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hidden-behind-the-fourth-wall · 1 day ago

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Oh the angst! What a masterpiece! ❣️

attrition | b.b. (1)

✮ synopsis: six months. that's how long it takes for you to realize love isn't enough. six months of bucky sleeping on the couch, of missed anniversaries and empty drawers where his things should be. six months of being loved by someone who treats you like you're already a ghost.

✮ pairing: post-thunderbolts!bucky x fem!reader

✮ disclaimers (18+): heavy angst, toxic relationship dynamics, emotional manipulation (unintentional), alcohol use/intoxication, unwanted touching (from minor character), violence, ptsd and trauma responses, therapy avoidance, communication breakdown, emotional neglect, mild sexual content (minors dni), depression, co-dependency, anxiety, self-destructive behaviors

✮ word count: 14.7k (woof)

✮ a/n: ANGST CITY BABY. but this is part one of a two-part series and i p r o m i s e (promise promise) there's a happy ending on the horizon. but i've gotta drag everyone through the emotional trenches first 🤠 (also the text messages keep formatting all wonky and i've given up trying to fix them. sry.)

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The candle wax had started pooling at the base, creating small rivers that threatened to spill onto the tablecloth your grandmother gave you. You'd been watching it for the past twenty minutes, cataloging its slow destruction while the roast chicken developed a skin that could probably deflect bullets.

Which, given who you were waiting for, felt grimly appropriate.

Your bare feet had gone numb against the kitchen tile, a bone-deep cold that crept up through your ankles. The dress—the one that made you feel like you could conquer an imaginary boardroom and bar fights with equal efficiency—now clung uncomfortably to your ribs, each breath a reminder of how long you'd been sitting here, waiting. Your stomach had given up growling an hour ago, resigned to its empty fate.

Six months. The number sat heavy behind your sternum, a weight that pressed against your lungs with each inhale. You'd moved in together at three months—a decision that had felt like destiny at the time. His toothbrush next to yours. His combat boots by your rain boots. His leather jacket slowly accumulating the smell of your perfume.

It had seemed romantic then, this swift collision of lives. Now the apartment felt like a beautiful prison you'd both walked into willingly, locking the door behind you.

The wine had gone warm in your glass, taking on that sickly sweet quality that made your teeth ache. You'd stopped drinking after the second one, some optimistic part of you still believing he'd walk through the door in time to share the bottle. That same part of you had carefully wrapped the small gift sitting on the coffee table—nothing major, just something that had made you think of him. A leather journal, worn and vintage, the kind he always touched in antique shops but never bought. You'd written something inside it this morning, when hope still felt like a reasonable emotion.

Your phone sat dark beside your plate. No messages. No missed calls. The silence of it felt accusatory, like even the device had given up on pretending this was normal.

When the key finally scraped in the lock, your spine straightened involuntarily, vertebrae clicking back into alignment after hours of slumping. Your heart kicked up its rhythm, that Pavlovian response to his arrival you hadn't managed to train out of yourself yet. Even now, even angry and hurt and tired, your body betrayed you with its eagerness.

Bucky filled the doorway like he always did—not just with his physical presence but with that particular gravity that made rooms reorganize themselves around him. Exhaustion hung on him like a second skin, in the slope of his shoulders and the way he held his head. His shoulders carried that specific tension that meant the mission had gone sideways, muscles bunched under his jacket like he was still ready to fight. The cut on his cheek was fresh, still weeping slightly, and his tactical pants bore smears of something dark that could be mud or blood or both.

He stopped mid-step, keys still dangling from his flesh hand. His eyes—that impossible blue that still made your stomach flip traitorously—tracked from your face to the dress to the table set for two. The wine bottle. The wilted salad. The candles drowning in their own wax.

You watched the exact moment comprehension hit him. His pupils dilated slightly, jaw going slack before tightening again. The keys landed in the bowl with more force than necessary, the sound sharp in the quiet apartment.

"Shit." The word came out raw, scraped from somewhere deep in his chest. "Sweetheart, I—"

"It's fine." The words jumped out before he could finish, your voice pitched just high enough to sound almost believable. Already you were moving, hands reaching for plates like this was all part of the plan. The ceramic was cool under your fingers, grounding you. "You're here now. Are you hungry? I can reheat—"

"Don't." His voice cut through your bustling, low and rough like gravel. When you looked back, he hadn't moved from the entryway, just stood there like he was cataloging damage from a bomb he'd accidentally detonated. One hand braced against the doorframe, knuckles white.

"Really, it's nothing." You turned back to the table, focusing on the simple task of stacking dishes. Your hands stayed steady even as something hot and tight crawled up your throat. "I made too much anyway. You know me, always overestimating portions."

"What time did I say?" The question came out carefully neutral, but you'd learned to read the microscopic changes in his voice. The slight rasp that meant self-hatred was creeping in.

"Seven-ish?" You kept your tone light, breezy, the voice you used when pretending everything was fine during your mother's phone calls. "But honestly, I should have checked. I know how these things go."

"It's nine." He said it like he was confessing to a crime. "Nine oh seven."

"Bucky, really—"

You glanced at him, saw something shift in his expression as he took in the scene again. His eyes moved from the table to you, cataloging details with that sniper's precision that never quite turned off. The dress. Your bare feet. The careful way you'd done your hair. Then his gaze caught on something over your shoulder, snagging like fabric on a nail.

The coffee table.

His whole body went rigid, that predator stillness that meant his brain was processing a threat. Except the threat was a small wrapped package, sitting innocent and damning in the lamplight.

Your stomach dropped somewhere around your knees.

"What—" he started, voice strangled.

"Oh, that's nothing." The words tumbled out too fast as you moved, scooping up the gift before he could step closer. The paper crinkled under your grip, and you fought the urge to crush it completely. "Just something I saw. Picked up. Seriously, not important."

His face went pale—not the gradual drain of color but an instant bleaching that made him look hollow, ghostlike. The cut on his cheek, half-healed and forgotten until now, stood out angry and red against his bloodless skin. You watched him piece it together in real time, could actually see the moment understanding clicked behind his eyes.

His left hand—the metal one—betrayed him first. The plates shifted and recalibrated with soft mechanical whispers, the way they always did when his emotions ran too hot, too fast for his body to process. A tell he'd never managed to suppress.

His gaze drifted past you, landing on that stupid Seinfeld calendar stuck to the fridge. The one he'd bought you three months ago, cackling like an idiot in the checkout line about how George Costanza somehow perfectly captured your shared existential dread. It hung there between old takeout menus and photo booth strips from better days, garish and wonderful and so utterly them that it hurt to look at.

You watched him stare at it, watched him count backwards in his head. Watched the last piece slot into place.

"It’s today," he said slowly, like he was defusing a bomb. Like the words might explode if he said them too fast. "It's—fuck." The profanity came out as barely more than a breath. "Fuck. Six months."

"It's really not a big deal." You were already shoving the gift into the nearest drawer, the wood protesting as you forced it shut. Your chest felt tight, like someone had wrapped steel bands around your ribs and was slowly tightening them. "Just a random Tuesday, you know? I mean, who even counts months? That's so high school."

"You made dinner." His voice had gone hollow, echoing strangely in the small space. Each word seemed to cost him something. "You got dressed up. You bought—"

"I like cooking." The words came out too fast, too bright, like shattered glass catching light. Your smile felt like it might crack your face. "And this dress is comfortable, I wear it all the time. You probably just haven't noticed because you're—anyway, should I heat up the chicken? You must be starving."

"Stop."

The word came out rough, almost angry, but when you looked at him, you could see all that fury turned inward. His flesh hand was clenched into a fist so tight you could hear his knuckles pop. The metal one hung carefully still at his side, like he didn't trust it. Didn't trust himself.

"Just—stop pretending this is okay."

"But it is okay." You forced the smile wider, until your cheeks ached with it. The expression you'd perfected after months of practice. "I understand. Your work is important. The world needs saving. What's a dinner compared to that?"

Something shifted in his expression—frustration bleeding into something that looked almost like disappointment. His jaw worked like he was chewing on words, trying to find the right ones. You recognized that look. It was the same one he got when he wanted you to yell at him, to throw something, to be anything other than understanding.

But you couldn't give him that. Wouldn't. Because if you started letting the hurt show, you might never stop. The dam would break, and you'd drown both of you in the flood.

"I forgot our anniversary." He said it flatly, like stating evidence at a trial. Like maybe if he said it out loud, it would hurt less. It didn't.

"It's just a day." You busied yourself with clearing plates, needing the physical action to keep yourself anchored. The fork clinked against china, a tinny sound that made you wince. "We're together every day. That's what matters, right?"

"You don't believe that."

"Sure I do." Another lie, smooth as silk. You'd gotten good at them. Had to, living like this. "Besides, when you think about it, anniversaries are kind of arbitrary. Why six months and not seven? Why celebrate time at all when—"

"What was in the box?"

He'd moved closer while you rambled, silent as always. Ghost-quiet, they probably called it in his files. Now he stood between you and the kitchen, blocking your escape with his body. This close, you could smell the mission on him—cordite and copper and something acrid that might have been burning plastic.

"Nothing important. Just… something that made me think of you." You shrugged, aiming for casual and landing somewhere around manic. Your hands fluttered like birds with broken wings. "But honestly, it's stupid. You probably wouldn't even—"

"Show me."

"Bucky—"

"Please." The word caught you off guard, soft and desperate. It hit you in the solar plexus, knocked the air from your lungs. "Just... let me see what you got me."

You could have refused. Should have, maybe. Instead, you found yourself retrieving the small package, the drawer sticking slightly as you pulled it open again. Your hands trembled as you held it out, and you hated them for the betrayal.

He took it carefully, like it might explode. Or like it was precious. The same way he'd touched you, in the beginning, before he'd learned you wouldn't break. The paper fell away with careful movements of his flesh hand, the metal one still hanging useless at his side.

The journal revealed itself slowly—leather worn soft with age, the color of whiskey in low light. You'd seen him run his fingers over similar ones a dozen times in antique shops, always putting them back with a small shake of his head. Like he didn't deserve nice things. Like he couldn't allow himself even that small pleasure.

"I thought—" Your voice caught, and you had to swallow hard to continue. "You're always writing on those loose papers, and they get everywhere, and I thought maybe—but it's dumb. You probably prefer the papers. It's not—"

"It's perfect." His voice came out raw, scraped. Like the words hurt coming up.

He opened it with careful fingers, found the note you'd tucked into the first page. You watched his eyes track over your handwriting, watched his jaw tighten with each word. You'd written it last night, three glasses of wine deep and feeling sentimental. Something about how his stories deserved a better home than scattered napkins and receipt backs. Something about being grateful for every day, even the difficult ones.

Now it felt like evidence of your naivety.

"It's really not," you said quickly, the words tumbling over each other in their haste to get out. "I can return it. Get you something more practical. Or nothing. Nothing's good, too."

He looked up at you then, and the devastation in his eyes made your stomach flip. It was the look he got sometimes when he woke up from nightmares, before he remembered where he was. When he was. Lost and guilty and carrying too much weight for one person's shoulders.

"Why are you doing this?"

"Doing what?"

"This." He gestured vaguely between you, the journal still clutched in his flesh hand like an anchor. "Acting like nothing matters. Like I didn't just—like this doesn't—" He stopped, frustrated, the words tangling up behind his teeth. "I fucked up. I forgot something important. Why won't you be angry?"

"Because I'm not angry." Your voice stayed steady even as your nails dug crescents into your palms. "I'm fine. We're fine. Everything's—"

"Fine," he finished, bitter as black coffee. "Yeah. You keep saying that."

You shifted your weight, suddenly hyperaware of your body. How your feet ached from standing, cold and numb against the tile. How the dress pulled at your ribs with each breath. How your hands couldn't seem to stop moving, straightening things that didn't need straightening.

"Look, why don't you get cleaned up?" You couldn't meet his eyes, focusing instead on a spot just over his shoulder. "I'll put the food away. We can just... reset. Pretend this didn't happen."

"Is that what you want? To pretend?"

"I want—" The words caught in your throat like fishhooks. It felt like a test.

You forced another smile, felt it stretch your face into something that probably looked more grimace than grin. "I want you to eat something. And maybe put something on that cut. It looks deep."

His flesh hand went to his cheek automatically, coming away with fresh blood. He stared at it like he'd forgotten he was bleeding. Like physical pain was so far down his priority list it barely registered.

"It's nothing."

"Now who's deflecting?" The words slipped out before you could stop them, carrying more edge than you'd intended. A crack in the facade you'd been so carefully maintaining.

His eyes sharpened, zeroing in on that first real break in your performance all night. "Say it."

"Say what?"

"Whatever you're thinking. Whatever you're pushing down." He moved closer, and your body responded without your permission—heart rate spiking, breath catching, skin prickling with awareness. "Come on. Tell me what a shit boyfriend I am. Tell me how I'm ruining this."

"You're not—"

"I am." His voice was rough, urgent. Desperate in a way that made your chest ache. "I know I am. I can see it happening and I can't—I don't know how to stop it. So just say it. Please. Be mad at me."

"I can't." The admission came out small, tired. True. "I can't be mad at you when I know what your life is like. When I know what you carry. It would be like... like being mad at the rain for falling."

His metal hand clenched, servos whirring softly in the quiet apartment.

"I'm not the weather," he said quietly. "I'm a person who makes choices. And I chose wrong tonight."

"You chose to save lives." You moved past him toward the kitchen, needing distance. Needing air that didn't smell like gunpowder and guilt. "Hard to argue with that math."

He caught your wrist—flesh hand, always the flesh hand when he was trying to be gentle. His thumb found your pulse point automatically, and you knew he could feel how it jumped at his touch.

"That's not... You know that's not what this is about."

"Isn't it?" You looked down at his hand on your wrist, at the blood still drying in the creases of his knuckles. At the flesh and bone that could be so gentle and so violent, often in the same night. "Every time you walk out that door, you're choosing them over me. And that's... that's right. That's what heroes do. I just need to be better at accepting it."

"Don't." His grip tightened fractionally. Not enough to hurt, never enough to hurt, but enough to feel the desperation in it. "Don't make me into something noble when I'm fucking this up. When I'm hurting you."

"You're not hurting me." The words tasted like ash. "I'm fine."

He made a sound that might have been a laugh if it wasn't so bitter. "You keep saying that word."

"Because it's true."

"No," he said quietly, "it's not. And we both know it."

You stood there in your kitchen—his kitchen, this shared space that felt more like a crime scene now—and wondered how you'd gotten here. How six months of loving this man had taught you to swallow so much disappointment it had become second nature. Your throat felt full of unsaid words, accusations and pleas and declarations all tangled together into something too big to voice.

"I need to change," you said finally, extracting your wrist from his grip. The skin there felt too warm, like his touch had branded you. "This stupid dress is giving me a headache."

That was a lie too. The headache was from clenched teeth, from holding your face in that careful smile, from the effort of pretending everything was fine when it was anything but. But he let you go, watching you retreat with eyes that seemed to catalog every step like evidence of his failures.

You made it to the bedroom door before his voice stopped you.

"I love you."

The words hit you in the back like bullets. You closed your eyes, hand tightening on the doorframe until your knuckles went white. Your lungs forgot how to work for a moment, chest tight with everything you couldn't say.

"I know," you said without turning around.

Because you did know. That was the worst part. You knew he loved you the way he knew how—desperately, violently, silently. The way a soldier loves peacetime. The way a ghost loves being seen. The way a weapon loves being put down.

It just wasn't enough anymore.

But you couldn't say that. Couldn't risk the weight of that truth. So you did what you'd gotten so good at doing.

You pretended it was fine.

The bedroom was dark when he finally came to bed, but you weren't sleeping. Couldn't, with your mind running circles and your body still humming with the tension of the evening. You'd changed into one of his old shirts and curled up on your side, facing the wall, listening to the sounds of him moving through the apartment. The shower running. The medicine cabinet opening and closing. His footsteps, heavier than usual with exhaustion.

The mattress dipped behind you, and you felt the heat of him before he even touched you. He smelled like your soap now, the gunpowder and blood washed away, leaving just Bucky. Just the man you'd fallen in love with, who was somehow both exactly who you'd thought he was and nothing like it at all.

His flesh hand found your hip, tentative at first, then more certain when you didn't pull away. You never pulled away. That was part of the problem, wasn't it? You'd made yourself so available, so understanding, that he'd forgotten you had edges. Forgotten you could break.

"You awake?" His voice was rough in the darkness, barely above a whisper.

You didn't answer, but your breathing hitched, giving you away. You felt him shift closer, his chest pressing against your back, his arm sliding around your waist to pull you against him. The metal arm stayed wedged between them, carefully positioned so the plates wouldn't touch your skin.

"I'm sorry," he breathed against your neck, lips brushing the sensitive spot below your ear. "I'm so fucking sorry."

You closed your eyes, feeling the familiar routine begin. This was how he apologized when the words weren't enough, when his voice failed him like it so often did. With touch. With his body. With careful, focused attention that used to make you feel cherished.

His hand slipped under the hem of your shirt, fingers splaying across your stomach. Not demanding, just... present. Asking. Always asking, even after six months, like he still couldn't quite believe he was allowed this. His lips pressed against your shoulder, your neck, the spot where your pulse jumped traitorously.

You turned in his arms because you were weak. Because despite everything, your body still responded to his like a flower turning toward the sun. His eyes were dark in the dim light filtering through the curtains, pupils blown wide with want and something that might have been desperation.

He kissed you like he was drowning and you were air. Like he could fix everything broken between you if he just tried hard enough, loved you thoroughly enough. His flesh hand cradled your face like you were something precious, thumb brushing across your cheekbone with aching gentleness.

You let him, because this was easier than talking. Easier than admitting that the distance between you had grown so vast that even this—this thing that had always worked—felt like putting a bandaid on a bullet wound.

He undressed you slowly, reverently, his touch mapping every inch of skin like he was memorizing you. Like he was afraid you might disappear. And maybe you were, in a way. Maybe you'd been disappearing for months, becoming less solid with each missed dinner, each forgotten plan, each night you fell asleep alone.

His mouth followed his hands, pressing apologies into your skin that he couldn't speak aloud. He knew your body like a mission he'd studied, every sensitive spot, every place that made your breath catch. He applied that knowledge with focused intensity, watching your face in the darkness for every micro-expression, adjusting his touch based on the smallest reactions.

It was good. It was always good. He made sure of that with technical precision, with the kind of attention to detail that should have made you feel worshipped. His flesh hand worked between your thighs with practiced movements, finding exactly the right rhythm, the right pressure. His mouth on your breast, your throat, swallowing the sounds you made like they were sustenance.

But even as your body responded, as heat coiled low in your belly and your hands tangled in his hair, some part of you stayed separate. Observing. Cataloging the way he held himself so carefully above you, weight balanced on his right arm while the left stayed pressed against the mattress. The way his breathing stayed controlled, measured, even as sweat beaded on his forehead. The way he watched you with that same focused intensity he brought to everything, like making you come was a mission objective to complete.

When he finally pressed inside you, your back arched and his name fell from your lips like a prayer. He stilled for a moment, forehead pressed to yours, sharing breath in the darkness. You could feel the tremor in his arms, the effort it took to maintain that careful control.

He moved like he was handling something breakable. Deep, measured thrusts that built a steady rhythm designed to take you apart by degrees. His flesh hand found yours, lacing your fingers together beside your head, while the metal one stayed planted firmly on the mattress, bearing his weight.

You wanted to tell him to let go. To stop being so careful, so controlled. To give you something real instead of this perfect performance. But the words stuck in your throat, trapped behind months of fine and okay and it doesn't matter.

He knew exactly what angle made you gasp, exactly how to roll his hips to hit that spot that made stars explode behind your eyelids. He applied this knowledge ruthlessly, efficiently, until you were shaking beneath him, nails digging into his shoulders as waves of pleasure crashed over you.

He watched you fall apart with dark satisfaction, like he'd successfully completed a mission. His own release followed shortly after, his body shuddering silently above you, face buried in your neck. Even then, even lost in his own pleasure, he was quiet. Just harsh breathing and the whisper of your name, barely audible.

After, he held you too tightly, both arms around you now that the careful control wasn't needed. The metal arm was cool against your overheated skin, and you pressed into it, into this part of him he tried so hard to keep separate.

"Better?" he asked quietly, and you could hear the hope in it. Like maybe this had fixed something. Like maybe you'd forgotten about the cold dinner and the lonely wait and the wrapped gift hidden in a drawer.

"Yeah," you whispered, because what else could you say? How could you tell him that technically perfect sex couldn't fill the emotional void between you? That you needed more than his body—you needed his words, his presence, his time?

"Good," he murmured, already drifting toward sleep. The mission was complete. Objective achieved. Girlfriend satisfied.

You lay there in the darkness, listening to his breathing even out, feeling the weight of his arms around you. Six months of this. Six months of being loved by a man who couldn't say it out loud unless he thought he was losing you. Six months of being held by someone who only knew how to hold on too tight or let go completely.

Tomorrow, you told yourself. Tomorrow you'd find your voice. Tomorrow you'd stop pretending everything was fine.

Tonight, you just closed your eyes and pretended to sleep, counting his heartbeats against your back and wondering when love had started feeling so much like loneliness.

The morning light was doing that thing where it slanted through the blinds just wrong, striping across your face in a way that guaranteed a headache by noon. You'd been awake for the past hour, maybe two, caught in that special purgatory between sleep and consciousness where all your mistakes liked to parade themselves for review.

Bucky was still wrapped around you, flesh arm heavy across your waist, metal arm tucked carefully behind his back. Even in sleep, he kept it away from you. Like his subconscious had been programmed with the same careful distance as his waking mind.

You studied the ceiling, counting water stains like constellations, and tried to remember when it had become like this. When you'd become someone who catalogued disappointments instead of joys. Someone who lay in bed calculating the exact weight of a sleeping man's arm across your ribs.

It hadn't always been like this.

Six months ago, you'd been the woman who'd laughed—actually laughed—when he'd awkwardly admitted his therapist had suggested he ask you out. Not a polite titter or an uncomfortable chuckle, but a real, surprised burst of laughter that had made him jump.

"Oh my god," you'd said, wiping tears from your eyes while he sat frozen across from you at the dive bar he'd chosen. "Shit. That's definitely the most honest thing anyone's ever said on a first date."

His face had done something complicated—surprise melting into confusion, then something that might have been the birth of a smile. "You're... not going to throw your drink at me?"

"Why would I?" You'd raised your beer, foam sloshing dangerously close to the rim. "At least you're, I don’t know. Working on yourself. Do you know how rare that is, these days?"

He'd clinked his bottle against yours, and there it was—a real smile. The kind that transformed his whole face, made him look younger, softer somehow. "To horrible first impressions?"

"To honesty," you'd corrected. "Even the awkward kind."

That had been the beginning. Or maybe the beginning had been earlier, in your bookstore that smelled like dust and old paper and the obscure eighties rock you played just loud enough to discourage teenagers from using it as a hangout. He'd wandered in looking lost, all broad shoulders and careful movements, like he was afraid of breaking something.

Five visits. That's what it had taken. Five separate occasions of him pretending to browse your stacks while stealing glances at you over copies of Kerouac and Murakami. You'd watched him work up to it like a man approaching a live wire, and when he'd finally asked—voice rough, words tumbling over each other—you'd said yes before he'd even finished the sentence.

You'd slept together after that first date. It had surprised both of you—the way you'd crashed together outside your apartment, the way he'd kissed you like he was starving for it, the way you'd pulled him inside without a second thought.

"I don't usually—" he'd said after, lying in your bed looking shell-shocked and unbearably soft in the lamplight.

"Yeah, me neither," you'd admitted, then traced a finger along his flesh arm, marveling at how someone so dangerous could be so gentle. "But I'm glad we did."

He'd pulled you closer then, nose brushing against your temple. "Me too."

Those early days had been full of small revelations. You'd discovered he kept notes—actual handwritten notes on receipt backs and napkins and torn corners of newspapers. You'd found them scattered around his apartment like breadcrumbs: likes her coffee with cinnamon when she's sad and wears dad's old college sweatshirt on laundry day and laughs at commercials but only when she thinks no one's watching.

"Is this... about me?" you'd asked, holding up a scrap that read hates cilantro but won't send food back.

He'd flushed, reaching for the paper, but you'd held it out of reach. "My memory," he'd said quietly. "It's not always... Some days are harder than others. I don't want to forget the important things."

You'd kissed him then, soft and lingering, tasting the vulnerability in his admission. "I hate cilantro," you'd confirmed against his lips. "But I love that you noticed."

He'd come home bleeding more nights than not in those early months, before the move, when boundaries were still being negotiated. You'd gotten good at first aid by necessity, keeping supplies under your bathroom sink like some people kept spare towels. He'd sit on a stool while you worked, and inevitably—always—his hands would find your waist. He'd press his face against your stomach like he was trying to breathe you in, to memorize the feel of you through your sleep shirt.

"I'm okay," he'd mumble into the fabric while you cleaned a gash on his shoulder.

"I know," you'd say, even when he wasn't. Even when his hands shook against your hips and his breath came too fast. "I've got you."

Those were the nights he'd kiss you like a drowning man, desperate and deep, mapping your mouth with his tongue like he was trying to memorize the geography of you. You'd discovered early on that he loved kissing—could spend hours just making out like teenagers, all wandering hands and bitten lips and breathless laughter when you had to come up for air.

"This okay?" he'd ask between kisses, even after months together, checking in like he still couldn't quite believe he was allowed this.

"More than okay," you'd assure him, and watch his pupils blow wide before diving back in.

He'd sit through terrible spy movies with you, the ones with ridiculous plots and worse dialogue, because he'd noticed your collection and drawn his own conclusions. You'd curl up on his couch while Hollywood's version of espionage played out in technicolor absurdity.

"That's not how any of that works," he'd mutter when the hero rappelled through a ventilation shaft.

"That's the point," you'd say, tucking your feet under his thigh. "If I wanted realism, I'd watch the news."

But he'd watch anyway, adding dry commentary that made you laugh harder than the intentional jokes. During the love scenes, he'd trace patterns on your ankle with his thumb, pretending he wasn't affected while his ears turned pink.

The moving in together had been gradual, then sudden. Your toothbrush at his place. His favorite mug at yours. Until one day he'd looked around your apartment—at his jacket on your coat rack, his books mixed with yours, his reading glasses on your nightstand—and said, "This is inefficient."

"What is?"

"Paying for two places when we're always together anyway."

Not the most romantic proposition, but the way he'd been fidgeting with his car keys, nervous energy radiating off him in waves, told a different story.

"James Buchanan Barnes," you'd said slowly, "are you asking me to move in with you?"

"Maybe. Yes. If you want." He'd run his flesh hand through his hair, messing it up in that way that made your chest tight. "I want to wake up with you every day. Not just sometimes. Every day."

You'd said yes, of course. How could you not, when he looked at you like that? Like you were his anchor in a storm he couldn't name.

But somewhere between then and now, something had shifted. The notes stopped appearing—or maybe you'd stopped looking for them. The movie nights became fewer, his commentary sharper when they did happen. He still kissed you like he was drowning, but now it felt like he was already too far underwater to save.

"Hey," his voice, rough with sleep, pulled you from your reverie. "You're thinking too loud."

"Just thinking," you said softly, not turning to face him.

"Yeah?" His lips found the spot where your neck met your shoulder, pressing a kiss there that felt like an apology. "What about?"

The way we used to be. When loving you felt like breathing instead of drowning.

"The Donovans," you said instead, nodding toward the wall. "They're at it again. Who starts rearranging furniture at six in the morning?"

He huffed a laugh against your skin, and you could feel him listening. Sure enough, the telltale scrape of something heavy being dragged across the floor filtered through the thin walls, followed by muffled voices.

"Maybe they're trying to spice things up," he murmured. "New feng shui, new marriage."

"Is that what we need? Better feng shui?"

His arm tightened around you, pulling you back against his chest. "I don't think there's a furniture arrangement that fixes what I've mangled."

The honesty of it caught you off guard. For a moment, it felt like before. Like you were still those two people who'd found something unexpected in each other.

Then his phone buzzed on the nightstand, and you felt him go still. The mission alert tone. Because of course it was.

"I know," you said before he could speak. "You have to go."

"I—" He paused, and you could feel the weight of words unsaid pressing against your spine. "Yeah. I do."

You sat up, pulling the sheet around yourself, watching him dress in efficient movements. His tactical gear was kept in the closet now, easy access. When had that become normal? When had you stopped noticing the weapons hidden around your shared space like deadly décor?

At the door, he paused. "About last night—"

"Bucky." You finally looked at him, taking in the guilt etched into every line of his face. "Just... be careful, okay?"

Something flickered in his eyes—surprise, maybe, at the lack of accusation. "Always am."

"No," you said quietly. "You're really not."

He crossed back to you in three strides, cupping your face in his hands—both of them, metal and flesh—and kissed you like he used to. Like you were oxygen and he'd been holding his breath for too long. When he pulled back, you were both breathing hard.

"I love you," he said, fierce and desperate. "Even when I'm shit at showing it. I love you."

"I know," you whispered. "That's what makes this so hard."

He left then, and you were alone with the ghost of his kiss still on your lips and the weight of everything unsaid settling into your bones. You made coffee, adding cinnamon like you always did when you were sad, and tried not to think about how he'd remember that detail but forget your anniversary.

Love was funny that way. It could be in the small notes scattered like breadcrumbs and still get lost in the larger leaving. It could be desperately real and still not be enough.

You found a piece of paper stuck to the coffee maker as you reached for a mug. His handwriting, clearly recent—the pen he'd used was still uncapped on the counter:

she only listens to Fleetwood Mac when she can't sleep. Dreams instead of Rumours = the bad kind of insomnia

You stared at it for a long time, remembering last Tuesday when you'd played "Dreams" on repeat at 3 AM, curled on the couch while he'd been supposedly asleep. He'd been listening. Taking notes. Still trying to decode you like you were a mission he could complete if he just gathered enough intel.

You carefully folded it and put it in the drawer where you'd hidden his anniversary gift. Another piece of evidence that you'd been loved by Bucky Barnes. Another reminder that sometimes love, no matter how real, wasn't enough to make someone stay.

The nightmare came a few weeks later, on a Tuesday.

You'd been having a good day, or at least good by recent standards. Bucky had been home for a full week—some kind of record lately. He'd even cooked dinner, that pasta dish his mother used to make, though he could never quite remember if it was oregano or basil she'd used. You'd eaten together at the actual table, phones face down, talking about nothing important in that comfortable way that made you ache for how things used to be.

Maybe that's why you'd let your guard down. Why you'd curled into him that night instead of maintaining the careful distance that had become your default. He'd seemed present, actually there with you instead of wherever his mind usually wandered. His arm had been warm around you, and you'd fallen asleep to the steady rhythm of his breathing.

You woke to darkness and the sensation of being trapped.

At first, your sleep-addled brain couldn't process what was happening. The pressure around your throat was firm, mechanical, unforgiving. Metal fingers pressed against your windpipe with calculated precision, not quite cutting off air but making each breath a conscious effort. Your hands flew up instinctively, fingernails scraping against vibranium that wouldn't yield.

"Bucky." The word came out strangled, barely there.

His eyes were open but vacant, seeing something that wasn't you, wasn't this room, wasn't this year. In the dim light, you could see his face contorted with rage—no, not rage. Fear. Raw, primal terror that belonged to some other time, some other place where he wasn't safe, where he had to fight to survive.

"Soldat." The Russian fell from his lips like acid. More words followed, too quick and slurred with sleep for you to catch, but the tone was clear. Orders. He was following orders.

Your vision started to blur at the edges. Not from lack of air—not yet—but from the tears that came unbidden. This wasn't him. This wasn't your Bucky who kept notes about your coffee preferences and kissed you like you were precious. This was the Winter Soldier, and he was going to kill you in your own bed.

"James." You forced the word out, put every ounce of love you had into it. Your hand found his face, palm against stubble and scars. "Baby, please. It's me. You're home."

For a moment, nothing. The pressure continued, steady and sure. Then—a flicker. Something in his eyes shifted, pupils contracting as consciousness clawed its way back. You watched the exact second he came back to himself, watched the recognition slam into him like a physical blow.

The hand released so fast you gasped, air rushing back into your lungs in a painful burst. But the sound of your breathing—ragged, desperate—seemed to break something in him.

"No." The word ripped from his throat, raw and disbelieving. He scrambled backward so violently he fell off the bed, hitting the floor hard. "No, no, no. What did I—Oh god."

"I'm okay," you tried to say, but your voice came out wrecked, harsh. The sound of it—the damage he'd caused—made him flinch like you'd struck him.

He was on his knees now, staring at his metal hand like it was covered in blood. Maybe in his mind, it was. "I was—Jesus Christ, I was killing you. I was—" His breath came in sharp pants, heading toward hyperventilation. "Your neck. Let me see your neck."

"Bucky—"

"Let me see." It came out as almost a roar, desperate and wild.

You pushed yourself up, hand going unconsciously to your throat. Even that light touch made you wince, and you knew without looking that there would be marks. A perfect blueprint of his hand in bruises.

He saw your wince. Of course he did. And the look that crossed his face—you'd seen him shot, stabbed, thrown from buildings. You'd never seen him look like this. Like someone had reached inside and torn something vital loose.

"I… I put my hands on you. I tried to—" He couldn't finish, just stared at you like you were already dead, like he'd already lost you to his own monstrosity.

"You were asleep," you said, voice still rough but steadier now. "You were having a nightmare. You didn't know—"

"Does that matter?" He laughed, but it was a broken sound, closer to a sob. "Does it fucking matter that I was asleep when I'm strong enough to snap your neck without trying? When I—" He pressed his flesh hand to his mouth, shoulders shaking. "I could taste it. The mission. Kill the target, eliminate the witness. You were just—you were just a body to eliminate."

"But you stopped." You moved to the edge of the bed, needing to be closer even as he flinched away. "You heard me and you stopped."

"This time." He looked up at you then, and his eyes were wet, desperate. "What about next time? What happens when I don't wake up in time? When I squeeze just a little harder, hold on just a few seconds longer?" His voice broke completely. "I'll kill you, and I'll wake up with your body in our bed, and I'll have to live with that. I'll have to know that the last thing you felt was me hurting you."

"That won't happen."

"You don't know that!" He was on his feet now, backing toward the door. "Nobody knows that! I don't even know what's in my head, what they put there. Seventy years of programming, of turning me into a weapon, and you think—what? That love is enough to fix that? That I can just will myself better?"

You wanted to say yes. Wanted to believe it. But the words stuck in your throat—the throat that still ached from his grip.

"I'm sleeping on the couch," he said, and it sounded like a sentencing. Your heart dropped into the pit of your stomach.

"Bucky, please—"

"I can't." He stopped in the doorway, one hand braced against the frame like he needed it to stay upright. "I can't lay next to you knowing what I'm capable of. I can't touch you with hands that—" He looked down at the metal arm, gleaming dully in the darkness. "I was okay with being a monster when it was just me. But I can't—I won't let you be collateral damage."

"You're not a monster."

He turned then, and the look he gave you was almost pitying. "Tell that to your neck."

You sat there, on the edge of the bed you'd shared for three months, and listened to him settle on the couch. Heard him punch a pillow, once, twice, muffling what sounded suspiciously like sobs. You wanted to go to him, to hold him and tell him it wasn't his fault, that you weren't afraid.

But you were afraid. Not of him—never of him—but of the ghosts in his head that could turn him into someone else. Of the war between who he was and what they'd made him.

Your fingers found your throat again, tracing the shape of his hand in tender skin. Tomorrow, there would be bruises. Purple and blue and sickly yellow, a necklace of trauma you'd have to hide with scarves and makeup. But worse than the physical marks was the knowledge that he'd never forgive himself for this.

That he'd use it as evidence in the case he was always building against himself: why he didn't deserve love, why he couldn't have nice things, why James Buchanan Barnes was too broken to be saved.

You pulled his pillow against your chest—it still smelled like him, like cedar and something indefinably safe—and tried not to think about how this was the beginning of the end. How he'd pull away now, inch by inch, until there was nothing left but the empty space where love used to live.

In the living room, you could hear him moving restlessly, probably calculating the exact distance needed to keep you safe from him. Always the protector, even when the thing he was protecting you from was himself.

You wanted to tell him that the real damage wasn't the bruises that would fade in a week. It was this—the distance, the self-hatred, the way he was already grieving a relationship he'd decided was too dangerous to keep.

But your throat hurt, and your words weren't working right, and sometimes love wasn't enough to overcome seventy years of programming.

So you held his pillow and listened to him not sleeping on the couch, both of you alone in the dark, measuring the distance between what you had and what you were about to lose.

The bar was too loud and too warm, and you'd lost count of your drinks somewhere around the third toast to "getting the gang back together." Your college friends were all talking over each other, five conversations happening at once, and you were pretending to follow along while the room tilted gently to the left, then right, like a ship in uncertain waters.

Your phone sat face-up on the sticky table, silent. Three days. Seventy-two hours since the last check-in, which had been just one word: Alive. You'd stared at it for so long the letters had started to blur. Alive meant not dead. It didn't mean safe or whole or missing you or anything else your desperate brain wanted to read into it.

"Another round?" Derek—or was it Dylan?—appeared with a tray of shots that glowed an alarming shade of blue. He'd been in your International Relations class senior year, the guy who always sat too close during group projects and somehow never had his portion of the work done on time.

"I'm good," you said, but the words came out slurred, tongue thick in your mouth, and somehow there was already a shot glass being pressed into your hand. The glass was cold, wet with condensation, and your fingers felt clumsy around it.

"Come on," he said, sliding into the booth beside you. The vinyl squeaked under his weight, and suddenly the booth felt half its previous size. His thigh pressed against yours, heat seeping through your jeans. "Like old times."

Nothing about college had involved Derek-or-Dylan sitting this close, but your brain was too fuzzy to form the words. Thinking felt like trying to swim through honey. The shot burned going down, tasted like artificial raspberry and the kind of decision you'd regret in the morning. Your throat closed around it, body trying to reject what your mind had already accepted.

Someone was laughing too loud. Sarah? Stephanie? The girl who'd lived down the hall junior year. Her engagement ring caught the bar lights, throwing little rainbows across the table. Engaged. Normal. Safe. Her fiancé probably slept in their bed. Probably came home when he said he would.

Your phone buzzed. Your heart leaped—stupid, traitorous thing—but it was just your credit card app, politely informing you of suspicious activity at "O'Malley's Tavern." Yeah, you thought hazily, five rounds for people you haven't seen in years was pretty fucking suspicious.

You picked up your phone, thumb hovering over Bucky's contact. The little green dot that showed he was active had been gone for days. Off the grid. Radio silent. But that didn't stop you from opening the messages, from reading the last exchange from four days ago:

You: be safe Bucky: Always am.

Liar, you thought, and started typing.

You: hey

You stared at the word, deleted it, tried again. Your vision swam, letters doubling and tripling before reforming.

You: heyyyy. i miss u

Derek-or-Dylan was saying something about his job at a consulting firm, his hand gesturing wide enough to brush your shoulder, your arm, coming to rest on the back of the booth behind you. His cologne was too strong, something that probably had a name like "Masculine Musk" or "Power." It made your stomach roll. You shifted forward, but the room swayed with the movement, and you had to grab the edge of the table to steady yourself.

You: i know ur probly saving the world rn but i wanted u to know You: taht i love u You: that** You: even if ur being stupid lately

The words looked wrong on the screen, but you couldn't figure out how to fix them. Your fingers felt disconnected from your brain, moving of their own accord.

"You okay?" Derek-Dylan asked, and his hand was on your knee now, squeezing gently. His palm was damp through your jeans. "You seem distracted."

"I'm fine," you mumbled, trying to pull your leg away. But in the booth, trapped between him and the wall, there was nowhere to go. Your skin crawled where he touched you, but your body felt too heavy to properly react.

You: ur therapist called btw You: well not called but like. sent another email You: oh i hacked ur email. sry. You: i mean not rlly since u left it up on my laptop but whatever You: ur gonna get in troubel You: trouble* You: i dont want u to get in trouble

The shots were hitting harder now, making your thumbs clumsy on the screen. Everything felt like it was moving through water. Someone was telling a story about their promotion, their engagement, their perfect life that definitely didn't involve a boyfriend who slept on the couch and disappeared for days without warning.

Your chest felt tight. When was the last time you'd been able to breathe properly? When was the last time your lungs didn't feel like they were working at half capacity?

You: do u even miss me anymore You: or am i just another thing u have to manage You: like ur therapy u dont go to

Derek-Dylan's hand was back, higher this time, fingers pressing into your thigh. The pressure made bile rise in your throat. "You were always the quiet one," he was saying, voice low and too close to your ear. His breath was hot, smelled like beer and those terrible shots. "The mysterious one."

"Bathroom," you managed, practically falling out of the booth. The floor rushed up to meet you, and you caught yourself on the edge of the table, glasses rattling. Someone's drink sloshed over the rim, ice cubes scattering.

"Whoa there," he said, reaching for your elbow, fingers wrapping around your arm. "Let me help—"

You: i went out tonight You: trying to be normal You: but nothing feels normal without uYou: withuot You: without* You: fuck

The hallway to the bathroom was narrower than it should be, walls pressing in like they were trying to squeeze the air from your lungs. You leaned against the cool brick, phone bright in the darkness. The screen swam in and out of focus. More words pouring out now, without filter, without thought, like blood from a wound you couldn't stem.

You: dereks being creepy You: or dylan You: idk his name You: he keeps touching me You: i dont like it You: i want to come home but home doesnt feel like home when ur not there You: when ur on the couch You: when u wont even look at me

[Incoming call from Bucky - 10:16 PM]

Your phone started buzzing. Not a text. A call.

Bucky's name filled the screen, and your heart lurched so hard you nearly dropped the phone. Your hands were shaking—when had they started shaking? You stared at it, paralyzed, watching it ring. Once. Twice. Three times.

[Missed call - 10:16 PM]

Immediately, it started again.

[Incoming call from Bucky - 10:16 PM]

You should answer. Of course you should answer. But your hands were trembling and your throat felt thick with unshed tears and you were so fucking drunk and what if he was angry about the texts? What if he was calling to tell you to stop, to leave him alone, to finally say the words that would make this ending real?

[Incoming call from Bucky - 10:17 PM]

The third call. This time, your trembling thumb hit decline.

The texts started immediately.

Bucky: Hey, sweetheart. You okay? Bucky: Can you pick up? Bucky: Please answer Bucky: I just need to know you're safe Bucky: Baby, please

That last one made your eyes burn, tears hot and sudden. When was the last time he'd called you baby? When was the last time his voice had sounded anything but carefully controlled? Your chest ached with missing him, a physical pain that made you press your hand against your sternum.

You stumbled out the back exit into an alley that smelled like garbage and rain and piss. The cold air hit your overheated skin like a slap, and you had to lean against the wall to keep from sliding down it. The brick was rough against your palms, grounding you even as the world spun.

Your phone rang again. This time, muscle memory had you answering before your brain could catch up.

"Hey." His voice filled your ear, warm and worried with something sharp underneath. Like honey poured over broken glass. "There you are. You okay?"

"Bucky?" Your own voice came out small, wobbly, and you hated how desperate you sounded.

"Yeah, sweetheart. It's me. Where are you?"

"I'm..." You looked around the alley like it might provide answers. Dumpster. Fire escape. Puddle of something you didn't want to identify. "I'm out. With friends. College people."

"Okay." He kept his tone gentle, but you could hear movement in the background—keys jingling, a door closing, footsteps on pavement. "You having fun?"

The question broke something in you. The tears you'd been holding back spilled over, hot on your cheeks. "No," you admitted, and then the words just tumbled out, sloppy and slurred. "No, 'm not having fun. I miss you and I'm tired and everyone's talking about their perfect lives and Derek won't stop touching me and I just want to come home but you're not even there, you're in Warsaw or wherever saving the world and—"

"Who's touching you?"

The words cut through your rambling like a blade. All the gentleness gone, replaced with something cold and dangerous that made your drunk brain struggle to catch up.

"What?" You blinked, trying to process the sudden shift through the fog of alcohol.

"You said someone's touching you. Who?"

"I—Derek. Or Dylan? From college. He's just... he kept putting his hand on my leg and I didn't..." You trailed off, some sober part of your brain finally catching up to what you were saying. To who you were saying it to. Your stomach dropped.

Silence. The kind that made your skin prickle with unease, that made you want to take the words back, swallow them down with the rest of your mistakes.

"I'm coming to get you," he said finally, and his voice was too calm, too controlled. The voice he used when he was trying very hard not to kill someone. "Tell me where you are."

"You're in Warsaw," you said, confused. Your brain felt like it was operating on a five-second delay.

Another pause. When he spoke again, something in his tone made your chest tight. "I've been back for three days. Debriefing at the Tower."

The words hit you like cold water. Three days. He'd been in New York for three days and hadn't come home. Hadn't even told you he was back. The pain of it was sharp, sudden, cutting through the alcohol fog.

"Oh." It came out small, pathetic. You pressed your free hand against the brick wall, needing something solid to hold onto.

"Send me your location," he said, and you could hear him moving faster now, the sound of a car door opening. "I'll be there in twenty."

"You don't have to—"

"Location. Now." Not harsh, but firm. The voice that brooked no argument.

You fumbled with your phone, nearly dropping it twice before managing to share your location. The blue dot pulsing on the map looked lonely, lost. Like you felt.

"Good girl," he said, and the familiar endearment made your eyes burn fresh. "Now listen to me. You're gonna go wait out front where it's well-lit. You're not going back inside. You're not talking to Derek or Dylan or anyone else. You're just gonna wait for me. Understood?"

"Okay," you whispered.

"Say it back."

"Wait out front. Don't go inside. Don't talk to anyone."

"That's right. I'll be there soon."

"Bucky?" Your voice cracked. "I'm sorry. About the texts. I shouldn't have—"

"Don't." His voice softened, just slightly. "Don't apologize. Just... just wait for me, okay? We'll talk when you're safe."

Safe. Like you weren't safe now. Like you ever felt safe anymore, even in your own home, with him sleeping a room away like a stranger.

"Okay," you said again.

"Twenty minutes," he promised, and then he was gone.

You stared at your phone screen, at the string of messages you'd sent, each one more pathetic than the last. Your reflection in the dark screen looked distorted, wrong. Mascara smudged, lips still stained from whatever was in those shots, eyes too bright with tears and alcohol.

Twenty minutes. You could wait twenty minutes.

You pushed off the wall, the world tilting dangerously, and made your way to the front of the bar on unsteady legs. Each step required concentration, like walking a tightrope. Three days. He'd been home for three days.

You wrapped your arms around yourself, suddenly freezing despite the warm night. Your skin felt too tight, like it didn't fit right anymore. Everything felt wrong. The streetlight above flickered, casting strange shadows that made you dizzy.

Five minutes passed. Then ten. Time moved strangely when you were drunk, too fast and too slow all at once. You watched cars pass, their headlights blurring into streaks of light. Counted them to keep your mind off the way your stomach churned.

"There you are."

You jumped, nearly losing your balance. Derek-or-Dylan stood there, that same too-wide smile on his face. Up close, you could see the flush on his cheeks, the slightly unfocused look in his eyes. He was drunk too, but not as far gone as you.

"Thought you got lost," he said, moving closer. "Come on, let's get you back inside."

"No." You shook your head, which was a mistake. The world spun harder. "I'm waiting for someone."

"In this state?" He laughed, but it wasn't a nice sound. "You can barely stand. Here—"

He reached for you, and you tried to step back, but the wall was already against your spine. Nowhere to go. His hand wrapped around your upper arm, grip too tight, and you could smell his cologne again, that awful musky scent that made your stomach revolt.

"Stop." The word came out slurred, weak. "I said I'm waiting—"

"Don't be like that." He crowded closer, his other hand coming up to rest on the wall beside your head, caging you in. "We were having fun inside, weren't we?"

"No." You turned your head away, but that just exposed your neck. His breath was hot against your skin. "Please, just—"

The sound of tires squealing made both of you jump. A black car pulled up to the curb so fast it fishtailed slightly, leaving rubber on the asphalt. Your drunk brain took several seconds to process what was happening—car, familiar car, Bucky's car, Bucky—before he was already out, moving with the kind of purpose that made your foggy mind finally understand why people crossed the street when they saw him coming.

He didn't run. Didn't need to. He just strode forward with inevitable violence in every line of his body, and Derek-or-Dylan was already backing up, hands raised, mouth opening to form words that never made it past his lips—

The crack of bone was loud in the quiet street.

Derek-or-Dylan screamed, dropping to his knees like someone had cut his strings. His wrist—god, his wrist was bent like wrists weren't supposed to bend, and your stomach lurched hard enough that you had to swallow back bile. The world tilted sideways, and you gripped the brick wall harder, rough texture the only thing keeping you upright.

"Touch her again," Bucky said, voice conversational, almost pleasant, like he was discussing the weather, "and I'll break the other one. Then start on your legs."

He wasn't even breathing hard. Hadn't broken a sweat. Just stood there in dark jeans and that leather jacket you'd bought him for his birthday, looking like he'd done nothing more strenuous than walk across a room. But there was something in his stance, in the casual way he watched Derek-or-Dylan writhe on the ground, that made your drunk brain whisper dangerous even as your body sang safe.

"My wrist," Derek-or-Dylan moaned, high and panicked. "You broke my fucking wrist!"

"Yeah," Bucky agreed, matter-of-fact. "I did."

Then he turned to you, and it was like watching a storm clear. All that cold violence melted away, replaced with something soft, concerned, yours. His eyes tracked over you, cataloging damage—checking for hurt you couldn't even identify through the alcohol haze.

"Get in the car, baby," he said, voice gentle now. He held out his hand—flesh hand, always the flesh hand when he was being careful with you.

"Okay," you said stupidly, the word coming out slurred. You were still staring at Derek-or-Dylan clutching his wrist and moaning on the sidewalk. Your brain felt like it was operating on a ten-second delay, trying to connect crack with bone with Bucky did that with for you.

You pushed off the wall and immediately regretted it. The world spun violently, your legs deciding they were more suggestion than requirement. You would have fallen if Bucky hadn't been there, suddenly, impossibly fast, arm around your waist.

"Whoa," he murmured. "I've got you."

"'M really drunk," you informed him, like maybe he hadn't noticed. Your words mushed together at the edges. "Like... really, really drunk."

"I can see that." Was that fondness in his voice? You couldn't tell. Everything sounded underwater.

He guided you to the car like you were made of spun glass and bad decisions, opening the passenger door and basically pouring you into the seat. Your limbs felt disconnected, uncooperative. The leather was cool against your overheated skin, and it smelled like him—that mix of cedar and metal and something uniquely Bucky that made your chest ache even through the drunk fog.

He rounded the car, pausing to crouch beside Derek-or-Dylan. Through the windshield, you watched him say something that made all the color drain from Derek-or-Dylan's face. Even from here, even drunk, you could see the man nodding frantically, like a bobblehead having a panic attack.

Then Bucky was sliding into the driver's seat, the door closing with a solid thunk that felt like safety. Like coming home. Even though home didn't feel like home anymore and you were too drunk to remember why.

"Seatbelt," he said quietly.

You stared at the buckle like it was advanced calculus. Your fingers felt like they belonged to someone else, clumsy and too big. "Can't," you mumbled. "Fingers're drunk too."

He leaned over to help, and suddenly he was so close you could see the flecks of gold in his eyes, could count his eyelashes if your vision would stop swimming. His hands—even the metal one—moved with perfect precision while yours fumbled uselessly in your lap.

"Are you hurt?" he asked, pulling back to look at you properly. His eyes were doing that thing where they went all intense and worried. "Did he—"

"No." You shook your head, which was a terrible idea. The car started spinning. Or maybe you were spinning. Hard to tell. "Jus'... grabbed my arm. Wanted to..." You frowned, trying to remember. "Something. Dunno. His breath smelled bad."

"I know." His hand came up like he was going to touch your face, then dropped. "I know."

The engine purred to life, and then you were moving. You pressed your forehead against the cool window because it felt nice and also because holding your head up was suddenly very difficult. The city lights blurred past in long streamers of color that made you dizzy.

"You've been back for three days," you said, though it came out more like "you've'n back fr'three days."

His hands tightened on the steering wheel. "Yeah."

"Were you gonna tell me?" The words were getting harder to form. Your tongue felt too big for your mouth.

Silence stretched between you, long enough that you almost forgot what you'd asked.

"I needed time," he said finally. "To think. To figure out how to..."

"How to what?"

"How to keep you safe." The words came out raw. "How to be near you without being a danger to you. How to—" He cut himself off, jaw clenching tightly.

You wanted to laugh, but it came out as more of a hiccup-sob hybrid. "You broke his wrist."

"He was touching you."

"Could've jus'... asked him to stop." The words kept sliding into each other.

"No," he said, and there was something final in it. "I couldn't have."

You turned to look at him, which required way more effort than it should have. The streetlights kept catching his face in flashes—sharp jaw, furrowed brow, eyes fixed on the road like it personally offended him. He looked tired. He looked dangerous. He looked like everything you wanted and couldn't have and your drunk brain couldn't remember why that was important.

"'M drunk," you announced, like maybe he'd forgotten in the last thirty seconds.

"I know."

"Really, really drunk."

"I know that too." His lips twitched, almost a smile. "The texts kind of gave it away."

Oh god. The texts. You groaned, trying to sink through the seat and into the road below. "Fuck. 'M sorry. Shouldn't have—they were so stupid—"

"I told you not to apologize."

"But 'm being stupid, and you were prob'ly busy with... with whatever, and I just—"

"Baby." He said it soft but firm, like punctuation. "The texts were fine. More than fine. They were..." He paused, and you watched him search for words through your blurry vision. "They were the first honest thing either of us has said in weeks."

That shut you up. You stared at him, trying to process his words, but thinking felt like trying to catch fish with your bare hands. Slippery. Impossible.

"We need to talk," he continued. "But not tonight. Tonight, you're drunk and I'm..." He trailed off.

"Angry?" you supplied, though it came out more like "ang-ry?"

"Yeah." He glanced at you, something soft flickering in his eyes. "But not at you. Never at you."

"He was jus'... just some guy from college," you said, words tumbling over each other. "He didn't... didn't matter."

"He put his hands on you." The words came out flat, matter-of-fact. "That matters."

You thought about arguing, but the thoughts kept sliding away before you could catch them. Something about hypocrisy and beds and sleeping alone, but it was all too muddy, too complicated for your drunk brain to sort through.

"Missed you," you said instead, small and honest and probably too raw. "Know 'm not s'posed to say that. Know we're... whatever we are. But missed you so much I couldn't—can't breathe sometimes."

His hand found yours across the center console, fingers interlacing. It was the first time he'd touched you voluntarily in weeks, and the simple contact made your eyes burn with tears you were too drunk to control.

"I know," he said quietly. "Me too."

You squeezed his hand, probably too hard, but he didn't pull away. "Feel sick," you admitted.

"I know, sweetheart. We're almost home."

"Not home," you mumbled, the words spilling out before you could stop them. "Just 'partment. Home's where you are, but you're never there."

You felt more than saw him flinch, but the world was getting fuzzy at the edges and spinning faster now, and you couldn't remember why that was important. His thumb rubbed circles on your hand, and you focused on that sensation, let it anchor you as the city lights blurred past.

You were drunk. Really, really drunk. But somehow, in the midst of all that spinning and blurring and too-much-ness, one thought stayed crystal clear:

He'd come for you. He'd been home for three days without telling you, but when you'd needed him—really needed him—he'd come.

You didn't know what that meant. Didn't know if it changed anything.

But for now, for this moment, with his hand in yours and the familiar streets leading back to whatever home was these days, it was enough.

The rest of the night exists in fragments. Snapshots through a drunk haze that would embarrass you later, when sobriety brought all the sharp edges back.

Bucky's hands, impossibly gentle as he helped you from the car. The way you'd swayed into him, and how he'd let you, just for a moment, before steadying you with careful touches. The elevator ride where you'd pressed your face into his chest and breathed him in like you'd been suffocating for weeks.

"Easy," he'd murmured when you stumbled over your own feet at the apartment door. "I've got you."

And he did. Those careful hands working the zipper of your jeans. Pulling your sweater from each arm. The fabric pooling at your feet while you stood there, too drunk to be self-conscious, too tired to pretend you didn't need him.

"Arms up," he'd said softly, and you'd complied, letting him pull one of his worn t-shirts over your head. It smelled like him. You might have cried about that, but the memories blur together, everything soft and underwater.

His boxers, rolled at the waist to fit. A glass of water pressed into your hands. "Drink all of it." Two ibuprofen. "These too."

And then—miracle of miracles—the bed. Not the couch. The bed, with its too-soft pillows and sheets that had forgotten the shape of him. You'd curled on your side, expecting him to retreat to his usual post in the living room.

Instead, the mattress dipped behind you. Arms wrapped around your waist, pulling you back against a chest you'd mapped with your fingers a hundred times but hadn't touched in weeks. His lips found the nape of your neck, pressing kisses there like prayers, like apologies, like promises he couldn't keep.

"I love you," whispered into your hair. "I'm so sorry. I love you so fucking much."

You'd wanted to respond, to turn in his arms and demand he explain why love felt like leaving. But sleep was already pulling you under, and his warmth was the first comfort you'd felt in months, and so you'd let the darkness take you while he held on like you might disappear.

Consciousness returned like a slap.

Your mouth tasted like something had died in it. Your head pounded in rhythm with your heartbeat, each pulse sending spikes of pain behind your eyes. But worse than the hangover was the memory, creeping back in horrible HD clarity.

The texts. Oh god, the texts.

Derek's hand on your thigh.

Bucky breaking his wrist with the casual efficiency of someone opening a jar.

Three days. He'd been back for three days.

You opened your eyes carefully, squinting against the morning light that streamed through the curtains like an assault. The bed was empty beside you, but still warm. He hadn't been gone long. The indent of his body remained in the sheets, a ghost of pressure that made your chest constrict so suddenly you couldn't breathe.

Your ribs felt too tight, like someone had wrapped wire around them and was slowly twisting. Each inhale scraped against something raw inside you, something that had been bleeding quietly for months but suddenly felt fatal. You pressed your palm flat against your sternum, hard, trying to counter the implosion happening behind your bones.

From the kitchen, the sound of cabinets opening. The clink of a pan. Coffee brewing—the smell both nauseating and necessary.

You sat up slowly, the room tilting slightly before settling. Your hands shook as you reached for the water on the nightstand, downing what was left and wishing it was enough to wash away everything about last night. But it wasn't. Nothing would be.

Because now, in the harsh light of sobriety, you could see everything clearly. The past six months stretched out behind you like a road map of small heartbreaks. The progression from sharing a bed to him sleeping on the couch. From daily texts to radio silence. From being partners to being strangers who happened to share a lease.

And last night—last night he'd held you like he used to. Kissed your neck. Whispered that he loved you.

After being home for three days without telling you.

After weeks of treating you like a roommate he was too polite to evict.

After, after, after.

Your chest felt hollow, carved out. Like someone had reached in and scooped out everything soft, leaving just the sharp edges behind. Your lungs forgot how to expand properly. The air felt too thick, too heavy, like breathing through water. You could feel your pulse everywhere—throat, wrists, behind your eyes—each beat a reminder that you were still here, still alive, still hurting.

"Hey." His voice from the doorway made you jump. He stood there in sleep pants and nothing else, hair mussed, looking unfairly good for someone who'd probably been up all night. "I'm making breakfast. Eggs and—"

"I can't do this anymore."

The words fell out of your mouth like stones. Heavy. Final. They surprised you as much as him, but once they were in the air, you couldn't take them back. Didn't want to.

His face did something complicated—a flash of confusion before understanding hit. You watched the color drain from his skin, leaving him gray as ash. The spatula in his hand clattered to the floor.

"What?" The word came out cracked.

You pulled your knees to your chest, made yourself small. Your body curled in on itself like it was trying to protect what was left of your heart, arms wrapped so tight around your shins you could feel your own bones. The hangover pounded behind your eyes, but this pain was worse. Necessary, but worse.

Your throat felt like it was closing, muscles constricting around words you'd swallowed for months. When you tried to speak, it came out raw, scraped: "I can't... I can't keep doing this, Bucky. I can't."

"Hold on." He moved into the room, movements jerky, uncoordinated in a way you'd never seen from him. "Just—wait. We can talk about this. We need to talk about this."

"Do we?" Your voice broke, tears already burning hot. They came sudden and violent, like your body had been storing them up for this exact moment. Your sinuses ached with the pressure of holding them back, but it was useless. They fell anyway, hot tracks down cheeks that felt numb with shock. "Because we haven't talked—really talked—in months. You sleep on the couch. You were home for three days without telling me. You can't even—"

A sob cut off the words, harsh and ugly. It ripped from somewhere deep in your chest, from that hollow place where your heart used to live. Your shoulders shook with the force of it, whole body trembling like it might fly apart.

"You can't even touch me unless I'm drunk and someone else tried to first."

"That's not—" He stopped himself, running both hands through his hair. The metal one caught the light, gleaming dully. "Fuck. Fuck, that's not fair."

"Isn't it?" The tears were falling freely now, hot and humiliating. Your nose ran, and you didn't care. Your face felt swollen already, eyes burning like someone had poured acid in them. "Tell me what's not fair about it. Tell me I'm wrong."

He couldn't. You both knew he couldn't.

"Please." The word ripped from him, raw and desperate. He dropped to his knees beside the bed, and seeing the Winter Soldier kneel like that should have meant something. Would have, once. "Baby, please. Don't do this. Not like this. Not when you're—"

"Hungover?" You laughed, but it came out like another sob, wet and broken. Your chest hitched with it, breath coming in sharp gasps that hurt. "When should I do it, then? When you're on another mission? When you're sleeping on the couch? When you're here but not really here at all?"

"I'm trying—"

"No." The word came out stronger than you felt. "You're not trying. You're hiding. You're running. You're doing everything except trying."

His hands clenched into fists on his thighs. You could see the war in him—the need to reach for you battling the fear of what his hands could do. Had done. That eternal fight between who he was and what he'd been made into.

"I love you," he said, like it was an argument.

"I know." Your voice broke completely, dissolved into something unrecognizable. The words scraped your throat raw. "That's what makes this so fucking hard. Because I love you too. I love you so much I can't breathe sometimes."

Your hand pressed against your chest again, harder this time, because it felt like your ribs might crack open from the pressure building inside. Your heartbeat was all wrong—too fast, too hard, skipping beats like it was trying to escape.

"I love you so much I've been disappearing, piece by piece, waiting for you to see me. To come back to me."

"I'm right here—"

"No, you're not!" The words exploded out of you, ripping something on the way up. Your voice went hoarse with the force of it. "You haven't been here in months! Your body's here, but you—the real you—you're gone. And I can't..."

You pressed your palms against your eyes, trying to stem the tears, but they leaked through your fingers anyway. Your whole face felt hot and tight, skin stretched too thin over too much pain.

"I can't compete with your ghosts anymore. I can't compete with your guilt. I can't love you hard enough to make you stop punishing yourself, and it's killing me to try."

When you lowered your hands, he was staring at you like you'd shot him. Like you'd reached into his chest and torn something vital loose. His face was wet—when had he started crying?

"I'll go back to therapy," he said desperately. "I'll—I'll sleep in the bed. I'll tell my therapist everything. I'll—"

"It's not about the bed." Your voice came out small, exhausted. Empty. Like you'd cried out everything inside you and now there was just echoing space. "It's not about the therapy or the missions or any of it. It's about the fact that you've already left me. You just forgot to take your body with you."

"No." He shook his head, frantic now. "No, that's not—I'm here. I'm right here. Please, sweetheart, please just—"

"You were home for three days." You said it quietly, but it hit him like a physical blow. You watched him flinch, watched his whole body recoil. "Three days, and you didn't come home. Because this isn't your home anymore, is it? It's just... a place you keep your things. A place you sometimes sleep."

"That's not true—"

"Then why didn't you come home?"

Silence.

The kind that said everything.

"I needed time," he said finally, voice wrecked. "To figure out how to fix this. How to be better. How to—"

"You can't fix this alone." The tears had slowed but not stopped, steady streams now instead of the flood. Your eyes felt raw, lids swollen. Everything hurt—face, chest, throat, heart. "That's what you've never understood. You keep trying to solve me like I'm a mission. Like if you just find the right approach, the right angle, you can complete the objective without any mess. But love is messy. It's supposed to be messy."

"I know that—"

"Do you?" You met his eyes, those blue eyes you'd fallen in love with, that still made your heart skip even now. Even through the wreckage. "Because from where I'm sitting, it looks like you've been trying to love me without letting me love you back. And I can't... I can't do that anymore."

Something in him seemed to break then. Really break, not the careful controlled way he'd been falling apart for months. His shoulders shook, and when he reached for you, it was with both hands. Metal and flesh, no distinction, just desperate need.

"Please." His voice was raw, ruined. "Please don't leave me. I'll do anything. I'll—Christ, I'll quit the team. I'll tell everyone about us. I'll—"

"I don't want you to quit the team." You were both crying now, the space between you salt-soaked and aching. Your chest felt cracked open, everything spilling out. "I don't want you to change who you are. I just wanted... I wanted you to let me in. To trust me with more than just the good parts."

"I trust you—"

"With everything except yourself." You pulled back, even though it physically hurt to do it. Your skin felt too tight, like leaving his reach might tear you apart. "And I can't build a life with someone who treats me like I'm too fragile to handle their damage. I'm not... I'm not some civilian you need to protect, Bucky. I'm supposed to be your partner."

"You are—"

"No." You stood on shaking legs, needing distance. Needing air. Your knees almost buckled, muscles weak from crying, from hurting, from holding yourself together for so long. "I'm your secret. Your liability. Your guilt. I'm everything but your partner."

He was on his feet too now, frantic energy radiating off him in waves. "Tell me how to fix this. Tell me what to do."

"I can't." The words tasted like ash, like endings, like everything you never wanted to say. "Because you're asking the wrong question. It's not about what you do. It's about what we do. Together. And you can't... you won't let there be a together."

"That's not—"

"You sleep on the couch." Each word hurt to say, like coughing up broken glass. "You were home for three days. You missed our anniversary. You haven't touched me without apologizing in months. You love me, I know you love me, but you love me like I'm already gone. Like you're just waiting for me to figure it out too."

He stood there, chest heaving, and you could see it—the moment he realized you were right. The moment he understood that he'd been pushing you away so slowly, so carefully, that neither of you had noticed until there was nothing left to push.

"I don't know how to stop," he admitted, and it was the most honest thing he'd said in months. "I don't know how to be in love without being terrified. I don't know how to wake up next to you without checking to make sure I didn't hurt you in my sleep. I don't know how to come home without bringing the blood with me."

"I never asked you to be perfect—"

"I know." His voice broke. "I know, and that's... that's the worst part. You never asked for anything except me, and I couldn't even give you that."

The silence stretched between you, filled with everything you couldn't fix. Six months of small abandonments. Six months of loving each other wrong. Six months of him leaving without moving and you staying without being seen.

Your body felt strange, disconnected. Like you were floating above yourself, watching this happen to someone else. The tears had stopped but your face still felt wet, tacky. Your chest moved with breath but you couldn't feel it, couldn't feel anything except the yawning void where your heart used to be.

"I need to pack," you said finally. The words came out robotic, empty.

"No." But there was no fight left in it. Just despair. "Where will you go?"

"I don't know." You couldn't look at him. Couldn't watch him realize this was really happening. "My sister's, maybe. Just... somewhere that isn't here."

"This is your home—"

"No." You turned to face him one last time, memorizing the way he looked in the morning light. Beautiful and broken and everything you'd ever wanted. "It was supposed to be. But homes are where you feel safe. Where you feel seen. And I haven't felt either of those things in months."

He made a sound then, wounded and raw, and it took everything in you not to go to him. Not to take it back. Not to settle for the half-life he was offering. Your body swayed toward him against your will, muscle memory overriding logic. But you locked your knees, clenched your fists, held yourself still through sheer force of will.

"I love you," you said, because it was true. Because it would always be true. "But I can't disappear anymore. Not even for you."

You made it to the doorway before his voice stopped you.

"What if I—" He swallowed, started again. "What if I go to therapy. Really go. What if I... what if I try?"

You paused, hand on the doorframe. The wood was smooth under your palm, solid. Real. An anchor in a world that felt like it was dissolving.

"Then try. But try for you, not for me. Because I can't... I can't wait anymore, Bucky. I can't put my life on hold hoping you'll decide you deserve to be happy."

"I don't know how to be happy," he admitted.

"I know," you said softly. "That's why I have to go."

You left him standing there in the bedroom you'd shared, in the home you'd built, in the life you'd tried so hard to make work. The sound of his grief followed you—not sobs, but something worse. The quiet, breathless keen of someone watching their world collapse and knowing they'd lit the match themselves.

You packed mechanically, throwing things into bags without thought or care. Your hands moved on autopilot while your mind went somewhere else, somewhere numb and far away. He didn't try to stop you. Didn't follow. Just stood frozen in the bedroom doorway like crossing the threshold might shatter what little was left.

When you wheeled your suitcase to the door, he was there. Red-eyed, hollow, looking like a ghost of himself.

"I'm sorry," he said. "For all of it. For being too broken to love you right."

"You're not broken," you said, and meant it. "You're just... lost. And I can't be your map anymore."

The door closed behind you with a soft click that sounded like an ending.

You made it to the elevator before the sobs hit, great heaving things that made your whole body shake. Your knees gave out and you sank to the floor, suitcase abandoned, hands pressed over your mouth to muffle the sounds tearing from your throat. Your stomach cramped with the force of it, muscles seizing, lungs burning.

You'd done it. You'd left. You'd saved yourself from disappearing completely.

It was the right thing to do.

So why did it feel like dying?

read part two here!

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #angst is life

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hidden-behind-the-fourth-wall · 1 day ago

Text

yeah, Bucky is a dick but still hot!

blood ledger (two) | b.b.

✮ series summary: 1940s Brooklyn. You owe the Barnes crime family money you don’t have. When their enforcer comes to collect, he offers an alternative form of payment that has nothing to do with cash.

✮ pairing: mob!bucky barnes x reader

✮ word count: 8k

✮ warnings: mob/mafia AU, 1940s setting, arranged/coerced relationship, threats of violence, actual violence (broken bones), non-consensual touching/groping (not from bucky), sexual harassment (also not from bucky), humiliation (kind of from bucky oops), dub-con themes, period-typical misogyny, family dinner from hell, bucky is a morally gray asshole with a filthy mouth, like he's genuinely terrible but it's hot just trust me ok

✮ a/n: do me a favor and suspend your feminism for like ten minutes alright

series masterlist // previous chapter

The dress hung on your bedroom door like a judgment, navy blue crepe that had cost you three weeks of savings and still looked exactly like what it was—a poor girl's attempt at elegance.

You'd spent the entire morning at Gimbels, watching the shopgirls' expressions shift from helpful to pitying as you counted out crumpled bills. The dress you'd wanted—a deep emerald number with real silk—might as well have been on the moon for all you could afford it. So you'd settled for this: modest neckline, capped sleeves, a hem that hit just below the knee. Respectable. The kind of dress a nice girl wore to church socials, not to dinner with Brooklyn's most dangerous family.

Your fingers trembled as you pinned your hair, the bobby pins slipping twice before catching hold. Each attempt sent a fresh wave of heat crawling up your neck, perspiration beading along your hairline despite the cool October air seeping through the window. The mirror reflected a stranger—someone trying too hard to be something she wasn't. You pressed your palms flat against the vanity, feeling the wood grain bite into your skin, and forced yourself to take three deep breaths.

The knock came at exactly eight o'clock.

Your stomach dropped like a stone thrown down a well, that nauseating freefall sensation making you grip the doorknob for balance. That now-familiar cocktail of dread and something else—something that made heat pool low in your belly and your thighs clench involuntarily—washed over you in waves. You pressed damp palms against the dress's scratchy fabric, feeling the cheap material catch on your calluses, and opened the door.

Bucky Barnes leaned against your doorframe in a black suit that probably cost more than your father's funeral. The hallway light caught the sharp angles of his face, throwing shadows that made him look carved from marble. Beautiful and terrifying in equal measure. His hair was slicked back again, not a strand out of place, emphasizing the cutting edge of his cheekbones. His eyes traveled from your carefully pinned hair to your sensible shoes in one long, assessing sweep that made your skin prickle with awareness.

His mouth curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. "That what you bought with my money?"

Pride stiffened your spine, vertebrae clicking into alignment like soldiers at attention. "I didn't use your money."

"No?" He pushed off the doorframe, moving into your space with that predatory grace that made your pulse skip and stutter. The smell of him invaded your lungs—expensive cologne layered over something darker, more dangerous. Cigarettes and leather and that underlying scent that was purely him, purely male. "Then what'd you do with it? Stash it under your mattress like a good little miser?"

"I—" The words stuck in your throat like a fishbone as he circled you slowly, each step deliberate, measured. You could feel the weight of his gaze like hands on your body, assessing, cataloging. The air displaced by his movement raised goosebumps along your arms. "I wanted to use my own money."

"Your own money." He came to a stop directly in front of you, close enough that you had to tilt your head back to meet his eyes. The movement exposed your throat, made you feel vulnerable as a lamb before a wolf. "And this is what your money buys? Department store clearance rack?"

Heat flooded your cheeks, the burn spreading down your neck to your chest. Your fingers found the fabric at your waist, worrying the seam. "It's perfectly nice—"

"It's perfectly boring." His fingers caught the fabric at your waist, rubbing it between thumb and forefinger with obvious disdain. The brush of his knuckles against your ribs made your breath hitch, diaphragm spasming. "Scratchy. Cheap. The kind of dress a secretary wears when she's trying to catch her boss's attention and failing."

The casual cruelty of it made your eyes sting, tears threatening at the corners. Your throat constricted, narrow as a reed. You'd tried so hard, spent money you couldn't afford, and still—

"We're gonna be late," he said, already turning toward the door. "Get your coat. Unless you plan on wearing a flour sack to keep warm too?"

You grabbed your mother's old wool coat with shaking fingers, the familiar weight of it both comforting and shameful. Your cheeks burned like someone had slapped them, the humiliation a physical thing that sat heavy in your chest. But as you followed him to the waiting car, you caught something in his reflection in the window—a tightness around his mouth, the way his jaw muscle jumped like he was grinding his teeth.

The car was another reminder of the gulf between you: a pristine black Cadillac with leather seats that creaked expensively when you slid in. The smell of leather and lemon polish made your empty stomach turn. Bucky held the door open, a mockery of gentlemanly behavior that felt more like herding a sheep to slaughter.

"Scoot over," he ordered, sliding in beside you instead of taking the front seat.

The bench seat shrank to nothing with him next to you. His thigh pressed against yours through layers of fabric, the heat of him seeping through like a brand. You could feel the solid muscle of his leg, the way it flexed when he shifted. Your skin felt too tight, hypersensitive where he touched you and aching where he didn't.

"I could have—"

"Listen carefully," he interrupted, not looking at you as the driver pulled away from the curb. His profile was sharp as cut glass in the passing streetlights. "My family doesn't know about your father's debt. Far as they're concerned, you're just some girl I met. We clear?"

You nodded, but your throat had closed up entirely, vocal cords frozen.

"Words, dollface. Use them."

The command in his tone made something hot and liquid pool in your belly. "Yes. Clear."

"Good." He lit a cigarette with practiced motions, the orange glow briefly illuminating the angles of his face. The smell of tobacco mixed with his cologne, creating a scent that was becoming dangerously familiar. "They're gonna ask questions. How we met, what you do, where you come from. Keep it simple. Closer to the truth, the better. You work at a factory. We met at a diner. I liked your smile or some shit like that."

"My smile?" Your voice came out breathy, uncertain.

He glanced at you then, something unreadable flickering in his eyes like heat lightning. "Yeah, well. It's believable enough. You do have a nice smile when you're not looking like someone killed your puppy."

The unexpected almost-compliment made your chest constrict, ribs suddenly too small for your lungs. "What else should I know?"

"Just..." He took a long drag, the ember casting shadows on his face. When he exhaled, you watched the smoke curl from his lips, found yourself wondering if his mouth would taste like ash. "Try not to let them see you're scared. They're like wolves—they smell fear, they attack. Keep your head up, answer direct questions, and for Christ's sake, don't volunteer information."

"Are they really that bad?"

His laugh was humorless, more bark than mirth. "My old man could order someone's death between the soup and the fish course and not miss a bite. So yeah, dollface. They're that bad."

Your stomach turned to water, sloshing uncomfortably with each turn of the car. The Barnes estate squatted on the edge of Brooklyn like a fortress, all stone and shadow and implicit threat. Even in the gathering darkness, you could make out the elaborate gates, the guards who watched the car pass with flat, reptilian eyes. Their gazes felt like cold fingers trailing down your spine.

Your hands twisted in your lap, nails digging crescents into your palms hard enough to hurt. The pain helped ground you, kept the panic from climbing up your throat like bile. Bucky helped you from the car, his hand at your elbow sending conflicting signals through your nervous system—comfort and threat wrapped in the same touch.

"Remember," he murmured against your ear, his breath making the baby hairs at your nape stand on end. "You're just a girl I'm seeing. Nothin’ special. Nothin’ threatening."

The foyer hit you like diving into cold water—all marble and crystal and suffocating opulence. Your heels clicked against the floor, each step echoing like gunshots. The chandelier above refracted light into a thousand cutting edges. But it was the silence that made your skin crawl, heavy and expectant, the kind that came before storms. Or executions.

"James." The voice came from the parlor, female and smooth as aged whiskey with an undertone of arsenic. "You're late."

"Traffic, Ma." Bucky's hand pressed against your lower back, the heat of his palm seeping through the cheap fabric. You could feel each individual finger, the way his thumb moved in a tiny, absent circle that was probably unconscious. "You know how it is."

The parlor was worse than the foyer—stuffed with expensive furniture that looked like it would bruise you if you sat wrong. The people draped across it wore power like expensive perfume, subtle but unmistakable. Bucky's mother held court from a velvet settee, her steel-gray hair sculpted into an elaborate style that defied both gravity and taste. Her blue eyes—so like her son's but utterly without warmth—dissected you in one surgical glance.

You felt naked, exposed, like she could see through the dress to every inadequacy underneath. Your skin prickled with cold sweat.

"And who's this?" She didn't rise, didn't offer a hand. Just studied you with the kind of focus that made lab specimens of living things. "Do you have a name, dear?"

You gave it, voice steadier than the tremor in your hands. Around the room, other family members watched with lazy interest, like well-fed cats noticing a mouse but not quite hungry enough to pounce. Yet. Two women who must be Bucky's sisters lounged on a loveseat, their dresses making yours look even shabbier by comparison—silk versus sandpaper. Their husbands stood by the bar, and something in the way one of them looked at you made your stomach clench with instinctive warning.

"Don't hover in the doorway," a male voice commanded, and the entire room shifted like iron filings toward a magnet.

George Barnes entered like a natural disaster—inevitable, overwhelming, destructive. Your lungs forgot how to expand. This wasn't a man who needed to raise his voice or make threats. This was a man who wore violence like a comfortable suit, whose very presence changed the molecular structure of the room. The air grew thicker, harder to breathe.

He was shorter than his son but broader, built like a prizefighter gone slightly to seed. His face might have been handsome once, before years of casual brutality carved permanent lines around his mouth and eyes. But it was his gaze that made your knees liquid—flat and cold as a shark's, taking in everything and giving back nothing. No light reflected in those eyes. They swallowed it whole.

"So." He stopped directly in front of you, close enough that you could smell his aftershave—something expensive that couldn't quite mask the underlying scent of copper. Old blood or fresh violence. "You're James's new friend."

"Yes, sir." The words came out barely above a whisper, your throat constricting like a hand was wrapped around it.

"Speak up." Not a shout, just a quiet command that made your spine snap straight like a marionette's strings had been yanked. "I don't like mumblers."

"Yes, sir," you repeated, louder this time, though your voice shook like autumn leaves.

He circled you slowly, and you felt like prey being sized up for the kill. Your skin prickled everywhere his gaze landed, cold sweat gathering between your shoulder blades. Your heart hammered so hard you were sure everyone could hear it, a rabbit's frantic pulse broadcasting your terror.

"Where did you say you met my son?"

"Murray's Diner," Bucky supplied smoothly. "On Flatbush."

"I didn't ask you." George's voice didn't change inflection, but Bucky fell silent immediately. The power dynamic hit you like a physical blow—if George Barnes could silence his son so easily, what could he do to you? "I asked her."

Your throat felt like sandpaper, tongue thick and clumsy. "Murray's Diner. On Flatbush. I was having coffee after my shift."

"After your shift?" His tone sharpened with interest. "And where do you work?"

"Steinberg Textiles." The truth came out before you could think to lie.

"A factory girl." The words dripped disdain. "Sewing buttons? Hemming skirts? Working with all those other girls, gossiping over the machines?"

"I operate the overlock machines," you said, a tiny flare of pride making you lift your chin. "It's skilled work."

"Skilled work." He repeated it like it was a foreign language. "A woman doing factory labor. How... modern. Tell me, what does a working girl's family think of such employment?"

"My parents are dead." The words came easier than expected, though saying it out loud made your chest ache with fresh grief.

"No husband to provide for you? No brothers to take responsibility?" George continued his circle, coming to stand before you again. "A young woman, alone in the world, punching a clock like a man. Some would call that unfortunate. Others might say it's... convenient."

You fought the urge to run, muscles coiled tight as piano wire. The implication in his words was clear—a woman without protection, without a man's oversight, was either to be pitied or suspected.

"My son has a weakness for strays," George mused, eyes never leaving your face. "Always bringing home broken things and trying to fix them. Isn't that right, James?"

"If you say so, Pop." Bucky's voice was carefully neutral.

George's smile was a thin knife slash that didn't reach his eyes. "I do say so. Question is whether this particular stray is house-trained."

"Dinner's ready," Winifred announced, rising with practiced grace that made you feel like a newborn colt trying to walk. "Shall we?"

The dining room continued the theme of oppressive wealth. Crystal glasses caught the light like diamonds, each place setting more elaborate than anything you'd seen outside of department store windows. The china looked thin enough to see through, delicate as butterfly wings and probably worth more than a year of your wages. Bucky pulled out your chair with mocking courtesy, his fingers brushing your shoulders as you sat. The contact sent electricity skittering down your spine, nerve endings firing in confusion.

"So," one of the sisters—Rebecca, you thought—leaned forward with sharp interest. Her smile reminded you of broken glass. "Tell us about yourself. Working in a factory must be so... different from what we're used to."

You opened your mouth to respond, tongue dry as dust, but Bucky cut in smoothly. "Not much to tell. She works, she goes home. Simple life."

"Let her speak for herself, James." This from the other sister—Sarah—whose voice had an edge like a straight razor. "We're all curious about your new... friend."

Throughout the first course, they peppered you with questions disguised as interest. Each one landed like a small cut, death by a thousand paper cuts. Where did you live? (A boarding house, you lied, not wanting them to know about your father's apartment.) What did your parents do? (Your father worked construction, your mother was a seamstress.) How long had you been seeing James? (Two weeks, Bucky answered when you hesitated, your mind blank with panic.)

Your hands shook as you lifted your water glass, the crystal chiming against your teeth. The men largely ignored you, discussing business in terms vague enough to be legal but clear enough to be threatening. Terms like "territory" and "collection" and "permanent solutions" that made your food taste like ash.

All except one of the brother-in-laws—Marcus, married to Rebecca—who kept finding excuses to look your way. His gaze felt like hands on you, possessive and unwanted.

It started during the fish course.

A brush of fingers when the wine was poured, so light you thought you'd imagined it. Your skin crawled at the contact, but you forced yourself to remain still. Then a foot against yours under the table, persistent enough that you shifted away. When you moved, he moved with you, his shoe trailing up your calf like a serpent.

Your fork clattered against your plate, the sound explosively loud in the formal dining room. Bucky glanced at you, one eyebrow raised in question.

"Butter fingers," you managed, face burning like someone had held a flame to your cheeks.

Marcus smiled from across the table, all teeth and predatory intent. "You seem nervous. First time dining in civilization?"

"Marcus." Rebecca's tone was one of fond exasperation, the kind reserved for misbehaving pets. "Don't tease the poor thing."

"Who's teasing?" His hand disappeared beneath the tablecloth, and suddenly there were fingers on your knee, hot as a brand through the fabric. "Just trying to make her feel welcome."

You pressed your legs together, trapping his hand, but he only chuckled. His thumb stroked along your inner thigh, and bile rose in your throat, acid and burning. Your whole body went rigid, muscles locking like you'd been turned to stone.

"You're awfully quiet," Sarah observed, her voice coming from very far away. "Cat got your tongue?"

Marcus's hand crept higher, fingers digging into soft flesh hard enough to bruise. You grabbed your wine glass, needing something to do with your hands, something to focus on besides the violation happening beneath the white tablecloth. The crystal shook in your grip, wine threatening to spill.

"She's shy," Bucky said, but there was something off in his voice. A tightness that suggested he'd noticed your distress but misread its cause. "Not used to the Barnes family charm."

"Charm." George's laugh was like gravel in a cement mixer. "That what we're calling it now?"

Marcus's fingers found the edge of your garter, toying with it while maintaining perfect composure above the table. Your breath came in short, sharp pants that you tried to disguise. Sweat gathered at your temples, between your breasts, the salt taste of panic on your lips.

"Tell us about your family," Winnie suggested, tone deceptively mild. "Were they in trade as well?"

You tried to focus, to form words, but Marcus's hand was insistent, invasive, his thumb rubbing circles that made your skin crawl like insects were burrowing beneath it. "My father—he was—"

"Take your time," Marcus said, smile widening to show too many teeth. Under the table, his fingers pushed harder, trying to pry your legs apart. "We've got all night."

Something in you snapped.

The violation, the casual cruelty, the sense of being nothing more than meat for these wolves to tear apart—it all crashed together in a wave of panic and rage that moved your body before your mind could catch up.

You jerked back so violently your chair scraped against the floor with a shriek of wood on wood. Your fork clattered to your plate with enough force to crack the delicate china. Your hands shook visibly as you pressed them flat against the table, trying to ground yourself, trying not to scream.

"I—" Your voice cracked like breaking glass, thin and sharp. "Excuse me. I need—powder room?"

"Down the hall, second door on the left," Rebecca supplied, her expression caught between amusement and annoyance, like you were a pet that had peed on her expensive rug.

You fled on unsteady legs, aware of the silence you left in your wake—thick and heavy as velvet. Your heels caught on the plush carpet, making you stumble. The hallway stretched forever, a tunnel with no end, until finally you fell against the bathroom door and locked it behind you with fumbling fingers.

Your whole body shook like you had a fever, teeth chattering despite the warm air. You pressed your palms against your eyes hard enough to see stars, trying to push back the tears that threatened to fall. Your skin still crawled where Marcus had touched you, phantom fingers leaving invisible bruises.

The knock came less than a minute later, sharp and demanding.

"Occupied," you called, voice thick with unshed tears.

"Open the door." Bucky's voice, flat and emotionless as stone.

"I'll be out in—"

"Now."

The command in his tone made you turn the lock with trembling fingers. He pushed inside immediately, closing the door behind him with deliberate softness that was somehow worse than if he'd slammed it. The bathroom shrank to nothing with him in it, all that powerful presence focused on you like a spotlight.

"Want to tell me what that was about?" He leaned against the door, arms crossed, expression unreadable as a closed book.

"I—nothing. I just needed a moment."

"Bullshit." He moved closer, crowding you against the sink. The marble edge dug into your lower back, cold through the thin dress. "You just made a scene at my father's table. Nobody makes scenes at George Barnes's table without consequences. So I'll ask again—what happened?"

Shame burned hot in your throat, thick as smoke. How could you tell him? That his sister's husband had been groping you like meat at a butcher's shop? That you'd been too frozen to stop it until it was too late?

"Your brother-in-law—" The words stuck like broken glass in your throat.

"Which one?"

"Marcus." You couldn't meet his eyes, staring instead at his tie. Burgundy silk. Expensive. "He was—under the table, he kept—"

"Kept what?" His voice had gone very soft, very dangerous. The kind of quiet that preceded violence.

"Touching me." It came out barely above a whisper, shameful and small. "His hand on my—he wouldn't stop."

The silence stretched like a wire pulled taut, vibrating with tension. You risked a glance up to find Bucky's face completely blank, eyes flat as his father's. The expression made your blood run cold.

Without a word, he turned and left, the door clicking shut with terrible finality.

You stood there shaking, sure you'd just made everything worse. He was angry—at you, for causing a scene, for letting another man touch what he'd claimed as his. For being weak. The tears came then, hot and bitter, as you splashed cold water on your face with trembling hands. Your reflection in the gilt mirror showed a girl destroyed—makeup streaked, hair disheveled, eyes swollen and red.

When you finally emerged, legs still unsteady as a newborn fawn's, the dining room was unchanged. Everyone in their places, conversation flowing like nothing had happened. Marcus sat across from you, cutting his meat with precise movements, not a hair out of place.

"Feeling better?" Winifred asked as you slid back into your seat, muscles still jumping with aftershocks of panic.

"Yes, ma'am. Sorry for the disruption."

"These things happen," she said, though her tone suggested they shouldn't. "The rich food can be overwhelming when you're not used to it."

Bucky sat beside you, posture relaxed, engaged in discussion with his father about something to do with shipments. He didn't acknowledge your return, didn't touch you or offer comfort. The message was clear—you were on your own.

The rest of dinner passed in a blur of careful bites and measured breathing. Marcus didn't try to touch you again, but his smirk said he knew he'd won. You'd shown weakness, made a scene, proved you didn't belong. The women exchanged knowing looks while the men continued their coded business talk, and you sat there like a statue made of spun glass, ready to shatter at the slightest touch.

"James," George said as the dessert plates were cleared. "Marcus. My study. We need to discuss the dock shipments from Havana."

They rose without question, Bucky still not looking at you. The three men disappeared down the hall, leaving you with the women who circled like vultures sensing carrion. Your skin prickled with their attention, predatory and amused.

"Well," Sarah said, lighting a cigarette with practiced elegance. The smoke wreathed her face like a veil. "That was quite the performance."

"I don't know what you mean." Your voice came out steady, though your hands trembled in your lap.

"Of course not." Rebecca's smile was razor-sharp, cutting without drawing blood. "Though word of advice? If you're going to play with the big boys, you need to learn to handle your liquor better. And everything else."

They dissected you with surgical precision—your clothes, your hair, your obvious unsuitability for their world. Each word landed like a blow to already bruised skin. You sat there and took it, having no defenses left, no energy to fight back. Your body felt hollowed out, a shell running on autopilot.

Then, cutting through their chatter like a blade through silk—a scream.

Not a shout or cry of surprise. A full-throated scream of agony that made every muscle in your body lock tight. It came from the direction of George's study, raw and animal and wrong.

"What—" Sarah began, but Rebecca touched her arm, shaking her head minutely.

Another scream, this one with words. "Jesus Christ! Jesus fucking Christ, you broke it! You fucking broke it!"

Marcus. That was Marcus screaming.

Your blood turned to ice water in your veins. The women exchanged glances and then, as if by silent agreement, resumed their conversation. Sarah asked Winifred about her plans for the spring gala. Rebecca critiqued the dessert course. They spoke over the sounds coming from the study—the thud of impact, flesh on flesh, the scrape of furniture being overturned. The meaty sound of fists on skin. Marcus begging, voice high and desperate.

You sat frozen, teacup rattling against its saucer in your trembling hands. The bone china felt like it might shatter in your grip. The screaming had stopped, replaced by lower sounds—broken sobs, maybe, or the kind of sounds men made when they were trying not to beg.

Twenty minutes later, the men returned.

George first, observing with the detached interest of a man watching a mildly entertaining show. Then Bucky, rolling down his shirt sleeves with methodical precision. His knuckles were split and bleeding, the blood stark against his skin. His hair fell across his forehead, and there was a splatter of red across his white shirt. Finally Marcus, cradling his right hand against his chest, face gray with pain and shock. Sweat and blood had soaked through his expensive clothes, and one eye was already swelling shut.

"Marcus had a little accident," George announced conversationally, settling back into his chair. "Got his hand caught in a door. Clumsy."

You could see from where you sat that his thumb was bent at an impossible angle, the joint clearly shattered. Your stomach lurched, acid burning the back of your throat.

"How terrible," Winnie said without a trace of concern. "Should we call Dr. Morrison?"

"Already done." George sipped his brandy like nothing had happened. "He'll be by in the morning. Nothing that won't heal with time."

Marcus said nothing, just stood there swaying slightly, shock making his eyes glassy. Rebecca rose with a put-upon sigh.

"Come on, darling. Let's get you some ice."

They left together, Marcus leaning heavily on his wife, leaving spots of blood on the cream carpet that everyone pretended not to see. The conversation resumed as if nothing had happened, but you caught the way the other brother-in-law—Anthony—kept his hands carefully visible on the table, fingers spread flat against the wood.

"We should go," Bucky said abruptly. "Early meeting tomorrow."

"Of course." Winnie rose to kiss his cheek, a gesture that looked more like a warning than affection. "Do bring your friend again. She's... educational."

You stood on shaking legs, managing the goodbyes, the false smiles, the pantomime of civility. But as you moved toward the door, George's voice stopped you.

"Just a moment."

He approached with that predator's stride, and before you could react, his hand shot out to grip your chin. His fingers were cold, strong enough to bruise, forcing your face up to meet his gaze. You stopped breathing entirely, body going rigid with terror.

"You seem like a smart girl," he said softly, voice conversational despite the violence in his grip. "Smart enough to know that what happens in this house stays in this house. Aren't you?"

You couldn't nod, couldn't speak, could only stare into those flat, dead eyes that promised terrible things if you disappointed him.

"I asked you a question."

"Yes," you whispered, the word barely audible.

"Yes, what?"

"Yes, sir."

His thumb stroked along your jaw, a mockery of gentleness. "Good. Because I'd hate for something to happen to such a pretty face. Or to the rest of you. Accidents can be so... comprehensive."

Beside you, Bucky had gone completely still—not the stillness of submission but the coiled tension of a spring about to snap. You could feel the violence radiating off him, barely contained.

George's smile widened, apparently satisfied with whatever he saw in your terror. "Run along now. And remember—family business is family business."

He released you so abruptly you stumbled. Bucky's hand was on your elbow instantly, practically dragging you toward the door. You barely had time to grab your coat before he was pushing you outside, down the steps, his grip just shy of painful.

"Get in the car," he said through gritted teeth.

"Bucky—"

"Get in the fucking car. Now."

The drive started in absolute silence, Bucky's hands white-knuckled on the wheel, the speedometer climbing dangerously high as he tore through the dark streets. You could see the muscle in his jaw jumping, his split knuckles leaving smears of blood on the leather steering wheel.

You pressed yourself against the passenger door, as far from him as possible, hands clenched so tight your nails bit bloody half-moons into your palms. The adrenaline was wearing off, leaving you shaky and sick. Your skin felt too tight, like you might split apart at the seams. Your chin throbbed where George had gripped it, and you knew there would be bruises tomorrow—five perfect fingerprints marking you as Barnes property.

"You're breathing too fast," Bucky said flatly, not looking at you. "Keep it up and you'll pass out."

"I can't—" The words came out strangled, your chest tight as a drum. Black spots danced at the edges of your vision. "I can't breathe, I can't—"

"For fuck's sake." He yanked the wheel hard right, tires screaming against asphalt as he pulled over. The car hadn't even fully stopped before he was dragging you across the bench seat, manhandling you between his legs with your back to his chest. "Breathe. Now."

You tried to pull away but his arm locked around your waist like a vise. "Let me—"

"Shut up and focus." His other hand pressed flat against your sternum, fingers splayed wide. "In through your nose, out through your mouth. Don't make me count for you like you're a fucking child."

His chest rose and fell against your back with exaggerated steadiness. You had no choice but to follow his rhythm, your body gradually syncing with his. The pressure of his hand on your chest was firm, almost too hard, but it gave you something to focus on besides the panic.

"Your father," you gasped between breaths. "He threatened—"

"Yeah." The word came out clipped, and his whole body went rigid behind you. A muscle jumped in his jaw, and when he spoke again, his voice was carefully controlled. "My old man does what he wants. Always has."

"He grabbed me—"

His hand on your sternum flexed, fingers digging in slightly. For a moment, he said nothing, and you could feel the war in him—the tension radiating through every point of contact between your bodies. When he finally spoke, his voice was low, dangerous. "Next time, you keep your distance. You see him coming, you move. You don't give him the chance."

"How am I supposed to—"

"You learn." His arm tightened around your waist, and there was something almost desperate in the grip. "You learn fast, or this arrangement ends with you in pieces. Understand?"

You nodded, feeling the way his breathing had gone slightly uneven. There was fear there, buried under layers of control—not fear of his father, exactly, but fear of what his father could do. To you. To this precarious deal that kept you both bound. “And Marcus?” "Marcus is handled." The words were final, absolute. His thumb moved against your ribs, just barely, a gesture that might have been unconscious. "He won't touch you again.”

The possessiveness should have frightened you more. Instead, you found yourself sinking into his warmth, letting his steady breathing regulate yours. He smelled like cigarettes and violence and expensive cologne, a combination that shouldn't have been comforting but was. Your body betrayed you, melting against him as the panic slowly receded.

"I couldn't stop him," you whispered, shame thick in your throat. "I just sat there and let him—"

"Stop." The word came out sharp, cutting. His hand left your sternum to grip your chin, forcing your head back at an uncomfortable angle. "You think I wanna hear you whine about it? What's done is done."

The sudden coldness made you flinch. "I was just trying to explain."

"Explain what? How you froze up? How you let him paw at you for ten minutes before doing something about it?" His laugh was ugly, mocking. "I got eyes, dollface. I saw plenty."

Tears pricked at your eyes, but anger flared beneath the hurt. "Then why didn't you stop it sooner?"

"Because I wanted to see what you'd do." His grip on your chin tightened, not quite painful but far from gentle. "Wanted to see if you had any spine or if I was wasting my time on a mouse."

"That's cruel."

"That's practical." He released your chin with a slight push, making you gasp. "You think my family's gonna go easier on you next time? Think they're gonna stop testing you because I broke Marcus's thumb? Grow up."

The harshness of it made your chest constrict. You tried to pull away from him, but his arm around your waist was iron. "Let me go."

"No." His voice dropped lower, dangerous. "You're gonna sit here and breathe like a normal person instead of hyperventilating all over my leather seats. You pass out, I'm dumping you on the curb."

"You wouldn't dare."

"Try me." But even as he said it, his hand spread wider across your stomach, thumb moving in tiny, unconscious circles that made your muscles clench. The contrast between his harsh words and that barely-there touch made your head spin. "I got enough problems without adding your fainting spells to the list."

You forced yourself to breathe deeper, slower, trying to ignore how every inhale pressed you more firmly against his chest. His body was a furnace at your back, all solid muscle and coiled tension. You could feel every point of contact between you—his thighs bracketing yours, forcing them slightly apart, his arm heavy across your waist. Your skin prickled with awareness, nerve endings firing in ways that had nothing to do with fear.

"That's better," he said after a moment, and his voice had gone rougher. "See? Not so hard when you stop being dramatic about it."

"I'm not being dramatic. Your father just threatened to—"

"To what? Hurt you? Kill you?" His free hand came up to trace the tear tracks on your cheek, the touch clinical but his breathing had changed, gone slightly uneven. "Welcome to the family, sweetheart. He threatens everybody. It's how he says hello."

You jerked your face away from his fingers. "Why did you defend me if you think I'm so pathetic?"

"Because you're mine." The words came out flat, but his hand on your stomach flexed, fingers digging in slightly. "Same reason I'd fuck someone up for keying my car or stealing my watch. It's about property, not feelings."

"I'm not property."

"Aren't you?" His voice was almost bored, but you could feel his heart beating faster against your back. "Your old man left you to pay off his debts. That makes you property by definition. My property, specifically."

The brutal truth of it hit like cold water. Your throat constricted, fresh tears threatening. Behind you, his breathing definitely hitched—not so subtle this time. His thumb resumed its maddening circles on your stomach, and you realized with a shock that your dress had ridden up slightly when he'd pulled you across the seat. His hand wasn't on fabric anymore—it was on the bare skin between your dress and the top of your stockings.

"Gonna cry again, baby?" He sounded almost curious, but his voice had dropped an octave. "Go ahead. Won't change anything."

"You're an asshole."

"Yeah." He agreed easily. "And you're a factory girl in a cheap dress who owes me more money than she'll ever see. We all got our crosses to bear."

"At least I'm not a violent thug who gets off on hurting people."

His hand stilled on your stomach. For a moment, you thought you'd pushed too far. Then he laughed—dark and genuinely amused. "You think I get off on violence? That's cute, dollface. Real cute."

"Then what do you get off on?"

The question hung in the air between you, loaded with implications you hadn't intended. His hand started moving again, but slower now, deliberate. Each circle made your breath catch, made heat pool low in your belly.

"Careful," he warned, and his voice had gone silky, dangerous. "You sure you want to know the answer to that?"

You should have said no. Should have kept your mouth shut. Instead: "Maybe I do."

His arm tightened around your waist, pulling you impossibly closer. You could feel every inch of him now—the hard planes of his chest, the flex of his thighs. And pressed against your lower back, unmistakable evidence that violence wasn't the only thing affecting him tonight.

"That dress," he said suddenly, voice rough as gravel. "Fucking thing's been driving me crazy all night."

You froze in his arms. "You said it was ugly."

"I lied." His thumb traced the edge of your stocking top, making your whole body jerk. "Had to. Because what I wanted to say was that it made you look like every dirty thought I've ever had. That cheap fabric clinging to your curves, riding up when you sat down, showing just enough skin to make me want to see more."

Your heart slammed against your ribs. "Bucky—"

"Shut up." But it wasn't harsh this time. It was strained, like he was barely holding himself together. "You have no idea what you looked like at that table. So fucking proper, so good, while my brother-in-law had his hand on your thigh. Made me want to break more than his thumb. Made me want to throw you over my shoulder, carry you out of there, and show you exactly who you belong to."

Heat flooded your body, pooling between your thighs. You pressed them together, but that only made it worse. "You can't just say things like that."

"Why not? It's true." His hand slid fractionally higher on your stomach, fingertips brushing the underside of your ribs. "Been thinking about it since I picked you up. How easy it would be to push that dress up, spread your legs, and make you forget all about being a good girl."

A whimper escaped before you could stop it. Behind you, he made a sound that was almost a growl.

"Now get in your fucking seat before I do something we'll both regret."

You scrambled back to your side of the car, skin burning everywhere he'd touched. Your inner thighs were slick, and you pressed them together desperately, trying to ignore the ache between them. He gripped the steering wheel hard enough to make the leather creak, jaw clenched so tight you could see the muscle jumping.

"Where are we going?" you asked when he turned onto an unfamiliar street.

"My place." He didn't look at you. "Where did you think? Your daddy’s apartment?"

The reminder that you were staying with him—that this arrangement meant sharing his space—hit like a physical blow. "I forgot."

"Yeah, well. Remember quick. This is your life now, sweetheart. My house, my rules, my schedule."

The brownstone was darker than you'd expected, all masculine angles and shadows. It smelled like him—leather and smoke and something indefinably male. He led you upstairs without ceremony, movements sharp with barely contained tension.

"Your room," he said, pushing open a door. It was small but clean, with a single bed that looked almost child-sized compared to what you'd glimpsed of his room down the hall. "Bathroom's across the hall. Kitchen's downstairs. Don't go in my room or the basement."

You twisted your hands in front of you, suddenly feeling the weight of everything crashing down. Your father was dead. You'd been groped at dinner. Threatened by George Barnes. And now you were standing in a stranger's house where you'd be living indefinitely. "I need things from my apartment. Clothes, toiletries—"

"Tomorrow." He stood in the doorway, blocking the exit, and you realized just how big he was. How easily he filled the space. "Lock your door."

"Why?"

His smile was all edges, nothing warm in it. "Because right now I'm thinking about all the ways I could make you forget Marcus ever touched you. And trust me, darlin’, none of them are nice."

Heat flooded your body, pooling low and urgent in places you tried not to think about. The feeling confused you—how could fear and this... other thing exist in the same breath? "I don't understand what you mean."

"No?" He stepped closer, and your back hit the doorframe. "You don't understand that I've been hard since I dragged you into my car? That I've been thinking about hiking up that cheap dress and finding out what kind of panties a good girl like you wears?" His voice dropped to a rumble. "Bet they're cotton. White. Bet you've never let anyone see them before."

Your face burned with humiliation and something else—something that made your thighs clench involuntarily. "Stop it."

"Why? Am I shocking you?" His eyes tracked down your body, lingering on the places where your dress clung. "Poor little factory girl, never heard a man talk dirty before. Never had anyone tell her exactly what they want to do to her."

"You're being mean." Your voice came out shakier than you wanted.

"Yeah, I am." He moved closer still, caging you against the doorframe without touching. "Want me to be crueler? Want me to tell you how I'd push you down on that tiny bed and spread your legs? How I'd make you beg for things you don't even have names for?"

You pressed yourself harder against the wood, heart hammering. The ache between your legs was getting worse, confusing, almost painful. You'd felt hints of this before—late at night, alone in your bed—but never like this. Never from just words. "I don't—I've never—"

"I know." His voice went rough with something dark. "I can see it all over you. How fucking innocent you are. Makes me want to ruin you. Take every 'please' and 'thank you' and turn them into my name while you're sobbing into the pillow."

"Why are you saying these things?" The words came out as barely a whisper. Your whole body was trembling, caught between the urge to run and the strange, horrible need to hear more.

"Because you're standing there looking at me with those big eyes, breathing so hard I can see your tits moving, and your face is all flushed like you're running a fever." He leaned in, voice dropping to a whisper. "Because you're soaking through your panties right now and you don't even understand why."

The crude words hit like a slap. "I'm not—"

"Liar." He smiled, and it was predatory. "Bet if I put my hand between your legs right now, I'd find you dripping. Bet you'd make the sweetest sounds when I touched you. All confused and desperate, not knowing whether to push me away or beg for more."

Tears pricked your eyes—frustration, embarrassment, and the horrible truth that he was right. You could feel the wetness between your thighs, the uncomfortable ache that made you want to squirm. "Please stop."

"Aw, 'please'?" He cooed, mocking. "That's cute, baby. Real fuckin’ cute. You know what? Maybe I won't wait. Maybe I'll just push you into that room right now and show you exactly what happens to good girls who end up in bad men's houses."

"You wouldn't." But your voice shook with uncertainty. Would he?

"Wouldn't I?" His hand came up to brace against the doorframe, knuckles still bloody from Marcus. "Already broke a man's thumb for touching what's mine. What do you think I'd do to have you under me? To hear you say my name like a prayer while I take you apart?"

The words should have terrified you. Instead, your eyelids went heavy, drooping half-closed as heat rolled through you in waves. Your lips parted on a shaky exhale, and you swayed slightly where you stood. The ache between your thighs had become a pulse, insistent and demanding. You pressed them together, seeking friction, and a small, desperate sound escaped your throat—not quite a whimper, not quite a sigh.

He went very still.

His eyes tracked over your face, taking in your flushed cheeks, your parted lips, the way your chest rose and fell with shallow, rapid breaths. His gaze dropped lower, noting how you'd shifted your weight, thighs pressed tight together, hips canted slightly forward like you were seeking something you couldn't name.

"Fuck," he breathed, and suddenly the predatory heat was gone, replaced by something almost like panic. "Fuck, you're actually—Jesus Christ, you're getting off on this."

The crude observation made you whimper for real this time, high and needy. Your hands clutched at the doorframe behind you, nails digging into wood.

"You don't even know what you're doing, do you?" His voice had gone rough, strangled. "Standing there making those sounds, looking like you're about to come apart just from my fucking words. Christ."

He stepped back so fast you nearly fell, legs unsteady without the doorframe to hold you. Your body chased his warmth instinctively before you caught yourself. His face had gone hard, closed off, but you could see something wild in his eyes—fear, maybe, or recognition of a line he'd almost crossed.

"Lock your fucking door." The words came out harsh, bitten off. "Lock it right fucking now."

"Bucky—"

"Now!" He was already backing away, hands clenched at his sides. "Lock it before I do something that'll make us both sorry. Before I forget you're not just some—" He cut himself off with a snarl, turned on his heel, and stalked down the hall.

His bedroom door slammed with enough force to shake the house.

You stood there trembling, thighs slick and uncomfortable, confusion making your head spin. What had just happened? One moment he'd been saying those things—horrible, dirty things that made you feel like you were burning from the inside out—and the next he was running like you'd done something wrong.

With shaking hands, you closed your door and turned the lock. Through the walls, you could hear him moving around—pacing, cursing, the crash of something breaking.

You sank onto the narrow bed, still in your cheap dress that now felt too tight, too warm. Your body pulsed with unfamiliar need, an ache you didn't know how to satisfy. You pressed your thighs together, but that only made it worse.

You lay back on the uncomfortable mattress, staring at the ceiling, body still thrumming with frustrated energy. Tomorrow you'd have to face him, pretend his words hadn't carved themselves into your memory. Pretend you hadn't liked the way they made you feel, even as they terrified you.

But tonight? Tonight you pressed your palm flat against your stomach, feeling the flutter of nervous heat, and wondered what would have happened if he hadn't stopped. If he'd pushed you into the room like he'd threatened. If he'd done all those things he'd described in such devastating detail.

The ache between your legs pulsed harder, and you turned onto your side, curling into yourself. You were in so much trouble. Because despite the fear, despite the confusion, despite everything—you wanted to find out what came next.

Even if it ruined you.

Especially if it did.

tag list: @intothesoul @loganficsonly @porcenina @w-h0re @pattiemac1 @k1tk4ttt @adangerousbalance @cb97gng @hannah9921 @mrsnikstan

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader

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hidden-behind-the-fourth-wall · 1 day ago

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Holy fuck, I'm not normally into mob stories but damn!

blood ledger (one) | b.b.

✮ pairing: mob!bucky barnes x reader ✮ word count: 5.4k ✮ warnings: mob/mafia AU, 1940s setting, power imbalance, debt collection, coercion, dubious consent (kissing), threats of violence, period-typical misogyny, crude language, parental death (mentioned), grief, financial hardship, (it's all in good fun i swear), (like he's just an asshole because he's horny and thinks you're pretty) ✮ a/n: just a heads up that bucky kind of starts out as a coercive dick in this story (hence all those pesky dubcon warnings) but i promise he'll mellow out as the fic progress (in a sexy 'i'll kill anyone who looks at you wrong' kind of way) and he'll prob get worse before he gets better so uhhhhh trust the process? if i missed any warnings, pls lmk !! 🤍 series masterlist // next chapter

The knock came at quarter past eight, three measured raps that made your spine lock tight as a closing fist.

You'd been expecting it for days now—watching the calendar bleed red X's toward this moment, each sunset another coin dropped into death's collection plate. Your father's debts didn't die with him. The Barnes family made sure everyone in Brooklyn understood that much.

Your fingers stilled on the dishrag, soap bubbles trembling against your wrists. Through the kitchen window, October rain slicked the fire escapes black, turning the whole neighborhood into something out of a fever dream. You could run. The thought flickered and died before it could catch flame. Where would you go? Who in this city would shelter someone marked by the Barnes name?

Three more knocks. Harder this time.

Your pulse kicked against your throat as you dried your hands, each movement deliberate, buying seconds you couldn't afford. The condolence cards still littered the kitchen table—With deepest sympathy and May he rest in peace—their pastel flowers mocking in the lamplight. Two weeks since they'd lowered him into Greenwood soil. Two weeks of waiting for this exact sound.

You smoothed your housedress with trembling hands, caught sight of yourself in the dark window—pale face, shadows under your eyes, hair escaping from pins that never quite held. You looked exactly like what you were: a girl in over her head, drowning in grief and debt.

The lock turned like a death rattle under your palm.

James Barnes filled your doorway like smoke fills a room—inevitable, suffocating, impossible to contain. You'd heard about him, of course. Everyone had. The Barnes family's primary enforcer was the kind of man mothers warned their daughters about in whispers, though those same mothers probably dreamed about him when the lights went out.

He was... not what you'd expected.

Tall and broad-shouldered in a charcoal suit that cost more than your father owed, rain darkening the fabric across his shoulders. His hair was slicked back from a face that belonged in those moving pictures your friends giggled over—sharp jaw, full mouth, eyes the color of a winter sky before snow. The kind of face that made smart girls stupid.

And God help you, you could feel your intelligence draining away as he stood there, studying you like a cat with a cornered mouse.

"Well, well." His voice rolled out like expensive bourbon, Brooklyn accent thick enough to cut. A smile played at the corner of his mouth, dangerous and knowing. "Ain't you just the sweetest little thing I've seen all week."

The words hit like a slap disguised as a caress. Heat crawled up your neck, part embarrassment, part something else entirely. Your hand tightened on the doorknob until your knuckles went white. "Mr. Barnes—"

"Bucky." He corrected, already pushing past you into the apartment like he had every right. The smell of him—rain and expensive tobacco, something darker underneath—invaded your lungs. "My father’s Mr. Barnes. I'm just Bucky, dollface."

He turned in your small foyer, giving you his back as he surveyed your apartment. The broad lines of his shoulders, the confident set of his stance—everything about him screamed danger. When he faced you again, his smile had sharpened into something predatory.

"You gonna close that door, sweetheart? Or you hoping the neighbors get a show?"

You pushed the door shut, the click of the lock loud as a gunshot in the tense silence. When you turned back, he'd moved closer—close enough that you had to tilt your head back to meet his eyes.

"I don't have it." The words tumbled out too fast, fear making you graceless. "The money. I don't have it yet, but I'm working on—"

"Sure you are." He reached out, fingers catching your chin. The touch was light but inescapable, forcing you to hold his gaze. "Working real hard in that factory, bringing home, what? Twelve dollars a week? Fifteen if you pull doubles?" His thumb brushed across your bottom lip, and your breath caught. "At that rate, you'll have me paid off in... let's see... about five years. Not counting interest."

Your stomach dropped through the floor. "I can—there must be some arrangement—"

"Oh, there's gonna be an arrangement, sweetheart." His hand slid from your chin to your throat, palm resting against your racing pulse. "Just maybe not the kind you're thinking. See, I got a look at you through that window while I was waiting. Watched you doing dishes like a good little housewife. And I got to thinking—waste of a perfectly good dame, letting you work your fingers to the bone in some factory."

"Please." The word came out breathless, his proximity affecting you in ways that made shame curl hot in your belly. "I'll do anything—"

"Anything?" His eyes flashed with interest, and you realized your mistake immediately. "Now that's dangerous talk, baby. Girl like you shouldn't make promises she ain't prepared to keep."

You tried to step back, but he followed, crowding you against the wall. This close, you could see the rain droplets still clinging to his eyelashes, could count the faint freckles across his nose. Could feel the heat radiating off him like a furnace.

"You're shaking," he observed, voice dropping to a rumble. "Do I scare you, pretty girl?"

"Yes." The honesty escaped before you could stop it.

"Good." His free hand came up to brace against the wall beside your head, caging you in. "You should be scared. But see, I'm looking at you, and I'm not seeing scared. I'm seeing something else." His thumb stroked along your throat, feeling your pulse jump. "I'm seeing curious. Interested. Like maybe part of you wonders what it would be like to stop being such a good girl all the time."

The heat in your face could have lit the whole building. "That's not—I'm not—"

"You know what I think?" He leaned closer, until his breath fanned across your cheek. "I think you've been cooped up in this apartment, playing nurse to your old man, working yourself to death, never having any fun. When's the last time a fella took you dancing? Bought you a nice dinner? Made you feel like a woman instead of a workhorse?"

"That's none of your business—"

"Everything about you is my business now." The words came out flat, matter-of-fact. "Your daddy made sure of that when he put his name on my books. But I'm willing to be... flexible about collection methods."

"What do you mean?"

He pulled back enough to study your face, and his expression shifted to something calculating. "How about we discuss this civilized-like? You got coffee in this joint?"

The whiplash of his mood change left you dizzy. "I—yes?"

"Good." He stepped back, giving you room to breathe at last. "Make us some coffee, and we'll hash this out like adults. Unless you'd rather I just take what I can carry and call it square? Though looking around..." He glanced at your shabby furniture, the worn rug, the water stain on the ceiling. "Doesn't look like that'd cover even the interest."

You pushed off from the wall on unsteady legs, grateful for the excuse to put distance between you. "Coffee. Right. I can—yes."

He followed you into the kitchen, and somehow the small space shrank even further with him in it. You were hyper aware of him as you moved—the weight of his gaze, the sound of his breathing, the way he dominated the room without even trying.

"Sit," you managed, gesturing at the kitchen table. Annoyed at your own automatic hospitality. "Please."

"Such nice manners." But he sat, pulling out a chair and settling into it like a king on a throne. His eyes tracked your movements as you lit the stove. "Your mother teach you those?"

"Yes." The word came out clipped as you measured coffee grounds with shaking hands.

"She teach you anything else?" The question was loaded with suggestion. "How to take care of a man? Make him comfortable? Keep him happy?"

You fumbled the coffee pot, nearly dropping it. "She taught me to be respectable."

"Respectable." He drew the word out like it tasted funny. "That's real nice, dollface. Real nice and real boring."

The chair creaked as he shifted, and when you glanced over your shoulder, he was lighting a cigarette with practiced ease. He caught you looking and winked, the gesture somehow more threatening than flirtatious.

"See something you like?"

You turned back to the stove quickly, face burning. "The coffee will be ready in a minute."

"Take your time. I'm enjoying the view."

You could feel his eyes on you as you worked, cataloging every movement. It made you self-conscious in a way that was entirely new—aware of how your dress pulled across your hips when you reached for cups, how the kitchen light probably showed the outline of your slip through the thin fabric.

"You know," he said conversationally, "most people in your position would be trying to butter me up right about now. Batting their lashes, showing a little leg, trying to work an angle. But not you."

"Would it help?" The question slipped out before you could stop it, curious and appalled.

His laugh was dark, appreciative. "Might. Depends on how good you are at it. You even know how to flirt, baby? Or did your respectable mama skip that lesson?"

"I know how to be honest."

"Honest." He sounded amused now. "All right, let's have some honesty then. Turn around. Let me get a good look at what we're working with."

Your hands stilled on the percolator. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me. Turn around. Slow-like."

"I'm not a piece of meat at the butcher's—"

"No, you're collateral on a debt." All humor fled his voice. "And I'm trying to figure out what that collateral's worth. So be a good girl and turn around before I lose my patience."

The threat in his tone was unmistakable. You set the percolator on the stove with careful movements, then slowly turned to face him.

He'd stubbed out his cigarette and was leaning back in the chair, arms crossed over his chest. His eyes moved over you with clinical precision, taking in everything from your scuffed shoes to your mended collar.

"Come here."

Your feet felt like lead. "The coffee—"

"Will keep." He crooked a finger at you. "I said come here."

You moved forward on unsteady legs until you stood before him. This close, you had to look down to meet his eyes, and the position made you feel strangely powerful for a moment. Until he spoke again.

"Turn." He made a spinning motion with his finger. "Let's see the whole package."

Humiliation burned through you, but what choice did you have? You turned in a slow circle, arms wrapped around yourself, feeling his gaze like hands on your body.

"Stop."

You froze, back to him now.

"You got a nice figure under all that fabric." His voice had roughened. "Real nice. Too bad you hide it under these nun clothes."

"They're work clothes—"

"They're a crime, is what they are." You heard the chair scrape and then he was behind you, not touching but close enough that you could feel his warmth. "A body like yours should be draped in silk. Shown off in pretty dresses that hug these curves."

His hands hovered near your waist, not quite making contact. "Yeah, I could work with this. Put you in something nice, teach you how to walk in heels, how to smile pretty for the right people..."

"I don't understand." Your voice came out embarrassingly breathy.

"Sure you do." His breath stirred the hair at your nape. "Your daddy owes me a grand. You got maybe fifty bucks worth of stuff in this whole joint. That leaves us with a sizeable gap. But you?" His hands finally settled on your waist, light but possessive. "You could be worth something. If you're smart about it."

You jerked away from his touch, spinning to face him. "I'm not—I won't—"

"Won't what?" He moved back to lean against the counter, casual as could be. "Won't let me help you? Won't take the deal that keeps you out of the gutter? What exactly won't you do, princess?"

"I won't be your whore." The word tasted bitter on your tongue.

"Who said anything about whoring?" He looked genuinely amused. "If I wanted a whore, I know where to find them. Hell, for a grand I could have a whole stable. What I need is something different."

The percolator started to bubble. You turned to tend to it, needing the familiar action to steady yourself. "Then what do you need?"

"A girl on my arm. Someone respectable. Clean. The kind of dame you bring home to meet the family, not the kind you bang in the back of a Studebaker."

Your hands shook as you poured coffee. "I don't—why would you need that?"

"Because even bad men got mothers." He accepted the cup you offered, fingers brushing yours in the exchange. "And mine's been breaking my balls about settling down. Finding a nice girl, giving her grandkids, the whole nine yards."

"So find one."

"I did." His eyes locked on yours over the rim of his cup. "She's standing right in front of me, looking like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth."

"I'm not nice." The protest sounded weak even to your ears. "And I'm certainly not your girl."

"Not yet." He set down the coffee, leaning forward. "But you could be. For a price."

You sank into the chair across from him, suddenly exhausted. "What exactly are you proposing?"

"Simple. You be my steady girl. Come to family dinners, work events, anywhere I need a pretty face and good manners. In exchange, I knock a hundred bucks off your debt for every major shindig. Fifty for smaller stuff."

Your mind raced, doing the math. "That would take—"

"Few months, tops. I got a busy social calendar." He pulled out another cigarette but didn't light it, just rolled it between his fingers. "Unless you'd prefer to pay it off the traditional way? Though at twelve bucks a week..."

"Why me?" The question burst out before you could stop it. "You could have any girl in Brooklyn. Pretty ones. Experienced ones. Ones who actually know how to—to be what you need."

"Those girls got histories. Reputations. They know the score and they want things—marriage, money, status." He finally lit the cigarette, exhaling smoke through his nose. "You? You're clean. Untouched. Got that wide-eyed innocent thing that'll make my mother cream her panties."

The crude comparison made you flinch. "Do you have to be so vulgar?"

"Does it bother you?" He leaned forward, predatory interest sparking in his eyes. "Good girls like you probably never heard a man talk about real things. About what we want. What we think about when we see a dame like you all buttoned up and proper."

"Stop."

"You know what I thought when I saw you through that window?" He continued as if you hadn't spoken. "Thought about how easy it'd be to mess you up. Wrinkle that pressed dress. Pull those pins from your hair. Make you look like you'd been properly fucked instead of washing dishes like somebody's spinster aunt."

Heat flooded your face and pooled low in your belly. "You're disgusting."

"I'm honest." He flicked ash into one of the sympathy cards, watching your face as he defiled it. "And if you're honest with yourself, you'd admit you've wondered. What it would be like. What I could teach you."

"I haven't—"

"Liar." The word was soft, almost affectionate. "Bet you've been locked up in this apartment so long you're climbing the walls. Bet you lie in that narrow bed at night, touching yourself, wondering when you're gonna get to live a little."

Blood roared in your ears. "How dare you—"

"Tell you what." He stood abruptly, and you shrank back in your chair. "I'm gonna make this real simple. You got three choices. One: you find a way to pay me cash. Full amount, by end of the week."

"You know I can't—"

"Two: I take what I can get and put the word out that you're in the market for alternative employment. Plenty of houses downtown need fresh faces. Young, pretty, desperate—you'd do real well."

Nausea rolled through your stomach. "Please—"

"Or three." He moved around the table toward you. "You take my deal. Be my girl when I need you. Play the part, look pretty, keep your mouth shut when it matters and open when I tell you to."

You stood on shaking legs, backing away. "I need time to think—"

"No." He caught your wrist, not hard but firm. "You need to decide. Right now. Because I got other stops to make tonight, and I ain't coming back here without an answer."

"You can't just—"

"I can. I am." He pulled you closer, until barely a breath separated you. "But here's something to sweeten the pot. You say yes, and I'll throw in a kiss. Just one. So you know what you're signing up for."

Your heart hammered against your ribs. "That's supposed to convince me?"

"Yeah." His free hand came up to cup your jaw. "Because you've been wondering since I walked in what it would be like. And baby?" His thumb stroked across your cheekbone. "I'm really fucking good at it."

Something unfamiliar and ugly stirred in your stomach. "You're unbelievably arrogant."

"I'm right." He tilted your face up. "So what's it gonna be? You gonna be smart? Or you gonna let pride cost you everything?"

You stared up at him, this beautiful, terrible man who held your future in his callused hands. Thought of your father's debts, of rent coming due, of the factory girls with their hollow eyes and rattling coughs. Thought of your empty bed and empty future and empty stomach when the money ran out.

"Sundays," you heard yourself say, voice wavering. "I get Sundays. To visit my parents' graves."

Something flickered in his eyes—surprise, maybe, or respect. "Done."

"And I want... boundaries. You can't just—just take whatever you want."

"Be specific."

Your face burned, heat flooding your cheeks. Your tongue felt thick in your mouth. "No... expectations. Beyond what we agree to. I won't share your bed. Won't be your—your kept woman."

"Kept woman." He seemed to taste the words. "That's real delicate, dollface. But let's be clear about something." His grip on your wrist tightened slightly. "You'll be living in my house. Wearing clothes I buy. Eating food I provide. If that ain't kept, I don't know what is."

"That's different—"

"Is it?" He released your wrist only to settle both hands on your waist, holding you in place. "But fine. I won't drag you to my bed. Won't force nothing you don't want. But baby?" His voice dropped to a growl. "You're gonna want it. Gonna beg for it before this is over."

"Never."

"We'll see." His hands flexed on your waist, thumbs brushing the underside of your ribs through the fabric. "So is that a yes? You'll be my girl?"

The word stuck in your throat. Girl. Such a simple word for such a complex trap. But what choice did you have?

"Yes."

Triumph flashed across his face, sharp and predatory. "Good choice, honey. Now come here and seal the deal."

"You said a kiss. Just one."

"That's right." He backed you against the kitchen counter, caging you in with his body. "Just one. Better make it count."

Your hands came up to his chest automatically, whether to push him away or pull him closer, you couldn't tell. The expensive fabric of his suit was soft under your palms, the body beneath it hard as granite.

"I haven't—" The admission stumbled out. "I don't know how—"

"I know." His hand slid into your hair, pins scattering to the floor with tiny metallic sounds. "That's what makes this so fucking sweet. Now shut up and let me teach you something."

You had just enough time to suck in a breath before his mouth covered yours.

The first contact sent lightning racing down your spine. His lips were softer than they had any right to be, warm and sure as they pressed against yours. You made a sound—a squeak of pure shock that would have mortified you if you could think—and your entire body went rigid.

He pulled back just enough to murmur against your lips. "Relax, baby. I ain't gonna bite. Not this time."

Then he was kissing you again, slow and patient, like he had all night to take you apart. His hand in your hair tilted your head for a better angle while the other splayed across your lower back, holding you steady. The counter edge dug into your spine but you barely noticed, too overwhelmed by the sensation of his mouth moving against yours.

You'd been kissed before—brief, dry pecks that left no impression. This was something else entirely. This was... consumption. He kissed like he was trying to brand himself onto your soul, like he wanted to ruin you for anyone else who might try.

Your hands fisted in his shirt as the shock began to wear off, replaced by something hotter, hungrier. Your body softened against his without your permission, melting into his heat like wax near a flame. He made a sound of approval that rumbled through his chest and into yours.

"That's it," he murmured, breaking away to trail his lips along your jaw. "Good girl. Such a good girl, opening up for me."

"I'm not—" But your protest died as he found a spot just below your ear that made your knees buckle.

"Yeah, you are." His teeth scraped against your pulse point, light enough not to mark but sharp enough to make you gasp. "So sweet. So fucking innocent. Makes me want to wreck you."

His mouth returned to yours before you could respond, and this time there was nothing patient about it. He kissed you like he was starving and you were a feast, like he wanted to crawl inside you and live there. When his tongue traced the seam of your lips, you understood what he wanted without being told.

The first slide of his tongue against yours pulled a sound from your throat you'd never made before—desperate, needy, completely involuntary. Your whole body shuddered, a tremor that started at the base of your spine and rolled outward like an earthquake.

"Fuck," he groaned into your mouth, and the profanity should have appalled you. Instead, it made heat pool between your thighs in a way that had you pressing them together. "Christ, you're shaking for me. You that worked up from just a kiss?"

You tried to answer, but he was already kissing you again, deeper this time. His tongue stroked against yours with devastating skill, teaching you a rhythm that made your head spin. You tried to follow his lead, to give back what you were getting, and when your tongue tentatively met his, he growled like a man possessed.

His hand tightened in your hair, holding you still as he plundered your mouth. The other hand slid down to grip your hip, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise through the fabric. You should have protested the possessive handling. Instead, you arched into him, seeking more contact, more pressure, more everything.

Time lost meaning. The world narrowed to his mouth on yours, his hands holding you in place, the solid weight of him pressing you into the counter. Your lungs burned for air but you couldn't bear to break away, too drunk on the taste of him—coffee and cigarettes and something darker, essentially male.

He bit your bottom lip, a sharp nip that made you gasp, then soothed it with his tongue. The alternating pain and pleasure short-circuited something in your brain. Your hands slid up to tangle in his hair, messing his perfect style, pulling him closer.

"Jesus," he panted against your mouth. "Look at you. Coming apart for me already. I barely touched you and you're about to combust."

"Shut up," you managed, and pulled his head back down.

He laughed into the kiss, dark and delighted. "There she is. There's that fire I knew was hiding under all that propriety."

His hips pressed forward, pinning you more firmly against the counter, and you felt—oh God. The hard length of him pressed against your belly, obvious even through layers of fabric. The evidence of his arousal should have terrified you. Instead, it made you feel powerful. You did that. You, with your inexperience and nun clothes and good girl manners.

He must have felt your realization because he ground against you deliberately, making sure you felt every inch. "Yeah, baby. That's what you do to me. Got me hard as a fucking rock just from kissing you."

The crude words made your face flame, but lower, between your legs, something clenched with want. You pressed your thighs together harder, trying to ease the ache building there.

"You feel it too, don't you?" His mouth moved to your throat, sucking at the sensitive skin. "That need. That empty feeling that wants filling. Bet if I put my hand under that ugly dress, I'd find you soaking wet for me."

You shuddered. "Don't—"

"Don't what? Don't tell the truth? Don't make you face what your body already knows?" He bit down where your neck met your shoulder, hard enough to mark, and your vision whited out. "You can lie to yourself all you want, dollface. But your body's honest. It knows who it belongs to now."

His mouth returned to yours, swallowing any protest you might have made. This kiss was filthier, deeper, his tongue fucking into your mouth in a rhythm that made your hips move involuntarily. You were making sounds—desperate, needy little whimpers that would have mortified you if you could think. But thinking was impossible with his hands on you, his mouth devouring yours, his body caging you in like you were something precious he refused to let escape.

You didn't know how long he kissed you. Minutes? Hours? Days? Time meant nothing in the face of such overwhelming sensation. You were drowning in him, in the taste and smell and feel of him, and the terrifying part was that you didn't want to surface for air.

When he finally pulled back, you both were breathing like you'd run a marathon. His perfectly styled hair was completely wrecked, sticking up where your fingers had gripped. His lips were swollen, slick with your shared saliva. And his eyes—God, his eyes were nearly black with want, only a thin ring of blue remaining.

You probably looked worse. You could feel how swollen your lips were, how flushed your face must be. Your hair had come completely undone, falling around your shoulders in waves. And between your legs... you squeezed your thighs together, mortified by the wetness you could feel there.

"Look at you," he said, voice rough as gravel. "Thoroughly kissed. Marked up. Looking like somebody's been taking real good care of you."

His thumb traced your bottom lip, and you couldn't help the way your tongue flicked out to taste it. His eyes flared with heat.

"Fuck." The word came out strangled, and something shifted in his expression—a flicker of vulnerability that disappeared so fast you might have imagined it. His jaw clenched. "Christ, no wonder your old man kept you locked up. One kiss and you're ready to spread your legs for the first man who shows you a good time."

The cruel words hit like cold water, shocking after the heat of his kiss. You flinched, and his smile turned mean.

"What? Thought this was some fairy tale? Thought I'd kiss you and fall in love?" He laughed, but it sounded forced. "You really are green, aren't you? This is business, dollface. Nothing more."

"I know what this is," you managed, though your voice shook.

"Do you?" He pulled out a wad of cash, thick enough to make your eyes widen, and tossed it carelessly on the table. It landed next to your father's sympathy cards, the bills fanning out like an insult. "Buy yourself something that doesn't look like it came from a church rummage sale. Something that shows you got tits. Maybe some lipstick that won't come off so easy."

Your face burned with humiliation. "I don't need your money—"

"Yeah, you do." He was already at the door, not looking at you. "Eight o'clock tomorrow. Don't be late. And dollface?" He glanced back, but his eyes didn't quite meet yours. "Try not to read too much into this. You're a debt and a convenience. That's all."

The door closed behind him with a soft click. Your knees immediately gave out, and you slid down the counter to sit on the floor, fingers pressed to lips that still tingled from his kiss.

What had you done? What had you agreed to? And why did his cruel dismissal hurt more than it should?

You could still taste him. Still feel the phantom pressure of his hands, his mouth, his body holding you in place. Your skin felt too tight, like you might burst out of it at any moment. And between your legs...

You pressed your thighs together harder, but it only made the ache worse. He'd kissed you like he was drowning, held you like you were precious, then tossed money at you like you were exactly what he'd implied—a piece of goods to be purchased and dressed up.

But you'd felt the way his hands shook, just slightly, when he pulled away. Heard the rough catch in his voice before he covered it with cruelty. He could pretend all he wanted that you were just business, but his body had told a different story.

You sat on your kitchen floor until your breathing returned to normal, staring at the money scattered across your table. More cash than you'd seen in months, thrown at you like scraps to a dog. Part of you wanted to burn it. The practical part knew you'd spend it on exactly what he demanded—a dress that would make you look like you belonged in his world, even if you never would.

You'd agreed to be Bucky Barnes'... what? Pretend sweetheart? Fake companion? The terminology from your mother's generation felt antiquated, but his “girl" seemed too modern, too casual for whatever this arrangement was.

One thing was certain—you were in deep trouble. Because despite his cruel words, despite the dismissive way he'd thrown money at you like you were nothing, you were going to dream about him. About the way he'd kissed you like he wanted to consume you whole. About the hardness pressed against your belly and the way he'd groaned into your mouth like you were unraveling him.

About the split second before his mask slipped back into place, when he'd looked at you like you'd shaken something loose in him he hadn't expected.

The coffee had gone cold on the table. The sympathy cards lay scattered, defiled with ash and now mocked by dirty money. Tomorrow you'd walk into the Barnes family home on the arm of their enforcer. Tomorrow you'd start playing a role that might destroy everything you thought you knew about yourself.

Tonight, you climbed to your feet on shaky legs and gathered the bills with trembling fingers. You'd buy the dress. Play the part. Be his empty-headed arm candy who didn't know she was being used.

But you knew the truth, even if he didn't want to admit it. That kiss had shaken him just as much as it had destroyed you. And maybe, just maybe, that gave you more power than either of you realized.

You touched your swollen lips one more time, remembering not just the heat of his mouth, but the way he'd said "fuck" like the word had been punched out of him. Like you'd affected him in ways he hadn't anticipated.

Eight o'clock tomorrow. Less than twenty-four hours to figure out how to play a part you'd never auditioned for. How to be the kind of girl who belonged on Bucky Barnes' arm. How to survive in his world without losing yourself completely.

But as you got ready for bed, the money tucked away in your kitchen drawer, you wondered if the real danger wasn't in losing yourself.

It was in finding out that maybe, underneath all his cruelty and dismissal, James Barnes was just as lost as you were.

feedback is always appreciated ♡

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fanfiction

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hidden-behind-the-fourth-wall · 8 days ago

Text

Don't You Know (You're Something Good)

Main Masterlist - Bucky Masterlist

Read on A03!

Tags: Bucky Barnes/Female Reader, friends to lovers, angst, fluff, love confessions, pining, shameless smut (blowjobs, fingering, p in v sex), no use of y/n, avenger!Reader

Summary: It's impossible to think that you could be worthy of him. That Bucky could ever want you back. But he's patient, and you're far more wrong than you think.

Author's Note: Request from @beatlesfcker6! I went. Insane. Enjoy!

Word Count: 17.7k

Your heart does a double step, whenever you see Bucky.

It started the way all crushes start. He’d been walking around, frowning at something on his phone, then dropped it with the most dramatic sigh in the world. His muscles had flexed, as he’d leaned down to pick it up. He’d glanced around to make sure nobody saw, his eyes had landed on you, and you’d given him a small smile.

He’d smiled back. It had been soft, but all teeth and a little light of amusement in his eyes.

He’d taken a step forwards, your heart had been beating a little too fast, and you’d vanished back into the shadows.

You’d watched him, as he looked around in confusion, trying to figure out where you’d gone. He wouldn’t find you. You’re too good at it.

Fading into the background. Where you didn’t have to be seen.

It’s something you’ve practiced your whole life. You’d call yourself an expert at it, if that didn’t sound more pathetic than anything in the world. People aren’t supposed to notice you. It’s better for your job that they don’t, better for your sleep, better for your brain that can’t stop seem to racing away from you with thoughts that nobody wants to hear.

And you’ve managed to go so, so long without being noticed. Years of flitting between shadows and watching from corners, content in only having the music in your headphones and book in your hands as company.

You see everything. You see Clint stealing Tony’s ice cream out of the fridge, and the subsequent rampage that follows. You see Natasha moving past you in the shadows, giving you a tiny nod but nothing more. Sometimes Peter stares at you, you smile back at him, and his eyes widen as he flushes and walks away.

They all know you’re there. They’ve all tried to talk to you, and you appreciate it, but it never helps the way they think. It only makes your skin feel like it’s being pricked with needles. Makes you wrap your arms around your stomach, hoping the shadows will get longer and save you from being seen.

You’re not make of sunlight and stardust like they are. You can’t command a whole room with a laugh—you don’t even laugh, you snort—and a few charming words that send everyone under a spell. You’re good at the missions, but that’s about it. And even then, it’s less good at them and more useful.

You’ve seen Bucky on about three, larger missions. Wearing a tactical suit, not bothering to keep his hair out of his face, carving through Hydra lines as if he’s just swimming with the tide. You’ve always watched him from the rafters—it’s your job to watch, so that’s not weird—and he’s always ruthless, but today there’s something more.

His jaw is clenched, and when bones snap, he tosses them to the side like they’re nothing but potato sacks.

There’s a cruel heat between your legs, and a misty fantasy of him tossing you around like that. But with more care, and another secret smile like with the phone.

It’s a pointless thought. In a sea of Gods and Heroes, you’re not going to be the one he chooses.

But it doesn’t stop the adoration, slowly starting to take root in your heart. Or the way it blooms when your see him rip a door off its hinges one second, then—as they reach the lab you’d been looking for—pick up a kitten with such tender care, holding in protectively in his hand as he marches around the lab.

“Bucky,” you hear Sam sigh, frowning up from his own lizards. “Just put it in the cages, man-“

“No.” He grunts, glaring down at the kitten. “It’s scared, I’m not putting it a freakin’ cage.”

“You’re acting like we’re not setting them free after-“

“Sam.” Bucky snaps, and Steve sighs from somewhere near the bunnies. “Keep saying stuff, and I’m going to throw the spiders at your face.”

You laugh. You can’t help it.

And Bucky hears it. Steve probably does as well, but he’s used to it. Bucky, though, is whipping his head around with a tight frown—the kitten still tucked so safely into his chest—and your heartbeat is in your ears.

His gaze lands on you, bright blue eyes seeming to pull you apart in a million ways, and his tongue flicks over his lips as you hold his stare.

Then he turns away, and you let out a long, slow breath of relief. You didn’t make it weird, and maybe it aches that he doesn’t want to look at you, but you’re really not expecting more. You’ll be fine. You can go home, maybe get lost in a daydream of that metal hand tracing over your features or his stern, deep voice humming your name, and not have to worry about if Bucky was disgusted by what he saw.

Fuck, what if he was disgusted by what he saw. What if he looked away because he didn’t want to look at you, and your heart is going to keep skipping while he only thinks of you as a weird, ugly, useless-

“Hey.”

It’s in your throat now. Your head whips to the side, and there’s Bucky. Still carrying the kitten, fallen behind Sam and Steve to walk with you.

He’s even more handsome up close. You can feel the heat, radiating off his body. There’s an itch in your fingers to reach out and touch him.

“Hi.” You whisper.

“Hey.” He grins at you, standing a little taller, and you flush.

“You already said that.”

“Uh, yeah. Guess I did.” He shifts the kitten into his metal arm, offering you his hand. “I’m Bucky.”

You stare at him. You don’t want to shake his hand. You’ll fall over.

But it would be rude not to.

You take Bucky’s hand for one quick shake, and it’s immediately a mistake. His hand fits so well in yours, and your swear you could feel little sparks flying up your skin at the contact, and his grip is firm enough you can already imagine it on your hips or thighs or neck or waist-

Bucky clears his throat, pulling away to rub the back of his neck, and you were shaking his hand too long. You made it weird. Even now, you can’t stop staring at him. He’s pretty. Sharp jawline and dark, attractive features, but pretty. There are lines on his brow you’d like to soothe with your fingers.

You don’t think you’re going to get the chance to touch him again, though. And if you do, it won’t be to soothe him, as if you could mean that to him. As if he’d turn to you for comfort.

“Do you have a name?” He asks, giving you an odd look, and at this point you might end up setting yourself on fire.

You tell him, and he stares at you for another second, repeating it back slowly—and it sounds so nice when he says it, and you’d like him to say it a million more times—before nodding, giving you one last grin, and jogging to catch up with Sam and Steve.

It’s odd. You’re trying not to think about it.

But when you glance up, on the Quinjet, he’s looking at you again. He shouldn’t be looking at you. It’s making you feel warm everywhere, and you can feel your heartbeat in your fingers.

You give him another close-lipped, sweet smile, and stare at your hands, hoping that will make this rush stop.

It doesn’t.

Is he still looking at me? You whisper to the shadows, lining the Quinjet walls, and they hum back to your ear.

Yes.

Fuck.

———

It’s as if floodgates are opening. Bucky won’t stop showing up, wherever you look, and it’s going to give you a heart attack.

A heart attack you’ll welcome, as long as it involves Bucky being near you.

Even it won’t really mean anything, when you fall down and nobody bothers to pick you up.

“Hey, creeper.” Tony waves you over one night, after one of his fancy let’s all celebrate how we’re the Avengers parties. “Stop lurking and come talk to us like a person.”

“I, um-“

“I did not spend thousands of dollars on lighting just for you to stand in the corner and talk to shadows the whole night.” Tony gives you another, slightly firmer wave. “Come here.”

You’d really rather not, but it doesn’t seem like you have a choice. It’s not that big a group anyway. Tony and his smug smirk, Steve—sighing and giving you an apologetic look as you shuffle over—Sam, and-

“Have you met Barnes yet?” Tony says, an almost taunting drawl lying under his tone. “He’s like you, but grumpier.”

Bucky scowls, but doesn’t speak. He’s just staring at the glass in his hand, his eyes flicking up to yours every few seconds, and this is something kind of beautiful nightmare. Everyone’s looking at you. You’re supposed to answer, but you’re going to say the wrong thing. There might be a world where you can just stare at Tony and they all give up on trying to talk to you, but then Bucky will think you’re weird.

That might be the worst thing in the world. You can feel your palms sweating from just the idea of Bucky frowning at Steve later, and asking who let the crazy girl join the team. You don’t have Nat’s looks and charm. Don’t have Bruce’s intelligence to pair with your powers. You’re just you, and you got lucky enough that Steve decided you were useful enough for the team.

They’re still all looking at you.

You’re going to throw up.

“I- I have.” You mumble, turning a bracelet on your wrist. “We’ve had a few missions.” You give Bucky another small, nervous smile. It seems to be all you can remember how to do. “Hi.”

“Hey.” He grunts. “You, uh- Hi.”

“You heard how her powers work, Barnes?” Tony drawls, shoving a fancy looking drink into your hands before seeming to materialize a new one for himself.

“No.” Bucky grunts. “You don’t hand out pamphlets, Stark.”

“She’s-“ Tony pauses, frowning at you, and you’d like to sink into the floor forever. “How does it work? Are you a shadow? Or just- One with them. Like the Lorax of darkness.”

“We’ve talked about this, Tony.” You chew on your lower lip, trying to look anywhere but Bucky as you answer. “I’m the Lorax of darkness.”

“So you speak for the shadows?” Sam jumps in, and Steve frowns at him.

“You’ve known her two years, you’ve never asked about the powers?”

“That’s rude, golden boy, I’m not just pokin’ you and asking how you run so freakishly fast-“

“Everyone knows how, Wilson,” Tony cuts in, and maybe if you’re fast, you can sneak away. “It’s very public information.”

Sam rolls his eyes. “Man, don’t tell me about the Smithsonian again-“

“I just think we all contribute to the legacy of the Avengers, and I contribute by making sure everyone knows all our great heroes-“

“What’s a Lorax?”

You start slightly, and Bucky’s suddenly right next to you. Smiling at you—mostly just in his eyes, but still painfully gentle in a way that’s going to make you explode—and muttering right in your ear as Sam and Tony keep arguing.

“It’s a, um- Children’s book?” You can’t look him in the eyes. He’s too pretty, and you haven’t earned that. “It’s about environmental conservation. The Lorax is a character who speaks for the trees.”

Bucky hums. He won’t stop looking at you. “So you… speak for the shadows.”

“Yeah.”

“What do shadows talk about?”

“Anything.” You shrug, watching the ice in your glass clink off the rim. “Gossip, mostly. They’re nosy little bitches.”

Bucky snorts, and you’re smiling. You can’t stop it. You probably look insane, but Bucky laughed for you, and it was a deep, rough sound that’s going to follow you into your dreams.

“What kind of gossip? Anything, uh- Juicy?” He bumps his shoulder with yours, and now you’re giggling.

“Not really. Everyone here is really bad at secrets, so most of what they tell me goes public like, five days later. They mostly just, um-“ You glance up at him, unable to help it, and his eyes are so blue. “They help me. I can fly, in really dark areas.”

“Huh.” He nods slowly, not breaking your gaze. “That how you got on the ceiling?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.” He coughs, scanning over you so intently it might be searing into your skin. “That’s- Interesting. Are you- Uh- Do you like stuff?”

You frown at him. “Stuff?”

“Music. Or- Books.”

You’re not entirely sure what’s happening. Bucky’s face looks almost red, in the low lighting of the room. You don’t know what stuff you’re supposed to like, and you must be incredibly boring if that’s all he can think to ask.

It’s also quiet. Really quiet.

The fight has ended, and Steve, Tony, and Sam are all just staring at you now, and you’d like to maybe jump off a cliff.

Tony sighs. “God, this is pathetic to watch-“

“Tony-“

“Was it the Hydra animal mission?” Tony pushes on, ignoring Steve’s warning tone. “That you two met on? Were you there when he took the cat? Because I know you took the cat, Barnes, I don’t care how many times you say you found it on the grounds.”

Bucky narrows his eyes, and you tilt your head at Tony.

“What cat?”

“The cat.” He frowns at you. “God, not you too-“

“I don’t remember a cat.” You say, trying to make yourself a little taller than you are. “There were about twenty lizards, a few puppies and rabbits, and a bunch of bugs. Sam swallowed one.”

Sam scowls. “I only swallowed it because Barnes fuckin’ tossed it at my face-“

“He’s going insane.” Bucky shrugs, giving you another unreadable look. “You see everything, right doll? Were there any bugs?”

Oh.

Your heart is trying to beat out of your chest, because doll. He called you doll. And he said it so smooth, with a small twitch of his lips and all his attention. You’re doll. It might just be part of whatever game he’s playing with his friends—that you’ve been pulled into, like a surprise witness—but you’re doll for it, and you’d love to keep that. Even if it’s just a momentary illusion to fuck with Sam and Tony, for a second, you were treasured enough to Bucky to be doll.

“I didn’t see any bugs leave their containers.” You shrug, holding his gaze. “Or any cats.”

Bucky grins at you, and your heart seems to be hitting a rapid pace that’s going to pound right out of your chest. He must be looking at you because there’s something wrong with your face. That’s the only plausible explanation.

But he’s still looking at you, and grinning.

Even as you manage to excuse yourself, and vanish back into the corners of the crowd. You don’t see Bucky for the rest of the night.

But he keeps seeing you.

In the gym, Bucky’s suddenly there whenever you go to try and train. Shirtless and sweaty, metal arm shining and muscles flexing with every movement. You have to leave early five times in a row, because it’s distracting, and you keep imagining your face pressed into his chest as those huge arms wrap around you. During briefings, Bucky’s suddenly across from you all the time, rather than at the front with Steve. He’s probably just trying to avoid Tony—who’s still caught on the cat thing—but it means you can’t look up from your papers without Bucky being there, and your heart doing it’s stupid little kickdrum beat.

He’s in the garden, whenever you try to do your nightly walk. Wandering aimlessly and staring at all the flowers. You’re developing a bad habit of asking the shadows where he is, at any given point during the day, and they’re not being very helpful.

The handsome one is near you again.

You look up from your book, frowning at the air. I didn’t ask-

You should know. They hum. He’s sweet. We like him. You should talk to him.

Where is he?

In the hallway. Pacing.

You sigh, and shake your head, looking back to your book.

They keep bothering you about talking to him. Keep telling you where he is, until almost half your thoughts are dancing around pretend conversations where you do go to him, and you somehow end up making out against the wall. One of his hands on your ass and the other resting gently on your throat, maybe his rough, deep voice humming your name and his body pressed comfortably over yours-

You wander into the kitchen, lost in the daydream, and the shadows didn’t fucking warn you this time.

Bucky’s at the islander counter, cutting up a cucumber at the slowest pace you’ve ever seen.

“Hi.” He grins at you as you walk in, and you freeze in the doorway. “Salad.”

“I-“ You gape at him, your face far too warm. “What?”

“Salad.” He nods to the cucumber. “I’m makin’ one.”

“Why?” You’re blurting again, without thought, and Bucky frowns down at the cutting board.

You’re making it weird.

“I dunno. Steve and Nat wanted one, and I, uh- I said I’d do it. So now I’m doing it.” He shrugs, flipping the knife in his hand, and you feel a little dizzy. “Do you want something else?”

You shake your head. It’s not your salad. It doesn’t really matter what you want. “I’ve got my sandwich,” you mumble, and he frowns.

“Alright. You eat here, I don’t need the whole counter-“

“It’s okay.” You try not to brush past him, on the way to the fridge.

It doesn’t work. Your shoulders bump, and now you’re lightheaded from the rush.

“Thanks.” You give him a tight smile, clinging to your sandwich like it’s a lifeline, then sprint out of the room before you can make it worse.

There must be someone out to get you. Trying to make your heart kick into a high enough overdrive to kill you, or playing a cruel game where Bucky is everywhere, and you don’t get to have him.

“There’s another Tony-mandated press event.” Natasha smiles at you a few days after the kitchen incident, and you stare at her with wide eyes. “You want to go shopping with me? For an outfit?”

“I, um- I have clothing already-“

“Yes, but this is an excuse to get more.” She takes your hand, giving you a well-designed, sweet smile. “It will just be you, me, and Wanda. Easy. We’ll spend all of Starks money and go home.”

You swallow, and there isn’t really a choice here. Saying no to Natasha is the most terrifying thing to do in the world, and you’re going to spend the whole time staring at the mirror—trying to will your body into a different shape with your mind—but at least you can maybe walk away with something more flattering, using Wanda and Nat’s fashion skills. It won’t be horrible. Just a long, tiring afternoon with free food.

So you give him. And Nat gives you a squeeze of your arm and a smile you don’t understand, before starting to drag you out of the common room.

“Wait, now?”

“The event is in a month.” She shrugs, stopping in front of one of Tony’s fancy cars. “But I have a mission, then you have a mission, then we all have things. We have to go now, if we don’t want to be running around like idiots in the morning.”

There’s some logic to that, but something about this feels off. Maybe it’s that Nat lets you pick the music on the drive, or her finger keeps tapping on the wheel. Her phone keeps buzzing, but it’s face down, and it would be rude for you to look at the screen.

She didn’t wait for Wanda to join you.

And when you pull up to the curb, in front of the store, your eyes narrow on the street in front of you. That’s Sam’s truck.

“Nat,” you mutter, the shadows in the car starting to grow longer as you take long, slow breaths. It’s fine. You’re going to be fine.

“Hm?”

You shoot her a glare. “You said it was just us.”

“And Wanda.” She shrugs, turning off the car. “I said Wanda, too.”

“Then why-“

“Because I lied.” She doesn’t sound very fucking guilty about it, and the shadows are starting to move over your thighs, trying to shield you from view.

They’re going to see you. Everyone’s going to see you, and think things about you that you don’t want to see on their faces, and if Sam’s here, that means Bucky’s here.

He can’t see you. You won’t be able to think or speak clearly as long as you know Bucky might be looking at you. And it’s not like he’s never seen you wearing formal clothing before, but this is different. This is intimate, with all your friends, trying things on to see how you look.

You just won’t go to the party at all. Tony can yell at you all he wants, you don’t want to see Bucky staring at you, silently judging how you look in a too-tight dress, being too much of a gentleman to tell you that you should stick to baggier pants and shirts-

“Hey.” Nat takes your hand, her voice impossibly firm. “Breathe. I didn’t want to lie, but you wouldn’t have come otherwise-“

“But you could go without me- I’ll just stay in the car-“

“No. I want you to hang out with us.” She sighs. “We all want you to. If you hate it, I’ll let you punch Sam.”

You blink at her. “Sam?”

“Yeah. I’ll hold him, you punch. We can do that even if you have fun.” She raises her brows. “Alright? Because you either come into the store and eat all the free shrimp, or I make everyone take rotating shifts to keep you company. Like a dog.”

“Or I could sit in the car alone-“

“You can sit in the shop alone. With free shrimp.” She sighs, holding your gaze. “Please.”

That makes the shadows retreat, if only out of shock. Nat doesn’t say please for almost anything, let alone to beg for something. Something as stupid as you, going shopping with her.

“Oh- Okay.” You sigh. “Fine. You win.”

“Good.” Nat lets out a slow breath. “Let’s go, we’re like ten minutes late. Steve’s going to start trying to get me to buy a watch again.”

Steve. Steve is here.

Which means Bucky’s probably here as well.

And everyone falls silent, when you and Nat walk up to them. You’re trying to stay behind Her, but it doesn’t seem to be working. Sam says your name with a grin, clapping a very rigid Bucky on the shoulder, and you’d like to go back to the car now.

“You made it,” Wanda smiles at you, and you try to return it, but you see yourself in the mirror, and you look insane. “Come, I’ve been looking for things you will like.”

She almost drags you away, before the rest of them can see anything, and suddenly you’re behind a curtain and everything is quiet.

You take a loud, stuttering breath, and Wanda sighs.

“I am sorry.” She hums, turning a dress on a hanger. “I told them this was a bad idea.”

You frown at her. “What?”

“You know of my powers.” She murmurs. “I try not to invade, but- You are very loud. In here.” She taps her head, and you flush.

She knows. Of course she knows. She can see into your mind, see how you’re just some vermin among gods, and you’re pining for something on a mountain when you’re barely even good enough for the dirt-

“That is not true. You are not vermin.” She frowns at you, and you wrap your arms around your gut.

“Can you- I know you can’t help it, but-“

“My apologies.” Wanda sighs, looking back to the dress. “But he does not know. And I will not tell. I just thought you might want to not be there.”

“I didn’t.” You mumble, pressing your back against the wall. “Thank you.”

She shrugs, looking back to the dress, and you want to ask it. You don’t want the answer, but it’s still itching at your tongue, and at least you’ll be able to give up-

“I do not know.” Wanda says suddenly, pulling the dress off the rack. “I am not part of their circle, I am only here because Natasha thought it would lure you.”

“Oh-“

“And Bucky’s mind is…” She trails off, shaking her head slightly. “Guarded. He does not let any thoughts slip where I can hear them. But if you are asking my opinion, as a friend.” She gives you a small smile. “I think you are beautiful, and sweet. And he is not blind. He tries to speak to you. That is more than others.”

More than others.

You can take more than others. Beautiful, you don’t believe, because you’ve never believed it. When people call you that, it’s a trick or a lie. They want something, or they’re trying to cheer you up, and it doesn’t count.

But if Bucky talks to you more than others, there’s at least a shot, no matter how blind. You could be his friend, and nothing more. You could be a ghost he likes to talk to more than the skeletons under his bed. There when he needs it. Trying to touch him, but simply not capable of it.

And you’re going to hold onto it under you’ve strangled it.

“Hey-“ The curtain swings open, Natasha grinning at you from the other side. “Did you try on Wanda’s dresses?”

“Not yet-“

“We’ll come back.” She grabs your arm pulling you out of the dressing room. “If you don’t like what I found for you. Which you will.”

You glance back at Wanda, and she smiles at you before you vanish.

And Nat found you a lot of dresses. You ask the shadows—while she’s letting you change—and they say she’s got twenty more in a closet somewhere. And you don’t really have an opinion of any of them, but Natasha has about a thousand. Apparently, you look hot in all of them, but she’s looking for the one that dazzles.

“What does dazzles mean.” You mutter, fidgeting with the skirt, and she sighs.

“You’ll know when we find it.” She shrugs. “Try on the pink one.”

You do. And then the blue one. Then the lace one. Then the other pink one. And none of them—according to Natasha—dazzle.

But this one.

This one is nice.

The others felt too tight, or too frilly, or too itchy. But this one doesn’t make you want to shrink into yourself, or maybe peel off your skin and see if there’s someone better underneath. It’s just nice. Feels good.

And when you walk out, Natasha grins at you, sitting up a little taller.

“This.” She takes both of your hands, squeezing them tight. “This is dazzles. Let’s go.”

“Go?” You stumble back, shaking your head. “Can I- The dress-“

“It looks great! I want to show off what we did-“

“Natasha.” You swallow, your arms going back around your stomach at your breathing picks up. “Please. I don’t want to.”

She frowns, crossing her arms over her chest and scanning you up and down. “Why?”

You shrug. “I think you know.”

You have no fucking idea if she knows. But whatever she thinks she knows is going to get you out of this.

And it does. Nat sighs, glances down at her phone, then back to you.

“Okays. I’m- I didn’t mean to make it. This.” She waves around the room, then at you, and it’s the closest you’ll get to an apology.

You’ll take it. “It’s okay. Just- I can’t.”

“Yeah, I know.” She pauses. “Do you want to get the lunch I promised you? Just us?”

“And Wanda.” You add quickly, and her lips twitch.

“Sure. You guys meet me out front, and I’ll tell the boys they can fit Bucky for a suit by themselves.”

You nod, rubbing your sides and trying not to think about Bucky in a suit. Strong. Ripping through the seams of it and cleaned up so nice, you want to see how fast he can get dirty again.

But you can’t. There’s a shot, and if Bucky sees you like this—wearing a dress that you have no right to, panicking and trying to shrink into yourself—you’ll miss.

All you have to do is be his friend.

And that can’t be that hard. He keeps showing up everywhere, his face even on Natasha’s screen as he tries to call during your sorry for making you have a panic attack lunch.

“Are you guys close?” You ask, poking your straw around the glass and Nat frowns at you.

“Me and who?”

“Barnes.” You can’t sound bitter about it. That’s insane. “He’s calling you.”

“Oh, Bucky just wants an update on some work I’m doing for him.” She waves her fry casually through the air. “Wanda’s worked with him more.”

“He is wary of me.” Wanda shrugs. “But I am new, and he trusts me enough to not look very hard for a weapon, when I enter a room.”

You frown. “He does that?”

“Yeah.” Nat shrugs. “Old Red Room training.”

“Oh. I’ve- Never noticed that.”

“I know you haven’t.” Nat smirks at you, and before you can ask what the fuck that means, she’s talking again. “What do you think of him?”

“Of-“

“Barnes.”

You stare at her, and you’d like to go back about ten minutes and never start this conversation. That was a really fucking stupid move for you to make. Now they’re both looking at you, and you’re painfully aware of the flush on your face and way that your hair and how, if Bucky walked in now, he wouldn’t even spare you a glance-

Wanda clears her throat, giving you a gentle look.

Too loud.

You’re being too loud, and not answering the question for way too long.

“I like him.” You mumble, focusing your gaze on Nat’s nails. They’re red. Shiny. Yours are just kind of there. “He’s nice.”

Nat nods slowly, and that seems to be the end of Bucky talk. The conversation moves to a TV show you’ve all watched, and you might be out of the woods.

But Bucky is everywhere.

And all his friends suddenly seem very interested in hanging out with you.

“Did you do anything interesting last night?” Steve asks you in the kitchen, and you’d nearly choked on your yogurt.

“Not really.” You whisper, starting at a little bit of granola, trying to drown itself.

You understood the feeling.

“I went for a walk. Looked at the gardens. Watch some TV.” You gave Steve a tight smile. “Did you do anything?”

“Yeah, Buck and I started measuring out his apartment, we’re trying to find what furniture he’ll want.” Steve’s tone turns soft, and your hands curl on your spoon. That wasn’t a good sign. “Do you want to come with us? I think you and Bucky would be friends-“

“No!” You sit up too tall, your words a little too loud, and Steve blinks. “It’s- I mean, you might be right, and Bucky is great, but I- I’ve got three reports to write and- Yeah. Have fun!”

You almost run from the kitchen. You know you were talking too fast, and Bucky is more than great, but you can’t fucking go shopping with them. Not again. You’ll say something or do something or just stand in the wrong corner, and they’ll never want to speak to you again.

But that doesn’t stop anyone from trying to get you to do something. Getting lunch. Watching a movie. Sam just corning you and talking about flowers for fifteen, very strange and long minutes.

You’re not sure what’s going on. Nothing’s different than it was before, when they left you to your shadows and gave you tight smiles in the halls. But now Natasha’s sitting next to you in briefings, and Sam keeps grinning at you, and Bucky-

He’s not looking at you at all. He’s staring at his hands, braced on the table, and shooting Sam a glare every few seconds.

He’s only tried to talk to you a few times, in the past few weeks.

And both times won’t stop playing on loop in your brain.

“What’s your favorite book?” He’d materialized behind you in the gardens, and you’d nearly jumped out of your skin.

Your heart has still done its stupid little flutter, and it’s had kicked into a high beat when Bucky had steadied you, swearing under his breath.

“Shit- Sorry, doll, you alright-“

“I like books.” You’d said, your hand splayed on his chest—he was warm, and strong, and you’d had to yank yourself away like you’d been burned—and voice far too breathy to be normal.

“I know, uh-“ He’d cleared his throat. “What books?”

“Books.” You might have been about to explode. “About dragons.”

You’d run, after that. And then the second time as well, when he’d told you that you were paired together on the mission.

“Sorry,” he’d said, giving you a grimacing smile before turning away.

Sorry.

He’d been sorry. That you were paired together.

And you couldn’t figure out why. It’s not even that hard a mission.

“I’d rather this be in and out, guys.” Steve says, in his captain stance at the front of the room. “We’re in teams of two, which means you should all be retrieving one thing. Sam and I will have two, but I’m the Captain-“

“Oh, he’s the Captain.” Tony drawls, and Steve sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“You can take the double duty if you want, Tony.” Nat hums, legs on the table. “Wilson just drew the short stick.”

Sam frowns. “I wanted to go to safe house three, but- Oof.”

Nat had elbowed Sam right in the gut, and before anyone could keep talking, Steve was clearing his throat.

“No trades. I made the teams like this for a reason-“

“Sounds like the reason is Wilson losing a bet-“

“-And we’re going to stick to them.” Steve looks around the table, pointedly ignoring Tony’s comment. “We’ve got back up on standby, in case any of us bite of more than we can chew. Ready?”

There’s a grumble of acknowledgment, and everyone starts to stand up and make their way to the Quinjets. There are seven safe houses overall, so you’ll have to take separate flights to get to each one.

Which means you’re flying with Bucky.

Who still won’t really look you in the eye.

He gives you a tight smile as he climbs into the ship, but it doesn’t really reach his eyes. Then he’s punching in the coordinates with the force of a man who really doesn’t want to be in the same area as you for long, and sitting down without a word.

You’re staring at your hands, trying to figure out if it’s dark enough outside for you to jump, and just fly by yourself to the safe house. Bucky clearly doesn’t want to be here with you—you can’t blame him, you wouldn’t either—and the silence is a little too heavy over your chest. You don’t want to listen to music he might not, or try and talk to him, then say the wrong thing. Quinjets have game functions, but you might suggest you play the wrong game. And when you glance up at Bucky, he’s still not looking at you.

Playing a game would require looking at you. And he doesn’t seem to want to do that at all.

And now that you’ve looked at him, you can’t look away.

He’s pretty. So pretty. Hair falling slightly in his face, but softer looking than when he arrived at the compound. His tactical suit is perfectly fitted to his body, his gloved hand covering the cover of his book, and his brow pinched slightly as he reads.

He brought a book. That’s smart. You should’ve thought of that, but you didn’t, because you’re a fucking idiot-

Bucky shifts slightly, and you can see the cover over the book.

“I love that book.” You blurt, and Bucky looks up at you with an unreadable expression. “It’s- Really good.”

You’re going to jump out of the plane whether you can fly or not. Bucky’s staring between you and the book, and why isn’t it dark, there aren’t enough shadows to hide-

“It is good.” He says, and you blink. He’s talking to you. “I like it. Steve recommended it to me-“

“I recommended it to Steve.” You’re talking so fast, and Bucky’s lip twitches slightly.

“Yeah, doll. I know.”

“Oh. Cool.” You look back to your hands, picking at your nails, and the few shadows that had curled over your hands are starting to retreat. You can do this. You can talk to him and not make it weird, you can be his friend, you just have to say something-

“Sam told me this thing lets you play Uno.” Bucky cuts through your thoughts, and you look back up at him with wide eye. “I don’t know what that means, but it’s supposed to be a good thing.”

“It’s a game.” You mumble. “Do you- Want to play it?”

Bucky nods, setting the book aside, and you try to make your shaking breath as quiet as possible. It’s just a game. He’s not proposing.

But your heart won’t stop doing to flutter. And when Bucky grins at you, Tony’s very important mission game closet opening up from the wall, it’s nearly beating out of your chest again.

He’s helping, though. Bucky’s mostly just letting you take the lead, listening to you explain with a firm attention that burns into your, but doesn’t hurt, and smiling with bright eyes at your every attempted joke.

“So I just gotta run out of cards.” He mutters, scanning over the deal in his hand, and you nod.

“Yep. And I, um- I get competitive. So.” You swallow, staring down at your own cards. “Please don’t get mad at me if I call you a cunt.”

Bucky snorts, and it’s like something’s glowing in your chest. “I think we can get around that, doll. Who goes first?”

“You.” It’s a whisper, but he called you doll again.

And he won’t stop doing it. Talking to you. Looking at you. Grinning at you.

Something is happening where Bucky is talking to you like you’re not a burden, and you can’t tell if it’s a trick or dream, but fuck you don’t want it to be.

“Do you have a favorite animal?” He asks, and you shake your head.

“I like all of them. I tried to talk Tony into having, a, um- Zoo.” You flush slightly, playing your card. “He said that wasn’t possible or reasonable, but I could have a cat.”

Bucky hums, making his own play. “He likes you.”

You huff softly. “No, he doesn’t-“

“He likes you as much as Tony can like anyone.” Bucky shrugs. “You wanna see what Tony hatin’ someone looks like? Look at me.”

“He doesn’t hate you-“

“Yeah, he does. He didn’t say I could have a cat.” Bucky pauses. “Never thanked you for that, did I?”

“For what?”

“The cat thing.” It’s his move, but he’s not playing. He’s just looking at you, so fucking softly. “Meant a lot. You didn’t even know me.”

“Yeah, but-“ I might be in love with you, just a fraction, but more than enough to make me insane. “It’s whatever. She seems happy in your room. Healthy.”

“She is.” Bucky sits up a little taller. “How-“

“The shadows.” You shrug, poking him with your foot. “Your play, Buck.”

He stares at you for another long second, and you could swear his ears had turned a little pink by the time he looks back to his cards.

“So, uh-“ He coughs, looking intently between his hand and the pile. “Those shadows of yours. They just- Tell you anything they’re seein’?”

“Anything they think I should know about.” You shrug, making your own play. “I- um- I’m going to tell you something.” You glance up at him, chewing on your lower lip. “But please don’t tell the others.”

“Won’t say a thing.” He nods sharply, leaning further over the table. “Something wrong-“

“No, I just-“ You sigh. You shouldn’t tell him.

But you want to. You want him to like you. Trust you. Just keep looking at you like this.

“When I first moved into the compound.” You mumble, playing your card. “The shadows weren’t used to having me around people. And what they thought I should know what… everything.” You give him a tight smile. “I know a lot. About everyone. Very fast.”

Bucky frowns. “A lot-“

“Vision does have a synthazoid dick. And he and Wanda have been together longer than people think.”

Bucky stares at you, and he’s definitely red now. “Ah.”

“They don’t do that anymore.” You say quickly, watching him play his own card. “I promise. I trained them out of it fast, now they know what’s important and what’s private, they just decided that the cat was important, but anything else you do with, um- Anyone is- I wouldn’t know-“

“Breathe.” Bucky grunts, and you take a loud, deep inhale. “It’s alright, doll. I believe you. And I, uh-“ He frowns at the air, not meeting your eyes. “I don’t got anyone. Like that.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Bucky nods sharply, making his next play, before saying, “Alpine.”

You stare at him. “What?”

“That’s her name. The cat.” He sighs. “And she’s doin’ good. Thanks to you, lying to Tony.”

“Don’t worry about it.” You shrug, and you’re down to two cards now. “It’s really easy to lie to Tony.”

Bucky’s lips twitch. “You wanna meet her?”

“Yes, please.” You say it before you can over think it, and Bucky grins at you.

Wide, and real, and sort of world ending. You’re not sure if you’ve ever seen his grin grin, and it’s beautiful. Bright and toothy and filled with a quiet kind of light that would be really easy to get lost in.

You’re already lost in it.

You don’t kind of love him. You do. Just one stupid, full conversation, and it’s slamming into you without relent. More than just a crush. More than just an idolization of the strong, handsome man who loves animals.

It’s fluttering in your heart and spreading into the tips of your fingers. Warm and buzzing and comfortable.

And there are so many ways for you to say it. That it’s how every single thing you’re telling him, he’s nodding like it’s something to be memorized. How you’ve seen him block food he knows Steve likes from being taken by Clint, or the fact that once you saw him smell some flower in the garden. It could be how he’s dry but not cruel, and firm but not harsh, or maybe just the fact that he’s the kind of man who’d carry that kitten out of a lab like it was more important than the world.

But really it’s just this.

You’d like to see Bucky smile forever.

“Uno.” He places down a plus four with a slightly smug grin, and your eyes widen.

“You cunt.” You breathe out, still sort of under a spell, and Bucky laughs.

And that’s beautiful, as well.

You’re a goner. Just friends might be more than you can handle, and still so far from enough.

But as Bucky offers you his hand to get up, you’ll manage. He’s everywhere anyway. A least this way, he might keep grinning at you, touching you, and it will be more than anyone else.

Friends.

You can do friends.

———

The mission went well.

For you and Bucky.

You’d been in and out. Joking about almost nothing as you walked together through the safe house, your shadows alerting you of traps and Bucky always within reaching distance in case they missed one.

They did. Just a single tripwire that you stumbled over, and Bucky yanked you back from. His arm wrapped around your waist as he tugged you right into his chest, and spikes shot up from the floor.

“It’s like the Goonies.” Bucky had muttered, and you’d frowned.

“Not really, it’s more-“ You’d looked back at him with wide eyes. “You watched the Goonies?”

“Sam made me.” He’d frowned. “It was kind of fucked up.”

You’d hummed, then suddenly realized that Bucky was still holding onto you. Keeping you pressed against him, and you could feel his muscles flexing around you, rest your hand on his forearm, his lips barely inches away from yours-

He’d licked them.

And it was a habit you’d seen him do countless times, but it was different up close. You could see the pink of his tongue and wet of his spit, and you wanted to surge up and taste him-

You’d shoved away from each other at the exact same time. And as you’d stumbled a little too far back, Bucky had caught your hand and pulled you upright.

He’d held your hand for a long second after, a gloved thumb running over your knuckles.

Neither of you spoke about it. And when you’d retrieved your data, you’d just gone right back to the Quinjet, no disaster but how you could still feel the phantom of Bucky’s hand in yours.

Everyone else wasn’t as lucky.

You stepped into the hanger to find a lot of shouting, and a few drawn weapons. Apparently almost everyone else had fucked up somehow, and you were missing half the data you’d needed because of it.

“Just skip the debrief.” Steve had muttered, watching the rest of the team wearily. “You guys can take the afternoon, just get your post-report done before the end of the month.”

Bucky had decided to stay and help Steve, but you didn’t think you could handle being in the middle of this. Someone might yell at you, then you’ll start crying, and nobody will ever look you in the eyes again. But before you can get out of the hanger, Bucky’s calling your name. Grabbing your wrist and giving you a small grin, his thumb doing the thing again.

It’s like being struck by lightning.

“Uh- Good work.” He coughs, letting go of your wrist and drawing up to his full height.

You’d like to climb him.

You’re lucky he’s touching you at all.

“Do you wanna meet tomorrow? Do our report?”

You nod, trying to keep your voice as steady as possible. “Yes- I- That sounds good.”

Bucky nods, gives you another grin, then jogs back away, leaving you swaying slightly as you try to get a fucking grip. Friends hang out with each other. People who have mission reports to do also hang out with each other.

But he asked you.

And you don’t meet tomorrow. Or the day after that. The aftermath of the mission is being felt through the whole compound, and the week is crawling by, and Bucky’s always busy.

Or he’s not.

You lie flat on your back in your room, staring at the ceiling and taking deep breaths, trying to keep everything from spiraling. He’s just busy. Everyone’s busy. He didn’t realize that you’re not worth his time or attention, that he shouldn’t even be thinking about looking at you, that you can just do the reports slightly, and he regrets speaking to you ever, at all-

The handsome one wants you to know he is free now.

You frown, sitting up slightly. He wants me to know?

He turned off all the lights in his room. He is talking to the walls. He looks insane, but he is very instant we tell you he is free.

Free of what?

He did not tell us that.

You sigh, running a hand through your hair, and push off the mattress. Bucky doesn’t hate you. He was just busy, like you thought. And he wants you to know he’s free in his room.

Which doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a room.

Bucky’s room.

That you’re walking to, and you didn’t choose an outfit, and he’s going to take one look at you and kick you out into the hall-

The door opens before you can even knock, or turn around and run away. Bucky grins at you from the other side, and he’s not kicking you out.

He’s just smiling.

And you can do this.

“Sorry, I, uh- I heard you. Walking down the hall.” He steps to the side, glancing past you carefully. “You should get in before Alpine starts yelling.”

You nod, scrambling inside, and Bucky’s apartment is nice. It’s not cluttered, but not bare, and the kitten—now much larger—is blinking at you slowly from his bed.

He has a bed.

And you knew he had a bed, but it’s different to see it. To know that he sleeps there, and might have had other, better women in it. That he’d touched them with that metal hand, and they’d shivered, and those full lips had trailed down their bodies-

“Sorry it’s empty.” He’s frowning around the room at your side, and you have no fucking clue when he appeared next to you, but he’s there now. “I just started usin’ furniture again.”

“No, it’s nice.” You glance at Alpine. “Can I-“

“Sure. She’ll like you.”

Bucky says that like it’s a fact. As if there’s no chance at all that Alpine will lean back, when you offer her your hand.

And she doesn’t.

But you don’t understand why he has so much faith in that.

“Is this the stuff you got with Steve?” You ask, scratching Alpine’s ears as she starts to purr, and he frowns.

“Yeah, uh- It is. How’d you know about that?”

“Steve invited me.” You shrug, giving him an apologetic smile. “I was busy, sorry.”

“’S fine.” He mutters, still frowning and shooting a glare at the door. “Sorry. About him.”

Sorry.

“Why?” You ask before you can think better of it, and Bucky lets out a long, slow breath.

“I know you’re not-“ He’s still glowering at the door. You might be missing something. “Me.”

You blink at him. “Huh?”

He shakes his head, looking down to the floor. “I know you’re not- I know you don’t like being- It’s not you-“

“Bucky-“

“I’m sorry if they’ve been makin’ you uncomfortable.” His voice raises slightly, and you’ve missed something. He looks distressed, but you’re not even sure what’s happening.

“Who?”

“Natasha.” He mutters, and Alpine stretches, jumping off the bed to go rub at his ankles. Bucky sighs, kneeling to pet her as he continues. “Steve. Sam. They were tryin’ to, uh- They like making friends. And I told them to back off, but even Steve- Never mind. Sorry.”

You still feel sort of lost. You know they were trying to be your friend. You don’t understand why, but you also can’t begin to understand how any of that is Bucky’s fault.

“It’s okay.” You say anyway, because he looks so sad. Staring at Alpine with a deep frown, a sort of weight seeming to make his shoulders hunch and head bow.

It’s aching, to watch him like that.

You just want to make it better.

“I didn’t mind, Buck.” You let out a soft laugh. “I sort of feel bad for them. Trying to like me is hard.”

Bucky’s gaze shoots up to yours, and there’s something in his gaze that’s blinding. Firm and unyielding, driving right into you and making you stand a little taller.

“No, it’s not.” His tone is almost strict, and you blink at him.

“Wha-“

“Liking you isn’t hard.” He looks back down to Alpine, letting out another slow breath as his tone drops. “It’s actually pretty damn easy.”

“Oh.”

You sound like an idiot. He’s wrong, you know he’s wrong, but for some reason you can’t really prove it to yourself. Bucky isn’t the type to lie, just to make you feel better. You’ve heard him call Sam a bird-assed-feather-dick for messing with the Quinjet controls, and refuse to apologize after. But he’d apologized to you. And he’d said that like it was real. Like it was something critical for you to know.

And you don’t know what to do with that.

It’s making you glow again. And you want to say something back, like how not everything is Bucky’s fault, but you can’t find the words without sounding like you’re insane. They all end with I love you, so I’d never be uncomfortable as long as I was next to you. And you can’t say that. I’ll make it weird. And there’s no way he’ll feel it back, so you’ll just be losing whatever fragile thing you’re building here.

Where Bucky’s letting you into his room. Letting you pet his cat.

Letting you further into his life.

“You wanna go get lunch?” Bucky asks suddenly. “We can eat, then do the report. If you want- We don’t gotta-“

“I’d like that.” You whisper, and Bucky grins at you again. “Where do you wanna go?”

“Wherever you’d like.” He shrugs, pushing to his feet. “Long as you think it’s good, I trust you.”

You wrinkle your nose at him. “What if I take you to eat snail.”

“Then I’ll eat a snail, doll.” He drawls, and you’re dizzy again. “C’mon. We can talk about dragons books.”

———

Bucky isn’t just appearing everywhere anymore. He is everywhere.

But mostly because you’re seeking him out, and he’s doing the same for you.

You’re friends. Real friends. And after you managed to swing the only success on the mission, you’re paired together for everything.

He eats lunch with you. Tells you about what he’s reading, in exchange for your own recommendations. Sits next to you on the Quinjet, lets you hold Alpine, and sometimes even joins you on walks. Sometimes he’ll help you spar, and you get to see him shirtless. Sweating and focused and strong and big, and when he grins at you, it’s a miracle you don’t fall to your knees.

He’s been talking to you more than anyone else at all, lately. You’ll be making dinner with him in the kitchen, and Tony will let out a low whistle as he walks past you. If you’re on a mission, Sam will grumble that he’s third wheeling, even though you’re the one that probably shouldn’t be here.

Everyone can probably see it. How Bucky shouldn’t be wasting his time being your friend, when he could be doing so much more, with something better.

But he’s not bored of you yet.

And you don’t hate yourself enough to give him the push to finally put it together. That you’re not worth this at all.

He’s been floating awkwardly around the common room for about twenty minutes, while you’re watching a movie with Wanda.

“Buck?” You call over your shoulder, and he freezes, a panicked expression on his face. You’d think you caught him doing something bad. “Do you want to join us?”

“I, uh-“

“It is fine.” Wanda hums, not looking away from the screen. “Sit. You are pacing like an animal.”

Bucky clears his throat, and shuffles over to your side.

His arm goes around your shoulder, and you give him a small grin.

Out of the corner, you can see Wanda’s pointed look. And you don’t want to hear it. You know you love him, that doesn’t mean he loves you. You’d rather keep thinking he doesn’t. It’ll make it easier when he leaves.

And you’re already hearing enough of it, from everyone else.

Because you’re going to kill Tony.

His mandated press event was a charity thing. You’re all supposed to walk around in groups, answering questions and getting people to like you enough that they’ll donate money. And that would’ve been fine. You’re paired with Bucky again, and you could stand in the corner for five hours, watching Steve trying to accomplish more and more insane dares from Sam and Nat.

But Tony, with his endless pit of money and brigade of assistants, can’t seem to properly book a hotel.

You got the email with your room number on it last week. You took the bus to the city, because you’d rather eat glass than ride a motorcycle, there will probably be paparazzi if you take the Quinjet, and people don’t tend to recognize you anyway. Not the way they point and giggle about the others. You don’t even really have a code name, you’re just the shadow one.

It’s part of the job. It makes it easier to go out in public.

It makes it harder to look in the mirror, because maybe you’re just not recognizable. And this is going to be a long weekend anyway—with cameras and smiling and people asking impossibly invasive questions the whole time—so when you get to the hotel, you’ve already exhausted yourself.

There’s a reception, before all the actual things happening tonight. Nobody will want you there anyway, and an hour without anyone looking at you sounds amazing.

So you check in under the Stark party, get your key, and go straight to your room.

It should be your room.

But when you open your door, Bucky’s on the other side.

He says your name with a wide grin. “I was gonna go look for-“

“How’d you get in my room?” You glance around, seeing his suitcase resting on the floor, his suit laid out on the bed.

Bucky frowns. “This is my room.”

You stare at him for a second, before scrambling for your phone. This would be a really fucked up joke for Tony to play on you. And you really fucking wish you could put it past him, but you can’t.

“No, look-“ You show him your email. “406. That’s my name-“

“I know, just-“ He sighs, rubbing his jaw with a frown. “It’s also my room.”

No.

You can’t share a room with him. You’ll do something stupid, or he’ll see you sleeping and realize that he should never look at you again, and the room is starting to blur and spin and-

“Hey.” Bucky takes your face between his hands, lowering his voice. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, I’ll go fix this, I can crash with Steve-“

“No- no, it’s-“ You shake your head, grabbing at his wrists. “It’s- This is your room, I’ll go to Wanda-“

“Or we can share.”

You blink at Bucky, and he’s coming into focus so fast it’s almost dizzying.

Share. The room. Bed. With Bucky.

“I can sleep on the floor,” he adds quickly, and you can’t tell if that’s better or worse. “You just don’t have to go with Wanda. For me. Again, I’m fine with Steve-“

“It’s- It’s okay.” You give him a weak smile, your head still spinning. “We can take it up with Tony. If you want.”

Bucky raises his brows. “Do you want?”

“No.” You breathe, and friends share rooms. He won’t even be sleeping on the bed with you, so it doesn’t mean anything. You’ll be fine. “We can share.”

He nods slowly, giving you a small frown. “Are you sure? You did…” He trails off, rubbing his beard with a frown. “Freak out.”

“I just-“ I want you. Love you. Can’t do this and be normal. “I wasn’t expecting it. I’m good.”

Something flashes over Bucky’s face, but he doesn’t push it further. “Alright. We’ve got like, an hour ‘till we gotta go down there and play dancing monkeys. You wanna- They’ve got movies.”

He points to the hotel TV, and you can’t stop your small smile.

He still wants you around. You’ve intruded—even if it’s Tony’s fault—but he’s not just being a gentleman.

You get to sit next to him, and watch a movie until duty calls. And it feels too natural. Bucky’s knee bumping yours, his thigh pressed against you as if it’s nothing. Heat starts to sweep through your body at the contact, and it’s not helped by how you can smell him.

He must have showered before you arrived, because his hair is still slightly damp, and the evergreen smell of shampoo it’s smothering your every sense. When you lean a little to the side you can feel the heat from his body.

His arm is stretched over your shoulders again, and when you lean back your head is on his bicep.

You can’t really focus on the movie anymore. The only thoughts in your head are a constant loop of fantasy. Bucky’s arms, wrapping around you fully as he pulls you into his lap. His smooth voice in your ear, humming your name and lower words as he uses metal fingers against your pussy, and you flush and whine and beg, but he drinks it with kisses and calls you good girl-

“You okay?”

You blink out of your daydream, and Bucky’s frowning at you. Your thighs are pressed too tight together, and you’re far too wound up, and if you moved just an inch forward, you’d be resting your chin right on his shoulder.

It hits you fast. How this is the position of people who love each other. Bucky’s fingers lightly grazing your upper arm, your bodies close but never close enough, your legs having at somehow hooked over his.

You don’t want to run from it. Then you’ll have to explain why, and you won’t be able to do that. It’s another conversation that will have to end in I love you.

So you settle for soft words, and waiting for Bucky to move.

He’s the one who’s lowering himself down for you to touch. You’re not strong enough to catch or chase him if he decides to go back up.

“Yeah.” You breathe, your gaze seemingly locked onto his. “We should probably start getting ready.”

Bucky glances down at his watch, then back to you, expression still unreadable. “You know you can tell me if somethin’ is up, right? I’ll cover for you, with Stark.”

“I know.” You give him a small smile, and you feel like you’re glowing again.

He would.

And somehow, you don’t doubt that for a second.

“I’m okay, Bucky. I just-“ You look down at your hands. “Natasha has my dress.”

“Ah, right.” He unwinds himself from your side, giving you a sheepish smile. “I’ll see you down there?”

You can’t help but return it. Not when it’s Bucky smiling at you, and his smiles are something so priceless and rare. “You will.”

It takes a lot of effort to run out of the room. To walk down the hall to Natasha with a sort of dazed, dopey smile, thinking about his body next to yours. You’d barely been able to handle that—as beautiful and priceless as it was—and you’ll have to go back, when this is done. You can use the gala as a way to practice being around Bucky, for when you have to sleep with him on the floor.

Your current game plan is wrap yourself in shadows to make sure he doesn’t see you. It’s for his own sake, as no one would possible want to see you. You’d like him to, though. If Bucky wanted to see you, there’s not a world where you’d be able to say no to him. Even if he spent the whole time spitting on you, you’d still be honored he just paid you the thought of being unworthy.

But you believe him, when he says he’d cover you. He’s touching you on purpose. Seeking you out. Offering to share the room.

And when you trail after Nat, into the ballroom, he is looking at you.

It feels raw. Bare. Uncomfortable, in a strange way you’d like to chase. Bucky’s looking at you, and it’s tingling all over your skin, but him looking away now feels like the worst thing in the world.

Normally, you’d worry that there’s something wrong with you. An expression or bit of grime or lingering shadow on your arm, because it tends to make people uncomfortable. Maybe just a feature that’s wrong, some part of you that you’ll never be able to fix.

But this room is so well-lit, all your shadows have to linger on the walls and in the corners. And Natasha did your makeup, hair, and chose your outfit.

It’s the one from the dress shop. And you’d rolled your eyes as she pulled it out, to which she’d sighed and braced a hand on her hip.

“Just take it.”

“Nat-“

“Did you like wearing it?”

You’d sucked your tongue between your teeth. “Yes, but-“

“That’s all we need. You like it.”

“People might not want to see me in it-“

“Don’t be insane and incorrect. You’re too smart for that.” She’d shoved the dress into your hands with a pointed look. “Fuck what other people think. Wear it.”

And you don’t think you can fuck what other people think. All you know is their secrets and judgmental stares. All you’ve ever know is how to take it as gospel.

But Bucky is looking at you, wearing the dress that’s supposed to be dazzling.

And you feel like something holy.

“Ma’am.” He offers you his hand, and you’re not sure how Nat got you to stand fully in front of him, but there’s a chance that was just you. That you went to him like a star, falling into a black hole.

You’ll let him consume you, as long as he keeps looking at you like this. Like you’re something he’d want to devour.

“Are you ready to dance?”

You stare at him, giving a weak shake of your head. “I- I thought we just had to take photos-“

“We do.” He’s doing the thumb thing again. Your knees feel weak. “Sorry, doll- I meant like the monkeys, from earlier-“

“Oh.” You take a shaking breath, giving him a weak smile. “Okay.”

Natasha clears her throat. “Earlier?”

“We were talking.” Bucky grunts, shooting her an odd glare, and she just grins.

“Alright. Have fun, you two. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

You don’t know what that means, or why it makes Bucky tense, but then Natasha’s vanished back into the crowd.

Bucky’s hand is on your lower back. You don’t know when it got there.

There’s no world where you make him move.

“You wanna go get some food?”

You blink up at him, and he looks like a god. Handsome and cleaned up so well, jawline sharp and slightly clenched, and you don’t know what you’re supposed to be able to say to him. How you’re supposed to be next to him the whole night, when you’re you.

But his eyes soften, when they land on yours.

And there might be a world where you can make that enough.

“Or.” He says softly, rubbing a firm circle on your back that tugs you slightly closer to his side. “Do you wanna go hide in a corner while I get you food.”

“That.” You mumble, still unable to look away. “Please.”

Bucky grins at you, and guides you over to a quieter part of the ballroom, pausing before he turns away.

“Food’s right up there.” He nods into the crown, and you swallow. “Just, uh- Call. Or come find me. If you need anything.”

Anything.

If you need anything.

Bucky’s willing to get you it, as long as you ask.

And you don’t even have to. He comes back with a plate of your favorite food, and stands with you for almost the whole night. It takes a second for you to adjust to the people and the noise, but he lets you. Watches you the whole time, like you’re something worth looking at. Like there aren’t women far more worthy than you are, out in the crowd and waiting for his attention.

The attention that you’re getting. All of it.

He’s positioned in front of you, to block you from most people’s view. He keeps talking to you, as if anything you have to say is more interesting than the rest of the night.

“Who do you think it gonna fuck up first?” He says, scanning around the room at the rest of the Avengers, and you hum.

“Nat.”

Bucky grunts, but doesn’t show his immediate reaction. “Yeah? Why’s that?”

“Insider information.” You shrug. “I’m not allowed to tell you.”

“Ah.” He clicks his tongue. “You cheatin’, doll?”

“No, I’m committing a felony.”

Bucky snorts. “That’s worse-“

“Is it? Steve would commit a felony. But he wouldn’t cheat. So suck my dick.”

You give him a smug grin, and Bucky bursts out laughing. There’s not a second to doubt yourself, because he’s just laughing. A loud, full laugh that echoes a little as he grins at you, and you don’t think anything could feel better than this. Your heart is in your throat and fingertips. You don’t want it to go back down.

“That’s a good one.” He grins at you, and your cheeks are starting to hurt from grinning back. “I’m gonna start usin’ that on him, he’s earned it.”

“Can you cite me, when you say it?”

“Every time.” He bumps your shoulder, and you giggle. High and sweet and still a little dizzy, as Bucky steadies you with a hand on your wrist and another chuckle.

“Thanks.”

“Like I told you,” he shrugs, still grinning. “Anything.”

Anything. “And I don’t even have to like, pay you back?”

“Nah.” He waves you off, still grinning. “I’d ask you to dance, but you’d hate it.”

You swallow. “We can dance, if you want-“

“I don’t want if you don’t.” He shrugs, and he’s saying it like it’s so fucking simple. “We can dance later. When there aren’t people for you to worry about.”

People.

He doesn’t want you to worry about people.

And he doesn’t leave your side for the rest of his night. His hand rarely strays from your lower back. When there’s a desert table opened up, he makes you walk to it with him, but his body seems shrouded over yours to guard you from unwanted eyes.

Which are any of them but Bucky. He can look at you as long as he wants, if he’s going to keep doing it like that. And when he gets a little bit of chocolate on his nose, you somehow find it deep in your gut—or maybe just some sort of instinct to touch him—to swipe your thumb over it, and eat it yourself.

Bucky jaw clenches slightly at that, but before you can dive down into thinking about it—until it’s ripped to shreds and nothing but sheer panic—he chuckles, and switches your glass.

“Yours is gettin’ empty.” He says, as if that explains it, and you don’t have the power to question it. You just smile at him, and feel your heart when he smiles back.

When the crowd starts to die down, you’re still smiling. There’s no overwhelming dread or panic that you did something wrong. There’s just Bucky, nodding a goodnight to Steve and guiding you back to your room.

Your room.

The room you’re sharing with Bucky. Who hasn’t moved from your side all night, and who you could’ve sworn keeps stealing glances at your breasts and figure.

You must be losing your mind, is the conclusion of the night. There’s no world where Bucky looks at you like that. He’s your friend, and your love for him is like the moon loving the earth. Impossible for you not to do, but never manageable. You could never have him. You’re just you, and he’s gravitational and Bucky.

But he got you ice cream, while you were showering. And he turns red, when you shuffle out of the room in your towel, having forgotten your clothing.

“This is, uh- You.” He holds it back, his eyes locked somewhere over your head. “Another movie, too. I’d watch it with you.”

“Okay.” You set the ice cream down on the bedside table, and he won’t look at you now. In the towel. So maybe he doesn’t want you.

He seems to want you when you’re back on the bed, wearing clothing. His arm goes back over your shoulder, and this time both your legs are over his lap. But then the movie ends, and he’s moving onto the floor without looking back.

And you’re both supposed to just fall asleep. But you can’t. Every thought keeps spinning around Bucky, on the floor. He shouldn’t have to be on the floor. The room could’ve been his to begin with. He deserves the bed more than you do. You know it’s big for him to be sleeping in a bed at all, and you don’t want to take that away from him just because he’s trying to be nice.

He’s grunting slightly, just loud enough for you to hear. It sends a rush between your thighs, and your fingers curl in the sheets.

This is a horrible idea.

You’re going to do it anyway.

“You can sleep on the bed.”

There’s a beat of silence, long enough that you’re not sure he heard you, then Bucky clears his throat.

“Floor’s fine. Comfortable.”

You sigh, pushing up to frown at him in the dark.

He doesn’t have a shirt on. Just bare, broad chest, and shining eyes on yours.

Your heart does the flutter again. You push through.

“It’s a floor, Buck.”

“Pretty damn good one. I’ve slept on worse.”

“Fine.” You shrug, holding his gaze. “Then I’ll sleep on it with you.”

Bucky sighs. “Doll, you don’t wanna do that-“

“Why?” You raise your brows, leaning over until your chin is right on the edge of the mattress. “You said it was comfortable.”

Bucky’s eyes narrow as he scans over your face, and he lets out a slow, steady breath. “You’re not gonna drop this.”

“No. I’m not. It’s your bed-“

“Yours too.” He grunts, pushing to his feet. “It’s not all about me, sweetheart.”

You could argue with that. But you’ve already pushed it tonight. And you’re going to need everything else you’ve got to get through this. To have Bucky sleep next to you, and keep yourself together.

Neither of you are speaking. The mattress dips, as he climbs into bed at your side. And it’s not a small mattress, but Bucky isn’t a small guy. You can feel the heat from his body again, you can smell him.

You’re not going to be able to sleep.

Your heart is past fluttering. It’s kicked into overdrive, and you can feel it in your throat. You shouldn’t be sharing his bed. Even casually, this isn’t a place you belong. You’re going to whisper that you love him in the dead of night, and he’ll never look at you again. You’re going to try and touch him in his sleep, and he’s going to hate you. You should have just crashed with Wanda, you should’ve never come at all, you should’ve known better than to try and be his friend because you’re not even deserving of that, of his proximity, of anyone looking at you like Bucky’s daring to, and what if that was the dream and you’re going to wake up alone, the only thing you deserve to be is alone-

“You alright?” Bucky’s voice cuts through the dark after what seems like hours. “Your heart is beating really fast.”

“My-“

“Super soldier hearing.” He mutters, and you flush.

That’s bad. That’s horrible. You didn’t even need to do anything to fuck it up, your body just betrayed you-

Bucky mutters your name, and you wrap your arms around your body, trying to sink into the mattress.

“I’m okay.” You whisper. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.” You can hear the frown in his voice, and it just makes you feel rotten. You’re making him feel bad. “I know you worry, sweetheart, I’m not gonna take it bad if you want me back on the floor-“

“No!” You almost shout, your hand flying to your neck, trying to force your breaths back under control. The shadows are wrapping back over your body. You might become nothing at all, and it would be better than this. “I- It’s just- You don’t have to worry about it, Bucky-“

“I want to worry about it.”

The world falters. His voice is firm, and he’s rolled on top of you to stare at you. Watch you shrink into yourself with such intent it seems to be cruelly holding you from vanishing, making you suspended in your own darkness as he scans over your open, panicked feature. It’s like a broken video loop. Everything too slow, then too fast, too loud then starting over dead quiet. Bucky’s still staring at you. It’s still hard to breathe.

And time doesn’t start again until Bucky so carefully takes your hand, and moves it away from your neck.

“I want you to let me worry about you,” he mutters your name, tangling his fingers with yours. “I’m already doin’ it anyway.”

You stare at him, your voice weak in your own ears. “What?"

“Shit- I- All I do is think about you,” he mutters your name, sounding almost pained by it. “Been like that for months, and it’s not going away. I think about what you like and how sweet you are, but how you got a pretty smart mouth. I think about how you look like the sunset and stars and all the oceans. I think about how you got me talkin’ to walls and reading dragon books, just cause I want to see you a little longer. I think about how I was yours before you even spoke to be, cause I looked at the walls and ceilings and kept thinkin’ I was seeing an angel. Then you were real. And good. And I liked you so much- I- Fuck-“ He bows his head, cutting himself off, and he can’t just stop there.

“Bucky.” You plead, squeezing his hand. “Please.”

“Fuck-“ He groans. “Don’t say that, baby.”

“But-“

“I don’t want to break you.” He mutters, eyes squeezed shut as he presses his brow to yours. “You’re so good, you’re the best thing I’ve had- Ever. But you always get nervous, when I’m in the room. But I couldn’t stop starin’ at you, or trying to- Shit, I wanted your attention so bad. Couldn’t stop thinking about that, either. How I wanted you more than- anything, but I didn’t want to talk to you and love you and make you cry. But Steve and Nat and Sam wouldn’t stop pushin’ it, and they- I’m not trying to make this weird-“

“It’s not.” You say quickly, and his eyes dart open. “Please- I- Please.”

You’re not sure what you’re begging for.

But Bucky seems to.

And he gives it to you, without a question.

“I love you.” He mutters your name, and your heart isn’t in one piece. It’s shimmering, beautiful, burning confetti, dancing through your body. “Loved you a while. Would like to love you for a while.”

A while.

You can take a while.

“I- I love you too.” You don’t know how you manage to get it out, but the way Bucky tenses above you, the way he looks at you like you’re made of stars—hair still wet, mascara still a little wet on your cheeks, wearing nothing but a sleep shirt and old sweatpants—makes it more than worth it.

“Really?” He says it like he can’t believe it, and you nod.

“Yeah. Can-“ You swallow. “Can you kiss me?”

Bucky’s nostrils flare, and his thumb traces over your lip. Almost trying to memorize it, map it, study it with an adoration on his face that might set you ablaze. Then he lowers himself down, and his lips ghost over yours.

You shiver from it, your hand shooting into his soft hair.

And Bucky groans, before letting whatever tension—whatever leash—in his body snap, and slamming his lips over yours.

It only takes a second for you to be swept away in him. In the taste of the chocolate desert you’d shared, just under the mint of his breath. He kisses you as if he’s been waiting for it, as if every bruise of his lips against yours isn’t close to enough, every soft moan he starts to pull from your throat a song he’s never going to get sick of. Every bump of his nose with yours just makes him kiss you harder, and every time he traces his tongue over you, it’s as if he’s certain you’re going to vanish into nothing the next moment.

But you don’t.

You couldn’t if you tried.

All your thoughts start to fade from a rush of panic into just Bucky. The way you’re melting into his lead, when his hand tangles in your head and gently tugs it back, deepening the angle of the kiss. Your mouth falls fully open when he pulls your lower lip between his teeth, and loud, desperate sound escaping you, and Bucky chuckles, pushing his tongue fully into your mouth.

You might be shining, just under something as simple as a kiss. But he does it so well. It’s as if he’s been kissing you for years, studying to know how to shift you below him so your fingers can curl comfortably on his chest, so his teeth can bump against yours before he traces his tongue over them, and sucks your own into his mouth with a groan. His hand has started to move from your hair down to your neck, gently grabbing it and tipping it further back, before his kisses start to wander. Sloppy and open mouthed, claiming over your cheeks, down your jaw, the onto a soft spot at the base of your throat that makes you squeak.

“Bucky.” You gasp, fingers threading through his hair, every desperate tug only seeming to make him more dedicated to abusing and worshipping that spot. “Oh- Please-“

“You know what you’re begging for, doll?” He murmurs against your skin, slowly kissing his way back up until you’re staring into hooded, gleaming blue eyes. “Cause I’m not doin’ anything you don’t beg me for. And we got a lot to talk about, so this,” he kisses you again, rough and fast and breathless within seconds. “Can wait until morning.”

You don’t want to wait until morning. He said he loved you. He can’t say that, then make you wait, and maybe he just wanted you to calm down and never loved you at all-

“Hey.” Bucky’s hand slides back over your throat, moving your head back until you’re forced to meet his gaze. “Breathe.”

“I- I am-“ You sniff, your eyes already feeling the ache of growing tears, and Bucky sighs.

“Can I ask you something, sweetheart?”

You nod weakly, and he scans over your features slowly before he speaks.

“You believe me?”

“Be- Believe you?”

“That I love you.” He mutters. “If you’re being honest-“

“I do.” You say quickly, and his lips twitch down.

“Your heart is still beating fast.”

“That’s not- I-“ You close your eyes, shaking your head. “I just, I’m-“

You spread your legs beneath him, praying his nose will do the rest of the work for you, and when you peek, it seems to have worked.

Bucky so tense above you, you’re worried his going to snap. His hand is rubbing slowly on your waist, like the movement is the only thing keeping him from losing it, and his attention is so wholly focused on you, it might make you explode into starlight.

“You don’t have to.” You mumble, tracing your fingers over the panes of his chest. “I- I know love and attraction aren’t always the same-“

“You think I’m not attracted to you?” He sounds offended, and when you look up, he’s glaring at you. “Jesus- You got any idea how many times I’ve fucked my hand just thinkin’ about you. How many cold showers I’ve had to take just cause you looked at me?”

You swallow, throat bobbing, and Bucky groans, dropping his brow to yours.

“You’re perfect, doll. Every single fuckin’ thing about you is so perfect, sometimes I’m worried you’re not real.”

“I’m real.” You mumble, and he lets out a low, throaty laugh.

“I got that now.” He opens his eyes, examining you for a long, almost terrifying second as his hand glides back to your throat. “I’m gonna make you feel good, baby. Okay?”

You don’t how you manage to remember to speak. “Oh- Okay.”

“Thank you, doll.” Bucky leans down, speaking right over your lips. “You gotta do somethin’ for me, though.”

It’s more of a bobblehead motion than a nod, but you’re lost in some kind of whirlpool of feelings and Bucky’s hand, trailing touches over your midriff, so it’s the best you can do.

Your back arches, as his fingers dip under your shorts, dancing lightly over your inner thigh, and Bucky groans.

He’s not moving anymore. Still touching you, but not taking it further, and maybe you ruined it-

Bucky growls your name, and you let out a high, tiny noise from just the rumble in his chest. “Stop thinking.”

You blink at him dumbly, your mouth opening to respond with something about how you’re trying—you’re really trying but it’s all you know—but the words die in your throat.

Bucky slides two, cold metal fingers between the lips of your pussy, and you gape up at him in a silent moan.

“There you go.” He mutters, kissing you wet and hot as his palm presses then rolls against your clit. “Good girl.”

Your eyes flutter, arms flying around his neck in a desperate attempt to anchor yourself, and Bucky groans.

“God, you’re wet-“ One finger teases over your entrance, and your squeak falls into another moan as he presses his tongue on the roof of your mouth, hand on your neck drifting to cup your face. “Slow down, baby, I told you I’m takin’ care of you. You just gotta take it. Can you take it?”

You make a soft noise, and Bucky sighs, fingers starting to rub faster up and down your aching pussy.

“Can you take it.” He repeats, a little firmer, and you gasp.

“I- I can take it-“

“Thank you, doll.” He grins down at you, and before you can work out what you’re supposed to say back, you’re gone again.

Bucky rips off your shorts—the sudden, cool air sending a shudder through your body—before landing a firm slap on your pussy. You take a sharp breath, your nails digging into his shoulder, and Bucky pauses, raising his brows.

“That-“

“Again.” You breathe out, tipping your head back as his thumb finds your clit, rolling small circles. “Bucky- Do that again-“

“Yes, ma’am.” He grins, nipping at your lower lip, and you almost fly out of your skin as he lands second one, fire starting to bloom in your abdomen.

“Mm-“ You tug at his hair, trying to drag his lips back down to yours. “More-“

He indulges you, this one making you almost fly off the mattress, but before you can keep begging, two fingers push into your entrance, and any thought but Bucky is pushed from your head. The cold of the metal is jarring, but only for a second. The next one it’s only adding to the stimulation, making your eyes roll back as your hand flies to his wrist, trying to hold him inside.

“You loved that, didn’t you.” He mutters, and you nod feverishly, mind numbed by Bucky’s fingers crooking slightly, rubbing against a sensitive spot deep inside you.

“Bucky-“

“Dirty girl,” he teases, sucking on your upper lip until your mouth is hanging open once more. “So pretty, ruined from barely anything.”

His hand starts to move, your hand on his wrist flying up to cover your mouth as his fingers drag inside of you, and a lewd whimper building in your throat.

“Hey.” He grunts, yanking your hand away with a firm glare. “None of that. I wanna hear you. Listen you scream my name.”

The pace of his fingers pick up, scissoring and twisting inside of you, and you start to grind onto him, chasing any more bit of friction to make it enough.

“Oh, you need my cock, don’t you baby.” He’s teasing again, but it only makes you burn a little brighter. There’s something soft and starved under it, and it just makes you grind faster. “Fingers aren’t enough for you, you deserve to be gripping my dick this tight,” his jaw clenches as he presses in deeper, rubbing against the deepest neediest stop inside of you, and you gasp a sound that’s supposed to be his name. “Shit, sweetheart, just-“

He rises up suddenly, hand moving away, and you barely get a chance to whine before he’s pulling you slightly up off the mattress, holding you so tenderly as he helps you out of your shirt. He kisses over yours shoulders as he works, then lays you back down with a deep, gentle kiss as slaps your pussy again, using your silent scream to shove his tongue fully down your throat.

Metal fingers slide back inside of you, and you’re already right on the edge. Then Bucky starts to move, pumping slowly and teasing your clit with his thumb, and your eyes flutter shut to try and keep up with the sensations.

But then his mouth moves from yours. Slowly kisses down your chest, biting and sucking a million tiny marks over your breasts, before taking one nipple and rolling it with his tongue. His thumb presses, finding a rhythm to match his mouth perfectly, and your orgasm crashes through you in a second. It makes the world go white and your finger yank at Bucky’s hair mindlessly as you shake below him. He groans around you, switching to the other nipple as you slowly float down, his fingers slowly fucking you through it through it, until you’re panting and dizzy in his arms.

He’s not done with you. You don’t need to ask to know that. It’s written all over his face as he over you, trapping your gaze on his as he takes his fingers from your cunt, and presses them slowly into your mouth.

You suck on them without a thought, swiping your tongue over the pads of metal fingers and moaning around him as you taste yourself, and finally feel the outline of his cock, hard and pressed to your inner thigh.

“You taste good, baby?” He asks, sounding almost staved, and you make a needy sound in an agreement. “Shit, you look so fuckin’ perfect- Hold on-“

He pulls away, and you whine, batting your lashes up at him in a silent plea.

Bucky—somehow—understands exactly what you mean. “I’ll fuck you, baby.” He mutters, swiping a little bit of drool gently off your cheek. “Just gotta taste you first. Think I’ll lose my mind if I don’t. That okay?”

You’d have to be insane for it not to be. You spread your legs in invitation, and he chuckles, flesh hand landing on your inner thigh to drawl slow circles with his thumb.

“Needy girl.” He mutters, something like awe lying under his voice. “Don’t know how I got so fuckin’ lucky.”

There isn’t anything left in you to protest that idea. You’re the lucky one, and the world would probably agree, but something tells you Bucky wouldn’t care to hear it.

He smirks at you, as he starts to trail hot, hungry kisses down your body, his hand slowly but firmly pushing your thigh a little wider open so he can settle between them. A hot breath ghosts over your clit as Bucky drags those same two fingers through your cunt, spreading the mess of your arousal around with an almost predatory focus.

“Smell so good.” He mutters, and it seems to be mostly to himself. “Can I kiss it, doll? Please?”

He’s begging. Looking up at you with a hopeful expression, his fingers starting to roll around your clit as he waits for your answer, and you’d have to be insane to say no.

“Yes.” You breathe out, your hands drifting over his jaw, and he leans into your touch with another grin.

“Thank you,” he says your name, pinching your clit before sliding his arm over your abdomen, fully pinning you to the mattress. “Let me hear you.”

It’s a pointless request.

You don’t think you could stop yourself from screaming, as Bucky dives into your pussy and starts to devour you with such a fervor, you’d think he was tending to an alter. The first mangled, desperate sound—meant to be his name—is ripped from your body as his tongue starts to swipe up and down your cunt, before pushing inside of you and starting to fuck you without relent. His nose press against your clit as you yank at his hair, the moan from his chest vibrating against you and making you arch off the bed.

“Bucky- Bucky-“ You’re repeating it over and over, like a fruitless prayer, not sure if you need him to stop before you come apart again, or have him keep going until you’re lost in him forever.

He presses a soft, taunting kiss over your clit before going back to the harsh, unforgiving tongue fucking, and it’s the latter. You need this forever. Bucky’s tongue twisting in your pussy before moving back up to flick over your clit, making you try to arch off the bed as he works you into a frenzy. His beard scratching and tickling against your overly sensitive skin, just driving you high and higher as he keeps to you still to do his work. His deep noises of pleasure, and the creak of the bed below you as he starts to rut into it.

He’s getting off on this. On tasting you and letting you grind onto his face, on every yank of his hair and weak sound of pleasure that escapes your chest. When you glance down, he’s tipped his head up to watch you writhe above him, and it just makes you squeeze around his tongue.

Bucky groans, his mouth moving to fully latch around your clit, the hand on your inner thigh shoving three fingers into your cunt without warning. Filling you up and pressing firmly inside of you as Bucky starts to suck on your clit like it’s candy, and you fall apart once more. Toes curling and legs latching around Bucky’s head, suffocating him between your thighs as your nails dig into his scalp and you scream his name in a hoarse, breathy sound. You’re falling and falling over the edge, over and over until you’re craning your neck to meet Bucky’s eyes, and he doesn’t stop his attack on your clit until you’re panting, overstimulated, trying to wiggle away from him with no avail.

“It’s okay, baby.” He murmurs, dragging your legs apart and pressing one last kiss over your clit, before looking up at you with a grin. “Doin’ so good for me. Just one last thing, sweet girl. You still want more?”

You gape at him, because it’s an insane question. Of course you want his cock. You’re a mess of nothing but sweat and cum, and you’re boneless and wrecked, but you don’t think you’ll be satiated until he’s inside of you. Until all the lingering, darker thoughts of maybe he doesn’t mean it are—at least temporality—driven from your mind.

“I need words,” he mutters your name, pressing a soft kiss to the tip of your nose, and it spurs your voice in a second.

“Yes.” You breathe out, fingers curling on Bucky’s beard. It’s still shining with your own arousal. You sort of never want him to clean it off. “Fuck me, Bucky. Please.”

He groans, diving down for a deep, sloppy and unmeasured kiss, before wrapping his arm firmly around your back and cradling you to his chest. Bucky rolls you both over, keeping you pinned like a koala to his chest as he rips off his own pants.

“Want to see you,” he says lowly, kissing your cheek, and when you twist slightly, you can see his cock. Rock hard, long and thick, being stroked slowly in his flesh hand as he holds your gaze.

“Bucky.” You breathe out, starting to rub your bare pussy up and down his abdomen, eyes fluttering at the friction. “I want it you bad, please-“

“You got me, doll.” He mutters, slowly starting to pry you off his chest, picking you up as if you weigh nothing. “C’mon. Told you I’m gonna take care of my girl.”

If you were nothing but putty before, you certainly are now. His girl. You’re Bucky’s girl. And a high, happy sound leaves you, right as he lifts up your hips and slowly starts to pull you down on his cock.

You can’t think anything but good. It feels so fucking good, and better every second as Bucky drives deeper and deeper, pressing and rubbing against every single electric, hungry spot inside your pussy. He’s watching you with that awe again, his grip on you tight enough to leave a bruise as his tongue flicks over his lips, and you can’t stop yourself from clenching around him.

Bucky hisses, tipping his head back and squeezing his eyes shut, and he shakes his head. “Fuck- Doll, you need to relax-“

“Sorry.” You whisper, and he sighs, looking at you under hooded eyes.

“Don’t be sorry, sweet girl.” He rubs soothing circles on your thighs, finally letting you sink fully onto him, the tip of his cock bumping deeper inside of you than you’ve ever felt before. “I just want this to last. And if you, Shit-“ He groans, one hand gliding up to roll over your nipple. “You feel so fuckin’ good, babydoll, you have no idea.”

You just blink at him, lost in a heated, foggy daze of Bucky, and plant your hands firmly on his chest.

He’s being a gentleman again. Giving you time to adjust.

But if he doesn’t fuck you, you’re going to start crying.

You roll your hips above him, and Bucky groans.

“You ready?”

You nod, repeating the movement, and his hands fly back to your hips, trapping you on his cock. You whine, trying to squirm above him, and Bucky lets out a low, deep laugh.

“Need it that bad, babydoll?”

You glare at him, digging your nails into his chest, and he hums.

“Think you’re gonna take it. Keep bein’ so good for me.”

Another nod, and Bucky grins up at you.

“Alright, pretty girl.” He ruts his hips up, and you almost topple off of him. “Let’s clear that smart brain.”

Bucky slams up, holding you steady around him, and you’re barely anything but a ragdoll. A boneless mess above him, scratching at his chest as he fucks up into you, his cock dragging in and out, setting off every nerve in your body and somehow not letting it be enough. You can feel him everywhere, in the punching pace of his cock jerking up into you, in his possessive hold on your body and he rolls and grinds you against him, his every moan he lets out that rolls through your body and sweeps you into fire, and his gaze.

His attention.

His eyes are barely leaving yours, only for long, wired and hot seconds where he rakes up and down your figure. You tits bouncing as you ride him, your skin shining with sweat as he drags you up into a third orgasm, every muscles in your body aching and sore, but still trying to chase more. You scratch as his chest and whine, and he angles you slightly forward, letting your clit drag against his abs once more. The metal hand even snakes between your bodies to flick at it, and you flutter around him, back arching and drool almost certainly falling from your lips.

But Bucky is a drool-worthy sight, below you. Handsome and almost as wrecked as you are, groaning louder and louder every time your skin slaps against his, eyes blown out with lust as he drags your up and down his cock, his movements starting to lose their careful control the longer you go. He seems to be past words himself, only groaning your name and slurring words of praise you can hardly understand, but get the idea of.

You’re being good for him. He loves you.

And just the thought makes you start to spasm around him, his cold fingers on your clit sending you toppling over the edge for the third time, everything in the world only color and light at you fall higher than you’ve ever been before.

But Bucky doesn’t stop.

His flesh hand wraps around your neck as the metal one hooks around your waist, and he crashes up into you with such force it almost drives you out of your mind. He’s kissing you desperately, rough and almost violent, as he hips piston up into your cunt. And your mouth seems to be permanently open, letting him take and take and take, his tongue dominating yours and pulling sounds you didn’t know you could make from deep in your body.

There’s a new heat in your core. One you’ve never even felt before, and it’s about to snap.

Bucky slams himself home with a loud moan of your name, his cum hot and painting your cunt and thighs, dribbling down between your bodies as he fucks you through it like an animal, and you fall apart. Something wet gushes out of your cunt and your head falls back, only caught by Bucky’s hand on your neck, pulling you back up into a messy, mindless kiss.

You’re shaking, when he finally pulls away, pressing a kiss to your nose.

“Good?” He asks softly, and you nod, forcing the strength to wrap your arms around his chest.

Bucky hums, combing his finger through your hair, and you melt fully into his embrace.

“You did so good, baby.” He mutters, and you hold him tighter. “Love you.”

Bucky rolls over, burying his face in your shoulder and taking a long, slow breath as you weave your fingers through his hair. He tries to move. To clean you up. But you cling to his shoulders and shake your head, too lost in his warmth to leave this bubble yet. Soon you’ll have to start working out how much he meant it, and you don’t want this moment to ever fade or break-

“Don’t do that to yourself, doll.”

You freeze. “I-“

“I know you’re tryin’ to find a reason this is gonna end. Or why you’re not the person who deserves this. But you’re dead wrong.”

“Bucky.” You whisper, something stinging behind your eyes. “I wasn’t-“

“You were.” He mutters, kissing a soft spot under your ear. “You do it all the time, sweetheart. Never said anything cause I didn’t wanna spook you off or whatever, but-“ He sighs, pushing up on his forearms to scan over your face. “I’ll stand in as many corners as you want. I like ‘em, long as you’re there. And we can keep sparring around dusk cause there’s no one there to watch, and eating dinner ‘round midnight so it’s just us, but the moment you decided you want something else, I’ll be right there with you.”

“With me?” You stare up at him, unable to stop yourself from leaning into his hand as he traces his hand over your features. “But- I’m-“

“Don’t say not worth it.” He grunts, his words stern enough that your mouth snaps closed. “You’re worth it to me. Shit, you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever fuckin’ seen, and I don’t really care how long it takes you to see that. Long as I get to keep watching you smile, talk, lose yourself in whatever you do cause you care, so damn much, I’ll be good.”

“But, I- I’m not-“ You shake your head, a tear sliding down your cheek that Bucky wipes away. “I’m not that, Bucky, I’m not beautiful-“

“Yeah, you are.” He kisses you softly, and you let out another breathless, torn sound. “I told you, doll. I loved you the moment I saw you. Only loved you more every time that smart mouth opened up. And I’m gonna stick around ‘till you understand that, even if it takes a million years.”

“A million?” You sniff, clinging to his wrists as his brow drops to yours. “That’s- It’s a while-“

“I know.” He gives you a million. “But I waited a while just to meet you. I can wait damn near forever if I get to have you.”

“Get to?” You mumble, and he nods.

“Get to.” Another soft kiss is pressed to your lips. “It’s a privilege to know you, doll. Let alone get to have you.”

He’s looking at you like he’d part the sea and rip through worlds in your name, and he gets to have you.

And something about how it’s Bucky makes you believe him. Not fully. It takes more than those words for you to be able to shed all that loathing grime from under your skin.

But something deep in your chest, right next to the flutter of your hear, feels clean. And it’s shining brighter and brighter, the longer Bucky looks at you.

So you’ll let that take you over. Let Bucky have you.

You’ll see where it takes you.

And with how Bucky’s looking at you, it might be somewhere really, really good.

End Note: Bucky Barnes giving me a hug would fix me I fear.

If you like this story, please reblog, share, or leave a comment! <3

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hidden-behind-the-fourth-wall · 9 days ago

Text

Oh god I don't know how I deserved to be on this list, but thank you 💕 😭

Laura's bookshelf 📖

So, since I am a bit of an organisation freak, I have decided that instead of reblogging fics I like I'll add them to this list. ♥️

Bucky Barnes

Better for you | @wynnevee (fluff, jealous bucky)

For her future | @imtaashu (fluff)

Claimed | @imtaashu (fluff)

Okay bye, I love her | @imtaashu (fluff)

Lessons in love | @mandoalorian (18+)

Pressure points | @crybabycabin (angst with happy ending)

What we never said | @buckyseternaldoll (angst with a happy ending)

Drown me gently | @danysdaughter (18+, angst with a hopeful ending)

Sweet on the job | @danysdaughter (slowburn, office romance)

Sugar plums | @whereiweep (18+, suggestive, fluff, angst)

Not your typical birthday | @ofstarsandvibranium (doctor au, fluff)

Whose cat is it anyway? | @saltjoy (fluff)

People need people | @noblebynura (fluff, slight angst)

More to love | @aquaticmercy (fluff, slight angst because Bucky is insecure)

beefy!bucky x curvy!reader masterlist | @mcrdvcks

The Staff | @hidden-behind-the-fourth-wall (two parts, 18+, angst with a happy ending)

Banana split | @luckiigirls (fluff)

Carter Baizen

How you get the girl | @extremelyblackandwhite

Dividers by @uzmacchiato ✨️

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hidden-behind-the-fourth-wall · 9 days ago

Text

Bucky Barnes NSFW alphabet

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x reader

Summary: NSFW alphabet of Bucky Barnes. Nothing more needs to be said ;)

Warning: MDNI, Smut things, PiV content, kinks, filthy language, sex talk

Author's notes: so here it is - my first ever SMUT alphabet and it's with Bucky... I have an idea to make something with this further, but I'll see if you guys even like this one :)

A - Aftercare

He’s exceptionally good at it. Warm bath. Gentle hands. Whispered affirmations. You always end up wrapped in his dog tags and arms, being fed water and forehead kisses.

He never leaves you drifting. Big hands hold your hips like he’s still inside you. He murmurs praise while cleaning you up, his voice all gravel and reverence. Wraps you in one of his shirts, strokes your back, makes you drink water from straw if you’re too dazed to lift a glass. “You did so good, doll… You with me? Still mine?”

---

B - Body Part

He worships your thighs like an altar, the softness, the strength, the way they tremble when he’s got his head buried between them. On himself? His hands. Not just the metal one - though that’s useful - but how you look when his fingers are inside you, slow and curling, watching your body open for him.

---

C - Cum

He lives to see the mess he makes. Thighs dripping, mouth glossed, skin painted. Pulls out just to finish on you and smear it in with his thumb. If he finishes inside? He stays buried deep, watches it leak out, pushes it back in with his fingers like it’s something sacred.

---

D - Dirty Secret

Sometimes he wants you to take control. Tie his wrists. Use his mouth. Ride his thigh. He wants to beg for it; for you. That’s the one thing he hasn’t said aloud yet… but it’s in the way his breath catches when you grip his hair and say, “Down.”

---

E - Experience

Oh, he knows what he’s doing. More than you’d expect. But with you? He still gets that hungry, almost shy look like he’s experiencing everything for the first time again.

---

F - Favourite Position

You in his lap. Legs open. Arms around his neck. He can thrust up into you while guiding your hips down hard. Loves watching you bounce, flushed and breathless, moaning into his mouth while he praises you between gritted teeth.

---

G - Goofy

He starts off serious, intense. But if you giggle or tease? He’ll smirk, play along, and whisper something filthy in your ear that makes you forget your own name.

---

H - Hair

Trimmed, neat, low maintenance. He lets you groom him sometimes, shave his face, run your hands through his chest hair. He doesn’t care about matching the drapes, he cares about how your fingers tug and scratch when you’re about to break apart.

---

I - Intimacy

Eye contact that borders on religious. He kisses every inch of you like he’s trying to learn you by heart. Says your name when he’s close. Whispers, “I love you” when he’s all the way in and holding himself still just to feel you.

---

J - Jack Off

He tries not to when you’re gone. But your hoodie, your scent, a voice note you left? He’ll wrap his hand around himself, eyes shut, imagining your mouth instead.

---

K - Kink

Praise kink. Control. Dirty talk. Loves holding your wrists, pulling your hair, pushing you to the edge until you're crying please. But what really unravels him? You whispering, “Good boy.”

---

L - Location

The couch. The kitchen. That one time against the door. Has a soft spot for the bathroom mirror. One hand on your throat, the other between your thighs, making you watch yourself fall apart. Anywhere with a surface to bend you over? A yes.

But his favorite? Somewhere soft and private where he can take his time.

---

M - Motivation

The way you look at him when you want him. That breath you take when he steps closer. One soft, needy sound from you and he’s already halfway gone.

But also your voice. Your scent. The way you stretch when you wake up. How you bite your lip when you're turned on. The needy way you say “Bucky…” when you want him? He could get hard from that alone.

---

N - NO

Anything non-consensual or degrading. He’s haunted by things he didn’t choose. Now? He needs trust, softness, and your voice guiding him back.

He won’t degrade you either, not really. He can play rough, can make it filthy, but he needs the connection. Needs to know you feel safe.

---

O - Oral

Devoted. Absolutely obsessed with eating you out. Slow and deep, tongue working like he’s memorizing your taste. Will tease you for hours with fingers and tongue, groaning against your skin when you start shaking. Giving > Receiving; every time.

---

P - Pace

Varies. Slow grind when he wants to savor you. Fast and bruising when he’s desperate. But always in control. Holds your hips down when you squirm, fucks you through every whimper like he owns them. However, push his buttons just right and he’ll snap - rough, breathless, relentless.

---

Q - Quickie

Loves them now, especially when you initiate. He pretended not to like them though - but now he lives for the risk. “You really want it right now?” he’ll whisper, fingers already unzipping his jeans. One hand over your mouth. Other gripping your waist. In and out with frantic precision. Back of a Quinjet, alley behind a gala, that one time in the elevator - just enough to take the edge off. Barely.

---

R - Risk

He’ll try anything once; with you, only with you. Restraints? Toys? Roleplay? You suggest it, and he’ll give you that sly nod and say, “Only if I get to pick next time.”

---

S - Stamina

Two rounds minimum. But if you’re up for it? He’s not stopping until you can’t say his name without trembling. He’ll edge you for hours if he has to. “One more. Just one more, baby. You can take it.”

---

T - Toys

He’s a fan of toys on you. He even owns a collection just for you. Remote plugs. Wands. Vibrating panties. Loves when he gets to control your pleasure without touching you, just watching you unravel, breath hitching, thighs clenching, begging him to finish it.

---

U - Unfair

Oh, he teases. Edges you until you’re sobbing, then holds still and says, “Tell me what you want.” Finger between your thighs at the worst moment. Whispering filthy things in your ear during dinner. Acting innocent while your knees buckle. Uses his metal fingers for contrast - warm breath, cold touch, cruelly slow rhythm. Loves hearing you break.

---

V - Volume

Low growls. Deep, broken moans. His voice turns gravelly, breathless when he’s close. But it’s your name, gasped in reverence, that always gives him away.

---

W - Wild Card

Bucky has a thing for your voice. Not just moaning - though that drives him wild - but when you talk him through it. Tell him he’s doing good, tell him you missed him, tell him how you want it. He’ll fall apart faster from your words than your touch. One whispered, “You’re mine, Bucky,” and he’s done for.

---

X - X-Ray

Thick. Heavy. Veiny. Curves just enough to hit every right spot. Bigger than average, yes, but it’s the way he uses it: deep strokes, slow drags, full body weight, making you feel every inch.

---

Z - ZZZ

Falls asleep with you curled on his chest, legs tangled, sweat drying between your bodies. He snores softly, arms locked around you like you might disappear. Smiles in his sleep if you kiss his jaw.

#bucky barnes #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x you #bucky smut #bucky barnes smut #fanfiction #smut #smut alphabet #mcu #marvel #bucky #james barnes #james bucky buchanan barnes #james bucky barnes #james buchanan barnes #avengers

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hidden-behind-the-fourth-wall · 9 days ago

Text

Thank you! I'm glad you liked it 😊

The staff - part 1

pairing: congressman!bucky barnes x assistant!reader

summary: You're just his assistant - until longing, heartbreak, and slow-burning trust turn your careful distance into something undeniable behind closed political doors.

warnings for the whole story: 18 + content, SMUT, MDNI, unprotected sex, piv, creampie, angst, a lot of angst, feelings, swearing, emotions, politics, Bucky being an idiot, idiots in love

wc: 12,5k (needed to divide the story into two, because tumblr doesn't accept a story with 26,4K words - not fun)

author’s note: in honor of Congressman Bucky and Thunderbolts. I have been writing this for a long while, so I hope you'll enjoy it.

I'm not American so my knowledge of American politics isn't too good, so forgive me. Also English isn't my first language so apologies for any errors.

Part 2

If anyone told you years ago that James Buchanan Barnes - ex-assassin, ex-fugitive, current brooding war hero - would end up in the United States Congress, you would have laughed in their face. Possibly handed them a coffee and told them to get more sleep. And yet here you are, every morning, walking past the Capitol dome with a leather folder tucked under your arm and a laminated badge clipped to your coat: Executive Assistant to Congressman James B. Barnes, New York 14th District.

Your name isn’t the one they whisper in corridors, but people know you. You're the invisible machine that keeps his office from crumbling under the weight of policy drafts, public appearances, and an inbox that fills itself like it’s been possessed by a demon. You’ve been with him since the day he was appointed, back when the country wasn't sure what to make of a former Winter Soldier turned statesman.

You know what brand of coffee keeps him from homicide before 9 a.m. (black, one sugar, dark roast only). You know the exact pitch his voice takes when he’s lying to avoid attending a fundraiser. You know his schedule better than your own, including the unlisted part that reads: “Stare into space for ten minutes while regretting all life choices post-1945.”

What he doesn’t know is that you're completely and irrevocably in love with him.

“Morning,” comes his voice now, deep and casual, like he isn’t thirty seconds from being late to the Veterans Affairs Committee briefing. You glance up from your desk, where your fingers are flying across the keyboard to send a politely scathing email to a reporter who called him “Captain America's shadow with a tie.”

“Sir,” you say, because calling him ‘Bucky’ is reserved for people who don’t get heart palpitations when he smiles. “You’re late.”

“Am I?” he asks, and there's that grin. It's not the full-on, teeth-showing kind that makes cameras flash at public events. This one’s just for you, crooked and lopsided, like he’s in on a joke and you might be the punchline.

You don’t let it throw you.

You push his schedule toward him, already annotated with color-coded sticky notes. “Room 128B. Ten minutes ago. You’ve got notes in your folder. Senator Navarro will try to corner you about the health care amendment - don’t let him. Oh, and you’ve got a press request from the Times, but I flagged it. They want a ‘day in the life of the new Bucky Barnes.’ Unless you want your afternoon nap to be public knowledge, I suggest we ignore it.”

He takes the folder, skims the notes like he might read them later (he won’t), and gives a soft laugh. “That’s why I keep you around.”

“Because I’m excellent at saving you from your own press disasters?”

“Because you know where the bodies are buried.”

“I organized them alphabetically.”

That gets a real laugh out of him - quiet, throaty, and far too attractive for 8:53 a.m.

He starts walking and you follow, like you always do, falling into step beside a man who walks like he’s still ready to fight his way through a battlefield. His stride is smooth, but there’s tension in the left shoulder. You don’t mention it. Never do.

“So what’s the verdict on the amendment?” he asks, eyes forward, voice low.

“Navarro wants it gutted. Reid is going to back you, but he wants a photo op. McKenna is pretending to be undecided, but she’s in your corner. Wear the navy suit. It makes you look less like someone who could kill with a spoon.”

He glances at you, amused. “You think I’m intimidating?”

You shrug, nonchalant. “You carry yourself like a man who’s ended lives and alphabetizes his trauma. That’s...a lot for C-SPAN.”

There’s a flicker of something in his expression, unreadable. Then he grins again, softer this time. Again, only for you. “Guess I’m lucky I’ve got you to humanize me.”

You roll your eyes. “Don’t get used to it. You’re still going to that ribbon-cutting in Brooklyn next week, and no amount of tragic backstory is going to make you look interested in baked goods for veterans.”

He opens the door to the committee chamber with a wink. “You wound me.”

You don’t reply until the door swings closed behind him, leaving you in the hallway with nothing but your clipboard and the echo of a voice that could ruin you if you let it.

The rest of your day unfolds in a blur of phone calls, briefings, and crisis management. You cancel a meeting with a tech lobbyist who got caught texting during a press conference. You draft a response to a constituent who believes Bucky is a lizard man in disguise (“Thank you for your feedback. Congressman Barnes appreciates your passion.”). You reheat your coffee twice and drink it anyway.

By the time he returns to the office, the sun is setting and you’re halfway through organizing talking points for a veterans’ benefits rally.

He drops into the chair across from your desk with a sigh and unbuttons the collar of his shirt. The tie is loosened, the sleeves rolled up. The metal arm glints under the fluorescent light, and for a second, your brain stops functioning.

He tips his head at you. “You’re staring.”

You blink. “I’m strategizing.”

“Strategizing about my...neckline?”

You look up sharply, only to find him grinning again, infuriatingly smug.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” you say coolly. “I’m considering whether we can survive the week if I throw this stapler at you.”

“Tempting,” he says. “But you’d miss me if I were concussed.”

God help you, he’s right.

You shut your laptop with a snap. “We need to prep for the town hall on Friday. I’ve drafted bullet points.”

He leans forward, all wry amusement and quiet attention. “What would I do without you?”

Fall apart. Burn out. Get eaten alive by political wolves.

You smile like it doesn’t hurt to think about. “Probably give a scandalous interview to the Times.”

He laughs again, and for a moment the weight of his past seems a little lighter.

This is how it goes: tension wrapped in sarcasm, affection folded into sarcasm, everything too close and yet miles away. You’ll keep it professional. You have to.

Even if his voice is starting to sound like home.

***

There’s a particular kind of chaos that only Washington can breed - polished, tightly wound, and dressed in three-piece suits. You’re used to it by now, but today it feels more like a contact sport than public service.

It begins with a misquote in The Hill.

Someone - bless their soul - decides to paraphrase Bucky’s latest speech on veteran reintegration with all the nuance of a sledgehammer, publishing a line that makes it sound like he wants to privatize benefits.

By the time the article lands on your desk, you’ve already gotten five emails, three texts, and one call from a furious staffer in Senator Layton’s office asking if Bucky has lost his damn mind.

He hasn’t.

But if this day keeps going like this, you might.

You’re halfway through damage control, phone wedged between your shoulder and ear, when he strolls in - coffee in hand, hair slightly windswept from the morning’s walk.

“Did I cause a national incident again?” he asks, with the tone of someone who very much already knows the answer.

You give him a look. “Only a small one. Catastrophe-lite.”

“I like it when you talk crisis to me.”

You cover the receiver. “Now’s not the time, Barnes.”

He lifts his free hand in surrender and takes the seat across from your desk like this is just another Tuesday - which it is, technically, except that your heart is pounding and you haven’t even had breakfast.

You end the call with a quick promise to issue a clarifying statement within the hour, then turn to him.

“They misquoted you. Badly. We're getting out a correction and a video clip of the full speech. In the meantime, I suggest you avoid microphones and unvetted journalists.”

He leans back in his chair and sighs, the weariness starting to show in the lines of his face. “I should’ve stayed retired.”

You study him for a moment. He rarely lets himself say things like that aloud. It’s almost too easy to forget that this gig, for all its importance, still feels like a second life he didn’t ask for.

“You wouldn’t have lasted a week,” you say, gently. “You hate beaches, you’d get bored, and no one else would let you monologue about dignity and structural reform at 9 a.m.”

He chuckles, but it’s softer than usual.

Then something shifts.

His eyes settle on yours, and the humor fades, just a little. “You always know exactly what to say.”

It hits you in the gut - how quiet that line is, how sincere.

You look away quickly, focus on your screen. “It’s in the job description.”

You don’t say, I know what you don’t say aloud. You don’t say, I watch you closely enough to read between the silences.

He doesn’t push it. He rarely does. But when he stands, the air between you carries a different weight.

“I’ve got that sit-down with McKenna in twenty. Walk me through the notes?”

You rise, grabbing the briefing folder from the edge of your desk, and fall in step beside him.

The meeting is brief but productive. McKenna is sharp, pragmatic, and clearly more inclined to support Bucky’s amendment than her team lets on. You watch the way he works - reserved, calm, with just enough intensity to be persuasive. He lets you take the lead when necessary, doesn’t interrupt, backs your points with quiet nods and the occasional clarifying question.

When it ends, you both step into the marble hallway, your heels echoing softly on the polished floor.

“Nice job in there,” he says. “She likes you.”

“She likes that I don’t bullshit her.”

He grins sideways. “It’s your most charming quality.”

You roll your eyes, but something about the moment lingers - an easiness that didn’t exist when you first started working for him. Back then, he barely spoke unless necessary. You practically had to drag words from him with a winch and a crowbar.

Now, he seeks you out. Asks what you think. Makes you coffee when you're too buried in policy to move.

You're still strictly professional. But sometimes professionalism feels like a paper-thin veil over something warmer.

You’re halfway back to the office when he slows down.

“Dinner?”

You blink. “Now?”

“Tonight.”

You hesitate. A heartbeat too long.

He notices. His gaze flicks toward you, careful. “I mean - work dinner. With the committee reps. Thompson’s organizing it. I need someone to run interference if they try to get me drunk and ask about the arm.”

You exhale - relieved? Disappointed? You’re not sure.

“Of course. I’ll coordinate the car.”

But later, when you’re walking to that dinner together, side by side in the fading light of a Washington summer, he glances at you and says.

“You’d tell me if I was losing my mind doing this job, right?”

You meet his eyes, serious now.

“Every day, if necessary.”

He laughs. Then, after a beat, quieter: “But you think I’m doing okay?”

You nod. “I think you’re doing more than okay.”

There’s silence after that, but not the awkward kind. The kind that hums with things unsaid.

***

The town hall is held in a community center that smells faintly of floor wax and coffee that's been burning on a hot plate since the Reagan administration.

You’ve been here since 7 a.m., clipboard in hand, headset on, corralling volunteers, smoothing egos, and setting up security with a finesse that makes even the Secret Service nod respectfully.

The crowd outside is already gathering - constituents, press, a couple of hecklers you’ve flagged in advance. Bucky's due to speak in twenty minutes, and if all goes well, this will be a net-positive PR win for the Congressman Formerly Known as a National Security Threat.

He arrives exactly on time, as always, dressed in his sleeves-rolled-up, man-of-the-people uniform - dark blue shirt, no tie, jacket slung over one arm. His metal hand is gloved, as it always is in crowds. His expression is calm, which is to say: mildly broody, barely caffeinated, and aware of at least three possible exits.

“Full house,” he murmurs as he steps up beside you.

You hand him a packet of talking points, pre-highlighted.

“Packed and ready. Veterans’ affairs up front, followed by infrastructure, then the housing proposal. Avoid eye contact with the guy in the camo hat - he’s a flat-tax zealot and once bit someone at a debate.”

Bucky flips through the notes and then glances at you with a grin. “I don't know what I’d do without you.”

“Panic. Bleed out. Pick a fight with the microphone stand.”

He gives you that crooked little smile - the one that makes your stomach dip like it’s going over a speed bump at 60 miles an hour. “Probably.”

The thing is, you two work like gears in a clock; quiet, efficient, practiced. You've been in dozens of these rooms, faced down angry constituents, hostile reporters, malfunctioning AV systems. Each time, you’ve fallen into the same rhythm: you handle logistics and landmines, he handles the crowd and occasionally, if necessary, the truth.

Ten minutes before the event, you do your standard pre-check. You test the mic, brief the team, double-check the seating layout.

That’s when the mayor’s aide rushes over, panicked.

“Congressman Barnes? We have a problem. The keynote speaker from the Veterans’ Alliance can’t make it. Their director’s stuck on the 495. We need someone to fill that time slot or we’ll lose a third of the programming window.”

You glance at Bucky. His jaw tenses. Not because he's afraid, he's fine on his feet, but he hates unscheduled speeches. Despises speaking from the heart unless he has a day to rewrite it three times and vet it for emotional landmines.

“I’ll handle it,” you say, before he can.

His brow furrows. “You?”

“I’ll introduce the housing section myself. It buys us time to shift your address forward and still leave room for Q&A. I’ve got the figures. It’ll be tight, but we can thread it.”

He looks at you for a long moment.

Then he nods. “Let me know if you need backup.”

The words aren’t throwaway. They never are with him. There’s always weight behind them, always the same, unsaid sentiment: I’ve got your six.

You nod, once. “Go be charming. I’ll catch up.”

You take the stage ten minutes later, voice even, posture steady despite the sudden spotlight. You walk them through the housing stats - percentages, funding sources, timelines - punctuated with the kind of genuine urgency that gets people listening. You even manage a joke that gets a laugh. Not a nervous, polite chuckle, but an actual ripple of amusement.

Out of the corner of your eye, you see Bucky watching from the wings, arms crossed, one brow slightly raised. There’s pride there, clear and undisguised.

He’s never looked at anyone the way he looks at you when you’re in the zone. It’s not adoration. It’s not awe. It’s something quieter, steadier - respect wrapped in something softer, something that makes your breath catch if you look too long.

You wrap your segment, introduce Bucky, and exit the stage to muted applause. He passes you on the way up, touching your elbow briefly in a way that no one else would notice.

You feel it for the next ten minutes like a brand.

Bucky handles the rest with his usual understated command. He doesn’t posture, doesn’t grandstand. He speaks plainly, emotionally, like someone who’s lived every policy he’s fighting for. And when the Q&A hits a snag - an aggressive question about his past - he deflects it with calm grace and a quiet, steely edge.

It’s only once everything’s over and the crowd is thinning that you find yourself standing outside the venue beside him, both of you wrapped in the late dusk.

“You did good,” he says quietly.

“You did better.”

He glances at you. “You always say that.”

You shrug. “It’s always true.”

There’s a long pause.

Then: “You didn’t have to jump in like that earlier. You could’ve handed it off to one of the staffers.”

“I didn’t want to risk it,” you say simply. “I trust me.”

“I trust you too,” he says. His voice is lower now, the humor stripped from it. “More than anyone in that building.”

You should say something. Thank you. I know. That’s what I’m here for.

Instead, what comes out is: “That might be the nicest thing anyone’s said to me in government.”

Bucky chuckles. “We should both be worried about that.”

Another silence.

But this one doesn’t stretch awkwardly. It settles; comfortable, familiar. And somewhere beneath it, something warmer. He’s standing close, too close, and you swear he leans in a fraction, just for a second, but then your phone buzzes.

The moment’s gone. Back to business. Back to pretending.

***

The office is unusually quiet.

It’s after hours, long past the time when staffers scatter to bars or home or wherever it is people with boundaries go - people who know what work-life balance is. The floor is nearly empty, bathed in the amber glow of emergency lighting. Bucky sits at his desk, sleeves pushed up, tie discarded somewhere on the floor. You’re across from him, curled up in one of the guest chairs, nursing a cup of cold tea you stopped noticing half an hour ago.

Neither of you has spoken in ten minutes.

But it’s not uncomfortable. It rarely is anymore.

“You remember that first week?” he says suddenly, like the thought had been echoing for hours.

You glance up, surprised. “Of course I do.”

You were wearing heels too high for Capitol Hill and trying to figure out why a man with a metal arm and a war journal was suddenly being considered for a congressional seat.

18 Months Ago – Pre-Election

You remember walking into the temporary office they’d set up for him like it was burned into your memory. Because it is. Not just the setting - the folding tables, the stacked files, the smell of takeout and a history no one knew how to reference without stammering - but him.

He stood when you entered. His hair was longer then, pulled back, and his eyes were sharper, untrusting. You’d been told, quietly, not to expect much in the way of social graces. “He’s still learning how to exist,” someone whispered. “But he’s got a head for policy, surprisingly.”

You introduced yourself. Offered your hand.

He didn’t take it.

He looked at you like he was waiting for you to flinch, or look through him, or smile that condescending way people do when they’re near someone who’s seen too many things.

Instead, you said, “You’ve got fourteen policy drafts, no press strategy, and a stack of donor interest letters no one’s answered. We’ve got about six months to make you electable.”

And he said, “You’re hired.”

That was it. No interview. No HR vetting. Just a long, assessing stare and the tiniest lift of his eyebrow like he couldn’t quite believe you weren’t running for the door.

He didn’t know how to smile back then, not really. You didn’t know how to trust someone who looked like every story you'd ever studied in poli-sci and none of the ones that ended well.

But it worked.

You stayed late. Showed up early. Dragged him into media training and debate prep. Sat beside him when he had a flashback in the middle of a strategy meeting and made sure no one turned it into a headline.

He started calling you by name. Started checking in. Started...laughing.

The night he won the seat, he hugged you. Just once. Quick, tight, like he didn’t mean to.

You still feel it sometimes. Like a phantom.

Present Day

“I thought you’d quit,” he says, voice quiet.

You look at him across the half-lit office. “Why?”

“You were overqualified. Too smart to waste your time babysitting an ex-hitman with a PR problem.”

You study him. His hair is shorter now. His shoulders carry more confidence. But the self-doubt still lives in the corners of his mouth when he frowns like that.

“I stayed,” you say, “because you weren’t full of shit. That’s rare around here.”

He snorts. “That’s putting it mildly.”

You lean back, arms crossed. “Also because I figured if I stuck around long enough, I’d get to see you do something impossible. And I was right.”

He looks at you then; really looks at you. And for a second, everything feels suspended.

“Do you regret it?” he asks. “Working with me.”

You shake your head. “Not even a little.”

Another beat. Another moment that feels like it might tip into something else. But this time, it doesn’t.This time, he just stands and stretches, back cracking softly in the stillness. “You hungry?”

You arch a brow. “Are you suggesting dinner?”

“I’m suggesting we order in and keep working on that veteran housing grant proposal before Congress goes into recess and forgets we exist.”

You smirk. “Romantic.”

He grins over his shoulder. “You haven’t lived until you’ve eaten Chinese food over a redlined federal document.”

So you order lo mein. You go back to work. You pretend not to feel the weight of his gaze linger too long when you tuck your hair behind your ear.

Because that’s how it’s always been: almost something.

And just barely not.

***

The conference is a political minefield dressed up as a nonprofit gala.

Veterans’ outreach, defense contractors, political donors - you know the crowd. Expensive suits. Faux sincerity. People who shake hands with one another while calculating value down to the vote.

You’d flagged this event weeks ago as “moderate risk, high optics reward.” Bucky needed to be seen. Needed to be visible beyond committee rooms and press quotes. A speech here, a few handshakes there; minimal exposure. You’d planned it down to the minute.

And it was going well. Until it wasn’t.

“Congressman Barnes,” says a man with a donor tag and a wine glass he doesn’t deserve, “I just have to ask - how exactly does someone with your background get clearance for classified briefings?”

You see the way Bucky’s spine stiffens. Subtle. Small. Barely there, but you know the signs. That question isn’t innocent. It's calculated, dressed in polite curiosity but laced with venom.

The man continues, clearly emboldened by his own smugness. “No offense, of course. I just imagine there are still...let’s say, lingering questions. About where your loyalties lay. Or used to.”

You’re standing half a step behind Bucky, holding his speech notes. But when he turns his head slightly - as if about to speak - you step forward instead.

Smile on. Voice calm.

“Congressman Barnes’s clearance level is approved by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the Department of Defense, and three agencies whose acronyms I can’t legally say out loud,” you say, tone even and glacial. “If there were any questions about his loyalties, I imagine the thousands of classified documents he's reviewed without incident would have raised them.”

The man blinks. “Well, yes, but - ”

You don’t let him finish.

“And if you're wondering how someone with his background got elected, I’d suggest asking all the thousands of people who voted for him. Or perhaps we can schedule a follow-up for a civics refresher. I have slides.”

The man’s mouth opens, then closes. Bucky says nothing. But his posture shifts again - relaxes. You can feel the moment pass like a pressure drop.

Someone nearby chuckles under their breath. The donor turns away with a murmured excuse and disappears into the crowd like spilled perfume.

You hand Bucky his notes without looking at him. “Speech in five.”

He takes them from you with a slow blink. Then: “Thanks.”

“I didn’t do it for you,” you say, keeping it light. “I did it for national security.”

He gives you a look. You roll your eyes. “And maybe a little for you.”

The corners of his mouth twitch, like he wants to smile but knows it’ll make you more dangerous.

“Remind me not to get on your bad side,” he murmurs.

“Please. You’d last maybe ten minutes.”

After the speech - well-delivered, warmly received - you find yourselves in a quiet corner behind the stage, half-hidden by velvet drapes and quiet applause.

He leans against the wall, gaze lowered. “You didn’t have to step in like that.”

You adjust your blazer. “Actually, I did. That guy was trying to provoke a reaction.”

“And you gave him one.”

“I gave him an education. There’s a difference.”

He laughs softly. “You’re dangerous.”

You glance at him sideways. “Only to people who come for you sideways.”

There's silence then. Not the awkward kind. The kind where something almost wants to be said. But isn’t.

You turn your head, and find him already looking at you. And you can feel it. That tug. That dangerous, fragile pull toward something that you both can’t afford to define.

“I owe you,” he says.

“You don’t,” you reply, and you mean it. “But if you insist, I accept payment in rare whisky and sleep.”

He smirks, then reaches out without thinking, and gently adjusts a stray thread on your sleeve. It's nothing. It's everything. It's the kind of gesture that wouldn't even be noticed if it weren’t for how still the room suddenly feels around it.

You step back before you let yourself lean forward.

“Come on,” you say. “Let’s get you out of here before someone asks you how many people you’ve killed and what wine pairs best.”

He follows you. Because he always does.

***

The reception is low-key by Capitol standards. Just a quiet fundraiser at a private gallery downtown, with delicate hors d'oeuvres and jazz that floats like perfume through the air. You’ve already done your sweep: handshakes, small talk, mental notes on potential allies and walking liabilities.

Bucky’s in his element tonight.

He’s charming, magnetic in that understated way that makes people lean in. You’ve always been quietly proud of how he carries himself now. Confident. Warm. Like he’s learned to live without apology, even if part of him still walks like he’s waiting for the floor to give out.

You’re refilling your water when you see her.

She’s stunning. Classic. The kind of woman who wears confidence like silk. She glides when she walks and you recognize her immediately - Alessia DeWitt, a cultural liaison from the Department of State with a talent for high-stakes diplomacy and two bestselling essays on international reconciliation.

And she’s talking to Bucky.

They’re standing near the Degas in the corner, his favorite piece here, you know that. And she’s laughing at something he’s said, tilting her head just slightly. He’s smiling.

That smile.

Not the politician’s smile. Not the “I’m surviving this photo op” smirk. It’s the one that’s just for you - except tonight, it isn’t.

And God, it hits you.

Sharp. Uninvited.

You swallow it.

You turn away, take a slow sip of water, then walk - measured, graceful - across the room. You check your phone, check your list, check your composure. Every step is a performance.

You do not look again. You don’t get to be jealous. Not of her. Not of anyone. He’s your boss. You are his assistant.

No matter how many late nights. No matter the things unsaid, the silences filled with too much meaning, the tiny glances you store like keepsakes in your memory. None of that changes the title on your business card or the rules you’ve made to survive this job with your dignity intact.

You walk past the bar, scan the guest list again, update the press talking points on your phone. You are a machine. Efficient. Cold.

And then -

“Hey.”

You don’t flinch, even though you want to. You turn and find him beside you. Close. Closer than is appropriate, but that line’s always been blurry with him.

His tie is slightly loosened, and he’s still smiling, but it’s softer now. The kind he uses when it’s just the two of you.

“I didn’t lose you, did I?” he asks.

“No,” you say smoothly. “Just doing my job.”

He studies your face, something unreadable flickering in his eyes.

You force a smile. “Ms. DeWitt seems nice.”

“She is,” he says, slowly. “Interesting work. She mentioned she might want to collaborate on the cultural diplomacy initiative we’ve been pushing.”

“Good,” you say. “That’ll play well with the foreign affairs committee. We could use a new ally.”

He watches you.

You keep your voice neutral, your smile light.

You don’t say: You smiled at her like you smile at me.

You don’t say: It felt like someone else reaching for something that was never mine to begin with.

Instead, you tap your screen. “You’ve got fifteen minutes before your next meeting. Do you want me to prep your notes on the veterans’ bill or let you wing it?”

He doesn’t answer right away. Finally, softly: “Prep the notes. But stay close.”

You look up at him. That quiet charge, always there, flickers again.

You nod. “Always.”

The rest of the night passes like it always does; smooth, efficient, under your control. You manage the conversation clusters, escort him out with a practiced smile, and return home hours later, slipping off your heels and letting the mask fall in the dark of your apartment.

You’re not his partner.

You’re not his friend.

You’re the woman who makes him look like he has it all together.

And sometimes, that feels like enough.

Until it isn’t.

***

You’ve gotten good at tuning things out.

The way the Capitol air hums with ambition. The layered lies behind too-perfect smiles. The slow erosion of ideals at the hands of committee votes.

But today, it’s Bucky’s laugh that you try to tune out. Low, warm. The kind he only lets out when he’s surprised, or amused in that rare, unguarded way. You usually feel proud when you hear it.

But today, he’s not laughing with you.

You glance up just enough to see her again - Alessia DeWitt, poised and polished, standing in his office with a folder under one arm and her coat draped casually over the other. She’s saying something clever, probably insightful. Bucky responds with a smirk that creases the edge of his mouth just enough to make your lungs forget how to function.

You go back to typing.

You don’t look again.

You don’t listen.

You’re a professional. This is just your job.

They’re not flirting, not exactly. But it’s there. In the way he tips his head a little when she talks. In the way she steps just a bit closer than necessary when she hands him a document. The kind of subtle tension that’s practiced, elegant, and worst of all - reciprocated.

He walks her out an hour later.

You don’t look up when he passes your desk. You don’t say anything. You just keep moving numbers in a spreadsheet you’re not even going to use.

He comes back a few minutes later, lightly rapping his knuckles against the edge of your desk.

You glance up. His hair’s a little mussed from the wind, and he looks relaxed - happy, even.

“Hey,” he says. “Do me a favor?”

You nod automatically, even before you hear the request. That’s what you do. That’s who you are.

“I need a dinner reservation. Somewhere quiet. Discreet. Doesn’t have to be flashy - just private. For two. Around seven. Tonight.”

You type it out, the motion mechanical.

He continues. “Make sure it’s somewhere the press won’t be lurking. She’s...we just want a quiet place to talk through some strategy stuff.”

Strategy. Right.

You don’t ask if it’s for Alessia. You don’t have to. There’s no strategy that needs candlelight and privacy and the kind of table where your knees could brush under the linen.

Your fingers don’t falter. Your voice doesn’t shake.

“Of course,” you say. “I’ll send confirmation to your phone.”

He smiles. “You’re the best.”

And then he’s gone again, the door closing gently behind him like it doesn’t know it just slammed something shut inside you.

You sit there for a long time after that. Long enough to hear the low buzz of the building begin to die down. Long enough to realize you haven’t moved in ten minutes.

You always stay late. Always.

But not tonight.

You gather your things in silence, ignoring the messages still pinging into your inbox. You leave the office like you’re walking through water, slow, heavy, fragile in a way you swore you wouldn’t let yourself be.

You make it all the way home before it breaks.

Your apartment is quiet. Too quiet. You kick off your shoes, toss your bag onto the couch, and stand in the dark for a moment longer than necessary, as if standing still will make the ache go away.

It doesn’t.

You cry in the way heartbreak always demands. Quietly. Pathetically. With the kind of hurt that builds from silence and restraint and all the things you never said.

Because he doesn’t want you.

He doesn’t even know he could.

You’re not his to want.

You’re just the one who makes his life easier.

And you hate that part of you—that weak, desperate part—wishes you were the one he wanted a quiet table with.

***

The office hasn’t changed.

Same overhead lights humming softly, same faint smell of burnt coffee and old policy binders. Your desk is as organized as ever, folders arranged by priority, tabs aligned like a battalion. Your posture is straight, expression neutral, voice calm.

But everything feels different.

Bucky notices it on Tuesday.

He comes in late from a closed-door meeting, hair slightly tousled, tie undone like it always is when he’s thinking too hard and caring too much. Normally, you’d make a dry comment, tease him about his “strategic dishevelment.” But today you just hand him a folder without looking up.

“Your three o’clock is confirmed,” you say. “Room 221-B. Notes are tabbed.”

He takes the folder and lingers a moment. You keep your eyes on the screen.

“Thanks,” he says.

“Of course,” you reply, already typing. You don’t see the way his brows pull together.

By Wednesday, the change is more obvious.

You’re still thorough. Efficient. Precise.

But the rhythm is off.

You used to finish each other’s sentences in strategy meetings. Now you don’t even glance at him. Used to sit beside him in committee hearings, passing notes with commentary sharp enough to make him nearly laugh in public. Now you stay two seats away, lips tight, eyes ahead.

You don’t laugh anymore.

You barely smile.

It’s Friday when DeWitt stops by again.

You see her through the glass before she enters - polished, bright, confident. She’s not trying to be a threat. She doesn’t have to try.

She steps into Bucky’s office with that easy grace, and your eyes flick there once - just once - before you steel yourself and focus on the staff schedule.

You don’t look again. But your hands tense on the keyboard.

They talk for half an hour. The door is slightly ajar. You can hear low tones, soft chuckles. Her laugh.

His.

You stand up, grab a folder you don’t need, and disappear into the copy room for a full five minutes just so you don’t have to hear it anymore.

When you come back, she’s gone. And he’s standing in your doorway. You don’t falter. Just lift your gaze. “Did you need something, sir?”

His expression shifts at the word. Sir. You don’t use that tone. Not with him.

“I...no,” he says. Then, slower: “Can we talk?”

You gesture to the pile of policy notes on your desk. “Bit swamped, Congressman. Can we schedule it for later?”

There's silence. Long enough to sting.

Then he nods. “Sure.”

And walks away.

That night, you work late. But not because he asked you to. Not because he stayed behind. You stay because you need to bury the ache somewhere that isn’t your chest. Because if you go home, you’ll remember how he used to light up when you brought him coffee, how he used to look at you like he was figuring something out and almost had it.

Now he smiles like that for her.

And maybe he should.

She’s brilliant. Beautiful. Safe. She doesn’t come with your kind of silence or damage. She’s exactly the kind of person he should want.

So you’ll stay here, behind your desk, under the same office lights, quietly pulling away piece by piece until there’s nothing left to give but your job title.

Because you’re not his to notice.

***

You don’t avoid him - not quite.

You’re still present, still excellent. Every meeting is prepped. Every call answered. Every briefing clean, concise, and delivered with your usual polish. No one would notice the difference.

But he does.

He notices that you’ve stopped sitting beside him during committee briefings. That you hand off documents without your usual dry comment. That the little sparks, the glances, the private smiles, the warmth you wrapped around him like a soft constant - have gone silent.

You’ve become a perfect assistant again.

Just an assistant.

And he can’t seem to stop noticing.

It happens late one evening. Not midnight-late, just late enough that the halls are quiet and the sky outside is bruised with dusk.

You’re reviewing talking points for a media interview he has in the morning, going over the phrasing of a sentence for the third time. You hear the soft shuffle of movement behind you before you hear his voice.

“You’ve been different lately.”

You look up slowly.

He’s leaning against the frame of your open doorway, arms crossed - not closed off, not defensive. Just watching you like he’s waiting for a translation of something he doesn’t understand.

“I’ve been busy,” you say, evenly.

“Busy,” he repeats, like he’s testing the word. “Right.”

You go back to the document. “Was there something you needed clarified?”

He doesn’t answer right away. He steps in. Closer.

“Did I do something?”

You freeze, just briefly. Then you set your pen down with calm precision and meet his gaze.

“No. You didn’t.” Your voice is so smooth, so neutral, it feels like a betrayal. But it’s not a lie. He hasn’t done anything wrong. And that’s what makes it so much worse.

He tilts his head, studying you. “It feels like you’re mad at me.”

“I’m not.”

“Then what is it?”

You pause. “You’re imagining things.”

He doesn’t look away. “I don’t think I am.”

You push your chair back and stand, adjusting your blouse like it’s armor. “Congressman, I’d like to remind you that my role is to support your office. Not to serve as your emotional temperature gauge.”

He flinches; just barely. “So now I’m ‘Congressman’ again?”

You smile, polite and cold. “It is your title.”

“You never used to care about that.”

You meet his eyes, and for the first time, you can’t hold it. You can’t.

“It’s better this way.”

He’s quiet. So quiet.

Then, gently: “Why?”

You could say it. Because you smiled at her. Because the way you looked at me used to feel like gravity and now it’s just drift. Because I stayed up crying like a fool the night you took her to a private dinner, and I hated myself for hoping it was just a meeting.

But you don’t.

You gather your papers instead.

“I’ve booked your morning car. Departure at 8:10. Interview prep is in your inbox. Goodnight, Congressman.”

You start to walk past him, careful not to touch. You’re halfway to the door when he speaks again—soft, a little strained.

“You used to smile at me when you said goodnight.”

You stop. Your throat aches. But when you turn back, your smile is professional. Almost perfect.

“I still do,” you lie.

And then you walk out.

You don’t see the way he watches the door long after you’ve gone.

***

When they first told him he needed an assistant, he’d balked.

“I don’t need a babysitter,” he’d said, gruff and tired and barely convinced he even belonged in D.C., much less in a tailored suit and a congressional office.

Then you walked in.

No-nonsense. Unapologetically sharp. Dressed to kill and eyes like you’d already read every briefing in the building. He’d taken one look at you and thought, She’s going to leave. She’ll realize I’m not worth it and walk away.

But you didn’t.

You shook his hand and told him what needed fixing. You didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. Just dove into the chaos like it was a puzzle meant for you alone.

And slowly, without realizing it, he started breathing easier when you were in the room.

He hadn’t meant to rely on you. But it happened anyway.

It was in the way you handed him coffee before interviews with a quiet, “Don’t let the journalist bait you.” In the way you smoothed over diplomatic snubs, flagged subtle insults disguised as compliments, and always seemed to know when he needed a moment alone.

And he hadn’t realized how much space you took up in his mind until one day he caught himself scanning a committee room and didn’t relax until he saw you walk in.

It scared him, at first.

How essential you became.

How much he looked forward to your jokes, your eye-rolls, even your quiet.

And maybe…maybe it was foolish, but he thought you felt it too. That under all the professionalism and silence, there was something… shared.

Something fragile, maybe. But real.

Then there was DeWitt.

She was smart. Polished. Kind, even. She talked policy fluently and made compelling arguments. She made him feel like less of a stranger to this city.

When she invited him to dinner to “strategize,” he accepted. It wasn’t a date. Not officially.

But it felt like a test.

A harmless what-if. The kind of night that people in his position are supposed to have.

And it was fine. Pleasant. Comfortable.

Except… he’d spent most of it thinking about what you would’ve ordered. Wondering if you’d have mocked the place's dramatic wine list. Wondering if you were still at the office, working late, making sure he wouldn’t stumble over tomorrow’s press questions.

You always stayed late.

Except that night, you didn’t.

And when he came in the next morning, your smile was gone.

The warmth - gone.

At first, he thought maybe you were just tired.

But it kept happening.

The distance. The perfect replies. The refusal to meet his eyes for more than a second. The way you said “Congressman” like it burned your mouth to remember what you used to call him.

He’s been trying to figure it out for days.

Did I cross a line?Did she hear something?Did I do something?

But the worst part is the question he doesn’t want to ask:

Was that smile, hers, meant to replace yours?

And God, if it was…

Why does it feel like he lost something vital? Why does it feel like he can’t breathe right when you won’t laugh with him anymore?

He sits at his desk now, long past dark, flipping through a folder you prepped, flawless, as always. But your handwriting in the margins doesn’t have its usual dry wit. It’s clean. Clinical.

Impersonal.

He runs a hand over his jaw and leans back, eyes closed. You’re still here. Still doing your job. Still brilliant. But something’s missing. And he’s starting to wonder if it’s something he pushed away without knowing.

***

It starts with an oversight.

A detail, buried in a briefing memo, something you would’ve caught a hundred times before. A clause in a veterans’ bill amendment that opens a loophole for private contractors to skim off federal funds. It was buried deep, legalese wrapped in layers of innocuous language. But it was there.

And you missed it.

You missed it because you were too busy not thinking about him.

Too busy pretending not to hear his low voice in the hallway when he spoke with DeWitt. Too busy ignoring the fact that he’s been leaving earlier, dressing sharper, and smiling like he’s moving on from something you never got the chance to be.

So you missed it.

And now it’s on the news.

“Congressman Barnes co-sponsors amendment that could open the door to contractor misuse.”

It explodes faster than you can contain it.

You’ve been working damage control all morning - making calls, issuing clarifications, spinning the press angle so hard you’re dizzy. But the truth is, it’s your name on the draft. Your initials on the review. Your responsibility.

When Bucky storms in, phone still in his hand, jaw tight - you’re already standing.

“Close the door,” he says, flat.

You do.

He tosses the phone on the table. “Tell me this is a misprint.”

You don’t lie. “I missed it.”

His brows knit. “You missed it?”

You nod. “I was reviewing—”

“No,” he snaps, cutting you off. “You don’t miss things. That’s your whole thing. You don’t let anything through.”

Your chest tightens. “I know,” you say. Quiet. Honest.

He paces once, running a hand through his hair.

You’ve seen him angry before. At reporters. At Senators who play games with veterans’ benefits. At himself.

But never like this.

Never at you.

“You handed me a loaded weapon and smiled like it was safe,” he says.

You flinch. “I didn’t mean to—”

“I trusted you,” he says. And that’s the one that stings.

He says it like a wound. Like a disappointment he never expected. And then he says the thing that breaks you.

“I guess I forgot you're just staff.”

Silence.

Complete. Shattering.

Your fingers freeze around the folder in your hands. You look at him; not as your boss. Not even as the man you’ve spent months falling in love with. You look at him as the one person whose approval used to feel like safety.

And now?

Now you feel like furniture. Disposable. Replaceable. Forgettable.

He sees something flicker in your expression, maybe. Maybe too late. His mouth opens. Closes. But he doesn’t take it back.

He doesn’t even try.

You nod, once. “Understood.”

“Look, I didn’t—”

“No,” you cut in, calm and clean and brittle. “You were right. I’m just your assistant.” You gather the papers without meeting his eyes. “I’ll fix it. I’ll work overnight if I have to.”

He doesn’t stop you.

And that hurts worst of all.

You make it to the elevator before your hands start to shake. You make it to your apartment before the first tear falls. And you make it to bed wondering why it took this long to finally believe the truth.

You were never his. You were never anything. Just staff. And he said it out loud.

***

You arrive before sunrise.

Not just early - hours early. The halls are empty, lights dimmed, the air still wrapped in silence. You move like a shadow through the space you used to own, like your presence no longer belongs.

You don’t cry.

You cried last night. Quiet, gutted sobs into a pillow that didn’t care. That was enough.

Today, there’s work to do.

You fix everything.

The memo. The amendment. You tear through the legal language, rewrite it clean, consult three experts, and draft a press response strong enough to calm the headlines. You write letters of reassurance to the veteran groups and schedule a follow-up meeting with the senator who’d already started eyeing Bucky’s seat like a vulture.

You do what you’ve always done. You save him. And you don’t think about what it costs.

His coffee is waiting on his desk when he walks in.

You time it that way. You know how long he takes to get through security. Know how the elevator doors slide open seven seconds before his second step onto the floor.

You leave the coffee where he likes it, right side, just off center, one sugar, just a little bit of milk.

His briefing notes are already stacked. Speech edits beside them. The folder is crisp, color-coded, your handwriting neat but empty of the small comments you used to scribble for his amusement.

There’s no note today. No sarcasm.No smiley face next to the word “voter engagement.” There’s nothing.

Just you, gone.

Because you don’t want to be there when he comes in. Because you can’t face him, not after those words. “I forgot you’re just staff.”

You’d survived on the illusion that you meant more. That your loyalty, your long nights, your laughter in hallways at 2 a.m. meant something.

But now you know.

You were a convenience.

A tool.

Not the person he trusted. Not the person he saw. Just someone he assumed would never break. And maybe you wouldn’t have. If he’d yelled. If he’d said something cruel in the heat of anger. But instead, he told the truth. And the truth is still ringing in your ears.

You take your bag and leave before his footsteps echo down the corridor. Before his keycard clicks. Before you’re forced to see the look on his face, whatever it would be.

Relief.

Regret.

Or worse - nothing.

You spend the day working from the archives room. Buried in logistics. Avoiding the main floor. Scheduling meetings through email. You speak only when needed, answer only when asked. If anyone notices, they don’t ask.

And Bucky doesn’t come looking.

At the end of the day, you shut down your laptop, your name still glowing softly in the email signature. You stare at it a moment. Just staff. You repeat it like a mantra. Then you close the screen and walk away.

***

He knows something is wrong before he even reaches the door.

The building is quiet… too quiet. The kind of quiet that wraps around your spine and tells you something’s missing before your brain can name it.

And it is. You’re not at your desk.

It’s the first thing he sees - doesn’t see - when the elevator doors open and he steps onto the office floor. The chair is tucked in, the desk perfectly arranged, coffee already cooling on his.

But you’re not there. He freezes for a second. Just a second. Then he walks in. The lights are on. His briefing folder is set in its usual spot. Notes prepared. Paper clipped. Tabs aligned. Everything exactly the way it should be.

Except you.

He sets his bag down slowly. Looks at the coffee. Still warm, barely. You came in early. You always do when something needs fixing. When the world’s on fire and you need to put it out before he even smells smoke.

But you’re always here.

You’re always here.

He walks back to the hallway, half-expecting to find you just around the corner, printing something, scolding someone on the phone in your composed, lethal voice.

But no.

You’re gone.

And for the first time since this whole thing started, since you first stepped into his life with that sharp tongue and steady hands, he feels something split open under his ribs.

Because he knows. He knows what he said yesterday. And he knows it’s the reason you're not here now.

“I guess I forgot you're just staff.”

He hadn’t meant it. Not like that.

He’d been angry. Tired. Scared, maybe - not that he’d admit it. The mistake had blindsided him, and for a moment, all he could see was the fallout. Not the context. Not the you behind it.

But he’d said it. And you’d heard it. And now you’re gone.

Not fired. Not even avoiding your job. Just... pulling back in a way he doesn’t know how to fix.

He sits at his desk and opens the folder you left him. Every page is flawless. Every angle covered. You even corrected things that weren’t your responsibility.

But your handwriting is missing that familiar tilt, that little loop you do when you’re thinking fast and scribbling too hard. No small notes in the margins. No sarcastic arrows pointing at someone’s idiotic phrasing. No warmth.

Just work.

And it hits him, how much of you lives in the spaces no one else sees.

It was never just about the coffee or the folders or the schedules. It was how you saw him. Not as a weapon. Not as a headline. Not even as a congressman.

Just him.

And now you don’t even look at him anymore.

He leans back, runs a hand over his face. He doesn’t know how to fix this. But he knows one thing with painful, narrowing clarity. He never should’ve said those words. Because they weren’t true. And losing the version of you that believed otherwise might be the one thing he can’t come back from.

***

You come in early again. Not because you’re ready. Not because the ache has dulled. But because routine is a kind of armor, and you know how to wear it well.

Your desk is pristine. Emails answered. The press release about the revised amendment is in its final draft. You’ve scheduled his calls for the day and rescheduled a podcast taping he never wanted to do in the first place.

You hear his footsteps at 8:07.

You don’t look up.

You feel him pause, like he’s waiting for something. A smile. A comment. The rhythm he’s always counted on without knowing.

But it doesn’t come. You don’t give it to him. You keep typing.

You don't say good morning.

He wants to pretend it doesn’t sting, but it does.

Worse than the silence is the precision. Everything is perfect again. Not warm, not soft - just perfect. You’ve always been sharp, but now it’s like all the sharpness has turned inward. Like you’re cutting yourself just to keep from showing him how much he hurt you.

He thinks about saying something. Several things.

“About what I said…”

“I didn’t mean it.”

“You’re not just staff.”

But he can’t find the right words. And he’s never been good at this. At feelings. At making things better when the damage is quiet and deep.

So instead, he stands awkwardly by your desk and offers, “Want to grab lunch today? Just to breathe.”

You blink once. Hands still on the keyboard.

Your heart wants to say yes. Please.

But your chest tightens.

Lunch used to mean banter. Paper napkins and shared fries and the feeling of being seen even when you were tired and messy and frustrated with the world.

Now? Now it feels like mercy. Or worse—pity. You don’t look up. “I’ve got too much to do.” You say it calmly. Gently. But there’s finality in it.

He doesn’t push.

You hear the hesitation in his breath. And then, footsteps retreating.

He walks back to his office. Defeated isn’t quite the word. It’s worse. It’s guilt and regret and something tangled in his throat he doesn’t know how to speak aloud. Because the truth is…

You weren’t just staff.

You never were.

But now he’s afraid he said it too late to make you believe anything else.

You stare at the same line of text on your screen for a full minute after he’s gone. Not because you don’t know what to write. But because it feels like something inside you just cracked again, and there’s no one left in the room to notice.

***

You see them before they speak.

Her laugh. His quiet response. The way they enter the office together like they’ve been talking the whole way from the car. Maybe they have. Maybe they met for coffee. Or maybe they didn’t.

You don’t ask. You don’t look long enough to invite questions. You swallow the sick twist of nausea that rises in your throat, file it under “irrelevant data,” and return to your work. Because that’s all you are now.

Work.

You are bullet points and policy briefs. You are clipped emails and clean schedules. You are early mornings and late nights and not a single word more than is necessary. And if you keep moving, keep doing, keep fixing—maybe you won’t feel it. Maybe you won’t have to face the truth:

That he never smiled at you like he smiles at her.

That you were never the thing he reached for first. That all your closeness, all your almosts, were just silence mistaken for something softer.

You keep working. You forget your coffee. It sits next to your screen, cold by nine a.m. Your lunch stays untouched. You don’t even glance at the time. You answer eighteen emails in a row without blinking. Draft three policy outlines. Reschedule four meetings. Fix a typo in a budget report that no one else would’ve noticed.

You don’t hear your name the first time someone says it.

Or the second.

But on the third, your head jerks up.

It’s one of the junior staffers, hesitating. “You okay?”

You blink. “I’m fine.”

He nods. “You’ve just… been at it for six straight hours. Without a break.”

You force a smile. It hurts your face. “Plenty to do.” He nods again and walks away. Uneasy. You don’t notice that your hands are trembling until you drop your pen.

Bucky sees the coffee cup first.

Cold. Full. Forgotten.

He sees your desk next, papers perfectly aligned, schedule immaculate, every window on your monitor open and glowing like you’ve been multitasking across universes.

He stands in his doorway for a second, watching. You haven’t looked up once. You haven’t said a word all day. He glances at your untouched lunch box in the fridge later that afternoon. Checks the timestamp on the last message you sent. Five minutes ago. Another flawless draft.

But you’re pale. You haven’t eaten. Your hands are moving faster than usual - sharp, clipped. You’re not just quiet now. You’re disappearing.

He tells himself you’re just focused. Dedicated. That this is how you cope with pressure.

But something deep in his chest tightens with the thought that maybe it’s not pressure you’re trying to survive.

Maybe it’s him.

That evening, the office is empty. You’re still typing. He watches from the hall again - silent. A ghost in his own building. You used to tease him for staying late. Now you outlast him every night.

And he can’t shake the feeling that each hour you spend here is one more hour you’re trying not to feel what he made you feel.

He takes a step forward. Then stops. Because he doesn’t know what to say that wouldn’t make it worse. So he walks away. But your cold coffee haunts him all the way home.

***

It was supposed to be your night.

Not a spotlight or a statement, not romantic, not officially. But it was something.

A promise. A moment.

A few weeks ago, when the gala was first announced - a charity event tied to military families and veteran support - you had half-joked that someone should go with him who could handle the press, the scrutiny, the strategic dance of cocktails and questions.

He hadn’t even hesitated.

"Then you’re coming with me."

Not as a date, of course.

But you were excited.

You’d smiled, actually smiled, and told him you’d need a new dress. And he’d grinned back with that soft, rare amusement that made your stomach flip. You’d even let yourself imagine what it would be like - to walk in beside him. Not in shadows. Not from behind. But beside.

The dress arrived last week. Simple. Elegant. Classic black with a slit just high enough to feel dangerous and a neckline you’d picked because you wanted, just once, to feel like someone he might really look at.

It’s still in the garment bag at the back of your closet.

You told yourself today would be different. That maybe he wouldn’t smile at anyone else like he used to smile at you. That maybe, just once, he’d see you.

That was before he walked into your office late that afternoon.

And said the words that would break you.

“I wanted to ask you something,” he says, casual, tired, running a hand through his hair.

You glance up. “Of course.”

He hesitates for a second. That should’ve warned you.

“I know we agreed you'd come with me to the gala. And I’m glad you’re coming. I just…” He pauses again, looking uncomfortable. “I got a request from Alessia DeWitt. She wasn’t invited. Not officially. But it could look good to have her there.”

You blink once.

Then again.

“Look good?” you ask, carefully.

He nods. “Yeah. Politically. If people see her there, see that she supports the veteran funding package we’re building… it adds weight. Optics, you know?”

You know. You know politics. You know optics. You know what you look like, what you are.

Just staff.

“So I was wondering,” he continues, still in that reasonable voice like he's discussing table assignments and not peeling open your rib cage, “would you be okay if she came instead?”

You stare at him.

And for a second, he must see it - your face, your stillness - because something in his expression shifts. Like he’s realizing, too late, that this wasn’t just another task.

That this was the one thing.

You nod. It takes more strength than speaking. “Of course,” you say. Your voice is quiet. Even. Professional. You’re so good at sounding fine. “She’ll need the plus-one pass, then?”

He clears his throat. “Yeah. Just for this event. I appreciate it.”

He lingers for a second longer, like he might say more. But you’ve already turned back to your screen.

You don’t look at him.

You don’t trust what he’d see.

“Right,” he says. “Well… I’m going to get ready. I’ll see you.”

And then he’s gone.

You don’t move for a full minute. The office is empty. No one else stayed late today. Just you. Like always. You open the drawer and take out the envelope with the invitation. The one you printed yourself, formatted perfectly, with his name and yours. Plus one.

Your fingers tremble as you tear it open.

And then it happens.

Not loud. Not dramatic. Just a quiet shatter. You cry. At your desk. Alone. In the soft, humming dark of a place you once called safe. Because it was never about the gala. Or the dress. Or even DeWitt. It was about the fact that, given the choice, he never chose you. Not even for one night. Not even for one room.

Just staff.

Just someone he can ask to step aside when someone more useful comes along.

***

He shouldn’t have asked. He knows that now. The moment he stepped into the gala, he felt it, something off, something missing.

It was all perfectly choreographed, as these things always are. Chandeliers humming overhead. Velvet panels. The soft clink of cocktail glasses and speeches rehearsed down to the comma. He’s done this before.

And usually, it’s fine. Easy enough to get through with you there, at his side, quietly offering notes under your breath, murmuring names and context as you pass through crowds.

But tonight, you’re not here.

DeWitt is.

She’s beautiful, poised, and sharp. Her presence earns nods from senators, sparks quiet murmurs of alliance, and checks off every political box the gala was designed to fill.

It should feel like a win.

It doesn’t.

“Congressman Barnes,” someone says, middle-aged, familiar, a donor he only vaguely remembers. “Where’s your shadow?”

He blinks. “Sorry?”

“The woman,” the man laughs. “The one with the eyes like she knows how to bring down the Senate with a clipboard. What’s her name, your assistant?”

Bucky’s lips twitch, almost a smile.

Almost.

“She’s… she’s not attending tonight.”

“Shame,” the man says, then adds, chuckling, “You’re good, don’t get me wrong. But when she’s around, you look like you could take on the whole floor without backup.”

Someone else later: “That sharp one, your right hand? Thought she never missed these.”

And again: “Where is she tonight? You two are like a package deal.”

It’s supposed to be funny. Harmless. But each comment lands like a stone in his gut.Because they’re right. He’s floating without ballast. He’s standing in a room full of people, dressed to perfection, saying all the right things and he feels off-balance. Because the only person who ever made this circus feel manageable isn’t beside him.

DeWitt is talking to a diplomat now. She’s doing well. Smiling in that bright, purposeful way that gets people to listen and remember. She looks over at Bucky and gives him a nod, one of approval. He returns it.

But his chest tightens. Not because of her. Because of you. He sees your face again - how still it went when he asked if she could take your place. The exact moment something in your expression cracked, just before you closed it off completely.

He thought it was fine. He thought you’d understand. You always understand. That’s the problem. You always give. And tonight, he asked you to give again. Not just your place, but your pride. Your presence. The one thing you’d let yourself show you were actually excited about.

And he took it.

He stole something from you with a smile and a half-reasoned explanation about optics. And now you’re not here. And the air tastes wrong. And the smiles don’t reach his eyes.

And for the first time in months, he feels like he’s playing a part again. Like he’s back on a stage without the one person who ever knew the lines behind the script.

You weren’t supposed to be here.

You were supposed to be off today. A full day away from the inboxes, the policy memos, the relentless spin of political machinery. Bucky had insisted, weeks ago.

"You’ll need the day after the gala. Hell, I’ll need it. Don’t schedule a thing."

And when you were still supposed to be attending, when your name was still next to his on the RSVP, it sounded almost indulgent. A shared day of silence after the noise.

You nodded, smiled, made a quiet mental note to actually sleep in for once. But that was before. Before he asked you to give your place to Alessia DeWitt. Before he smiled at her in rooms that should have been yours to stand beside him in. Before he reminded you who you were: staff.

So this morning, you erased the calendar block titled “OOO – Recovery Day”. You showed up at the office like it was any other Monday.

You came in at 6:45 a.m.

Coffee brewed. Schedule finalized. Briefings printed.Your dress is dark. Your makeup flawless. There’s no sign of the woman who cried into her sleeve in an empty office the night before.

Just the assistant.

Always the assistant.

Bucky walks in at 8:10. Right on time.

He looks… tired. Not in the usual way. Not worn down by policy debates or late-night revisions. No, he looks unsettled. Like he didn’t sleep. Like he didn’t want to.

You don’t ask.

He pauses when he sees you at your desk.

“You’re here,” he says, like it’s a surprise. You look up once. “There’s work to do.”

He doesn’t say anything. You hand him the folder. “Your 10 a.m. was moved to 11. The briefing packet is updated. There’s a quote request from the Times for a follow-up about last night.”

“Right,” he says. He takes the folder from you. The coffee is already on his desk. Perfectly made. Just like always. But you don’t ask if he slept. You don’t make a joke about the tie he’s wearing, one you used to call his “I’m charming but I hate this event” tie.

You just go back to typing.

And he knows.

God, he knows.

DeWitt shows up late morning. She’s radiant, composed, floating in with a kind of confidence that belongs in polished rooms with gold trim. She compliments Bucky on his speech. She touches his arm once, lightly.

You don’t look. You don’t need to. You hear every word. You process every interaction. You record every detail in that steel-trap mind of yours, because that’s what you do. You are happy for him - professionally.

A partnership with her would be good. Optics. Strategy. Alignment.

Privately?

You are somewhere else entirely. Hollowed out. Watching from behind a glass you can’t break through. He glances at you once while she’s talking. Your expression doesn’t change. Not a flicker. Just like he asked for. Just like he reminded you he wanted.

The day passes in a blur of precision.

You laugh when you’re supposed to. Smile when it’s necessary. Your voice is clear, your notes are flawless, and not a single thing escapes your attention. But you don’t speak to Bucky unless you have to. And when you do, it’s brief.Professional. Exactly what he asked for when he gave your invitation to someone else.

And he feels it now. He feels all of it. Because he finally has what he said he wanted. And it’s colder than he ever imagined.

***

Bucky starts small.

Little things.

He tries to bring back the rhythm.

The quiet back-and-forth. The mid-meeting glances. The subtle jokes he used to toss into briefings just to hear you mutter some dry comeback. He tries to ask questions like he used to. Casual things. About your lunch, about your commute, about your opinion on the proposed bill that’s barely worth a headline.

You answer. Always. Polite. Efficient. But nothing extra. No sarcasm. No heat. No… you. You're still here. But not the way he remembers. And it gnaws at him.

He asks you to sit in on a meeting he knows you could handle alone. You come. Quiet. Immaculate. You pass him a note once. Policy draft missing two attachments.

That’s it.

No comment. No joke about the senator’s rambling. No silent smirk when he almost loses his temper and you tap your pen like a warning.

You’re a shadow now.

Polished.

Professional.

Gone.

He tries again later.

You’re standing in the copy room, refilling the machine, and he steps in like it’s nothing. He leans against the counter, hands in his pockets, watching you work.

“You’re quiet lately,” he says, voice low, almost light. “I miss hearing you tell me what an idiot I am before I make it public.”

You glance over, arch a brow. “You haven’t made any major missteps lately. Congratulations.”

He almost smiles. But it falters. You’re not teasing him. You’re not playing. You’re just stating a fact. He watches you lift a stack of fresh copies. The light flickers slightly overhead, catching the faint shadows beneath your eyes.

“You should’ve taken the day off,” he says.

You pause. Then: “There was work to do.”

“Still. You earned it.”

You turn to face him fully, expression calm. You don’t look tired. You don’t look bitter. You just look finished. And then you say something he doesn’t expect. Not cold. Not cruel. Just true.

“You don’t need me to take up space, Bucky. You need me to keep everything moving behind the scenes. That’s my job. To make you look like you’re untouchable.”

He stares at you. Something in his chest shifts.

“I never asked you to—”

“No,” you interrupt softly. “But that’s what you want. That’s what this is. That’s why you asked me to step aside.”

He blinks. “That’s not fair.”

“I know,” you say. And you smile. But it’s a thin, sad thing. “But it’s okay. I’m fine. I’ll keep doing my job. I’ll make the speeches clean. I’ll keep the press happy. I’ll schedule you to the second and write words that sound like your voice.”

You gather the papers in your arms.

“I just won’t pretend anymore.”

You walk past him, steady.

And this time, he doesn’t follow. Because for the first time since all this started, he sees it. You’re not angry. You’re not punishing him. You’ve just accepted it. You’re just staff. And that is what hurts the most.

***

The meeting runs long.

It always does when budget subcommittees get into the weeds, arguing over decimal points and moral high ground like the difference is measurable in soundbites. You sit at Bucky’s right, silent, taking notes. You know the rhythms now, the way he tenses before pushing back, the way his eyes flick to you when he’s about to quote a number you fed him an hour earlier.

You do your job. Exactly as you’ve done every day since he first sat in this seat. But afterward, as you’re gathering papers, that’s when it happens.

You’re walking with him down the corridor, flanked by aides and murmured updates, when Congressman Lee, who chairs the infrastructure committee, falls into step beside you.

He’s older, sharp, disarmingly direct.

“You always make him look good,” he says, nodding at Bucky, like he’s not even there. “Hell, I’d offer you a job myself if I thought I had a shot.”

You blink, caught mid-step.

Bucky slows beside you.

Lee continues, grinning. “You ever get tired of making someone else the star? Maybe you ought to be somewhere you can shine a little more.” Then, like it’s a compliment, he adds: “He doesn’t use you right. Man’s got a Ferrari and drives it like a lawnmower.”

You manage a smile. Professional. Light. “Thank you, Congressman. But I’m exactly where I need to be.”

Lee shrugs. “Your loyalty’s impressive. Just don’t let it chain you.”

And with that, he peels off to greet someone else, leaving the silence behind him echoing down the hall.

Bucky doesn’t say anything.

Neither do you.

Back at your desk, you sit down and open your laptop. Routine. Emails. Drafts. Updates. And then - there it is.

That document.

Still untitled. Still unsaved. The resignation template you opened the night he gave your gala invitation away.

No date. No address. Just a blank space where your name could go. You haven’t looked at it in days. You almost forgot it was there. But now it stares at you. Daring you to admit what you’ve been refusing to even think: Maybe you should leave.

Not for Congressman Lee.

Not for anyone else.

But for yourself.

Because no matter how much you’ve given here, how much of your time, your energy, your heart, this job doesn’t hold space for you.

Only what you do. Only what you fix. Only how well you can disappear behind someone else’s success. And maybe it’s not about punishing Bucky. Maybe it’s about finally understanding that loyalty shouldn’t have to hurt.

He didn’t like the way Lee said it. Didn’t like the way your name came out of another man’s mouth. Didn’t like the truth in it. You do make him look good. Better than he deserves. And the idea of you sitting behind someone else’s desk, running someone else’s calendar, standing next to someone else during long nights and high-stakes fights…

It makes his chest tighten.

But you didn’t even hesitate before turning Lee down. And that should’ve comforted him. Instead, it scared him more. Because if you didn’t even blink, it means you’ve already let go of the idea of being somewhere else.

Which might mean you’ve already let go of him.

You close the tab. Not because you’ve made a decision. But because your hands are shaking. And because for the first time since this job started, you don’t feel like you belong here anymore. And the worst part? You’re starting to wonder if you ever did.

#comment reply #bucky barnes #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader

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hidden-behind-the-fourth-wall · 10 days ago

Text

This was so beautiful 😍❤️

Don't wake me

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x fem!reader

Warnings: fluff, angst, mild SMUT 18+, some canon typical violence during a fight, Bucky being adorably sweet and lost, haunted by his past and self doubt, mention of masturbation, premature ejaculation. Set between Winter Soldier and Civil War when Bucky is hiding in Bucharest. Bucky's involvement with repressions under Romania's communist regime implied but not explored. Slow burn neighbours to lovers, lots of sexual tension.

Word Count: 11K

Summary: He never meant to be seen, hiding in the shadows of Bucharest, Bucky lives a quiet, fractured life until the neighbor next door knocks on his door asking for sugar, and everything begins to shift.

After S.H.I.E.L.D. and everything else that had previously made sense fell, there wasn't much left to do. Yes, it was Bucky who had pulled Steve out of the river. He didn’t know why. Or maybe he did, just wasn't prepared to admit it.

The world was different now. He was different. And all of a sudden there was no place for him in it. Certainly not for the Winter Soldier, and perhaps not even for Bucky Barnes. He wasn’t even sure who that was. A ghost? A name? A memory someone else had of him? Did he ever exist in the first place?

So Bucky did the only thing that made any kind of sense. He took off running. Not toward anything, just away from everything. Away from the taunting sound of his own name, from all the fragmented faces he couldn’t quite recall but couldn’t forget either, away from a world that no longer felt his. Maybe it never was.

With no real plan or destination in mind he somehow ended up in Bucharest, Romania. It wasn’t home, it wasn’t anything, but it was far enough and quiet enough.

He found a tiny one-room apartment on the fifth floor of a crumbling old building where the walls were thin, the plumbing whined at night like it was protesting its own existence, and the neighbors kept to themselves. He paid in cash. Nobody asked questions. Perfect.

He picked up work in construction. Long days of lifting, hauling, sweating under the sun. It was hard, even grueling sometimes but it was honest work. It dulled the edge of the nightmares, wore down not only the anger but even his relentless body until he could collapse into sleep. When people asked for his name, he said “James.” It felt OK, even natural or close enough to it.

He kept to himself, head down, barely speaking, always with a cap pulled over his eyes, and a glove on his left hand, even in the heat. He counted exits everywhere he went and slept with a knife under his pillow. And he stayed alone. Always.

Right up until you.

You lived two doors down. Your apartment always smelled of coffee and something sweet with music playing softly through the walls. You were kind in that spontaneous, organic way without being loud or nosy. You never lingered too long, but you always found a few minutes to talk to the old, wrinkled grandma from 6B, left extra cookies on the windowsill for the neighborhood kids, and smiled when you passed him in the hallway.

Still, Bucky saw you.

At first, it was how you moved in that gentle, unhurried way, as if you lived in your own rhythm and didn’t care about keeping up with the rest of the world. Then it was your laugh, the way you said “hi” to him on the stairs, always with that smile. You were the only one who did it with a smile. And of course the warm spill of light from under your door at night when everything else in the building felt cold and dim.

He tried not to look. Shoulders hunched, eyes down, always turning away before your gaze could catch his – that’s how you usually saw your new, quiet, broad-shouldered and handsome neighbor. But you noticed him anyway.

You noticed how he flinched when a door slammed too hard, how he never unlocked his own without first looking over his shoulder, how he scanned the hallway the way most people checked the sky for rain.

You saw the tight line of his jaw, the way silence clung to him, the way his deep, striking blue eyes always looked as if they were carrying something heavy.

But somehow, despite it all, you still thought he was... sweet.

Not just because he was handsome, though that didn’t hurt. It wasn’t about the broad shoulders or the sharp cheekbones or the low, hesitant “thank you” he mumbled sometimes. No, there was more than that. It was how you never saw him raising his voice, even when kids were screaming through the halls and bumping into him while running down the stairs. The way he helped the elderly woman from the sixth floor carry her groceries without being asked or the way he quietly brought down the stroller for the single mom on four like it was nothing.

And of course, you were aware of the glances, the ones he thought you didn’t catch. The quiet sighs, the way his gaze followed you sometimes, as if he was trying to summon the courage to speak but was unable to.

You were curious. Just curious, no more than that. Or at least that’s what you told yourself when one evening, after spending far too much time doubting yourself, you finally knocked.

It was a dumb excuse. You had sugar, but there you were, standing outside his door with an empty mug in your hands, heart flipping in your chest, trying to play it cool.

When the door creaked open, he looked at you like you’d just set off a fire alarm. With suspicion written all over his face, his eyes scanned you, then darted down the hallway before returning back to you.

“…Sugar?” he repeated, voice low and a little rough, touched with a slight accent.

You smiled. “I just realised I’ve run out of it and I’m already halfway through the recipe.”

There was a long pause and you could almost hear the gears turning behind his eyes, measuring, calculating, unsure how to react, but then he nodded silently, took a step back and disappeared into the apartment. A moment later, he returned, handing you the filled mug, his fingers brushing yours for just a second too long.

You opened your mouth to say something else, but the door shut gently in your face.

Yet you didn’t give up and the next night, you stood again before his doors with a plate of pancakes in your hands, wrapped in foil to keep them warm and fresh. You weren’t sure if it was bold or stupid, but you knocked anyway.

He opened the door quicker this time but looked even more confused.

“What’s this for?” he asked, brows drawn together.

“For the sugar,” you said with a shrug. “You saved my cake last night, it just seemed fair.”

There was a long pause, and when you already feared the door would just slam shut before you again, he reached out and slowly took the plate from your hands. You noticed his left hand was still covered in a glove.

“…Is it… is it for me?”

You smiled: “Of course it’s for you.”

Something flickered in his eyes that looked almost like a smile.

“…Thank you,” he said, so quietly you almost missed it. His gaze dropped, his lips twitching into something shy and uncertain and before you could answer, the door clicked shut again.

Bucky stood in the middle of his kitchen for a long time, the plate of pancakes still in his hands, steam curling up. His palms were sweating and his pulse wouldn't settle.

It wasn’t panic, it wasn’t the dread of being recognized or some buried memory clawing its way up from the dark. This was something completely new, something he wasn’t prepared for.

Someone had knocked on his door with something warm and kind in their hands. No threat. Just... pancakes.

He let out a breath and set the plate down, gripping the edge of the counter.

He wasn’t sure what scared him more: that you’d done it, that he liked it or that the short interaction had left him so painfully hard he had to bite back a groan and focus on breathing just to stay in control.

He hadn’t even touched you, and yet the scent of you still lingered in the air, warm and sweet and maddening.

The water in the shower ran hot as he leaned into the tile with both hands, chest heaving as the spray poured over him. He let his head hang, jaw clenched, in a futile hope the hot water would wash that feeling off his skin, but it was already under it.

Your voice, your smile, the look in your eyes when you handed him that plate.

With a rough, broken sound, he wrapped a hand around himself, eyes squeezing shut as he was flooded with the images of your laugh and the simple way you’d said “of course it’s for you”, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

It didn’t take long. It never did, not when it was you behind his eyes. He came with a sharp gasp, forehead pressed to the tile, hips twitching, breath ragged and uneven.

Afterwards, he just stood there, water pounding his back, heart hammering and shame settling low and heavy in his gut. Not because of what he’d done, but because he wanted more and for the first time in what felt like forever he didn’t feel numb and it was driving him mad.

Bucky didn’t sleep much that night, not because of nightmares. No, those stayed mercifully quiet this time. It was you that kept him up this time – the sound of your knock, the scent of pancakes, the memory of your smile.

And somewhere deep inside him there was a quiet, reckless, stupid hope that you’d knock again.

Fuck, no. Leave her out of it, he told himself for the hundredth time, tossing and turning over in bed but it didn’t matter, because his hand was already moving, slipping beneath the waistband of his boxers, fingers wrapping around himself with a desperate kind of frustration. His chest rose and fell faster, the air in the room suddenly thick, suffocating, but not as heavy as the heat pooling in his gut.

He tried to think of something else, anything else, but you were already there.

That stupid, sweet smile you gave him when you handed over that plate – the one that said he wasn’t dangerous, that showed no fear, only warmth and kindness, the one you would never cast at him, if you knew who he really was.

He groaned, low and raw, pressing the heel of his other hand to his eyes as if he could block out the image of you behind his lids. It didn’t work, it never did.

His hips bucked up into his hand before he could stop himself, breath catching in his throat. It was fast and ugly and aching, and he hated every second of it, of how little control he had, how easy it was for you to undo him with a smile and a plate of pancakes.

White streaks of his cum splattered across his belly, his breath catching in a stifled gasp as he buried his face in the pillow, trying to muffle the sound. His hand stayed wrapped tightly around himself, fingers trembling, chest still rising and falling hard.

He didn’t move for a long time, just lay there, slick, spent, and sinking deeper into self-loathing with every second as each breath tightened the knot in his chest, each heartbeat a reminder that it didn’t matter how many times he came to the thought of your smile, as if he were entitled to it, as if he deserved to want you.

He didn’t. He knew that.

Bucky woke with a sharp cry, shooting upright as though struck. His heart thundered, blood roaring in his ears, that old familiar weight crushing his ribs while the echo of a gunshot rang through the hollow corners of his mind.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he muttered, dragging a hand down his face.

The blanket was twisted and soaked with sweat. He shoved it aside and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, sitting there with his head in his hands, trying to breathe, trying to remember where he was, when he was, who he was.

It took him a while to come back to his senses but finally he stood slowly and shuffled barefoot across the cold floor toward the bathroom.

The man staring back at him in the mirror looked like a stranger in his own skin – dark circles, hair damp with sweat, eyes wide and hollow.

He splashed cold water on his face and scrubbed his hands dry on a threadbare towel, avoiding the mirror entirely now before moving into the kitchen where he stopped short.

The plate of pancakes still sat on the table, untouched, covered carefully with foil.

He stared at it for a long moment before reaching out, slow and unsure, still half convinced they weren’t truly meant for him, that taking one might somehow be a mistake.

He took a bite and damn… they were good, fluffy, with just the right amount of sweetness, soft in the middle and with a hint of crisp at the edge.

He stood chewing in silence, one hand braced on the counter, the other still holding the fork, and his mouth tugged at the edge, not quite a smile, but close.

Then he heard them – your footsteps in the hallway.

Your rhythm was familiar by now, light and easy, almost like dancing, full of quiet confidence and grace. The sound nudged something in his chest, made his pulse trip once, then again.

Bucky’s hand hovered over the door handle. He could stay inside, wait it out until your steps faded, until it was safe, or…

He moved before he could second-guess it.

“Morning,” you said, glancing toward the creak of the opening door and your voice carried that effortless brightness again, the kind that softened corners, that made this hallway, stale with damp concrete and flaking paint, feel almost inviting and warm.

Bucky swallowed. “Hey,” he mumbled, then cleared his throat. “Uh …hi.”

Smooth.

You slipped your keys into your bag and looked up at him again. You didn’t seem surprised to see him, just genuinely glad and somehow, that made it worse.

Bucky shifted his weight, rubbed the back of his neck. “I…uh… about the pancakes. Just… thanks. For that.”

You smiled, bright and easy. “You liked them?”

He blinked, as if you’d just asked if he liked air. “Yeah,” he said quickly. Then quieter, almost sheepish: “They were really good.”

The second the words left his mouth, he looked away, his cheeks going a little red. It was kind of sweet, how fidgety he got, it looked as if he didn’t know what to do with his hands, or his feet, or the fact that someone was actually talking to him, like part of him was still considering just bolting back into his apartment and pretending this conversation never happened.

“Well,” you said softly, “you’re welcome. I’m really glad you liked them.”

A pause stretched between you, as you waited whether he would continue the conversation. Bucky nervously shifted his weight as he desperately tried to come up with something else to say, but his mind had suddenly blanked out.

You tilted your head, smiling just a little. “Hey, if you’re hungry again later… I work at my parents’ shop. It’s just a few blocks from here. We sell homemade food, nothing fancy, just soups, fresh bread, stews, that kind of thing, but if you’re around… come by. I’ll treat you to lunch.”

His eyes widened slightly, then he blinked, once, then again, as though his brain needed a second to catch up.

“Me?”

You laughed, soft and warm. “Do you see anybody else here?”

A faint, nervous smile tugged at his lips, and his gaze dropped to the floor, searching for something steady in the scuffed tiles beneath his boots.

“That’s... really kind of you,” he mumbled.

You grinned and gave him a little wave as you started down the stairs. “See you then, James.”

He stood there for a moment, staring at the spot where you’d just been, then remembered to breathe.

The shop was small, tucked between a laundromat and a florist, with hand-painted signs in the window and the smell of something warm and herby drifting out onto the street.

Bucky stood across the road, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jacket, eyes fixed on the front window. He could see you through the glass. You were laughing with someone behind the counter, your sleeves rolled up, your hair pulled back – nothing special and yet it made his stomach twist.

He shouldn't have come.

He’d walked past the place twice already – once fast, pretending he was on his way to something else, and the second time, slower, casting side glances towards the window. And now he was just... standing there, rooted to the sidewalk, unmoving, a stranger to his own nerves, trying to convince himself to disappear before it was too late.

You’d just been nice and probably hadn’t expected him to actually come, you’d probably already forgotten about it altogether... and then you looked up.

Bucky flinched, immediately stepping back, unsure whether to bolt or blend into the brick behind him but it was too late, your eyes had already locked on him.

Your face lit up, and before he could make the snap decision to disappear around the corner, you were pushing through the front door, wiping your hands on your apron.

“Hey!” you called, voice bright and easy, full of that same warmth that always knocked the air out of him.

He froze as every instinct told him to run, but his feet stayed planted, pulse kicking up as you crossed the sidewalk toward him.

“I was starting to think you got lost,” you teased lightly, then nodded toward the shop. “Come in. Food’s still warm.”

He hesitated, staring at the doorway like it might bite him.

“I don’t want to…uh, I didn’t mean to interrupt,” he mumbled. “You looked… busy.”

“I am busy,” you grinned. “Feeding people. You qualify.”

He gave a soft, awkward laugh, it seemed he wasn’t sure if it was okay to find you funny, then, slowly, cautiously, he followed you inside.

The shop smelled of rosemary and fresh bread. It was cozy, with mismatched chairs and a few tiny tables.

Bucky hovered by the door, unsure of where to go or what to do with his hands, as he tugged at the glove on his left one.

You gestured toward a table by the window. “Sit wherever you want. I’ll bring you something.”

He nodded, then quietly chose one in the back, easing himself into the seat with slow caution, as though afraid it wouldn’t hold him. He rested his forearms on the table and looked down, trying not to let it show how tightly wound he was, how he’d spent the entire morning telling himself this was a terrible idea.

Over the next couple of weeks, something started to shift between you and your shy but handsome neighbour. Lunch at your parents’ shop turned into a regular thing. He never said he was coming, but you always saved him a spot near the back, and without fail, he showed up – cap tugged deep, left hand covered in glove, like he needed a layer between him and the rest of the world. He didn’t talk much, mostly he’d just sit there quietly, eyes on you, listening to you talk while wiping down counters or restocking shelves.

One afternoon, when you mentioned in passing that your kitchen sink was leaking again, he offered to take a look, no hesitation, no awkward pause, just a soft, “I can fix it, ” as if being useful to you meant something important.

When you said yes, his shoulders relaxed in this barely noticeable way, as if you’d handed him permission to be here, to take up space in your world without needing to explain why.

He spent an hour under the sink, toolbox beside him, and even though you offered him coffee and tried to make small talk, he mostly just nodded or shrugged, cheeks a little pink the whole time and when the drip finally stopped, he looked so endearingly proud in his quiet way, not boastful, just relieved to have done something right.

You liked it, no this was not the right word, you loved this quiet pull, this thing that bloomed in your chest when he showed up for lunch, when his eyes found you from across the room, calm and stormy all at once, that ridiculous flutter in your stomach every single time and the way his steel-blue gaze stayed with you long after he’d left.

You didn’t know what to call it, not yet, but it was growing.

And you had no idea how much it cost him, how tightly he had to hold the reins just to sit across from you, how much effort went into every half-smile, every controlled breath, pretending to be calm while his heart was pounding like he was in a fight.

Yes, he enjoyed it, more than he wanted to, more than he thought he had any right to. Your voice, your laugh, the way you always remembered how he liked his tea, the way you talked to him without flinching, without pity, without fear, as if he was just a guy, the way you looked at him so normal, so safe – it tore something open in him – a soft, unfamiliar ache, a glimpse of something he hadn’t dared imagine could ever be his again.

It terrified him. He wanted more, and he hated himself for it.

A part of him soaked up every second, fed on them greedily, clutching them like stolen treasures. These small moments had become the brightest part of his day, maybe the only bright part, but just as strong was the voice inside him – the cold, familiar whisper that told him to pull back, to keep a distance, to remember who he was, to never forget that people like him didn’t get to have this, didn’t get to be chosen.

Didn’t get to be loved.

The apartment was too warm.

Or maybe it was just him, pacing from wall to wall, jaw tight, skin buzzing like he couldn’t get comfortable in his own body. The air felt thick.

Bucky dragged a hand down his face with a frustrated growl.

Enough.

His thoughts had spiraled so far past the line of decency he didn’t even try to pretend anymore. He’d jerked off two times today and God knows how many this week, thinking about you, your mouth, your laugh, your fingers brushing his.

He hated how easy it was, how vivid it all felt even though you'd barely even touched him. His body ached, strung tight with tension, and still, nothing gave him relief, not really, because no matter how many times he came into his own fist, sweaty and breathless in the dark, it wasn’t you, it wasn’t your hand, it wasn’t your lips, it wasn’t your breath against his neck, it wasn’t your thighs parting beneath him.

He stared at the ceiling, searching for answers it didn’t have.

He’d tried to be good, tried to keep his distance. You were kind, and warm, and safe, and he didn’t want to ruin that but he was losing his grip. His fists clenched and unclenched as he stood near the door, sweat at the nape of his neck despite the chill creeping in through the cracked window.

The guys on site had joked more than once about a place a few blocks away. Pretty ladies, not like some other places, not cheap, but tidy and quiet, no questions asked. He hadn't even looked up when they talked about it, but now?

“Fuck it,” he muttered, grabbing his jacket off the hook.

He didn’t stop to think, just yanked open the door and headed down the stairwell, boots hitting the steps hard enough to echo. The streetlights buzzed above, casting a pale yellow over the pavement as he walked, fast, shoulders tight.

He told himself he just needed to burn off the need and the heat, get it out of his system before he did something worse, before he crossed a line he couldn’t walk back from. Before he gave in to the temptation to knock on your door and beg for something he didn’t deserve.

The night air bit at his skin, but he welcomed it, let it sting, he just shoved his hands deeper into his pockets and kept walking.

The brothel was tucked behind a small café, down a side alley with no street sign, just a dim red light glowing above a narrow doorway. Bucky stood outside for too long, frozen in place, jaw tight, stomach churning. He almost turned around. Twice.

The air inside was warm and perfumed, low-lit, with soft music playing from speakers tucked somewhere behind velvet curtains. It didn’t smell bad, just overwhelmed by too many scents competing at once, cloying and artificial. The front room resembled a lounge, with a wide bar, a few small tables, and plush armchairs arranged in soft pools of lamplight.

The girls were scattered around the room, some perched at the bar, others lounged in armchairs with some kind of detached stillness on their faces as if they were waiting for a train. Most wore lingerie or barely-there dresses, skin glowing under the amber light. They looked bored. Tired. Used to it.

The girls smiled when they noticed him, some with interest, others with habit, a few leaned forward a little, resting arms on crossed legs, their makeup was perfect, hair done and eyes expectant.

Bucky’s throat tightened, as he didn’t quite know where to look, so he kept his head down and moved further in, already regretting every step.

His hands stayed jammed in his pockets while every part of him whispered that this was a bad idea but just when he was about to turn around and walk back out his eyes landed on a half-lit figure seated near the corner with legs crossed and hands folded in her lap. Bucky’s heart instantly dropped somewhere in the pit of his stomach.

He blinked, dragging his hand over his face as if trying to dispel a vision, but there was no doubt that it was you.

You looked different, made up and dressed for the part with lips painted red, you were turned just slightly away, chin lifted, with an expression telling that maybe if you didn’t look directly at anyone, none of it was real, but Bucky knew you.

He knew that curve of your jaw, the shape of your mouth, the way your fingers curled when you were nervous and then you suddenly turned and your eyes met his, wide and stunned, recognition hitting you with the force of a slap.

Your mouth parted just a little but your face crumpled, eyes turning glassy and embarrassed, even beyond embarrassed, as shame hit your face in a wave, and you quickly turned away again, in futile hope it could make him unsee you.

Bucky froze, as if the air had been sucked out of the room. He didn’t know what to do, where to look or how to breathe as his throat closed and chest collapsed inward like he had been struck.

So he did the one thing he was trained to do: react. He turned his head and nodded to the girl sitting closest to him, someone blonde, someone whose face he didn’t even register, and reached out, letting her take his arm.

"Come on, sugar," she said, voice smooth and low. “I’ve got a room free.”

Bucky didn’t look back at you, he couldn’t, he just gave a stiff nod and followed her, not even knowing why, not thinking. She led him quietly down the hallway without saying much. The door clicked shut behind them with a soft snick, and suddenly he was in a tiny room that smelled of rose perfume, cheap soap and dust.

The room was small but clean, the walls painted in muted tones that tried and failed to feel warm, the only furniture being a narrow bed and a dim lamp in the corner. The girl turned toward him with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“Tell me how you like it,” she said gently, reaching for his belt, as her fingers brushed lightly against his stomach. “Rough? Slow? You want me to talk, or keep quiet? From behind, maybe? Blowjob costs extra, but since it’s your first time here, I can cut you a deal.”

Bucky flinched, visibly, as if she’d slapped him.

The girl froze for a beat, her hand still hovering near his belt, eyes narrowing just slightly as she registered the shift in him, as Bucky stepped back, fast, like the air between them had turned toxic.

“I…” His voice caught, raw and hoarse. “I shouldn’t be here.”

She raised her hands in quiet surrender, backing off. “Hey, it’s okay. I didn’t mean to…”

Bucky was already moving, stumbling back toward the door with his heartbeat thundering in his ears, stomach twisting and hands shaking.

“Sorry... I’m so sorry, I…I can’t. This was a mistake,” he muttered, reaching for the handle without even glancing at her as he shoved the door open and fled.

He didn’t stop, didn’t look at anyone, didn’t even breathe.

He rushed down the hallway, past the bar and the velvet chairs, past the painted smiles, until the front door hit his shoulder and the night air his lungs. He turned the first corner he saw and slammed his back against a cold brick wall, gasping for air and dragging both hands through his hair.

He felt sick.

Not because of the place, not because of the girl, but because, even in that room, with a stranger’s fingers brushing his belt, it was you he’d been thinking about.

He didn’t just want you, he needed you, and there wasn’t a single part of him that believed he deserved to, not even after he’d seen you there.

But somehow, that wasn’t even the worst part.

It wasn’t that you had been there, it wasn’t that this was how you apparently got by, that made his heart ache in a thousand unfamiliar ways.

The part that truly gutted him was that he hadn’t seen it, not once. After all those lunches, after all those moments spent across from you, listening to your voice, watching the way your eyes softened when you smiled, he never saw it and never dared to ask anything. He actually didn’t know anything about you apart from that you made the most delicious pancakes in the whole world.

And worse, far worse than that, was knowing that you had seen him there.

You forced a smile on your face as you greeted the few customers. Your parents had left earlier today and the front was quiet. You were thankful for that, as you were not up to any conversation.

You’d barely slept the night before, your eyes burned, and your head ached, but it didn’t matter. Because he wasn’t coming. Why would he?

He had every reason to turn around and never look at you again.

You’d ruined it, whatever it was, that quiet rhythm the two of you had slipped into, the steady presence of him sitting at the back table, always listening, always there. The way he’d started looking you in the eye more often, the way his smile had stopped feeling as something he had to force. It had all felt like the beginning of something soft and unspoken, but real.

And now it was gone.

He’d seen you, dressed as someone else, sitting with other girls, waiting to be picked like a bottle off a shelf.

You felt sick just thinking about it.

He must think you’d been playing him this whole time, that your kindness was fake, that your stories were an act, that you were just another girl who sold herself. Yes, you were.

You hated that thought, hated that your chest felt hollow and your hands wouldn’t stop shaking as you wiped down the same counter for the third time. You hated how ashamed you felt, not for what you did, but for how he might see it, for how he might see you now.

Every time the door creaked open, your eyes darted up and your stomach twisted, but it wasn’t him. Until it was.

You looked up and there he stood just inside the doorway, still in his jacket, hair slightly damp from the drizzle outside. You froze and he didn’t move either, just stood there, jaw tight, hands buried in his pockets.

You swallowed hard and turned back to your stack of napkins.

Bucky stepped forward slowly, the bell above the door jingled behind him, but he still didn’t say anything. You could feel his gaze on you, heavy and unsure, … and lost, it seemed he wanted to say something but didn’t know where to begin.

You opened your mouth, no idea what you were going to say, but the words never made it out because the door swung open again and three men stepped inside like they owned the place. Cheap leather jackets, thick chains – the kind of guys who always talked too loud and wore smiles that cut. You felt your stomach drop as soon as you saw them.

Not again.

“Morning,” the one in front said, grinning as he tapped his knuckles on the countertop. “You know what time it is, sweetheart.”

Your blood ran cold.

Bucky turned slightly, body tensing.

“I already told you,” you said, trying to keep your voice steady. “We’re not paying, not again. My dad said…”

“Yeah, well,” the man interrupted, leaning closer, “maybe next time Daddy should come out here himself instead of sending you, huh?”

One of the others chuckled darkly, and the third turned to Bucky, giving him a once-over. “This ain’t your business, man. You should leave.”

Bucky didn’t move, he didn’t even blink.

The first man clicked his tongue and turned his attention back to you, eyes sweeping over you slowly, like he was sizing up something on a menu.

“Would be a shame if something happened to this cute little place,” he said, tapping his fingers on the counter. “Could start with the windows, you know… accidents happen… a fire could even break out if you aren’t careful enough or... maybe there’s another way to settle things.”

He leaned in closer, breath sour, voice dropping to something low and greasy.

“How about we knock a little off the price… if you treat us right.”

The others chuckled behind him, one of them muttering, “Heard she’s not a stranger to that kind of arrangement.”

The leader smiled, but there was nothing kind about it. “Yeah. Word around is you’re good at making things... personal, friendly even. That’s true, sweetheart?”

His hand inched across the counter toward yours, grabbing your wrist and pulling you closer, while his other hand reached out stroking your cheekbone.

You closed your eyes just for a heartbeat, taking a deep breath as you tried to pull your hand back with a hiss, it was when you heard it – a sharp groan of pain and your eyes fluttered open again.

Bucky had grabbed the guy’s wrist and twisted hard, the sound of bone popping echoed in the shop like a gunshot, and the guy dropped to his knees with a howl.

The other two lunged, shouting, but Bucky was already moving – fast and controlled as if someone had flipped a switch, erasing the shy and hesitant guy who could barely meet your gaze and replacing it with someone else entirely, someone sharp, efficient, and dangerous.

One punch sent the second guy crashing into a chair, the other took a knee to the gut and went down gasping. No wasted motion, no hesitation, your friendly and kind neighbour moved like someone who’d done this a hundred times before.

One of them scrambled back to his feet, pulled a knife from inside his jacket, and slashed out blindly. Bucky sidestepped and caught the man's wrist mid-swing – a twist, a sharp crack and the knife clattered to the floor with the man screaming.

The last thing you saw was the second one pulling a gun from his waistband.

Bucky closed the distance in two steps, knocked the gun aside, grabbed the guy by the front of his jacket, and slammed him into the wall hard enough to rattle the framed menu hanging next to the register. The gun skidded across the floor.

The third was crawling for it but Bucky stomped his boot down on his wrist before he could reach it. There was a crunch, followed by a howl of pain. Another knife came out, flashing toward his ribs, but he caught that too, twisted the guy’s arm behind his back and slammed him face-first onto a table, snapping the wood clean in half.

“You done?” Bucky growled and you didn’t even recognise his voice.

There was no answer, just coughing and groaning as the men scrambled to their feet and limped their way toward the door while one of them looked back, clutching his ribs, and hissed through broken teeth, “You’re dead, man. You don’t know who you’re messing with.”

Bucky found you behind the counter, curled up tight in the corner, back pressed against the wall, arms wrapped around your knees, eyes squeezed shut, and hands clamped over your ears. You were rocking, small, rhythmic movements, like your body was trying to calm itself the only way it knew how.

Bucky carefully crouched down beside you.

“Hey,” he said softly, “it’s me. You’re safe now. They’re gone.”

You didn’t see him and didn’t hear him, you didn’t flinch when he crouched beside you, didn’t move when he reached out but stopped short, afraid to touch you. Your chest heaved in ragged and shallow breaths, as if even the air had turned against you.

You didn’t respond, just kept rocking, the same distant, hollow look frozen on your face. You weren’t fully there, your mind had retreated somewhere deep, sealed itself behind a door and refused to come out.

The soft rocking didn’t stop, your lips moved, but no sound came.

“Hey,” he whispered again. “It’s over.”

Nothing.

Bucky knew that place you were in. He’d lived there, knew what it felt like when your body stopped feeling your own, when your mind disconnected and drifted somewhere unreachable, with no promise of return.

His hand finally dropped, slow and careful, resting gently on the floor beside yours, still not touching, waiting. You didn’t move.

“Please, look at me,” Bucky’s arm rose shakily and stopped just an inch from your shoulder before slowly brushing the back of his fingers against it.

You flinched violently, a choked, guttural sound bursting from your throat as you recoiled, arms flying up to shield your head, body curling in on itself, shrinking down, bracing for something awful.

“I’m not…I’m not gonna hurt you,” he said quickly, the words tripping over his breath, even as he tried to steady his tone. “Hey, it’s me. It’s just me.”

You shook your head in sharp denial, lips parting in a frantic whisper – no, no, no – again and again.

At first, it was just pressure. Arms. Someone’s arms wrapped around you, slowly, hesitantly, carefully, as though whoever it was wasn’t sure they should be doing it. You didn’t register who it was, your body didn’t give you time, acting on pure instinct as it jolted and you screamed – a raw, cracking sound that tore out of you louder than you thought possible.

“No, …don’t,” you gasped as you pushed against them, trying to twist away, your breath coming in short, shallow gasps. You thrashed, tried to shove away the arms, the weight, the contact as your fists uselessly beat against something solid – a chest, a shoulder – hard, broad and unmoving. You felt fabric. A jacket. The scrape of a zipper.

“Hey, hey…” the voice came low, just beside your ear. It was familiar, soft. “It’s me. It’s just me. You’re alright. You’re safe now. Just… just breathe, okay?”

You didn’t. You couldn’t. Your breath kept catching in your throat, your chest tightening as though it didn’t know how to work anymore.

“Can you hear me?” Bucky asked and your mind finally registered that it was really him.

You nodded a little, barely.

His arm stayed wrapped around your shoulders, warm and unmoving while his other hand, the gloved one, settled lightly against your back. His touch wasn’t soft exactly, but it was gentle, like he’d thought about every place he could hold you and chose the safest ones.The pressure wasn’t hard, but it anchored you as his palm moved slowly, just a slight shift. Up, down.

He was rocking you now.

“Try to match me,” he said. “Breathe in.”

With a sob trembling on your lips you sucked in air too fast. It hitched, ugly, useless, and you almost choked on your own breath

“It’s okay,” he said. “Try again.”

You could feel his chest against you, broad and muscular, but not crushing, just steady like he knew exactly how much weight to give and nothing more.

You didn’t mean to lean into it, you didn’t even realize you had, until your forehead rested against the curve of his shoulder and you could smell him – leather and sweat.

“Let’s do it together. Breathe in,” he repeated, inhaling slowly, his voice even quieter now. “There you go, in and out. Slow. You’re doin’ good.”

You followed it this time, barely, but it was enough, your fists slowly unclenched, but one stayed gripping his sleeve, you didn’t even remember grabbing it.

“Don’t think. Just breathe. In and out.”

Bucky’s chest rose and fell steadily, and you focused on that, on the weight of his arm around your shoulders, on the sound of his breathing.

His hand on your back… it felt strange, stiffer, harder, as if something hidden beneath the glove wasn’t quite right, but it wasn’t harsh. He kept it gentle, stroking your back, its movement rhythmic, but not touching more than he needed to.

“I’ve got you,” he said again.

You didn’t answer, not out loud, but your body gave in and you leaned into him a little more.

Your kitchen was warm and quiet, the light above buzzing faintly. You pressed a cotton pad soaked with antiseptic to the cut in Bucky’s forearm and he flinched, not from the pain but from the touch itself.

You weren’t sure how long you’d sat on the floor behind the counter earlier, folded into his arms, his grip steady and quiet and solid around you. He hadn’t rushed you, hadn’t asked if you were okay. He’d known you weren’t and that asking wouldn’t help. So he just held you, tucked awkwardly but securely against his chest.

He didn’t let go until your fingers finally loosened their grip on his sleeve, until your breath started to even out, until your body, still shaken, had come back to itself.

After that, he helped you clean up the mess the fight had left behind including the broken chair and table. He locked the door, flipped the sign, turned off the lights. Neither of you said much beyond the basics. Where’s the mop? Where should this go? You didn’t know what else to say. He didn’t seem to, either. He walked you home, in silence.

It was only at your door, just as he turned to leave, his sleeve shifted and you caught the smear of red blooming through the fabric on his forearm, and now he was here, sitting in your kitchen, jacket off, sleeve rolled up.

His eyes were on you, watching, tracking your every move, but you didn’t look up. Not yet. The silence started getting heavy, but you still didn’t know what to say.

“I just wanted…”

“About last night…” both of you spoke at once and both stopped.

Bucky looked down at the floor, then up, then back down again, rubbing the back of his neck.

You folded the gauze you’d used, just to have something to do.

Bucky cleared his throat. “You go.”

“No, it’s okay,” you said, voice quiet. “You first.”

He nodded, but didn’t speak right away, just stared at his hands, the one gloved, the other freshly bandaged.

“I, uh… I wanted to say I’m…” He paused, swallowed. “I’m sorry.”

You blinked. “For what?”

His eyes darted to yours, then away again just as fast. He looked like he wanted to crawl out of his own skin.

“For… being there. Last night.” The words came out rough. “I wasn’t… I didn’t mean… I didn’t even…” He stopped himself, ran a hand through his hair. “I shouldn’t have been there.”

You didn’t say anything as you were still trying to make sense of what he was actually apologising for.

“I mean, I wasn’t…shit…,” he dragged a hand down his face, cheeks slowly turning crimson. “I didn’t know, I swear, I didn’t know that’s…,” he cut himself off again, voice trailing into a frustrated sigh.

His leg bounced under the table, his fingers tightening into a fist.

“I just… I was stupid. I shouldn’t’ve gone and then I saw you and…” he shook his head. “I didn’t know what to do.”

You watched him unravel, slow and quiet and real, his usual stillness gone, replaced by a boyish, nervous energy you hadn’t seen before.

Bucky looked up, slowly. “It wasn’t about that, not really. I just… I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

His eyes widened slightly, as if he hadn’t meant to say that out loud, a flush crept into his cheeks as he immediately dropped his gaze again.

“I mean – not like that or not just like that. I don’t know what the hell I’m saying.” He groaned and stood up suddenly, pushing the chair back with a soft scrape. “Shit…sorry. I think I should go.”

“No, James,” you said quickly, reaching out to him but he wasn’t looking at you. He stood there, arms hanging somewhat awkwardly by his sides, eyes locked on a spot on the floor.

“I just wanted something to make it stop,” he said, quieter now. “The wanting. The… whatever it is I feel around you. It messes with my head, makes me forget myself and I thought if I just... took the edge off, maybe I could look you in the eye again without…” He shook his head.

You stood still, heartbeat in your throat. The words sank in slowly, as if your mind had to replay them twice just to believe what you’d heard. He wanted you, not just in passing or by accident, but enough that it scared him, enough that he’d gone looking for ways to make it stop.

“I wasn’t trying to replace you,” he continued. “That’s the thing. I know that now. I didn’t want anyone else, I just didn’t think I had any right to want you and… and I’m sorry. I’m sorry I went there. I’m sorry you saw me, I’m sorry I let you see how messed up I really am.”

He finally looked up at you. “Please don’t hate me,” he said as if the words hurt coming out.

Your breath caught in your throat and your fingers tightened slightly around the edge of the table as you stared at him.

You looked down at his hand, hanging by his side, his bare one, not the gloved one, and slowly, carefully, you reached out. Your fingertips brushed his knuckles first, feather-light and when he didn’t pull away, you gently curled your fingers around his.

He froze and you heard the sharp breath he sucked in, saw the way his jaw tightened.

“Hate you?” you echoed softly, eyes still on the wound you were tending. “James, you just risked your neck taking on men no one else even dares to argue with.” Your thumb brushed faintly across the skin of his forearm. “You sat with me while I fell apart… helped me clean up, walked me home and now you’re sitting here asking me not to hate you?”

You gave a small, sad smile and leaned back slightly against the table behind you. “I thought you’d never come back after last night. That you’d seen me there and decided I wasn’t…” You hesitated. “Wasn’t worth the trouble.”

Bucky blinked, his mouth parted slightly, then shut again, and his brows drew together like the words physically pained him.

You took a breath, steadied yourself, and kept going.

“I’m not proud of it,” you said, voice low but sure. “But I’m not ashamed either.”

His eyes snapped up, surprised, not at your confession, but at the strength in your tone. There was no bitterness, no apology.

“This is what it takes,” you said. “My mom’s got a heart condition. She needs medication every month just to keep things steady. It’s expensive and not covered. And we try, God knows, we try to make the shop work, but it’s never enough. Rent, bills, food – there’s always something.”

You paused, mouth dry, your other hand nervously fidgeting with the edge of the tablecloth.

“She doesn’t know,” you said finally. “If she ever found out how I’m paying for it… she wouldn’t take the pills. She’d rather die than let me… do this.”

Your voice cracked, just barely, as you looked down.

“So I’m asking you,” you murmured, “please don’t tell anyone, especially not her, and please… don’t hate me.”

There was a beat of silence, then Bucky’s head snapped up like you’d struck him.

“What?” His voice came out stunned, almost breathless.

You gave a small, bitter laugh. “You asked me not to hate you, remember?” You glanced at him. “So I guess… now it’s my turn.”

His brow furrowed, deep, as he shifted closer. “You really think I could hate you?”

Your gaze dropped again. “I don’t know. Maybe. Sometimes I think I’d hate myself, if I were someone else, if I found out the way you did…”

You stood there, so close you could feel the heat of him, your hand still holding his, the tension in his fingers making your own tremble slightly.

He swallowed hard, eyes flicking up to yours, then back down again.

“It’s Bucky,” he said, barely above a whisper. “Call me Bucky.”

The way he said it, it wasn’t casual, it wasn’t just a name, it was an offering, a piece of himself handed over to you as if something fragile.

“Okay,” you whispered, your lips tugging into a soft, surprised smile. “Bucky.”

He looked down at you, the sound of his name in your voice changing something in his expression, softening it, unraveling some quiet thread inside him. His features eased, and he leaned in, just slightly, until your breaths met in the narrow space between you, until your noses nearly brushed.

But then, at the very last second, he paused and pulled back, and you had a feeling he was bracing for rejection, for punishment, for something to crash down and ruin this before it even began.

You didn’t let him retreat.

“I like that name,” you murmured, rising to your tiptoes, your hand lifting to his face, fingertips grazing the edge of his jaw as you tilted his chin toward you and pressed your lips to his.

Bucky exhaled sharply, it seemed almost the air had been punched from his lungs, but he didn’t pull away. His lips parted and he kissed you back, hesitant at first, then deeper, his hand tightening gently around yours.

When your tongue brushed his, he inhaled sharply through his nose, then kissed you deeper, his mouth parting to let you in and his tongue met yours with careful pressure, tentative at first, like he wasn’t sure he was allowed this much of you, but when you didn’t pull back, when you kissed him harder, he let go of the reins.

You leaned in closer, your hand still cradling his jaw, the warmth of his stubble beneath your palm tickling and grounding you simultaneously.

And that was the moment something inside him gave out, he groaned low in his throat, his free hand finding your waist, fingers curling tight into your shirt, seeking to hold onto something. You barely had time to catch your breath before he deepened the kiss, searching and hungry, mapping your mouth with his tongue with a kind of need that felt older than memory, the kind born from years of wanting nothing but to stay alive.

His hands moved, one sliding down to the back of your thighs, the other bracing your spine, and in one smooth, instinctive motion, he lifted you.

Your breath hitched as he picked you up like you weighed nothing, your legs wrapping around his hips without thought. He stepped forward, guiding you gently backwards and setting you down on the table, not breaking the kiss for a second.

You gasped softly as Bucky moved between your legs, hands firm at your hips, his body was warm and solid between your thighs, his mouth eager and relentless.

You could feel the tremble in him, even as he held you. Every kiss carried a storm of want, fear, and aching restraint, each touch told you he'd been waiting for this for far too long, that closeness had always come with pain, either his own or someone else's and yet, in this moment, he let it happen, he let himself be there, with you, without pulling away.

A soft, guttural sound escaped him, low in his throat, muffled against your lips. It made your stomach twist and heat spread low and fast.

You tangled your fingers in the front of his shirt, pulling him closer, and his hands moved without hesitation now, one sliding up the curve of your waist to your ribs, thumb brushing beneath the edge of your shirt, the other gripping your hip, firm and anchoring, keeping you where he wanted you.

You arched into him instinctively, and you moaned softly, feeling his arousal pressing against you, hot and hard even through the layers between you. He groaned softly, the sound lost against your mouth, his hips stuttering forward like he couldn’t help it.

Your breath caught, fingers curling into his shirt, but just when it seemed he might give in completely, he froze. Something inside him slammed shut, his hands went still, breath stuttering against your cheek, and his forehead dropped to your shoulder.

He stayed that way, silent, unmoving, chest heaving as though dragging himself back from some invisible edge while the tension in him buzzed under your hands, his whole body wound into hesitation, caught between fear and want.

Slowly, he pulled back.

You blinked at him, lips still parted, heart hammering in your chest as his gaze searched your face, looking for something, maybe for a sign, or for a reason not to do what he was about to do.

“I need to… show you something,” he said hoarsely.

You blinked, startled. “Okay.”

He stepped back a fraction, as if putting even that tiny bit of distance between you made it easier to breathe, and looked down at his left hand – the gloved one. Without another word, he began to peel it off, slowly, as if it cost him.

You hadn’t thought much of it before, he always wore it, even when it was warm, even when it didn’t make sense.You knew he was working in construction, and the most reasonable thing to assume was that the hand was damaged, may be broken and healed wrongly, may be something else.

The leather creaked until it finally slipped free and there it was. Metal – seamless and gleaming in the low light.

Bucky didn’t look at you, his jaw was clenched tight, eyes fixed on the floor as if he couldn’t bear to see your reaction.

“This is what I am,” he said, voice low and bitter. “A monster. You must have heard the stories. They are all true.”

You opened your mouth, but nothing came out yet. You were too stunned, not by the metal, but by the pain in his voice.

“I don’t deserve this,” he went on, motioning vaguely toward you. “Not you, not your kindness, not the way you look at me like I’m – like I’m good.” His voice cracked slightly, and he turned, as if he meant to walk away.

“Bucky,” your voice was sharper than you intended, but it stopped him cold, he froze, half turned away, shoulders stiff.

“Don’t,” you said, more quietly this time. “Don’t walk away from me. Don’t end this, whatever this is, before it has even started.”

He turned, slowly, reluctantly, eyes flicking to yours and then down again, still expecting to see fear or disgust there. The metal arm hung at his side – a weight he had long ago grown used to carrying, but never learned how to stop hiding.

“Take off your shirt,” you said softly.

His eyes widened. “What?”

“Your shirt,” you repeated, a little more firmly now. “I want to see you.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it again, he looked stunned, like you’d asked him to strip off his skin, not a shirt. “You don’t… you don’t want to see this.”

“I do,” you said, your voice steady. “All of you.”

He took a breath, shallow and shaky. “Why?”

“Because you’re standing in front of me, waiting to be punished for existing, and I just want to see you, Bucky. Not the name. Not the stories. You.”

His throat bobbed as he swallowed, and for a moment, he didn’t move, but then you reached for him, gently, fingers curling around his metal ones, the other hand sliding along his waist, tugging him back between your thighs until he stood close again. You let your hands find the hem of his shirt, pausing.

Still nothing from him – just breath, warm and unsteady against your cheek – so you tugged it upward.

He flinched, only slightly, but then lifted his arms and helped you pull it over his head.

The shirt hit the floor with a soft sound and there he was – lean muscle and scarred skin, the broad lines of his chest, the pale stretch of his stomach, the gleam of metal where it fused to flesh at his left shoulder with an angry seam.

Your fingers moved almost reverently, trailing across the curve of his human shoulder first, then down across his chest, then, carefully, you lifted your hand to the place where skin became steel, the place they had remade him.

You brushed your fingertips there, light and gentle, and Bucky shuddered beneath the touch.

“This must have hurt,” you whispered. “Beyond reason.”

He didn’t speak, but his eyes – dark, glassy, locked onto yours – said enough.

He couldn’t remember the last time someone had looked at him like this – like he wasn’t broken, like he could be wanted , like he could be seen.

Your palms settled at his shoulders and you leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to the scarred edge, right where the line blurred between man and machine.

His breath caught sharply.

Then another kiss, just a little higher, and then another, trailing gently up toward the curve of his neck.

You felt him tense, just slightly, as if unsure what he was supposed to do with this kind of tenderness, but then his hands came back to your waist – hesitant, as if he was asking for permission – and you didn’t pull away.

Instead, you leaned your forehead to his and whispered, “You’re not a monster, Bucky. Not to me.”

Your fingers curled lightly at the back of his neck, drawing him closer. His lips brushed yours once, barely there, then again, with a little more pressure, slowly letting go of all the hesitation that had built up inside him.

You felt his hands shift, slide around your back, palms large and warm as they pulled you gently against him. His chest rose against yours, so solid as if made of rock. Your mouths moved together, deeper now, his tongue swept tentatively against yours and he moaned softly into the kiss, so quiet, like it slipped out before he could stop it, making your stomach twist with heat.

You let your hands roam up his arms, across his shoulders, down the ridges of his back, feeling the way he trembled under your touch, as if he was holding himself together by sheer will.

He leaned into you more, his body fit between your thighs like it had always belonged there, and still, his lips never left yours. Bucky’s hands roamed, unsure at first, hovering, almost afraid to hold too tight, to want too much, but when you tangled your fingers in the back of his hair and pulled him closer, another quiet sound escaped him – something between a sigh and a moan – and he gave in.

His hands slid down to your thighs, grounding himself there, his touch still careful even as he pressed in closer between them.

You let your lips leave his just long enough to catch your breath, your forehead pressed against his again. His eyes were still closed, his long lashes brushing his cheek, chest rising and falling like he’d just run a mile.

“You okay?” you whispered.

He nodded, barely. “I just… I didn’t think this would ever happen.”

Your thumb traced a line down his cheekbone. “Me neither.”

You kissed him again, slower, deeper. His hand found your lower back, fingers splaying out, warm and strong, pulling you flush against him. There was nothing rushed in the way he moved, just longing held back too long, finally finding air.

Your hands slid up over the ridges of his chest, over the warm skin and hard muscle. When you touched the metal shoulder again, you felt him tense for a second, but he didn’t pull away.

Then, slowly, he bent to kiss your neck, lips brushing just beneath your jaw. Your fingers slid to his waistband, testing the boundary, and he stilled, forehead pressed to yours, breath hitching like the air had just gotten thinner.

“Hey,” you whispered, your lips grazing his. “It’s just me.”

He let out a broken sound that might’ve been a laugh or a prayer. “What are you…? Wait… I…” is voice cracked, low and raw as your fingers deftly unbuckled his belt, undid the zipper and slipped inside, wrapping around him. “Oh, God.”

You gave him a slow stroke, feeling him instantly getting rock hard and pulsing.

“No… no… God, no…” he breathed, but his hips betrayed him, stuttering into your touch. “I… I can’t… oh fuck…it’s too much… I’m…”

His words dissolved into a strangled breath, hips jerking once more despite himself, his one hand clutched the edge of the table, the other buried in the fabric at your lower back, holding on for dear life.

“Shit,” he hissed, head dropping to your shoulder, forehead pressed into your skin, slick with the heat rising in him too fast and too strong as your touch sent shivers down his spine.

His forehead rested against your shoulder, damp with sweat, his eyes shut tight, fingers trembling where they gripped your back, and every exhale sounded more like a broken moan.

You could feel it in the way his breath faltered, how it hitched, caught, and broke somewhere between your collarbone and the soft space behind your ear. He was shaking now, as if his body couldn’t quite keep up with what he was feeling, as if it was all too much, too fast, and somehow still not enough.

You gave his pulsing cock another slow and gentle stroke, as you felt it twitching and warmth spilling over your hand, quiet and sudden, followed by a low, broken groan that tore from somewhere deep in his chest. You didn’t pull away, you kept your touch steady, gentle, letting him ride it out, but Bucky froze.

His breath hitched sharp, and he pulled back, horror already creeping into his eyes before he’d even looked at you fully.

“Hey,” you murmured, your thumb brushing across the edge of his hip before he could say a word. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not… I’m…shit…” He swallowed hard, hands fumbling as he tried to fasten his pants. “You must think I’m…”

“Bucky,” you said softly, cutting him off, your hand reaching up to cup his cheek, guiding his gaze back to yours. “Please, look at me.”

He hesitated, but slowly, his eyes found yours.

“Can you just… for one moment,” you whispered, “accept that I really like you? And that I want you. I’ve wanted you since the day I knocked on your door asking for sugar and that hasn’t changed. Not because we owe something to each other, or what you think I expect.”

Your thumb brushed along the line of his jaw, and your voice dipped a little, quieter now, but still honest. “I don’t think anything. I know how it feels to be broken, to be used and casted away. I know how it feels to be lonely and starved for love.”

He stared at you, unmoving, his breath faltered, not sharp or dramatic, just a quiet stutter, and his eyes flicked to your lips, then back to your eyes, as if checking again, making sure this was real.

“I didn’t think…” he started, then stopped, his brow pinched, and he shook his head slightly, trying again. “I don’t know what to do with that.”

You smiled gently, thumb stroking his cheekbone.

“You don’t have to do anything.”

But he did, he lifted his hand slowly, uncertainly, like you might vanish if he moved too fast. His fingers brushed your jaw, calloused and warm, then settled against your neck, hesitant but tender.

“I’ve imagined this – you saying something like that. Me… being allowed to hear it, but I thought if I got too close, I’d ruin it…and I did…”

“You didn’t ruin anything,” you said, holding his gaze – those impossibly blue eyes that still made your heart stutter every time they landed on you. Eyes that had followed you quietly, gently, from doorways and reflections, across rooms and silent hallways. They didn’t just watch, they had always made you feel seen and wanted. Not in a way that burned or demanded, but in a way that was steady and sweet, the kind of wanting you’d half-convinced yourself didn’t exist anymore.

Bucky’s thumb traced your cheek. “You’re the only good thing I’ve got,” he whispered, almost ashamed of how much he meant it. “You walked into my life and I haven’t stopped thinking about you since.”

He leaned in, slower this time, and his lips found yours again in a soft, searching kiss, trembling at first, betraying how much he still didn’t trust it, but then it got deeper and more certain.

He exhaled against your mouth, a shaky sound so soft, so full of relief it made your heart ache.

“Then stay,” you breathed against his lips. “Stop running, and stay.”

His forehead came to rest against yours, his eyes still shut, his hand cradling your cheek, as he whispered back. “Tell me this isn’t just a dream.”

You wrapped your arms around him, holding him close. “It’s not.”

It did feel like a dream though, hours later as you lay in your bed with sheets tangled around your legs, warm and soft and smelling faintly of him – soap, sweat, something deeper, something his. Your body felt heavy and pleasantly sore in the best way as every inch of you had been touched, worshipped, held like something precious.

You’d lost count of how many times he’d pulled you over the edge, how many times he’d made you unravel with his hands, his mouth, his cock, his whispered name on your lips.

Your body still hummed with how he had touched you, like every inch of your skin mattered, how he had pushed inside you, like he was learning you by heart, afraid to miss a single detail, kissing every moan, every stuttering breath from your lips, reading your every expression.

You lay on your side, curled toward him, one leg slung loosely over his. Bucky was half-asleep, his breathing deep and steady, one arm slung protectively around your waist, his bare chest rising and falling against your cheek. You could feel the smoothness of his dog tags where they rested between your collarbones, cool against your skin.

His metal hand, surprisingly gentle, rested on the small of your back, fingers twitching now and then almost as if he had to keep checking you were still here. You’d half expected him to pull away after, to retreat into himself, but he hadn’t, not even for a second. He’d held you like you were safety, like you were home.

You sighed, a quiet, content sound, and pressed a kiss to the underside of his jaw, and the scruff there scraped lightly against your lips.

“I’m not dreaming, right?” you whispered, not expecting an answer.

But his voice came anyway, low and hoarse from sleep. “If you are,” he murmured, “don’t wake me.”

You smiled into his skin and closed your eyes again, the steady thud of his heart beneath your palm easing you back into undisturbed sleep as for the first time in a long, long while everything was quiet and everything was good. Everything.

#bucky barnes #bucky x reader

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