out a surprised laugh, reaching down to grab it.

"You did it!"

"Told you," he said, though he'd absolutely been expecting to fail.

She hugged the plushie to her chest, grinning at him. "Thank you."

"It's just a stuffed cat."

His ears went warm, but he couldn't stop smiling.

They left the arcade as the sun was starting to dip lower in the sky, the air cooling noticeably as they stepped outside.

She was clutching the black cat plushie he'd won for her and smiling in a way that made his chest feel tight.

He didn't want this to end.

But it was getting late, and he noticed the way she'd crossed her arms over her chest, hunching her shoulders slightly against the chill.

"You're cold," he said.

"I'm fine," she said automatically.

He gave her a look.

"Okay, maybe a little," she admitted. "I didn't think we'd be out this long."

"Come on," he said, nodding toward where he'd parked the truck. "I'll take you home."

She didn't argue, and they walked back to the truck in comfortable silence, she still holding the plushie like it was something precious.

Once they were inside, Bucky started the engine and reached behind the seat, pulling out a faded navy hoodie.

"Here," he said, holding it out to her. "The heat in this thing doesn't work. Sorry."

She took it, waving off his apology. "It's fine."

She pulled the hoodie on, and he just… looked.

Her. Wearing his clothes. In his truck.

It felt right in a way that made him want to keep her there.

She settled back into the seat, tucking her hands into the sleeves and pulling the fabric closer around herself, and then she went still.

"What?" he asked, glancing at her as he pulled out of the parking spot.

"Nothing," she said, but there was a small smile on her lips. "It just... smells good."

He raised an eyebrow. "The hoodie?"

"Yeah." She pulled the collar up slightly, burying her nose in it for a second before looking over at him. "It smells like you. But also like the bakery. I can't really complain about that combination."

His ears went warm.

He didn't know what to say to that, so he just drove, tapping his fingers once against the steering wheel, trying to ignore the way his heart was doing something stupid in his chest.

She was still smiling, curled up in his hoodie, holding that ridiculous plushie.

And he was already thinking about how he didn't want her to give it back.

----

The drive back to her house felt shorter than it should have.

Maybe because neither of them was talking much. Just the low noise of the engine, the occasional sound of her shifting on the seat, still holding that black cat.

When he pulled up in front of her house and killed the engine, the silence felt heavier.

He should say something. Thanks for today or I had a good time, or literally anything.

But his brain had gone quiet, and all he could focus on was the fact that she was right there, close enough to touch, wearing his hoodie, and he didn't want her to get out of the truck yet.

She turned to look at him, and he looked back.

Neither of them moved.

"Do you want to come in?" she asked, her voice soft.

His heart kicked against his ribs.

"It's kind of late," she continued. "But if you want, I could make something. Just something quick. I have pasta, and I made a sauce the other day that's in the freezer. I'd just have to defrost it, but if you want something else-"

"That sounds good," he said, cutting off her rambling gently.

She blinked. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

She smiled. "Okay. Come on."

She climbed out of the truck, clutching the black cat plushie, and he followed, closing its door with a low click that felt louder than it should have in the quiet street.

Next Chapter

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He kept his gaze fixed on the ground.

"We need to clean this," she said. "Come on. Let's go to my place."

He didn't move.

"It's fine," he murmured. "I- I have to start prepping some things for tomorrow. Early morning."

She looked up at him.

He still wasn't meeting her eyes.

"Bucky."

"I'm fine. You should just- go home. I'll-"

"I'm not leaving you like this." Her grip on his hand tightened, just slightly. "And you're not going home to bleed all over your kitchen. So either you come with me and let me help, or I'm following you to your place and doing it there."

He clenched his jaw.

Finally, he lifted his eyes to meet hers.

Stubborn woman.

Slowly, reluctantly, he nodded.

"Okay."

----

The walk back to her house was silent.

She wanted to say something. Wanted to ask what Bill had said to set him off, wanted to tell him that she wasn't scared or angry or whatever he thought she was.

But the adrenaline was still there, so she didn't push.

They walked side by side, the only sound their footsteps on the pavement and the distant sounds of the bar fading behind them.

When they reached her house, she unlocked the door and stepped inside, flipping on the light in the hallway.

"Kitchen," she said, gesturing toward the back.

He followed without a word.

She pulled out one of the chairs at the small table. "Sit."

He obeyed.

Just like that. No argument. No deflection.

He lowered himself into the chair, resting his hands on his thighs, fixing his gaze on the floor.

Like a giant kid who knew he'd screwed up and was waiting for the lecture.

She grabbed the first aid kit from under the bathroom sink -thankfully well-stocked from all the minor injuries she'd sustained fixing up the house- and set it on the table.

Then she turned on the tap, letting the water run warm, and grabbed a clean dish towel.

When she turned back, he was still staring at the floor.

She wet the towel, wrung it out, and pulled a chair closer to his.

"Give me your hands," she said softly.

He hesitated for just a second before lifting one.

She took it gently and started wiping away the blood.

He winced but didn't pull back.

"Sorry," she murmured.

"It's fine."

It wasn't fine. His knuckles were a mess: split skin, already starting to swell.

She worked carefully, dabbing at the worst of it, rinsing the towel when it got too stained, and starting again.

Neither of them spoke.

----

The kitchen felt smaller somehow. Quieter.

Just the two of them. The soft sound of water dripping from the towel. The occasional hiss of breath when she hit a tender spot.

It was intimate in a way she hadn't expected.

Her hands holding his. The warmth of his skin under her fingers. The way he sat so still, letting her take care of him.

She rinsed the towel again, wringing it out over the sink, and when she turned back, she noticed.

His shirt.

It was a mess. Stained with blood. His, Bill's, she wasn't sure. And it reeked. Beer, sweat, and whatever grime had been on that bar floor.

She hesitated, then set the towel down.

"Take off your shirt."

He snapped his head up, his eyes widening.

"You've got the henley underneath," she added quickly. "But that one smells awful. No offense."

That got him moving.

He pulled the plaid shirt off without a word, his movements stiff and a little self-conscious, and handed it to her.

She took it to the small laundry area just off the kitchen, tossing it into the sink there and running cold water over the worst of the stains.

When she came back, he was sitting exactly where she'd left him, resting his hands on his thighs again.

"Other hand," she said, sitting back in her chair.

He gave it to her.

She started cleaning, focusing on the cuts and scrapes, and after a moment, she felt it.

His gaze.

She glanced up.

He was watching her. Not the way he usually did -quick, furtive glances that he thought she wouldn't notice- this was open.

"A penny for your thoughts," she said softly.

He didn't look away.

"I'm sorry," he said, his voice low and rough. "For ruining your night- your first night out in town."

She was quiet for a moment, her fingers still working carefully over his knuckles.

Then she said, "Well, there was definitely a lot of action." She glanced up at him. "What… was all that about?"

He looked away, clenching his jaw.

"Bucky," she said softly. "I'm not mad. I just want to understand."

He didn't answer right away. Just sat there, staring at the table, closing his free hand into a fist on his thigh.

Finally, he exhaled.

"He said something," Bucky muttered. "About you."

Her hands stilled. "About me?"

"Yeah." His voice was tight. Clipped. "Something he had no right to say."

She studied his face. The tension in his jaw, the way he wouldn't meet her eyes.

"What did he say?"

Bucky shook his head. "Doesn't matter."

"It does if it made you react like that."

His throat worked as he swallowed, and for a moment, she thought he wasn't going to answer.

Then, quietly: "He said when I... when I didn't follow through at the end of the night, maybe he'd take a shot. That someone needed to-" He stopped, clenching his jaw so hard she could see the muscle jump. "He was crude. About you."

She frowned slightly, her brow furrowing.

"Wait. Follow through with what?" She tilted her head, genuinely confused. "Were you planning to leave early or something? Did you have to get back?"

His ears and cheeks went red.

Immediately.

He looked away, his shoulders tensing, and she realized-

Oh.

Oh.

Her face heated.

He wasn't talking about leaving the bar early.

Bucky still wasn't looking at her. He was clenching his jaw so tight she thought he might crack a tooth, his face still flaming red.

She didn't know what to say.

Part of her wanted to be angry. At Bill, for being a disgusting asshole. At the implication that she was a thing, just... there for the taking, like whoever "followed through" got some kind of prize.

But the other part-

The other part was caught on the fact that Bucky had hit him.

Had gotten into a fight. Had bled, over that.

She swallowed, her hands still resting gently on his.

"Bucky," she said quietly.

He didn't respond.

"Look at me."

Slowly -reluctantly- he lifted his gaze to hers.

His expression was guarded. Ashamed. Like he was bracing for her to tell him he'd overreacted, that it was stupid, entitled, and that he'd made everything worse.

"Thank you," she said.

He blinked. "What?"

"For standing up for me." Her voice was soft. "I know things got messy. But... thank you."

She stood, moving to the sink to rinse the towel under warm water, wringing it out.

When she came back, she pulled her chair closer -close enough that their knees almost touched- and tilted his chin up gently with her fingers.

"Hold still," she murmured, dabbing carefully at the cut above his eyebrow.

He didn't move. Didn't even seem to breathe.

She was close. Close enough to see the way his jaw tensed when she touched a tender spot. Close enough to notice the faint scar along his temple she'd never seen before.

His hand moved.

Slowly, carefully, and it came up to rest on her knee.

Just that. Nothing more. His palm was warm through the denim of her jeans, barely moving his thumb against the fabric.

She stilled, hovering the towel near his eyebrow.

She dropped her eyes to his hand, then lifted them to his face.

He was already looking at her.

Not down. Not at some point past her shoulder.

At her. Directly at her.

And the way he was looking at her-

Her breath caught.

There was something raw in his expression. Something unguarded that she'd never seen before. Want, maybe. Or hope. Or both.

She set the towel down on the table.

Her hand was still on his chin, tilting his face toward hers, and she didn't move it.

"Bucky," she said softly.

He swallowed, his throat working. His hand tightened on her knee just slightly.

And… she leaned in.

Slowly. Giving him every chance to pull away.

He didn't.

Their lips met. Soft, tentative, barely more than a brush.

And then he kissed her back.

----

He tried to hold still, but she was right there.

Close enough that he could smell her perfume and the faint scent of vodka and the clean smell of soap from when she'd washed her hands. Close enough to see the concentration on her face as she worked, the way her bottom lip caught between her teeth when she focused.

She'd thanked him.

After everything -after he'd made a scene getting into a fight, and stained her kitchen floor with blood- she'd thanked him.

And now she was here, taking care of him like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like he deserved it.

He didn't.

But God, he wanted to.

The adrenaline from the fight was still there, thrumming under his skin, making everything sharper. Her touch. Her voice. The warmth from where their knees were almost -almost- brushing.

He couldn't think straight.

Couldn't remember all the reasons he should keep his distance, all the ways this could go wrong.

All he knew was that she was here. And she was close. And he needed-

His hand moved.

And now her lips were on his.

Every doubt, every fear, every reason he'd had to hold back: gone.

He brought his free hand up, cupping the side of her face, brushing his thumb along her cheekbone. The chair scraped slightly as she leaned closer, sliding her hand from his chin to the back of his neck, threading her fingers into his hair.

He needed more. The kiss deepened.

Slow at first. Tentative. Learning.

Then less so.

She found his shoulder with her other hand, gripping the fabric of his henley. He slid his hand from her knee to her waist, pulling her closer, or trying to, the awkward angle of the chairs making it difficult.

She made a soft sound against his mouth, and something in him snapped.

He moved his hands to her hips, gripping, firm enough to guide. A gentle tug. An invitation.

She understood immediately.

She shifted, standing just long enough to swing one leg over his thighs and settle onto his lap, straddling him.

The angle was better. So much better.

She slid her hands into his hair, tugging gently. His hands stayed on her hips, holding her there, grounding himself under her weight, under her heat.

They broke apart for air, pressing their foreheads together, both breathing hard.

Neither of them moved away.

Her fingers were still tangled in his hair, his hands still firm on her hips.

She let out a breathless laugh. "So... it was a date after all."

His mouth curved. A real smile this time.

"Yeah," he said, his voice rough and low. "It was."

And then he kissed her again.

This time, there was no testing of boundaries.

He slid his hand up her back, pulling her flush against his softer, solid chest, and she made a sound -quiet, needy- that seemed to undo something in him.

His other hand tightened on her hip.

She shifted closer, her thighs squeezing around his, and the movement made him groan low in his throat.

Her hands moved from his hair to his face, cradling his jaw as she kissed him deeper. Her body arched into his, and she felt it, the unmistakable erection beneath her.

His hips jerked up, just slightly, involuntarily.

She gasped against his mouth.

"Sorry," he breathed, but his hand on her lower back didn't let go. If anything, it pressed her closer.

"Don't be," she whispered.

He kissed her harder then, his control slipping. His mouth moved from her lips to her jaw, trailing down to that spot just below her ear that made her shiver.

"Bucky," she breathed.

He made a rough sound in response, his hand sliding from her hip to grip the curve of her ass, pulling her down against him as his hips rolled up. Slowly, testing.

The friction sent a jolt through both of them.

She froze for half a second, her breath catching, and leaned back slightly -just enough to look at him- eyes glassy, lips swollen, and then she moved with him.

Just a small roll of her hips. Tentative.

His fingers dug into her flesh, and he did it again, ground up against her with more purpose this time.

The denim between them was rough, imperfect, but the pressure was enough to make her whimper.

That sound -God, that sound- made something snap in him.

His other hand joined the first, both palms cupping her ass now, holding her steady as he rocked up into her in a slow, deliberate rhythm.

She followed his lead, her hands bracing on his shoulders for leverage, her hips moving in time with his.

The chair creaked beneath them.

Neither of them cared.

She started moving on her own now, rolling her hips in tight circles, chasing the angle that made her breath hitch. Her head tipped back slightly, lips parted, and he couldn't look away.

She was beautiful like this.

Undone.

He thrust up harder, matching her rhythm, and she gasped, her nails biting into his shoulders through his shirt.

"Fuck," he breathed against her neck, his hips jerking up in short, desperate movements now.

The heat coiling low in his stomach was building too fast. Too sharp.

He tried to slow down, tried to hold back, but she ground down again -harder this time, deliberate- and he felt it.

The edge.

Right there.

Panic flickered through the haze of pleasure.

Not yet. Not like this. Don't fuck this up.

But his body wasn't listening.

She rolled her hips one more time -long and slow and perfect- and he broke.

His whole body went rigid, his breath catching hard in his throat.

"No- no- fuck-"

But it was too late.

The sensation crashed over him -sharp, overwhelming, inevitable- and he couldn't stop it.

A choked sound escaped his lips, as he jerked his hips up once, twice, before he went completely still, dropping his forehead to her shoulder.

Oh God.

Oh God.

She stilled too, her hands still on his shoulders, her breath coming fast against his ear.

For a moment, neither of them moved.

Just sat there, frozen, while reality caught up.

Then he felt it.

The warmth. The wetness spreading inside his jeans, soaking into his boxer briefs.

His whole body tensed.

His hands fell away from her hips, his whole body tense, frozen.

He couldn't look at her.

Couldn't move.

"I'm sorry," he rasped, his voice wrecked. "I'm- fuck, I'm sorry, I didn't-"

"Bucky-"

"I haven't- it's been a long time, and I-" He pulled back slightly, still not looking at her, his face burning. "I'm sorry."

"Bucky, stop-"

"I should go. I need to-" He tried to step back, but her legs were still around him, holding him there.

"Bucky, look at me."

He couldn't.

She reached for his face, cupping his jaw with her hands, tilting his head up until he had no choice.

Her expression wasn't disgust. Wasn't mocking, either.

It was soft. Concerned.

"It's okay," she said firmly.

He shook his head, knitting his brows. "It's not-"

"It is." She brushed her thumb along his cheekbone. "Bucky, it's okay. I promise."

"I just-" He clenched his jaw, his throat tight. "That wasn't supposed to happen." He murmured.

"Says who?" she said gently. "You think I'm upset?"

"You should be."

"Well, I'm not." Her hands stayed on his face, grounding him, keeping him from spiraling further. "If anything, it's kind of... flattering."

He blinked, finally meeting her eyes. "What?"

"You're that attracted to me," she said quietly. A small, almost shy smile tugged at her lips. "I mean... that's kind of how it seems."

He looked like he wanted to argue, his jaw working, but she kept going before he could.

"You said it yourself- it's been a long time. You've been wound up all night, and your body reacted." She brushed her thumb along his cheekbone. "That's... that's normal. That happens."

"I feel like a fucking boy," he muttered, his voice rough with mortification.

"Maybe," she said softly. "But..." She hesitated, then met his eyes again. "I didn't know if you were actually... if you felt that way about me. So knowing that you do?" Her cheeks heated slightly. "That's not a bad thing. For me."

He stared at her, something shifting in his expression. Disbelief, maybe. Or relief.

"You thought I wasn't-" He stopped, like he couldn't quite believe what he was hearing. "How could you think that?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Name one clear sign you gave me that I wasn't just... a neighbor you were being polite to."

He opened his mouth.

Closed it.

His ears turned red, looking genuinely stuck, furrowing his brow like he was searching his memory for something, anything, and coming up empty.

"I..." He exhaled, frustration clear on his face. "I'm not good at people."

"I noticed," she said, but her tone was gentle.

He was quiet for a moment, his hands still resting on her hips, fixing his gaze somewhere past her shoulder.

"I thought about you," he said finally, his voice low. "A lot. I just... didn't know what to do about it."

She didn't know what to say to that.

"Well," she said softly, after a moment. "Now you know I was thinking about you too."

They stayed like that for a moment. She still sitting on him, his hands still resting on her hips. Neither of them moving. Neither of them speaking.

She could feel him tracing slow, absent circles with his thumbs against the fabric of her jeans, like he didn't want to let go just yet.

But eventually, he finally lifted his eyes to hers, and then he cleared his throat.

"I should probably..." He trailed off, his jaw working. "I need to get home. Clean up." His ears went red again. "And I've got to be up at four for the bakery."

Her expression softened. "Right. Of course."

"I'm sorry, I just-"

"Bucky, it's fine," she said gently. "You don't have to apologize."

He nodded, but he still looked reluctant as his hands slipped from her hips.

She slid off his lap carefully, smoothing her shirt as she stood.

He stood too -slower, more carefully- and she saw it.

The slight grimace he tried to hide. The way his hand twitched toward his waistband before he stopped himself. The tension in his shoulders as he shifted his weight.

He was uncomfortable.

Of course he was.

She looked away, giving him a moment of privacy, pretending to adjust her own jeans.

He took a breath, then moved -just one step toward the door- and had to stop.

His jaw clenched. His hand went to the front of his jeans again, fingers hooking under the waistband, trying to pull the damn underwear away from his skin. Just enough to relieve the pressure. Just enough to unstick the wet fabric clinging to his groin.

It didn't work.

And there was no way to do it subtly.

Not with her right there.

He dropped his hand, his ears flaming red, and kept walking.

She followed without a word. Didn't try to fill the silence. Just walked beside him through the kitchen, giving him space but staying close.

He made it to the door and paused, his hand on the doorframe, like he wanted to say something but didn't know how.

Before he could spiral again, she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him.

He went still for a second, surprised, before he brought his arms up around her waist, hesitant at first, then tighter.

She pressed her face against his chest, feeling the steady thud of his heartbeat through the henley, and held him there for a long moment.

"Tonight was good," she said quietly, her voice muffled against his shirt.

His arms tightened fractionally.

"This was good," she continued, pulling back just enough to look up at him. Her hands stayed on his sides, keeping him close. "Okay?"

He looked down at her, his expression unreadable, but she could see the tension in his jaw.

"I mean it," she said firmly. "Don't... convince yourself this was a mistake."

His throat worked as he swallowed.

"Because it wasn't," she added, her voice softer now. "Not for me."

He stared at her for a moment, something vulnerable flickering across his face.

"Okay," he said finally, his voice rough.

"Okay?"

"Yeah." He exhaled slowly, and some of the tension seemed to leave his shoulders. "Okay."

She smiled softly. "Good."

They stood there for another moment, neither of them quite ready to let go.

Finally, she gave him one last squeeze and stepped back.

"Go," she said gently. "Get some sleep. You've got an early morning."

He nodded, his hand lingering on the doorframe as he turned to leave.

But at the last second, he paused and looked back at her.

"Tomorrow," he started, then stopped. Cleared his throat. "You wanna... hang out?"

The words came out rough, a little awkward, but deliberate. Like he was forcing himself to say them. To put himself out there again.

She felt something warm bloom in her chest.

"Yeah," she said softly. "I'd like that."

He exhaled, and some of the tension left his shoulders.

"Okay. We'll... figure out the details."

"Okay."

The corner of his mouth lifted. Just barely, but it was there.

And then he was gone.

----

She closed the door, locked it, and leaned back against it with a slow exhale.

The house felt quieter somehow.

Her kitchen was a mess. There was still blood on the floor. Not much, she needed to deal with it. The damp small towels were in a pile on the counter. His plaid shirt was still soaking in the laundry sink.

But none of that mattered right now.

She lifted a hand to her lips, still able to feel the ghost of his kiss there.

Tonight was good.

And tomorrow, they'll see each other again.

She smiled to herself and pushed off the door, heading to grab the mop.

----

Bucky made it home on autopilot.

He didn't remember unlocking the door or kicking off his boots or even walking upstairs.

But suddenly he was standing in his bathroom, the door closed behind him, staring at himself in the mirror.

He looked like shit.

Hair falling around his face in a tangled mess. The cut above his eyebrow had stopped bleeding, but the skin around it was swollen, angry. A bruise was already forming along his cheekbone, dark purple spreading under the skin.

And his hands.

He lifted them, flexing his fingers carefully.

His knuckles were split, swollen, crusted with dried blood. Even the small movement sent a dull throb of pain up his fingers.

Fuck.

He had to be up in two hours. Had to spend the morning elbow-deep in dough, kneading, shaping, working with his hands for hours.

He couldn't look at himself.

He turned away from the mirror, fumbling with his belt.

His knuckles protested as he worked the buckle, and he hissed through his teeth, forcing his stiff fingers to cooperate.

The belt came loose. He shoved his jeans down.

The denim peeled away from his skin, stiff and damp, and he had to close his eyes against the wave of humiliation that hit him.

The boxer briefs were worse.

Wet. Sticky. Clinging to him in a way that made his stomach twist.

He stripped them off quickly, his split knuckles screaming in protest as he balled up the jeans and boxer briefs together, shoving the whole mess into the hamper like he could hide the evidence from himself.

For a moment, he just stood there in his henley and socks, feeling ridiculous.

Feeling like a teenager who'd just jerked off in his grandfather's bathroom and was trying not to get caught.

He turned on the sink, letting the water run cold, and grabbed a washcloth.

The first touch of the cold, wet fabric against his skin made him hiss through his teeth.

He cleaned himself quickly, trying not to think about it. Trying not to replay the moment it happened. The heat. The loss of control. The look on her face when he'd finally met her eyes.

He rinsed the washcloth, wrung it out -his knuckles throbbing with every movement- and tossed it in the hamper with everything else.

Then he just stood there, gripping the edge of the sink, staring down at the running water.

He should shower.

Wash his hair. Actually clean up properly instead of this half-assed attempt.

But he was so tired.

He turned off the water, dried his hands carefully -wincing as the towel caught on his split knuckles- and pulled off the henley.

The mirror caught him again as he turned.

He stopped.

Looked at himself.

The bruise on his cheek. The cut above his eye. The mess of his hair.

At the curve of his stomach. The way his chest wasn't what it used to be. The places where muscle had given way to something softer, rounder.

She'd had her hands on him tonight.

Had pulled him closer. Had made those sounds. Had looked at him like she wanted him.

And his body had responded so fucking fast he hadn't even had a chance to-

He turned away from the mirror, grabbed a pair of clean boxer briefs from the drawer, and pulled them on.

Then he climbed into bed.

Two in the morning.

He had to be up in two hours to start prep for the bakery.

His hands were going to be screaming by then.

But his brain wouldn't shut off.

He kept replaying it. Over and over.

The kiss. Her hands in his hair. The heat of her body against his, her legs straddling him-

And then.

He'd come in his pants like a goddamn boy.

He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, like he could physically push the memory away.

She'd said it was fine. She'd been... kind about it. More than kind. She'd held his face and told him it was flattering, that it didn't matter, that she wanted to see him again.

But Jesus Christ.

How was he supposed to look at her tomorrow?

How was he supposed to sit across from her at a coffee shop or walk next to her down the street and not think about the fact that the last time they'd been together, he'd completely lost control after two minutes of kissing?

His stomach twisted.

And what if it happened again?

What if they went out tomorrow and ended up back at her place -or his- and things started heading in that direction again, and he just... couldn't hold it together?

What if he finished again before anything even really started?

He exhaled sharply, dragging a hand down his face.

Or worse.

What if the opposite happened?

What if he got too caught up in his head about it, too anxious, and his body just... didn't respond at all?

It had been a fear the last time he dated. Besides the shitty evening, he'd been on meds back then that fucked with everything. His mood. His energy. His sex drive. He hadn't trusted his body to work even if he'd wanted it to.

But he wasn't on those meds anymore.

Tonight had proven that much.

But what if the anxiety of a "next time" ruined it? What if he got so worked up about not screwing up again that he couldn't get it up at all?

He groaned, rolling onto his side and pulling the pillow over his head.

He couldn't win.

Either he'd finish too fast and feel like an idiot, or he wouldn't be able to start at all and feel like a failure.

And then there was the other thing.

The thing he didn't want to think about but couldn't stop thinking about. If they go further, she was going to see him.

Really see him.

Not just his face or his arms or the parts of him that were still decent.

All of him.

His stomach. His chest. The extra where there used to be hard muscle.

He wasn't the guy he used to be.

His throat tightened.

She'd been into it tonight, but she hadn't seen him. Not really.

What if she did and realized she'd made a mistake?

What if he finally got the chance to be with someone who actually made him feel something again, and the second she saw him she changed her mind?

He exhaled slowly, his chest aching.

She'd said tonight was good.

She'd said she wanted to see him again.

And he'd asked her to hang out tomorrow because some part of him -some stupid, hopeful part- wanted to believe her.

But now having cooled off, lying here alone in the dark, that hope felt fragile.

Like something that could shatter the second he fucked it up.

Which he would.

He always did.

He closed his eyes, willing his brain to shut up, to let him get at least an hour of sleep before the alarm went off.

But all he could see was her face.

The way she'd looked at him when she said it's okay.

The way she'd smiled when he asked her to hang out.

God, he wanted to believe her. But wanting it didn't make it true.

He hoped he didn't ruin it before it even started.

----

She couldn't sleep.

She'd tried. Climbed into bed, pulled the blanket up to her chin, closed her eyes. But... nothing.

Every time she started to drift, she'd remember something -his thick thighs under her, the sounds he'd made against her mouth, the mortified look in his eyes afterward- and she'd be wide awake again.

She rolled onto her side, punching the pillow into a better shape.

Two in the morning.

She had work tomorrow. A deadline, actually. She should be asleep.

But instead, she was lying here replaying the entire night in excruciating detail.

The fight. The blood. The way Bucky had looked at her when he'd told her what Bill said.

And then the kiss.

God, the kiss.

She pressed her fingers to her lips, like she could still feel the ghost of him there.

It had started so tentatively. Soft. Careful.

And then it had turned into something else entirely.

She'd climbed onto his lap without even thinking about it, and he'd pulled her closer, gripping her hips with his hands, and-

Her face heated in the dark.

And then he'd come.

Right there. In his jeans. While they were making out in her kitchen.

She should probably feel... what? Awkward? Uncomfortable?

She didn't.

If anything, she felt-

She buried her face in the pillow with a groan.

Okay. Fine. She could admit it to herself, alone in the dark at two in the morning.

It was kind of hot.

Not the situation itself, maybe. But the fact that he'd been that turned on. That he'd lost control that completely, that quickly, just from kissing her.

She'd spent weeks wondering if he was even interested.

Wondering if the extra breadsticks meant something or if she was reading too much into a nice gesture. If his glances meant anything or if she was projecting. If accepting to hang out at Will's was just... neighborly politeness.

Well.

Now she knew.

She rolled onto her back, staring at the ceiling.

He'd been so embarrassed afterward.

Couldn't look at her. Had tried to leave immediately, stammering apologies like he'd done something wrong.

But he hadn't done anything wrong.

She'd been right there with him, grinding down on his lap, pulling his hair, making those little sounds that she was definitely going to overthink later if she let herself.

She covered her face with her hands.

Okay. Maybe they should both feel a little mortified.

But the thing was, she didn't regret it.

Not the kissing. Not climbing onto his lap. Not any of it.

What she regretted was the possibility that he might wake up tomorrow and decide it had been a mistake.

That he'd spiral into that overthinking place she'd already seen glimpses of and convince himself she didn't actually want this. Want him.

That's why she'd said it. Why she'd held his face and told him tonight was good. Why she'd hugged him at the door and made sure he knew she wanted to see him again.

Because she did.

And she needed him to believe that.

Then, he had asked her to hang out tomorrow.

Had cleared his throat and forced the words out, even though she could see how much it cost him. How vulnerable it made him.

He'd tried.

Put himself out there even after everything that had happened.

And that mattered more than he probably realized.

She shifted onto her side, pulling the blanket higher.

Maybe tomorrow they'd actually get to have a normal conversation. One that didn't involve bar fights or bloody hands in her kitchen or him coming in his jeans while she was on his lap.

She closed her eyes, her lips still tingling faintly from his kisses.

Tonight had been a disaster by most standards.

Chaotic. Messy. Nothing like she'd imagined a first real kiss with him would be.

But it had also been raw.

Real.

And she wouldn't have changed it.

Well. Maybe the bar fight.

But the rest?

She smiled to herself in the dark.

Yeah. The rest was good.

Next Chapter

I'll pick you up.

Her heart did that stupid fluttery thing again, and she had to resist the urge to actually skip down the sidewalk like some kind of romcom protagonist.

By the time she reached her house, she'd managed to rein herself in. Mostly.

She dropped her bag by the door and stood in the middle of her living room, still riding the high of it.

He said yes.

Okay. Okay.

She needed to be realistic about this.

He could've felt pressured. She'd basically cornered him after they'd spent hours working together. Maybe he'd just been too polite to say no.

Except... she'd seen him interact with others enough times now to know that wasn't how he worked.

Bucky didn't do things out of obligation. He didn't make small talk with customers at the bakery, even if he surely could benefit from that. She'd seen him respond to George and Tom earlier: blunt, no filter, borderline rude when he felt like it. He didn't sugarcoat things to be polite.

If he didn't want to go, he would've found an excuse. A believable one, probably. Something about needing to be up early or having plans or just a plain "Sorry, but no."

But he hadn't.

He'd said yes.

And then he'd offered to pick her up.

She pressed her fingers to her lips, trying and failing to suppress a giggle.

Don't get ahead of yourself.

This wasn't a date. Not technically. She'd framed it as hanging out, as her needing someone to go with, so she wouldn't feel awkward walking into a local bar alone. Which was true. Mostly.

And he was helpful. That's just who he was. Quiet, gruff, but fundamentally decent. This could easily just be him doing her a favor. Helping the new neighbor get her bearings.

She exhaled slowly, taking off her jacket.

Friday.

Two days.

She had two days not to overthink this into oblivion.

----

Bucky stared at the ceiling with his hands folded over his chest, willing his brain to shut up.

It didn't.

The last time he'd gone on a date -if it could even be called that- had been with Dolores.

The redhead who worked at the pet supply store two blocks over. She'd been forward about it, catching him outside the bakery one afternoon and asking if he wanted to grab a drink.

He'd said yes because saying no felt harder.

The date had been a disaster.

She'd spent most of it looking at her phone, typing out messages to someone while he sat across from her, nursing a beer and trying to think of literally anything to say. He'd asked her about work. About music. About the weather, for fuck's sake.

She'd given him one-word answers and gone right back to scrolling.

He'd known, halfway through, that she wasn't interested. But she stayed, and he stayed, and the whole thing dragged on in excruciating silence.

By the time he'd excused himself to the bathroom, his chest felt like it was crushing inward, his hands shaking. He'd locked himself in a stall, bracing his palms against his knees, trying to breathe through the panic clawing its way up his throat to his brain.

It passed. Eventually.

When he came back out, she was waiting by the door, her jacket already on.

"So," she'd said, her tone dull, almost transactional. "You wanna come to my place?"

He'd stared at her, caught completely off guard.

She hadn't been interested in talking to him. Hadn't asked him a single question all night. But now she was… what? proposing to fuck?

The meds he'd been on back then had already been screwing with him for months. And combined with how the date had gone -how badly he'd fumbled every attempt at conversation, how his chest had tightened in the bathroom- he didn't trust his body to cooperate even if he wanted it to.

"I… uh-" He'd fumbled for an excuse. "Early morning tomorrow. Gotta be up at four."

She'd shrugged. "Your loss."

And that had been it.

The next day, he'd caught the looks from the ones Dolores would've talked to. A couple of women whispering near the post office. A guy he knew from high school smirking at him outside the hardware store.

He still didn't know what the hell she'd told people, but whatever it was, it stuck.

He rubbed a hand over his face, exhaling slowly.

That had been two years ago.

And now he'd agreed to go out with her.

She wasn't Dolores. He knew that. She actually talked to him. Asked him questions. Looked at him like she gave a damn about the answers.

But what if he fucked it up anyway?

What if he ran out of things to say and they ended up sitting there in awkward silence? What if she realized he was boring as hell and regretted asking?

What if she started looking at her phone, counting down the minutes until she could leave?

He turned onto his side, pulling the pillow over his head.

----

The next morning, he ran on autopilot.

Unlock the bakery. Turn on the ovens. Pull out the dough he'd prepped the night before. Shape. Proof. Bake.

He moved through it all mechanically, his body going through the routine while his brain stayed stuck somewhere between dread and disbelief.

Customers came and went. He rang them up, bagged their orders, and gave the same short responses he always did.

"Morning."

"Yeah, fresh this morning."

"That'll be six fifty."

By the time he flipped the sign to Closed for his midday break, his shoulders were tight, and his head was pounding.

He climbed the stairs to his apartment, grabbed leftover pasta from the fridge, and sat down at the small table by the window.

He should eat. Should rest for the hour he had before reopening.

Instead, he stared at the pasta, fork in hand, thinking about the one thing he'd been trying not to think about all morning.

What the hell was he supposed to wear?

He had jeans. The decent pair Rebecca had gotten him for his birthday last year. They fit fine. He didn't love them, but they weren't bad. Dark, plain, nothing fancy.

The problem was the top half.

Everything he owned that was even remotely appropriate for going out had stopped fitting long ago. His t-shirts were fine for the bakery, and his shirts worked for the veterans' center, but neither felt right for this.

He should probably buy something.

A sweater, maybe. He could throw it over one of his henleys. That'd work.

Except-

He frowned, stabbing at the pasta.

A sweater? To Will's?

It wasn't a nice place. It was a dive bar with a jukebox that only played country. Showing up in a sweater would make him look like he was trying too hard. Or like he was going to church.

He thought back to a plaid shirt he used to have. Blue and gray, soft from being worn too many times. He'd liked that shirt. Wore it open over a t-shirt for years until it didn't fit anymore. Couldn't even get his arms through the sleeves without the fabric pulling tight across his shoulders and back.

Something like that would be better. Casual. Not too formal, but still a step up from his usual.

He set his fork down and scrubbed a hand over his face.

He needed to go shopping.

Tomorrow.

He had tomorrow to figure this out.

----

She didn't know how it happened.

One minute she was riding the high of him saying yes, telling herself not to overthink it, and the next she was standing in front of her closet on Friday evening, staring at her clothes.

It was casual. She'd said it was casual.

Just grabbing a drink. Hanging out. Nothing big.

But she still wanted to look good.

She pulled out a few options, tossing them onto the bed. A sweater, meh. A nicer blouse, too formal.

She'd done some digging earlier in the week. Asked around subtly and looked the place up online. Will's was a dive bar. Nothing fancy. The kind of place where people went after work to nurse a beer and complain about their day.

Jeans would be fine. And she had that blouse with the three-quarter sleeves she'd bought before moving here. Navy blue, simple, flattering without being too dressy. She could throw a tank top underneath and leave it semi-open.

She held it up in front of the mirror, tilting her head.

Yeah. That worked.

She put it on the bed and sat down, exhaling slowly.

She still couldn't believe she'd actually done it.

Asked him out. Well, asked him to go out. With her. To a bar.

And he'd said yes.

Her stomach did that stupid fluttery thing again, and she pressed a hand to it, trying to calm down.

It wasn't a date. Not technically.

But it felt like one.

She stood up, grabbed the clothes, and started dressing.

She had twenty minutes before he was supposed to pick her up.

Twenty minutes to pull herself together and pretend she wasn't completely, pathetically excited about this.

----

The doorbell rang just as she was finishing with her hair.

She gave herself one last look in the mirror, grabbed the small bottle of perfume from the bathroom counter, and spritzed it quickly over her neck and wrists.

Good enough.

She headed for the door, her heart already picking up speed, and pulled it open.

Her brain stuttered.

Bucky stood on her front step, a hand in his pocket, looking like he'd put actual thought into this.

He was wearing a plaid shirt, dark blue and gray, rolling the sleeves up to his elbows, showing off his forearms. The fabric stretched slightly across his chest and shoulders, fitted but not tight. Underneath, she could see the collar of a dark henley.

His hair was down.

She'd never seen him with his hair down.

It fell just past his shoulders, one side tucked behind his ear, and it made him look more... bitable.

His beard -usually a few days past needing a trim- was neat. Shaped. Like he'd actually taken the time to clean it up.

He looked good.

Really good.

She realized she'd been staring and blinked, smiling before she could stop it.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi." His voice was low, a little rough, and he flicked his eyes over her briefly before dropping them to the doorframe. "You ready?"

"Yeah. Just- let me grab my jacket."

She turned back into the house, her pulse still doing something erratic in her chest.

He'd dressed up.

Nothing over the top. But enough that showed he'd thought about this. Cared about it.

She grabbed her jacket from the back of the couch, took a breath to steady herself, and headed back to the door.

He was still standing there, waiting, his shoulders tense in that way they always were when he didn't quite know what to do with himself.

She stepped outside and locked the door behind her.

"You look nice," she said, glancing at him as they started down the front path.

His ears turned red immediately.

"Thanks," he muttered, not looking at her. "You too."

Her smile widened.

----

They walked in silence for half a block, the only sound their footsteps on the pavement and the distant rumble of a truck passing by.

She glanced at him, saw the tension in his shoulders, the way he was shoving his hands deep in his pockets.

Someone had to say something.

"So," she started, keeping her tone light. "How long has Will's been around?"

He looked at her briefly, then back at the street ahead. "Fifteen years, I think. Maybe more."

"And you go there a lot?"

"Not really." He paused, furrowing his brow slightly. "Just... if I feel like having a drink, I'd rather go there than the other place."

"Pink Valhalla?"

"Yeah." His mouth twitched, almost like he wanted to smile but didn't quite commit. "Will's is less... pretentious."

She nodded, filing that away.

They walked a little further, and then he stopped.

She stopped too, turning to look at him.

He was frowning now, his jaw working like he was chewing on something he didn't want to say.

"What?" she asked.

He exhaled through his nose. "I probably should've suggested you go to the other place."

She blinked. "What do you mean?"

"Will's isn't-" He gestured vaguely, his expression uncomfortable. "It's just a bar. Nothing special. You said you wanted to meet people, get to know the town. Pink Valhalla is where people our age actually go. There's more... I don't know. Movement. Social stuff."

She tilted her head, studying him. "And?"

He looked at her, confused. "And... you'd probably have a better time there."

"Maybe," she said with a small shrug. "But I didn't ask to go to Pink Valhalla. I asked about Will's."

"Yeah, but-"

She cut him off. "You don't like going there, do you?"

He shook his head, looking down.

"Then I don't want you going somewhere you don't like just to keep me company." She gave him a small smile. "And Will's can't be that bad if you're willing to go there voluntarily."

He stared at her for a moment, opening his mouth slightly like he wanted to argue, but nothing came out.

"Okay," he said quietly, looking away. "Just... don't say I didn't warn you."

She bit back a smile and started walking again.

He fell into step beside her, and this time, the silence felt a little easier.

----

They reached Will's a few minutes later.

The bar was on a corner, with a neon sign flickering weakly in the window. Music and voices spilled out onto the street every time the door opened.

Bucky stepped ahead of her and pulled the door open, holding it with one hand.

She passed through, murmuring a "thanks," and immediately felt the warmth and noise of the place washing over her face.

It was... well, it was exactly what she'd expected.

Dim lighting. A long wooden bar running down one side. Tables and chairs were scattered throughout. A jukebox in the corner playing something she didn't recognize. The smell of beer and fried food hung in the air.

Bucky stepped in behind her, and she felt several pairs of eyes turn their way.

He noticed too. He clenched his jaw as he scanned the room.

"Table?" he said, his voice low.

She nodded. "Yeah. Sounds good."

But as they moved further inside, it became clear that wasn't going to happen.

Every table was taken. Groups of people clustered around them, drinks in hand, conversations loud and overlapping.

Bucky stopped, his shoulders tensing as he scanned the room one more time.

"Bar it is," he mumbled.

She shrugged. "Works for me."

He led the way, and she stayed close behind him, acutely aware of the eyes that followed them.

She wasn't imagining it. People were looking.

Bucky pulled out one of the stools for her before taking the seat beside her, his back to the wall, his posture stiff.

She sat on the stool, nestling her jacket on her lap.

She could feel it, the weight of the attention. The way conversations had dipped just slightly when they walked in, the way a few people were still glancing over.

She could tell Bucky was very aware of it by the way he was clenching his jaw, the way his hands rested on the bar, flexing his fingers slightly.

She kept her voice light, casual. "So what are you drinking?"

He looked at her, seeming almost surprised by the question.

"Beer," he said.

"Hmm." She glanced toward the bar, then back at him. "Would ordering a cocktail here be too... pretentious?"

A short, dry laugh escaped him. "Depends. You want a little umbrella in it?"

"I think I can manage without one."

His smile widened, just a fraction, but it was there. "It's a bar. Asking them to make you a drink just gives them something to do."

Before she could respond, the bartender appeared in front of them, a guy in his mid-thirties with dark hair pulled back in a ponytail and an easy grin.

"Bucky," he said, nodding at him before turning his attention to her. "And you must be new. I'm Elrond."

She gave him her name, and he shook her hand across the bar.

"What can I get you guys?"

"Beer," Bucky said. "Whatever's on tap."

Elrond nodded, then looked at her.

"Screwdriver," she said. Then, a little more tentatively, "Could it be with tropical Smirnoff?"

Elrond grinned. "Sure thing."

"Perfect."

He turned to grab their drinks, and she glanced at Bucky.

He was watching her, something unreadable in his expression.

"What?" she asked.

He shook his head, twitching the corner of his mouth. "Nothing."

----

Elrond set their drinks down in front of them -Bucky's beer in a pint glass, her screwdriver in a rocks glass with ice- and moved down the bar to help someone else.

She wrapped her fingers around the cold glass, condensation already forming on the outside, and took a sip. Then glanced at Bucky.

His stare was focused on his beer.

"Thanks," she said. "For coming with me. I know this probably isn't your idea of a good time."

He looked at her, furrowing his brow slightly. "No, it's fine."

"Still. I appreciate it."

He nodded, took a drink, and then -like he was forcing himself to do it- asked, "So... the town. You liking it so far?"

She smiled. "Yeah. I think I made the right call moving here."

"Good." He paused, tracing the edge of his glass with his thumb. "It's... quiet. But it's not a bad place."

"I'm getting that impression." She tilted her head slightly. "Have you always lived here?"

He hesitated just for a second before answering.

"Mostly. Yeah." He took another sip of his beer, like he needed the pause. "My parents died when my sister and I were kids. Our grandparents raised us. My grandmother passed when I was still pretty young, so it was just my grandfather after that."

Her chest tightened. "I'm sorry."

He shrugged, but there was something careful in the way he did it. "It was a long time ago."

She didn't push. Just waited.

"I worked at the bakery with him when I was in school, and for a few years after I finished," Bucky continued, his voice quieter now. "Then I enlisted."

He stopped.

She could feel the weight of what he wasn't saying. The gap between enlisted and now that he didn't fill in.

After a moment, he cleared his throat. "Came back four years ago."

That was it. That was all he was giving her.

And she wasn't going to ask for more.

"Well," she said softly, "you're really good at what you do."

He blinked, caught off guard. "What?"

"The bakery. Everything I've had from there has tasted incredible."

His ears turned red again, and he looked down at his beer, taking a long drink, like he didn't know what else to do with the compliment.

The breadsticks. After a while, the drink gave her the courage to ask, pretending to say thanks but subtly fishing for something else.

"You know, one of the first days I came to your shop-"

Before she could say anything else, two men appeared beside them.

"Hey, Buck," one of them said, grinning. "You're not gonna introduce us to the lady?"

Bucky's shoulders went rigid.

She felt it immediately, the change in his posture, the way he pressed his lips into a thin line.

When he didn't respond right away, she stepped in.

"Hi," she said, offering a polite smile and her name.

"Bill," the first one said, shaking her hand a little too firmly.

"Ted," the second one added with a smirk.

"We run the brewery at the end of town," Ted said. "You settling in okay? It's a big change, moving to a small place like this."

"Yeah, I'm getting there," she said. "Everyone's been really welcoming."

"That's good to hear," Bill said, though something about his tone felt off. Performative. "This guy helping you out?" He clapped Bucky on the shoulder.

Bucky clenched his jaw, but he didn't pull away.

"Yeah, he's been great," she said.

"Well, that's Buck for you," Bill continued, leaning against the bar like he had all the time in the world. "Always helpful. We went to high school together, you know. Man, if you'd seen him back then. Hockey team, total machine. Wall of muscle, this guy."

Bucky's grip went harder around his glass.

He didn't say anything.

She glanced at him, curious. "Oh, you played?"

"For a few years," Bucky said, not looking at her. "Couldn't commit to it full-time. Had to help my grandfather."

"Yeah, but you kept playing some amateur stuff while you were serving, right?" Ted said with a laugh. "They used to call you the Winter Soldier. Remember that?"

Bucky clenched his jaw again.

"But, well," Bill said, his grin widening in a way that made her stomach turn. "Guess eating pastries won in the end, huh?"

She stared at the guy.

Did he really just-

Something in Bucky bristled.

He set his beer down deliberately, the glass hitting the bar with a solid thunk.

Then he turned, meeting Bill's eyes head-on, his shoulders squared.

"You done?"

His voice was low. Calm. But there was an edge to it that hadn't been there before.

Bill blinked, his grin faltering. "What? I'm just-"

"You're just being an asshole." Bucky's eyes didn't leave his face. "Same as you were in high school. So, unless you've got something actually worth saying, you can fuck off."

His tone was even. Controlled. But the tension in his jaw, the way he'd left the glass to press his hand slightly against the rim of the wooden bar, it was all there.

Bill's face went red. "Jesus, Buck, I was just messing around-"

"No, you weren't." Bucky's expression didn't change. "You were being a dick. And I'm not in the mood."

The bar had gone quieter around them. Not silent, but enough that a few people were glancing over.

Bill opened his mouth, closed it, his face still red.

Ted grabbed his arm. "Come on, man. Let's go."

Bill muttered something under his breath but let Ted pull him away.

They left.

Bucky turned back to his beer, his shoulders still tense, and took a long drink.

She stared at him.

He noticed. His expression guarded again. "What?"

She bit her lip, glanced down at her empty glass, and then- "I'm sorry, but that was kind of hot."

Bucky choked on his beer.

Actually choked. Coughing, setting the glass down hard enough that it clattered against the bar.

"Shit- sorry," she said quickly, her face heating. "I just meant- in a respectful way. Like, you stood up for yourself, and it was-" She gestured vaguely, as if that would somehow help. "You know... manly?"

He was still coughing, pressing one hand to his chest, his ears flaming red. He grabbed a napkin from the bar and wiped the corner of his mouth, his eyes watering slightly.

A few people at the bar glanced over.

She covered her face with her hands. "Oh my God. I made it awkward. I'm so sorry."

"It's-" He cleared his throat, his voice rough and hoarse. "It's fine."

She peeked at him through her fingers.

He was staring at her, his expression somewhere between mortified and completely bewildered.

And then -just barely- his mouth twitched.

She smiled, relieved.

Okay. Maybe she hadn't completely ruined this.

----

After that, they talked.

She ordered another screwdriver. He got another beer. And somewhere between her asking about the bakery's hours and him asking more about her work, hobbies, and her life in the other town, the tension eased.

The alcohol probably helped. The slight help that made words come easier, shoulders relax, inhibitions soften just enough.

The conversation flowed. He wasn't fumbling for words. She wasn't second-guessing everything she said.

She leaned in when he talked, resting her elbow on the bar, propping her chin on her hand. He mirrored her without seeming to realize it, angling his body toward hers, the space between them shrinking gradually.

When she laughed at something he said -actually laughed, tilting her head back- he smiled.

And when he mentioned something about his grandfather's old recipe of Ricotta Pie, she reached out and touched his forearm briefly, just a light tap, her eyes bright with interest. He didn't pull away. If anything, he seemed to lean into it.

To anyone watching from across the bar, they looked like exactly what they were pretending this wasn't: two people on a date, enjoying each other's company.

It was... easy.

Better than easy.

It was good.

----

Bucky had been putting off going to the bathroom for the last thirty minutes. He knew he needed to; his bladder was making that very clear, but he didn't want to risk it.

Didn't want to break whatever momentum they'd built. Didn't want to come back and find that the atmosphere had changed, that the flow between them had evaporated while he was gone, and he'd have to start from scratch. Fumbling for topics. Watching her smile fade into polite patience.

Or worse: he'd come back and find someone else had slid into his seat. Some guy who actually knew how to talk to women, buying her a drink, making her laugh the way he'd barely managed to do all night.

But eventually, it wasn't negotiable.

"I'll be right back," he said, standing.

She nodded, still smiling. "I'll be here."

He made his way across the bar, weaving between tables and clusters of people, and pushed through the door to the men's room.

It was empty, mercifully.

He used the urinal, washed his hands, and caught his reflection in the mirror above the sink.

His hair was a mess. He'd been running his fingers through it without realizing, probably while they were talking. He smoothed it down the best he could.

The sleeves of his plaid shirt had stretched out, sliding down past his elbows. He rolled them back up and then straightened the collar, making sure it wasn't bunched up weirdly over the henley.

He stepped back slightly, checking himself one more time.

His mouth curved -just barely- in a small, private smile.

Things were going well.

Really well.

He exhaled, shook his head at himself, and headed for the door.

----

When he came out a few minutes later, Bill was leaning against the wall near the door, talking to some guy Bucky vaguely recognized from around town.

"Look at lover boy over there," Bill said, loud enough for Bucky to hear. "Brings the new girl out to show her off and says, what, two sentences in a row?"

Bucky's jaw clenched.

He tried to ignore him. Just walk past.

But Bill's hand shot out, grabbing his arm.

Bucky stopped, his whole body going rigid.