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mrs-stans · 3 months ago

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GQ Hype

How Sebastian Stan became Donald Trump in The Apprentice

With an uncanny performance as a young Donald Trump in The Apprentice and an even less recognisable turn in A Different Man, the shapeshifting actor is embracing his freaky side

By Ben Allen Photography by Daniel Jack Lyons

Coat by Loewe. Boots by Dolce & Gabbana.Necklace by Cartier.Daniel Jack Lyons

When Sebastian Stan was growing up in Romania in the 1980s, he began to learn English through passive immersion. His mother, a concert pianist, would regularly play English music and language lessons on the family record player while they were going about their day. “I’d be playing with toys and I’d hear, like, ‘frog’ and ‘dog’, or whatever,” Stan says. It meant that by the time the actor moved to Vienna at age eight, where he attended an American international school – and later, when he moved to New York at 12 – he had a decent jumping-off point. “I’m a big believer in putting yourself in a situation where, subconsciously, there’s work being done.”

In the past two years, Stan has put that method to use in a very different way. As he entered preproduction to play Donald Trump in Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice – which charts the former President and current Republican candidate’s early rise through the New York property scene – he started spending his waking hours with tapes of the young Trump playing in his ears. He brushed his teeth with Trump, he went grocery shopping with Trump, he spoke to friends with one earphone in, Trump still nattering away in his ear. “I slept with him, by the way,” Stan says, well aware of how strange that sounds. “It just sort of ends up taking over your life.” He’s sitting somewhere in Los Angeles at lunchtime, speaking to me over Zoom, with the afternoon sun reflecting off his chlorine-blue eyes.

Jacket and shirt by Gabriela Hearst. Hat by Gladys Tamez. Ring by Cartier.

The Apprentice, which Stan first signed up for in 2022, explores the question, ‘How did Trump get like this?’ (The answer, it posits, has a lot to do with Roy Cohn, a lawyer and prosecutor who had risen to prominence in the 1950s as Senator Joseph McCarthy’s attack dog in the communist witch-hunts.) The film is the latest in a string of freaky, transformation-heavy roles that have run parallel alongside Stan’s very mainstream 13-year-and-counting stint as Captain America’s pal Bucky Barnes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which has made him a globally recognised action star. The Apprentice lands this month in the UK, two weeks after A Different Man, an A24 production in which Stan plays an aspiring actor with neurofibromatosis, a genetic condition that has caused the growth of non-cancerous tumours on his face. They’re not your typical actor-in-between-superhero-outings roles – and the fact that Stan is spending so much time in the make-up chair outside of the blockbusters is indicative of a desire to get truly lost in his work.

I started to think a lot about the American dream. What is it? Is it a ghost you keep chasing?

Preparing to play Trump, he says, was like any other time he has portrayed a real-life person – take, say, Tonya Harding’s ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, in I, Tonya, or Tommy Lee in Pam & Tommy. But this time around it came with an added layer of stress. “There’d be nights when my anxiety levels would be through the roof, because I’d be like, Why did I say yes to this?” he says with a laugh.

But Stan thrives when he leans into fear. He had been terrified of I, Tonya, and even more terrified of Pam & Tommy – which, in its exploration of the couple’s romance and sex tape, involved a scene where Lee converses with a silicone puppet of his penis. (The latter earned him Golden Globe and Emmy nominations.) Trump was a different beast. “I thought, I don’t know if this is doable. I don’t know if I have it in me,” he says. “But it’s not not gonna happen because I’m scared of it.”

Coat, shirt and tie by Ludovic de Saint Sernin. Trousers by Gabriela Hearst. Boots and gloves by Versace. Hat by Gladys Tamez. Daniel Jack Lyons

Jacket and shirt by Gabriela Hearst. Hat by Gladys Tamez. Daniel Jack Lyons

When his mother told him he was going to be leaving Vienna for the United States at 12 years old, Stan felt like the floor had fallen from beneath him. “It was like you were telling me that my life was over,” he says. His mother was a single parent and had met an American man and fallen in love; he wanted to bring them both to live with him in New York. Stan remembers crying in the shower in the days leading up to the move. After departing Romania a few years before, he had worked hard to forge new friendships. Now, he’d have to rebuild from the bottom up again. “That did feed me resilience, because it did allow me to get better at restarting and restarting,” he says. “It fed a lot of who I am.”

Upon arriving in America, he started working on his impersonation of an American teenager. “I was so traumatised by being different,” he says. He refused to speak Romanian, even at home. He didn’t tell anyone he was from a foreign country. “I wanted to change my name to Christopher,” he says. “I wanted to be as normal in America as anybody else.” Having already set the ball rolling with his passive English lessons as a child, he was able to adopt a seamless New York accent, leaving little to betray his otherness. He tried out every personality marker available to him at school, to figure out which one fitted: debate team, forensics, every sport he could muster, and drama, eventually gravitating towards the latter. “I became popular in high school through acting,” he says. “I went on dates. I found my path.”

Still, this otherness was a part of Stan, as much as he initially tried to suppress it. As he came to appreciate life in America – in a middle-class household, with a good education – he began to reappraise his background, and felt a sense of gratitude to his stepfather for bringing them over, and for the drive it seeded within him. “This idea that you’ve been so lucky to have been selected to get this opportunity,” he says. “I was able to seize it and work with it, but on the other hand it’s a never-ending burden because you go, ‘You better not blow it!’” He remembers taking a walk through the city on their arrival, gawping up at the skyscrapers, when his mother impressed upon him that very sentiment: “You see these buildings? This is where you have a chance to become something.” He thought about this conversation quite a lot while he was playing Trump, probably because it feels like a scene ripped right out of a more varnished biography of the former President. “I started to think a lot about the American dream, and sort of like, what is it?” he says. “Is it a ghost you keep chasing?”

That was a way of me understanding that you're just out there, like target practice.

When Stan was doing theatre in high school, he loved getting a chance to transform and become a different person entirely. “You’re 14, 15, and you’re playing parts where you have to be, like, 35 years older than you are, and you have to change your appearance, you have to change everything, and you have to walk a certain way,” he says. “That shit was fun.” He would find himself craving those meatier transformations later, after landing a run of roles in Hollywood playing traditionally hot villains and heroes in Gossip Girl and in the Captain America movies. “Watching Christian Bale do The Fighter and watching him do Batman and Vice and The Machinist… He was a guy that, to me, could have made very conventional choices because he’s very good at any of it. But then he’s trying these things.”

Opportunities like this aren’t necessarily afforded to nascent actors. In a weird way, you kind of have to wait for your face to become recognisable before you’re allowed to start messing with it. The first real taste Stan got of this was in 2017 – after he had been solidly established as a Marvel hero – in the Margot Robbie-led, Oscar-winning I, Tonya, which told the story of the assault on figure skater Nancy Kerrigan, orchestrated by her Olympic rival Tonya Harding’s camp. For Harding’s ex-husband – who sets the assault in motion – they were looking for someone very different to Stan. The real Gillooly is slight and short, with narrow features. Stan felt his teen-drama looks would work against him in the audition process. “I’m like, ‘I’m gonna walk into that room and they’re gonna see the taller guy, The CW [the young-people-melodrama US TV network that first aired Gossip Girl] guy.’ I felt like I was going to be immediately judged.”

Coat and pyjamas by Dolce & Gabbana. Daniel Jack Lyons

I, Tonya director Craig Gillespie saw in Stan a capacity to become Gillooly. “I was familiar with Captain America: Civil War and his work there, and I couldn’t quite picture it [at first],” Gillespie tells me. “But he actually turned up [to the audition] in the turtleneck and the moustache, almost in character. And the transformation, and his instincts tonally and comedically… He was actually improvising things in the scene that worked incredibly well.”

Gillespie was impressed not just by how Stan had remoulded himself in the shape of someone else, but by his ability to tap into the character’s humanity, too. “It has to be emotionally resonant,” he says. “You have to be able to connect to the characters… He completely commits, which is an incredibly scary proposition for an actor.” Still, Stan was filled with anxiety heading into I, Tonya. “The amount of fear I had was almost traumatising,” he says. But then he did it. “I worked so hard for that movie, and it worked.”

A DIFFERENT MAN takes things up another notch. The film was written and directed by Aaron Schimberg, a rising indie director whose work has explored how disability has impacted his life (Schimberg was born with a cleft lip and palate). In it, a prosthetics-heavy Stan plays Edward, an actor whose biggest break to date is a small role in a corporate training video about how to treat employees with facial differences in the workplace. Edward’s spirit has been crushed by the world around him, weathered by the relentless gawping of strangers and rejection. Then, he takes part in a clinical trial for a new drug that could remove the tumours from his face. It works. Edward fakes his death and adopts a new identity, looking just like regular old Sebastian Stan. But when Edward’s kind neighbour – played by The Worst Person in the World’s Renate Reinsve – stages a play about him, he finds himself in competition with Oswald (played by Adam Pearson, a British actor with neurofibromatosis) for the part. It is, to put it mildly, a confronting drama, excavating both society’s unwillingness to treat people with disabilities fairly and the fallacy of our terminal dissatisfaction with our looks.

Coat by McQueen. Shirt by Louis Vuitton. Trousers by Louis Vuitton. Tie by Dolce & Gabbana. Boots by Versace. Daniel Jack Lyons

Though the film treads across the noir and comic horror genres, and at points tips into the absurd, it feels most like a parable. “It’s another version of the American dream, right?” Stan says. “Don’t wish for the things you want; you don’t know what’s going to happen.”

During the shoot, Stan often had long stretches between having his facial prosthetics applied and his call time (the film’s make-up designer, Michael Marino, was simultaneously working on The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, and would sometimes have to squeeze Stan into make-up in the early hours before running to that job). So Stan would walk around New York, including parts of his own neighbourhood, wearing hyperrealistic prosthetics, getting just a little taste of what his life would be like if he had been dealt a different hand. At one point, he went to his local coffee shop, where a barista he has known for years was working the counter. “She was so busy handling stuff, and suddenly she turned and she didn’t expect to see me,” he says, “and I could see the shock going immediately into overcompensation.” Pearson told him that those are the reactions that he is most often confronted with as a person with a disability: shock verging on repulsion, and guilty, over-the-top kindness.

Schimberg helped Stan to draw a neat line between Edward’s life and his own experience of fame. The one thing they had in common is how they’re observed in public spaces. “He said, ‘You have to think about what it’s like to be recognised. And the sense that you’re fair game out there.’ That I could understand,” Stan says. “I’ll go to lunch with my mom and somebody will be filming me the entire time, pretending they’re not. Or I’ll see somebody look at me strangely and then they’ll whisper to their friends. Or I’ve had someone come and tap me and run away. The invasiveness of that… And I can’t do anything but just receive it.”

Stan is quick to clarify that his experience as a famous person is not really comparable, that it comes with all sorts of upsides. But this point of similarity helped him to fully embody the character. “That was a way of me understanding this thing – that you’re just out there, like target practice.”

Coat and pyjamas by Dolce & Gabbana. Daniel Jack Lyons

Production on The Apprentice was hazardously stop-start. Several times over, Stan began his Trump immersion routine – which also involved pounding Coca-Colas and peanut butter and jam sandwiches, among other things, to put on some very un-superhero bulk – only to find out that production had been suspended. At one point, the project came so close to overlapping with his next Marvel outing, next May’s Thunderbolts, that he had to start shredding instead – only for Thunderbolts to be postponed because of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Straight back to the PB&Js. All that work wasted. “I’m fuckin’ 41; I just worked pretty hard to get in shape here!” he says.

Stan’s Trump is admirably nuanced, particularly for a person who has been so widely imitated – on SNL, on late-night talk shows, every second of every day by comedians trying to make a name for themselves on TikTok – as to be reduced to a caricature in the public consciousness. Initially, it feels quite removed, but then you spot the shape his mouth curves into while enunciating words like “deal” and “loser”, a subtle pursing of the lips when he’s being spoken to, a hand gesture. As the movie progresses, the man with whom we’re all exhaustingly familiar comes closer and closer to the fore.

Suit and boots by Versace. Vest top by Schiesser. Hat by Gladys Tamez. Watch by Cartier. Daniel Jack Lyons

The challenge, in Stan’s eyes, was to tread the very fine line between interpretation and imitation. “It’s a balance between having the familiarity without it becoming sort of a schtick,” he says. “There is a small window of time where you are going through the impersonation phase, because you’ve got to get through that in order to come out the other end,” he says. “There is a mechanical, technical piece to it, and that comes from actually studying a person.” According to Stan’s mother, he spent much of his childhood relentlessly impersonating people he came in to contact with. “I’ve always been good at watching people,” he says.

I'm going to commit the fuck out of it and surrender myself to the story.

Once he got comfortable enough, he would take the show on the road – trying versions of the character out in restaurants to see if anyone would pick up on it. “Because there’s a thing getting born,” he says, “and you want to test it out in the world, but you don’t want to overdo it too quickly – then it gets frozen.” No one seemed to notice in the moment, which was at least some indication that he hadn’t tipped over into parody, but some friends who have seen the movie realised retrospectively: “They’ve come up to me after and said, ‘Now I see this fuckin’ weird thing you were doing!’”

When we meet Trump in The Apprentice, he is a footsoldier in his father’s company and significantly less self-assured, though he’s got the trademark wispy hair and the ill-fitting suits. The wheels begin to turn when he meets Cohn – portrayed here in typically committed fashion by Succession’s Jeremy Strong, with whom Stan only had the chance to interact in character on set – who begins to sculpt Trump in his own image, laying out his rules for success, which will be very familiar to anyone who has paid attention to Trump’s political career: 1) attack, attack, attack; 2) admit nothing and deny everything; and 3) always claim victory and never admit defeat.

Coat, trousers and shoes by McQueen. Vest top by Ami. Sunglasses by Jacques Marie Mages. Pin by Cartier. Daniel Jack Lyons

Stan seems reticent to get into the politics of The Apprentice, which depicts Trump as, among other things, a rapist, in a scene referencing allegations made in a deposition by his first wife Ivana during their divorce proceedings. (Trump has previously denied the rape allegation; Ivana later issued a statement clarifying that she had felt violated, but was not raped in a “literal or criminal sense”.) But the movie speaks for itself. And Trump’s camp is already speaking back: after the film premiered at Cannes in May, the presidential campaign’s chief spokesperson Steven Cheung called the movie “garbage”, “pure fiction” and “election interference by Hollywood elites”, while also threatening a lawsuit. In a press conference at the film festival, Abbasi suggested that an ideal release date would be in mid-September, to align with the second presidential debate (but the film, as it happens, is now due out on 11 October in the USA, and 18 October in the UK). It wouldn’t take Alan Turing to decipher the message being transmitted. But I try and press for a direct answer: does Stan feel an added sense of responsibility playing Trump in an election year? “You can’t not think about it,” he says. “But I had tremendous trust in Ali Abbasi and his vision for the movie. And it is an important story – I think the movie makes a great attempt at exploring: how did we get here? But I approached it with the same responsibility as I approached anything I ever got involved with, which is, I’m going to give this my all. I’m going to research the fuck out of it; I’m going to commit the fuck out of it and surrender myself to the story.”

Does he have any concerns about backlash from Trump or from MAGA supporters? “I mean, is there anything out there now that doesn’t get backlash? You can’t worry about what people think,” Stan says. “But I’m fully aware that I’m doing things that are not going to be for everybody.”

He’s not far off the mark. Even Marvel, the world’s highest-grossing movie franchise of all time, has faced quite a bit of criticism in recent years – in part for the way in which they’ve handled the transition to a new set of heroes and storylines since 2019’s Avengers: Endgame. Stan doesn’t have any time for it. “I’ve never been part of a company that puts so much heart and thought into anything,” he says. “I think if Marvel was gone, it’d be such a big hole to try and fill up. Don’t just go out there and shit on something without offering something better.”

Coat by Loewe. Boots by Dolce & Gabbana. Necklace by Cartier. Daniel Jack Lyons

He’s certainly not done with the MCU yet. Thunderbolts, which he’ll headline alongside Florence Pugh, will arrive in May next year. And he’s already looking beyond that, to a potential reunion with Robert Downey Jr, who has been announced to return in the next Avengers movie – not as Iron Man, but as the villain Doctor Doom. “I hope I’m in a scene with him,” Stan says. “Is there any other guy that could pull that off? I don’t know, probably not. After Tropic Thunder, is there anything that guy can’t do?” he says, laughing. It is perhaps the movie that I least expect Stan – or anyone, to be honest – to reference in 2024, but I should know better. Downey Jr is a transformation master, too. Game recognises game.

Trump doesn’t exist in the Marvel universe – or at least not yet – but if you spot a hint of him in Thunderbolts, you’ll know why. “I went off to Marvel after [The Apprentice],” Stan says. “And we were doing scenes, and I would do something, a thing or two, and be like, ‘Fuck! This is still living somewhere.’”

Styled by Sean Knight Hair by Erica Adams Grooming by Kc Fee using iS Clinical at Redefine Representation Set Design by Daniel Horowitz Production by May Kielany

#Sebastian Stan #The Apprentice #A Different Man #Thunderbolts*#Interview #Photoshoot #GQ British #GQ Hype #GQ #mrs-stans

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themovieblogonline · 8 months ago

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#cinderella #Hulu #lilyjames #MCU #netflix #SebastianStan

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buckysimp101 · 2 years ago

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Everything the Light Touches (18+) - Chapter Thirteen

Mafia!Bucky x Reader

chapter warnings: language, angst, drinking, unwanted touching/slight non-con (by a certain person. you’ll see)

a/n: hi bestiesssssss. i hope you’ve all been doing well and remember, if you want to be added to the taglist just let me know! side note: the ETLT masterlist post is at 900+ notes and that number makes me want to cry. do. thank YOU for reading and i hope you enjoy!

Series Masterlist

Bucky’d had the week from hell. The day you moved in he felt like he was holding his breath until he saw you interact with Alpine after his father left. Then he was being called away by Steve to talk about the situation with your parents and Pierce, a situation namely involved Caden Smith and his burgeoning role in the Pierce family as Alexander’s right hand.

“Steve I don’t care what the fuck we have to do to keep that fuck head away from her, but Smith is almost as dangerous to her as Pierce and Stinson combined. I don’t want him anywhere near my side of fucking town. You see him anywhere near her you kill him. I don’t give a fuck what it starts, that man will. Not. See. Her,” Bucky’d growled when Steve mentioned how Smith had been sneaking around their side of the city more as if placed on an undercover mission. Bucky had ground his teeth when he heard that Thor had caught Smith lounging around outside The Underworld. Bucky’s memory of the last time he’d seen Caden Smith, knocked out and bloodied outside the Stark Industries gala, brought to mind the words he’d said about you, aka the whole reason Bucky had knocked him out in the first place. Caden Smith may have seemed like a harmless, meager lackey when you first came to town, but that had quickly shifted.

Bucky had returned home late that night. He’d greeted Alpine when he walked in the door with a couple scratches and treats and as he walked to her room to play with her for a little bit he stopped at the sound of quite sobs and near hyperventilation coming from your room. Bucky’s body seized at the sound but as he approached your door to knock and check on you he heard talking on the other side.

“Wanda what the fuck d-do I do? I can’t run away, someone will find me. I am NOT marrying Liam fucking Stinson but is Bucky really any better?”

The implications in your wobbling voice that Bucky was as bad as Liam in your eyes cut him to the quick. A sharp stab of hurt and pain slicing at his heart had Bucky removing his hand from the door but also kept him frozen to the spot. Your quieted cries were dampened by another voice lightly cooing and speaking calmly.

“Sweetheart, you know the answer to that. You know that Bucky is a thousand times better than anything your parents and Liam could ever devise. I know he broke your heart. You know he broke your heart. Hell at this point, he knows. But you need to talk to him. Maybe it’ll help you to at least see more clearly why he did what he did…that doesn’t mean you have to like him or love him or ever want to be near him again. Just. Don’t murder the man. The way I see it, he’s your ticket to true freedom.”

That made Bucky step away. In that moment, Bucky began to truly realize the level at which he’d hurt you. Her’d slowly been processing it since the truth had come out at his father’s conference room table not long ago but he’d never truly looked into how he did the opposite of what he had planned to do. Bucky Barnes never wanted to hurt you. It was never in the cards for him. Bucky had been hurt when your parents unveiled the truth behind their plans to him at just nineteen years old. His immediate thought was that you had been involved and knew about what they had planned but there was always a small voice in the back of his mind saying it was bullshit. The voice suspiciously sounded a lot like Steve Rogers but he brushed past that.

Bucky Barnes had loved you with a passion so intense it could dissolve entire solar systems. But he couldn’t tell you that. Not now. Not after how he’d hurt you and been the one to destroy any semblance of a “blissful” future the two of you may have had. And now? Now he had no clue how to make it right.

And so, for the rest of the week Bucky stayed out of your way. At least that’s what he called it. Natasha said he was avoiding the inevitable. Sam said he was being an idiot. Even Steve huffed out a laugh at the latter. Bucky had spent the week going to work early and leaving work late. Going to Steve or Natasha’s after work to just give you time alone. He’d met with his father once to talk over the order he’d given regarding Caden Smith and George had seemed a little uncertain. But after mentioning the words that had come out of Smith’s mouth in regards to George Barnes’ future daughter-in-law he’d conceded almost immediately, grumbling something about ‘nobody talks like that about my daughter’ under his breath as he nodded his head in approval.

When Bucky had found out that you’d be going shopping for wedding dresses with his mother, Pepper and Natasha he’d almost died. His heart was practically galloping, thumping a military tattoo in his chest, but he kept it cool.

That is, if ‘keeping it cool’ is going to his father and practically begging for his grandmother’s ring back. Ever since he was a teenager, Bucky had plans on proposing to you with the Barnes family ring. It was a family heirloom. And it was always meant to be yours. At eighteen Bucky had taken to carrying it around with him, unsure of when he wanted to propose but always certain it would be you. Now? Bucky knew that the ring belonged to you. Even if this was a sham of a marriage. Even if this was a forced arrangement that would one day end in his heart and soul shattering but yours being set free. It was always yours. Just like his heart.

When he’d asked his father, George’s lips had quirked up and he had gone to the family safe and retrieved the ring that Bucky had returned to him almost a decade ago. When the box landed in Bucky’s hand George had spoken softly and somberly.

“Fix this, son. Before you truly fuck it up beyond repair.”

His father’s words had sat in his head. He’d stewed over them and their silent meaning. Bucky hadn’t seen you in time to give you the ring before dress shopping and he wasn’t sure when the best time would be. Until tonight, when he told you to get dressed for an outing to The Underworld under the guise of ‘being seen’ and ‘keeping up appearances.’ After a conversation on not avoiding each other anymore, he’d given you the ring and then headed to his office to give you space to process everything. It was something that he remembered you liked to do when the two of you used to fight or bring up big topics.

Sitting at his desk, Bucky poured himself two fingers of whiskey and drank deeply as Alpine jumped into his lap for pets. Sam had joked more than once that he always gave off Dr. Evil vibes in his home office with the fluffy white cat making appearances more than she stayed hidden away and the thought of that topic brought the ghost of a smirk to Bucky’s lips. Finishing his drink, Bucky headed to the front door to wait for you. You appeared in his line of sight and promptly took his breath away.

He wasn’t joking. Looking at you was like a sucker punch to the gut. It felt like all the air had been knocked out of his lungs as he looked you over slowly with a heated gaze. You were more beautiful. More ethereal. More. Fucking. Sexy. And that was a thought that Bucky needed to let go of pronto. When you cleared your voice and spoke the words he hadn’t heard in a decade Bucky truly thought his heart had stopped. That was having a heart attack. But there you were in front of him, ready to go out with him for the first time in a decade and he knew what he wanted. He wanted you. He would always want you. But in order to get you? He needed to gain your trust. Your forgiveness. And he was convinced he’d be willing to work the rest of his life to do so.

Bucky held the door to the car open for you and entered behind you, giving his driver, a young kid new to the family named Peter, a nod and directions to The Underworld before turning his head slightly to look at you. You were looking out the window, twiddling your fingers absentmindedly. Bucky reached his own hand to yours slowly, as if waiting for you to flinch or move away or glare at him for daring to touch you, but you did none of that. You continued looking out the window but Bucky could hear the deep inhale as he placed his hand over yours softly. And for the first time since he gave you the ring Bucky spoke.

“You look beautiful, Y/N.” His voice came out scratchy but delicate, a part of him was afraid that if he spoke to assuredly or too loudly that you’d shatter in front of him and disappear, like the vision he was still terrified you were. Ever since you’d walked through his front door Bucky was slowly becoming convinced that this was all a dream that he’d wake up from one day and you’d be missing from his life yet again.

Your thanks was silent. Your thanks was in the form of twisting your hand, palm facing his, and squeezing lightly.

The Underworld was busier than Bucky had seen it in a while. He knew he’d made the right decision of choosing his club to be seen with you for the first time in years. Thor personally led the two of you to the VIP section and Bucky swore his eyes weren’t working right. Because you thanked Thor with a breathy voice and fluttery lashes, a hint of a smile creeping onto your face. And Bucky didn’t like that. He didn’t like that one bit.

“Thanks, Odinson. Back to the door with you,” he growled in the direction of his man, who in return forced his attention away from you to Bucky with the raise of a brow. Bucky glared in return and Thor walked away with both hands up in mock defense as he walked backwards out of the VIP booth. You whipped your head around to glare at Bucky, your frosty gaze chilling out the heat he’d felt moments ago.

“That was rude. Do you treat all of your staff like that?” You bit out, raising a brown questioningly to Bucky but before he could answer another person was interrupting.

“Oh come on sweetheart, you know Buck. Never knows when to lay off,” Steve Rogers purred from his place next to you. Fucking purred. You grinned up at him and Bucky felt the heat of anger return. Steve was fucking with him, Bucky knew that, but damn if it didn’t hurt him to see you acting like you and Steve had never stopped being friends. He was certain that you’d befriend Sam again before you befriended Steve since the former was left mostly in the dark, but apparently you’d either decided to forgive him or at the very least let him again. Bucky could barely hear the words Steve was saying to you and vice versa over the pounding of his heart in his ears. But he did eventually pick up on the other new voice coming from the VIP entrance. Natasha.

“Well don’t we look all comfy cozy. Welcome back to the Underworld, Seph. Did Master Hades finally drag you back?” Natasha drawled with a growing teasing grin on her lips and your face seemed to mimic it. And that caused Bucky’s blood to freeze. You seemed more at home here with Natasha and Steve, in the dimly lit atmosphere of The Underworld, than you had in the last week of living in his apartment. And Bucky was going to right that. Before he could speak though, you were being whisked off to find Clint and whatever poison he was mixing up tonight with Natasha on one side and Steve on the other.

Bucky took a seat at the booth, settling in with a glass of whiskey he poured from his hidden stash as he watched you interact with your former friends. You and Natasha had started getting along a little more in the last week and apparently you had decided to let Steve in too. Maybe a little too much. Because next thing Bucky knew you were throwing your head back in laughter at something Steve had said and you were clutching Steve’s bicep with your small hand, Bucky could see the punk’s eyes shimmering with delight from where he was sitting. And that look on your face? He did not like it. Not one bit.

Bucky knew what that face was. He knew what you were doing. You weren’t talking to Steve like he was your “bestie for ten years.” No. You were looking at Steve Rogers like he was the ‘golden retriever, boy next door, Captain America’ that you’d teased Bucky about all those years ago.

You. Were. Flirting.

And Bucky was going to be sick. Or kill someone. Namely Steve because he was flirting back in the way that friends do. But in a way that Bucky was not enjoying one bit. Bucky was in the middle of grinding his teeth and squeezing the table, two seconds from standing up and demanding Steve to step the fuck back, too engrossed in figuring out how to pull Steve away without punching him to see someone slide into the booth next to him. A small hand slipped into Bucky’s lap inching ever closer to the inside of his thighs and a pair of lips attached themselves to his neck, kissing and sucking lightly up to his jaw. And Bucky’s entire body froze.

Megan. Shit. Maybe coming to The Underworld wasn’t the best place for this public outing to happen.

“Bucky Bear, I’ve missed you. Where’ve you been hiding at, baby?” Megan cooed in his ear before nibbling it and adjusting herself to straddle Bucky’s thigh, her green eyes sparkling as she leaned in to kiss Bucky. At the right moment Bucky ducked out of the way, his brain running a million miles a second with blaring sirens flashing ABORT ABORT ABORT.

Megan pouted her lips, obviously upset that Bucky was avoiding her kiss and moved to grind her hips on Bucky’s thigh. Bucky quickly deposited Megan off his lap and into the seat next to him as he struggled to take in a calming breath and ran a hand through his hair.

“Baby, what’s wrong? Here, let Megan fix it. My Bucky Bear just needs a wet hot mouth to cum in and it’ll all be better-“ she began moving her hand to Bucky’s zipper and that seemed to snap him out of whatever weird semi-catatonic state he was in. Bucky grabbed Megan’s wrist and held it light enough to not hurt her, but strong enough to show he meant business.

“Let go, Megan. This isn’t happening.”

“What do you mean it’s not happening?” She fluttered those fake lashes up at him and tried to look innocent but it just made Bucky’s stomach roll. You were here. You were here with him, albeit somewhat forced but still. And Bucky was damned if he was gonna let Megan ruin that. He fixed Megan with a glare that he hoped she’d understand as him being serious but apparently it wasn’t good enough. She pursed her lips into a deeper, faker pout and spoke again, “Come on, Barnes. Let me do this for you. Look at you, you’re all tense, I can help with that. We can sneak off to the storage room. Piss off, Romanoff. Like old times.”

Bucky couldn’t handle Megan’s attempt to seduce him and he very much so wanted her off his lap immediately so he said the first thing that came to mind.

“I’m getting married, Megan.”

She froze. Honest to god Bucky thought someone had just pressed pause on the Megan Rollins Show because she didn’t blink or breathe. Until she did. And then Megan was plastering what Bucky guessed was supposed to be a seductive grin on her lips as she ran her pointer finger up and down his jaw line and neck before attempting to sit in his lap yet again.

“Oh baby, that’s okay. I can be your mistress. Every succesful man has one and I doubt whatever shrew you’re marrying could ever possibly bring you to your knees like I ca-“

“Not happening, Megan. This is over. We’re over.” Bucky spoke holding Megan firmly off his lap and away from him, but his eyes were focused on you dancing with Steve and Natasha on the dance floor. And Bucky hated it.

“What do you MEAN we’re over!? I don’t know what’s going through that head of yours but you NEED me, Barnes. ME. Not some whore who can’t keep up with you. ME!” Megan was practically screeching from her place next to him. But he didn’t want to be here with Megan. He wanted to be out there with you. With his friends. He wanted the whole world to know you were his and more importantly, that he was yours.

Well you’re not gonna be able to do that with Megan clinging onto you and trying to ride you into oblivion dumbass. Fucking MOVE, he thought to himself before sliding out the opposite end of the booth. Megan’s face was taking on a scary shade of beet red due to the rejection and embarrassment she was feeling. But before she could say anything else to piss Bucky off he was making his way to the DJ stand at the head of the dance floor, catching you by surprise by the arm on his way.

You wriggled in his hold, confusion written all over your face but before you could ask him what he was doing Bucky was grabbing the microphone from the DJ and speaking.

“Welcome everyone to The Underworld. Many of you I’ve seen before and some I haven’t, but I appreciate your patronage. Tonight is a very special night and I’m ordering a round for everyone because I am marrying Y/N/ L/N and there’s nothing that anyone will ever or can ever do about it.”

The words were out before Bucky even realized what he was doing. When he looked at you your eyes were wide and a look akin to fear was flashing through your eyes and Bucky swore his face was probably a reflection of yours. Cause Bucky had just done something pretty stupid.

He’d just staked his claim in front of the entirety of The Underworld. He’d just outed your ‘relationship’ to the world without a second thought. He’d done so in a place where he knew Pierce was sending spies. But before he could say anything to you, to apologize discretely, applause broke out across the club as people began flooding Clint and the rest of the bar staff for their free drink. You turned to face him slowly, anger and fear pasted on your face, and if Bucky looked behind you he knew he’d see the same on Steve and Natasha’s as well. But you didn’t say anything. You couldn’t fuss with him. Not in this space where all the attention was going to be on the two of you until you left. So. Bucky whispered in your hair the first thing that came to mind as he slid his arm around your waist to pull you tight against him to allow him to bend down to press a “kiss” into your hair.

“Fuck.”

“My sentiments exactly,” you growled back while hiding behind a broad smile and a glass of champagne that was being handed to you by a well-wishing patron as you dug your nails into Bucky’s arm while trying to look like a loving couple.

You fucked up, Barnes. Say goodbye to the peace you were hoping for the next couple weeks.

“We’re not exactly looking couple-y…and we might need to convince some people, I’ve got a few disbelieving looks pointed my way” he murmured in your hair and your face turned at breakneck speed to glare at him.

“How exactly do you expect us to look couple-y, James” you hissed under your breath and Bucky took in how your eyes were flashing. Flashing with confusion and maybe a little anger. And then his gaze dropped down to your lips. They parted in a gasp of realization and your eyes widened.

His eyes wandered back to yours before he whispered, “do you trust me?”

“Not at all,” you breathed, eyes still wide, and Bucky had to hold back a chuckle.

“Trust me, honey. Please. I need you to trust me.”

He watched you take in a breath, close your eyes, and he swore he saw your lips moving as if you were counting to ten. Your lids fluttered as you opened them, lips parting as if to speak but when no words came out you closed them and nodded your head slowly, albeit a little uncertainly.

Giving Bucky enough time to close the gap between the two of you and press his lips to yours.

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#Bucky Barnes #mafia au #mafia fic #mafia!bucky #mafia!bucky x reader #mafia!bucky x yn #james bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x yn #bucky barnes is a dummy #everything the light touches fic #everything the light touches

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writing-for-marvel · 2 years ago

Text

It Started With A Smile (2)

[Bridgerton AU]

< < PART 1 | Series Masterlist

Duke!Bucky Barnes x Fem!Reader

Summary: At the start of the new social season, Lady Whistledown predicts this will finally be the year solitary Duke James Barnes finds a wife. After a chance meeting at Lady Danbury’s ball, can you and the Duke overcome all obstacles thrown in your path by his scandalous past and your overbearing mother insistent against your match?

Warnings: strictly 18+, TRIGGER WARNING: threat of non-con/SA but Bucky comes to the rescue, reader has a physical altercation with someone but is not injured - if these themes upset you please do not read this fic! Also includes - violence (someone gets punched), mention of scars, homophobia (not from Bucky or reader), angst, is set in a different AU to the show so no direct spoilers, historical inaccuracy, slight age gap is implied although exact ages are never mentioned (everyone is over 18)

Word count: 10.6k

A/N: it’s finally here! Thank you so much for everyone who read part one & wanted to see more of this AU, and was patient while I wrote it, I hope I haven’t disappointed! Big shoutout to @blackwidownat2814 and @mellifluousmusings who offered ideas which shaped this part, and to @rookthorne who had to listen to me continuously rant about this fic (thank you for putting up with me)

Banners by @maysdigitalarts, dividers by @firefly-graphics and moodboards by me

Main Masterlist | Ask me anything! | Taglist | Library

Dearest Readers,

Now the dust has settled from the dawn of this year's social season, you might be pondering the question ‘where to from here?’

The answer to that is a simple one - the Queen’s diamond, Lady Dorothy Fitzgerald, will be hosting our most eligible bachelors and ladies at her family’s countryside manor for the coming week.

The combination of the Queen’s hasty, prejudicial crowning of diamond and title of hostess will have the soft-spoken Lady at the top of all single gentlemen’s ‘most desirable’ lists.

All except one.

It seems as though after dancing again at the Queen’s ball, the Duke of Brooklyn has his sights firmly set elsewhere - our rare, ravishing flower, who this author still proclaims as the most exquisite and elegant of all debutantes.

Will the Duke’s abrupt return to court also coincide with our first wedding of the season? If the way those two love birds gaze at each other is any indication, a marriage proposal will be imminent.

Yours Truly,

Lady Whistledown

Tears streamed in rivers over the apples of your cheeks and dripped upon the pillow you were clutching onto for dear life. Rays of warm spring sun shone brightly through the curtained windows of your bed chambers indicating the start of a new day, yet you were in no temperament for rising to get dressed and making your way downstairs for breakfast as was your usual routine.

Your mothers harsh words from the night before, as you arrived home from the Queen’s ball, echoed through your mind as you grasped your sheets tighter around your chin.

“You are not to speak or dance or see that man again, do you understand me?” You had never heard your mother’s voice so loud and full of rage. “Stay as far away from the Duke as possible at every gathering for the rest of the season!”

“Mama none of the other gentlemen interest me. They are all pompous, entitled and have treated me as if my only role in life is to give him a son to carry on his family's name.”

“That is your role in life!” Your mother snapped, her thundering voice rattling the walls of your old home.

You could only stare agape at her as she swallowed and composed herself, the facade of the agreeable Dowager Baroness restored as if she had not screamed at you a mere five seconds ago.

“I am only trying to do what is best for your future, and you are making it so difficult.” Your mother shook her head indignantly as a couple of the maids scurried behind her through the entrance hall to avoid being subjected to her irate temper. “You are not old enough to know what is good for you.”

“So I am old enough to get married and bear a child, but not to know what is best for me? Does that not seem like a contradiction to you?” You tried to reason, but all you received in return was a glare which declared ‘do not talk back to me’.

Your mother pinched the bridge of her nose as if she were developing a headache.

“If you are that objectionable to taking a husband, then so be it. I will make it so you do not interact with any men of the court, including your precious Duke.”

Your mama proceeded to send you to your room, as if you were a mischievous child, with the promise of withdrawing you from the social season entirely, and forbidding you from interacting with either the Duke of Brooklyn or his sister ever again.

A part of you had enjoyed the thrill of disobeying your mother, who dictated every moment of your life, however, you had not so much as intended to be rebellious as you had been drawn to the Duke like you were in a trance. And you certainly had not anticipated your mother, who had been so desperate in finding you a match prior to the season, extracting you from it altogether after only two soirées.

But instead of grovelling back to her as you were sure she was expecting, you decided to stay up in your room daydreaming about dancing with James, how your chest heated and heartbeat quickened at your proximity to him, and tried to recall the exact shade of blue of his eyes, rather than contemplating that your dance with him the night before would be your last.

However, a consequence of staying locked away in your room all morning was that the large bouquet of azaleas, which were addressed to you, was intercepted by your mother who instructed for them to be tossed in the rubbish before you could know of their existence, having glimpsed the personally signed note accompanying them and knowing full well that the affectionate nickname ‘Bucky’ indicated it was the scandalous Duke who sent them.

Across town, in a distinctly larger, wealthier home but which was more desolate than your own, the Duke of Brooklyn was waking up from the most peaceful sleep of his adult life. His dreams were exclusively filled with images of you, from intimately dancing together at an indistinct ball, to carnal activities performed in the very bed he slept that night.

Bucky had not experienced such thoughts, nor vivid dreams, since the first time he believed he had fallen in love. That affair, and the repercussions he faced from the ton after its demise, were memories Bucky actively suppressed, but his mind could not ignore now that he could feel himself falling for another member of court.

Looking down at the scars which bestrew the skin of his left limb, Bucky felt a surge of insecurity which rivalled the night his once betrothed first laid eyes on his disfigurement. The same lady who had filled his mind with the notion that he was not worthy of being loved, nor capable of residing over his dukedom, simply because of the way his skin appeared uneven, with grotesque lumps and inflammation he had no control over.

The part of his body he had been taught to loathe since the accident which left his skin in such a state. His parents, when alive, had stressed the importance of covering up, ensuring he had a pair of gloves everywhere he went. That no one must know how repulsive their son truly was.

Because his disfigurement should be considered a weakness. Something to be hidden from the world. Those few who did know his secret had told him so themselves - all except Becca, who had been too young at the time of the event to remember her brother looking any differently.

He had unwisely unveiled his imperfection to the young lady who captured his heart his debut season, only to be met with her complete disgust and prompted the lies spread about him to the ton so her treachery would remain unknown.

Would you react comparably? Would you also leave his heart shattered like glass because you could not bear to witness such ugliness?

Bucky had not experienced any differently, all he had known was disgust directed at his harsh scaring. Nevertheless, there was a small space in his heart that perhaps foolishly refused to believe the person who had so freely invited him to dance in front of the entire court the night prior, despite understanding the ramifications, could be capable of such hate.

He did not need reminding he had only just mended his fragile heart from its first break. Bucky could recall every torturous night where he went to sleep with tear stained cheeks, the self-loathing that settled in the pit of his stomach every time he showed his face in public, and the embarrassment he felt every time the soft silk of his gloves touched the sensitive skin of his maim.

And yet, despite him being highly cautious, he could not help but be drawn in by your kind and alluring smile. He had never felt as alive as when your eyes met his from across the dance floor that first night, and he wanted to chase that feeling for as long as your propinquity provided it.

Though he had every reason to hide away from the gentry in shame and diffidence, one gaze from your dazzling eyes was reason enough to be pulled back into the vexing politics of court.

That, however, would have to wait, as he had not received an invitation to the Fitzgerald’s country home as the rest of the peerage. All he hoped was you did not take his absence for the week as disinterest, and that the flowers which should be arriving at your home that morning would make his intentions perfectly clear.

The following week was pure torture.

Your mother declined your invitation to Lady Fitzgerald’s countryside manor on your behalf, and instead locked you away from society with the excuse that you were ill as punishment for your actions at the Queen’s ball.

Though having a reprieve from the conversations with ghastly gentlemen whose only intention was to use you as means to bear children, the knowledge that all other eligible men and debutantes were free to drink, dance, and be merry, had envy bubbling in your stomach.

Mostly, you longed for the company of Duke James and how his charmingly crooked smile brought a sense of comfort to the ever present worry concerning your future your mother instilled in you.

You had simply never felt so alone and isolated in your entire life.

It was not until the day following the gentry’s return to London from their extended stay at Fitzgerald manor that your mother finally relented on your banishment from the ton. One of your lady’s maids burst through your door at sunrise, waking you from a restless sleep, with instruction from your mother to dress you in your finest formal daywear.

By the time you were bathed and your lady’s maid had secured your corset so tight you could not take a deep breath without tearing the seams, you could hear thudding footsteps and foreign voices echoing from downstairs.

Reluctantly descending the staircase, you followed the sound of voices to the parlour. You plastered on your best feigned smile before entering the room, knowing the only possibility of seeing Duke James again was if your mother lifted your banishment completely, and that would only occur if you were overly agreeable to whomever was waiting beyond the parlour doors.

Setting foot in the room, your attention was immediately caught by two gentlemen standing tall and proud beside your mother. They were busy making polite conversation until the man with blonde hair, who you recognised as Viscount John Walker, a man who was the same age as you and whose family home was just down the street, noticed you in the doorway.

Excusing himself, he took large strides to greet you where you stood.

“My Lady,” the Viscount bowed before you, taking your hand and placing a soft kiss to the back of it, before rising again, “it is lovely to see you again. What a fine woman you have grown up to be.”

Your mind flashed to the night a mere week ago, the last time a gentleman kissed your hand. The spark which passed between you when the Duke’s hand took yours, even through the material of two gloves, was nothing in comparison to the uneasiness prickling up your arm when Viscount Walker performed the same action.

You gave the Viscount a taut, yet polite smile, and dropped into a small curtsy, only because it was customary.

“It is my pleasure to introduce you to a good friend of mine, Baron Brock Rumlow.” The Viscount announced, motioning to the shorter, dark haired man over by the other side of the room. “We frequent the same country club, he is an excellent pall mall player. Perhaps you would be so kind to join us for a game one day.”

The offer did not sound at all appealing, though you knew giving voice to your distaste in front of your mother would be foolish, so instead you provided a politely vague response with the sweetest smile you could muster.

Though you directed your response to the Viscount, it was the beady eyes of Baron Rumlow which made you feel unsettled. Even from across the room, there was a sinful quality to how he observed you - a wicked glint in his eyes as his gaze roamed your frame, as if he were paying far too much attention to how wide your hips were and if they would be deemed suitable for childbearing.

You could not quite explain it, but being under this man’s gaze made the hair on your arms stand on end, and though you were freshly bathed, you felt as though you needed to wash his stare off yourself.

Looking over at your mother, her gleeful smile in response to seeing you interact with eligible gentlemen who clearly were not the scandalous Duke made you believe she was either completely oblivious to how ill at ease you felt in their presence, or did not care.

Your suspicions were confirmed when she invited the two men to take a seat in the parlour as morning tea was served.

Throughout the conversation you spent all your energy attempting not to roll your eyes. The focus remained on your marriage prospects and how as the daughter of a Baron you should be flattered to be courted by a man with a standing as high as a Viscount.

That notion only reinforced your repugnance of the man who you knew had an overly strong sense of self-importance from a young age, and from whispers between maids, you believed to have had affairs with half the servants working in his estate.

Certainly not the type of man you had dreamed of spending your life and raising children with.

You were all too eager to take your leave of the two men once morning tea concluded, though the intense urge to strangle your mother surged as she promised you would reserve a dance for both men at the Bridgerton ball the following evening, without consulting you.

All she desired was to marry you off to a high ranking gentleman who was wealthy enough to provide for you for the rest of your life, especially with the recent passing of your father. That’s what every mother coveted for their daughter.

However, you did not want to settle for a life with a man whom you could barely tolerate, when there was a possibility of a life filled with tenderness and intimacy with a man whom you could see yourself falling in love with.

You did not want to continue the cycle of political marriages in your family as your parents had done, who had scarcely tolerated being in the same room as one another, only long enough to sire a single heir.

Bidding farewell to the Viscount and the Baron, you could only pray that both of them caught ill before the ball the following night so you would not have to fulfil your mama’s pledge.

Your mother overturned your removal from the social season the next morning, with the assurance that if you were seen associating with the Duke of Brooklyn again, she would make the exile a permanent arrangement.

Ominous dark storm clouds threatened overhead as your carriage approached the Bridgerton estate, in what you believed to be a sign for how this night was to unfold.

However, inside the Bridgerton ballroom looked glorious and vibrant, every archway and window adorned with blooming pink roses giving the entire estate a sweet, floral perfume.

You were fully prepared to be disappointed by your return to court - condemnatory stares from critical mama’s and being disregarded by eligible gentlemen due to your association with the scandalous Duke. However, you were surprised to find the gentry had seemingly forgotten the reasoning for their reproachful comments directed at you during the Queen’s ball.

A week and a half was clearly a long time in the frantic and dramatic social season. It appeared other rumours and transgressions were at the forefront of the gentry’s mind, your actions slipping through the cracks of their limited memories.

The sparkling deep blue eyes of Duke James were what drew your attention first as he entered the ballroom accompanying his sister. He was far more handsome in person than the recollection in your dreams. With high cheekbones and a strong jaw, he looked a powerful force to be reckoned with, but when he bid adieu to Becca who scampered off into the crowd, his features softened into an alluring lopsided smile that made your stomach clench with nerves.

He was maddeningly beautiful. And though you knew he was forbidden, every cell in your body yearned for him.

Scolding yourself for being tempted by the charming Duke so early in the night, your body not putting up any defence to your desire for him, you turned away before he could catch you staring.

“My Lady,” you heard from a familiar voice and your body tensed in response, “could I take up your offer of a dance?” Turning around with a feigned smile, the irksome Viscount John Walker entered your view, with a smug smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Knowing that a lady of your standing could not refuse a dance with a Viscount, especially one your mother had promised, regardless of how averse you were to being in near proximity to him, you accepted his offer through gritted teeth.

Although your chest felt lighter at being in the centre of the room without the despising stares and whispers synonymous with having the scandalous Duke as a dance partner, there was also a desolate pit in your stomach at knowing you were not able to dance with the man who made your heart quicken and stomach churn with butterflies.

As the Duke entered your mind again, your eyes instinctively searched for him in the crowded room, only to find him already staring at you. Music started as the Viscount led you around the room, however, your eyes never left James’.

Though you never had anyone romantically interested in you to the extent of actually being envious of your interactions with another man, the vexed expression overtaking Duke James’ face as he watched you glide around the room with the Viscount was what you imagined jealousy to resemble.

You could feel the Duke’s gaze on you even once the dance came to an end and the Viscount let go of your waist, bowing and bidding you farewell as he navigated the room to find another debutant to coerce into a dance. Unlike when you caught Baron Rumlow ogling at you from across the room, where disquiet settled in your stomach like lead, Duke Barnes' stare made you safe, protected.

It pained you to have to distance yourself from him, your only interaction being stolen glances and swift smiles to one another from opposite ends of the ballroom. However, having experienced a week of solitude locked in your bed chambers, you could say with certainty that even with the torturous distance between you, it was superior to not seeing him altogether.

Later in the evening, after failing to avoid an invitation to dance from Baron Rumlow and excusing yourself from his presence as soon as the music ceased, a striking woman, tall and blonde, wearing a deep green dress which accentuated her sparkling brown eyes, made her way over to you by the edge of the ballroom.

“Here, take this.” The mystery lady whispered after a moment of silence, nudging a scrap of paper into your hands. It appeared she was attempting to be as discreet as possible, but you were positive you did not recognise the woman.

“Apologies, do I know you?” You asked, reluctant to take anything into your possession from a lady whom you did not know the name nor title of.

She gave you an earnest smile before responding, though she did not directly answer your question.

“Bucky sent me.”

“I think you have the wrong person.” You remarked, confused as to who she could possibly be referring to. Pushing the paper back into her hand, prepared to disregard whatever nefarious activities she was involved in, the lady caught your arm preventing you from stepping away from her.

“I am referring to the Duke of Brooklyn.” She inclined her head towards the entry doors where the dashing Duke stood, carefully watching your interaction. When your eyes met his, he flashed a soft, reassuring smile which settled all anxieties fluttering in your stomach. “His family call him Bucky.”

“You are related to him?” It seemed a fairly innocent question, however the blonde chuckled in response.

“No, we are not blood. My name is Lady Carol Danvers, I am a friend of Becca. I was sent as a messenger to deliver this.” This time when she placed the paper in your hand, she did not have to force you to take possession of it.

Hastily unfolding the slip of paper, you eagerly read the handwritten note twice over before beaming at James across the room, his eyes seemingly never once leaving you as you scanned the message.

My dearest,

It is agony having to stand idle by as other men get the honour of dancing with you tonight. I must admit I am resentful of those men as they are in a position I crave to be - beside you.

I understand your mother must highly disapprove of any connection to me, and I therefore cannot find it in myself to be vexed with you at keeping your distance.

Though our time together was brief, it is something I fondly reflect back to and has only increased my desire to spend more time in your company.

However, in lieu of being able to converse in the traditional sense, may I suggest we instead do so in writing?

Keenly awaiting your reply.

Sincerely,

Your Bucky

Your heart momentarily faltered in your chest at reading how he signed off the letter. Not the Duke of Brooklyn. Not James. Not simply Bucky. But your Bucky.

Carol elbowed you with enough force to swiftly pull your attention from the Duke and instead to the sharp pain in your side. You were about to chide her for being so forceful, however, she had already opened her mouth to speak.

“Do not make it appear so obvious.” She said in a low voice, pulling you by your upper arm through the crowd of the peerage and out into a small courtyard, Carol inspecting your surroundings to ensure you were truly alone before speaking again. “Surely you do not want your mother, let alone Lady Whistledown, gaining knowledge that the Duke is secretly conversing with you?” She questioned with a hint of playfulness in her voice.

You had become too excited by receiving Bucky’s letter and the prospect of continuing to become acquainted with him to think properly about keeping conspicuous.

Pulling a small quill out from its hiding space in her glove, and a small pot of ink from behind a flower pot situated on the courtyard railing, which made you ponder how premeditated this exchange of letters actually was, Carol shot you an unabashed smile as she handed it to you, informing you that if you wrote on the other side of the paper, she could deliver it back to Bucky.

Though you wanted to keep the note, and cherish his words by reading them over and over again, your desire to provide him a reply was stronger.

You felt slightly embarrassed writing a personal note under the gaze of a lady whom you did not know, however, after a moment to think about what you wanted to convey, you penned heartfelt words concerning your fierce wish to become acquainted with him via this furtive means.

Addressing the message to my darling Bucky, and signing off affectionately yours, you folded the scrap of paper in half in an attempt to conceal the private message from Carol’s eyes and handed her the note.

“Thank you for doing this.”

“You are very welcome. There is not much I would not do to secure the happiness of Becca Barnes and her brother.” The radiating smile blooming on her face made it impossible to disbelieve her. “Wait here for a few minutes after I rejoin the party - it will appear less suspicious.”

You watched Carol skip through the doors back into the ballroom. The thrill of attempting to deceive your mother and Lady Whistledown, as well as your gaiety at conferring once again with the Duke, caused your heart to thump rapidly in your chest as you waited to enter the Bridgerton ballroom.

Though you understood it may eventually be the source of your excruciating heartbreak, you now believed that a happily ever after with Bucky was not entirely out of reach.

Dearest Readers,

Whispers concerning our blossoming debutante have been propagating around the ton after last night’s ball, reporting that the contest for her heart may no longer be simply a one man race.

After neither attended Lady Fitzgerald’s country manor for the week, it seems as though our love birds have fallen out of favour, with the debutante instead dancing with both Viscount John Walker and Baron Brock Rumlow in lieu of the Duke of Brooklyn at the Bridgerton Ball yestereve.

Though his title may suggest otherwise, the Duke’s scandalous past means our rare jewel has the upper hand over him in the game of the marriage mart.

If the notorious miscreant is to truly win her heart, then he must no longer be timorous concerning his intentions for her, as he may lose out to a man prepared to offer her the security of marriage.

I have not yet lost hope for our match of the season, but His Grace must understand that a lady will not wait evermore without the promise of a ring.

Yours Truly,

Lady Whistledown

Bucky slyly smiled as Becca read aloud the latest edition of Lady Whistledown’s society papers. If you both could fool the mysterious lady who managed to know the deepest darkest secrets of every member of the gentry, there was surely no way your mother could know about your confidential means of communicating at last night’s ball.

Becca looked about as happy as Bucky felt, if not more, and he knew that she was elated that the papers did not mention her proximity to Carol as even remotely suspicious.

Though it seemed obvious to him that the twinkle in Becca’s eye when she glanced at Carol indicated her affection for the blonde ran much deeper than friendship, he suspected it was only due to him knowing her so well. In this society, two women would have to be caught with their tongues in each other’s mouths before anyone would suspect romantic feelings instead of pure friendship.

“You are very chipper this morning.” Bucky chuckled as a blush crept over Becca’s freckled cheeks.

“So are you.” Becca returned, not meeting his eye and attempting to hide her flushed face behind Lady Whistledown’s papers. That was the moment Bucky knew Becca had already fallen in deep. His sister, who was always brazen in providing her opinion and the most confident, shameless person he ever met, had been reduced to a shy girl with a crush.

“I have a feeling it’s for the same reason miss ‘besotted with Lady Carol’.” That earned him a spoonful of eggs flung from Becca’s spoon.

Bucky’s teasing of Becca continued throughout the rest of the week, and by the time of the next ball she was no longer bashful in throwing her own teases back at him, as any younger sibling should.

Though on one hand Bucky was cautious about any interaction he had with you, regardless of if that were on paper, as he knew that any association with him now would mean an immediate end to your social season - on the other hand Bucky could not resist in continuing to write you countless letters. Learning anything new about you, sharing memories with you about how he and Becca grew up, and bonding over your favourite stories to read and topics to learn about was far too enticing for him to cease so soon.

Though he could not help the pang of jealousy in his chest whenever he was forced to watch on as you were asked to dance by another gentleman of the gentry, especially when Viscount Walker or Baron Rumlow were the men leading you around the ballroom, every time he had the pleasure of reading your own handwriting in a private letter meant only for his eyes, his heart softened.

Bucky had never formed an attachment so quickly, nor deeply with anyone else before, even his past betrothed, and though the threats to your reputation were vast, you were both willing to take the risk when it allowed you such cherished contact with each other.

This arrangement continued for two weeks. Each of you preparing letters prior to any social function, as well as sneaking in a couple sheets of paper and quills so notes could be passed throughout the evening.

Sending letters to each other via the postal service, so that communication was not limited to only during formal occasions, ensuring the sender was listed as Lady Carol Danvers instead of himself as so your mother would not confiscate them before your opportunity to read.

With the help of Carol you were able to exchange messages during balls without having to be in suspicious proximity to one another. However, Bucky did enjoy those times he was able to watch you from the other side of the ballroom as you clandestinely read his letters. It never failed to bring a smile to his face when you would grin, or even chuckle at something he penned to you. In fact, it was the favourite part of his day, what entered his dreams at night and he longed for every time he entered a ballroom.

That anticipation was what brought him the butterflies fluttering around his stomach as he entered Lord Steven Rogers' ball with Becca by his side, a very important, neatly folded letter nestled in his inside coat pocket beside a family heirloom which he planned on offering you tonight.

Bucky knew he could not wait too long to make his true intentions clear. Your mother had undeniable desires of marrying you off to the first young man willing to bend on one knee, as long as that were not him, and if that were to happen with another gentleman before he himself had the chance, Bucky needed you to know that you could refuse their request as he would be willing to spend the rest of his life with you.

He could feel the desperation deep in his stomach as tenacious nerves.

You were the first person Bucky noticed once he entered the ballroom. Once your eyes found his, a beaming smile overtook your features, and Bucky nearly forgot how to breathe.

He had never doubted that you were the most beautiful woman he ever laid eyes on, but this moment confirmed his suspicions. Wearing a ravishing dress which complimented your eyes, and drew a venereal heat up his neck, Bucky could not prevent himself from staring.

He could imagine waking up beside you every day for the rest of his life, being the cause of your dazzling smile, which he had been bewitched by since your first encounter, and corrupting your innocence with the pleasures reserved for the sanctity of marriage.

Neither he, nor Becca, wasted time in seeking out Carol once they had given thanks to Lord Rogers for hosting the evening's ball. Carol chuckled and held out her gloved hand before Bucky even had the opportunity to reach for the secured envelope inside his coat. With a shy smile and a swell of nerves, he handed the carefully sealed letter to her.

Carol flashed him an encouraging smile before doing a slow, deliberately deceiving circuit of the ballroom prior to making her way over to you.

Tripping over the end of your dress in haste of receiving the letter, Carol had to catch you from falling head first to her feet. An embarrassed smile curved onto your lips as you dusted the front of your gown and Bucky could not help the chuckle which left his own.

Heat bloomed in his chest, his heart racing to a rapid beat as he watched you and Carol giggle amongst yourselves as you opened the letter. Your answer to the question he posed within the note would have profound ramifications to his future.

He had never wanted something so vastly in his entire life. Not even the last time he thought he was in love. The feelings he held for her were nothing in comparison to the overwhelming adoration, devotion and protectiveness he felt when you so much as entered his mind, let alone were in the same room.

He would not waver in his belief that what he felt for you was true love. Now, all he needed was you to confirm you reciprocated those passions and he would not stop in giving you a life full of tender love. Given your willingness to pursue an association with him thus far, despite knowing the extent of his damaged reputation, he suspected you just might.

Feeling as though nothing in the world could dampen his spirits in this moment, the one voice Bucky did not want to hear sounded from behind him.

“Your Grace, may I have a word?” Bucky turned to find none other than your mother standing behind him, a twinkling mischievousness in her eyes. Her ominous words made him hesitant to enter into conversation, however, her tone indicated she would not take no for an answer.

With a brisk nod, Bucky followed her away from the gossipy conversation and lively music, into an elaborate adjoining room, the walls of which were adorned with beautiful portraits he suspected were ancestors of Lord Rogers.

The heavy embellished door closed behind them, dulling the sound of the resonant music and making him feel as though you were an entire world away even though you were simply in the next room. Once she was certain they were alone, the incensed glare your mother shot him had the shame and disgrace your presence had the power to suppress, firing through every nerve in his body.

“You need to stay away from my daughter, and cease sending her those disgraceful letters! Do not think they have escaped my notice.” Even though he was expecting almost those exact words, Bucky’s heart clenched in his chest.

“I understand you do not fancy the match, but I care very deeply about your daughter, and I believe she may reciprocate those feelings. If she were to have me, I would not hesitate to spend the rest of my life with her.” Bucky counteracted before your mother could announce any further disapproval.

Your mother shook her head disdainfully before starting to speak, looking as though she was choosing her words very carefully.

“Viscount John Walker has agreed to marry my daughter. His mother and I are old friends, and as soon as I give my impending blessing, he will propose.” Bucky’s whole body went numb. The thought of you committing yourself to someone else for the rest of your life, taking their last name and giving yourself completely to them, having someone else’s hands on your body, was enough to drive him mad.

Though he supposed once you found out the reason why he was too ashamed to be in public without the comforting cover of his gloves, it would not be his hands you would want roaming your body regardless.

“They have known each other since childhood. He is a wealthy and honourable man who can give her a life you never could. If you truly care about her as you say you do, you will let her go. Let her marry someone she deserves.”

Bucky had never wanted to frantically explain the true story behind his scandal to anyone more than he did in this very moment, though he knew given the years of vilifying speculation, there was no possibility of your mother believing him.

He decided to take a different approach.

“My Lady, I am well aware that I am not deserving of a lady as beautiful and magnanimous as your daughter, though nor I believe are any of the conniving men of the court for that matter, but I would like to make my intentions perfectly clear: I have a ring and would get down on one knee tonight if she so desired.” Shock mixed with appal on your mothers expression at the words confirming Bucky’s very real prospect of proposing.

Raking her gloved hand down her face, shaking her head and mumbling something that sounded very similar to you foolish man, your mother looked back up at him with a derisive glint in her eye.

“This might persuade you then: I have been watching you and your sister very closely throughout this season, and I now know why she is so set against taking a husband - do not try to deny it, I have seen her with Lady Danvers. I am sure that is a secret you want kept from the rest of the ton, is it not? If you want to save your sister's reputation from the same thrashing yours took, you will tell my daughter that you do not love her and instruct her to marry Lord Walker.” Your mother threatened with a malice Bucky had not heard anyone speak with before.

With one final wrathful scowl, your mother stalked out of the room with her head held high, leaving Bucky alone, numb and paralysed in heartbreak.

Becca was the one person who had stuck by him through all adversities. She was the only person who supported him after his broken engagement, offering a shoulder to cry on and believing that he was not capable of the infidelity he was accused of. She was the only person who knew of his deformed limb and refused to believe it was an ugly flaw that needed to be hidden from the world.

He was her older brother. It was his role to protect her.

Regardless of his romantic prospects or his all-consuming feelings for you, he could not knowingly let his baby sister endure the same hardship he had suffered.

It would not be until he stepped back into the ball that he would set in stone his decision to revoke his intentions to pursue you. Even though he knew he could not remain in this gallery forever, Bucky wanted to delay the pain he knew would inevitably fracture the walls of his heart when you became resentful of his perceived rejection.

For a few minutes he wanted to believe in a fantasy where the two of you could live happily ever after before he would need to return to reality where he would need to sacrifice his own prospects for his sister's reputation.

He should have known this bliss was too good to last. That the world would only want to torture him with the possibility of love before obliterating his heart all over again.

How could he have been naive enough to believe he was worthy of happiness?

Bucky felt for the ring box nestled in his inner coat pocket, letting out a shaky breath in attempts to keep the stinging tears from escaping the confines of his eyes. His mothers ring she had gifted him in her will to give to the woman he loved and treasured with his whole being.

But now, you would never know of it’s existence, nor his intense desire to see it on your hand as his promise to adore you for the rest of his life.

Becca’s contentment and happiness came before all else, no one was going to jeopardise that, especially not himself.

If your childhood friend Viscount Walker was willing to marry you and provide you a comfortable life, in time Bucky could learn to be at peace knowing you were looked after. Living a tranquil life his dishonourable stigma would never allow.

With a deep, steadying breath, and a cough to clear the lump which had formed in his throat, Bucky returned the ball.

You were standing by the corner of the room with Carol, near the entrance to the kitchens so you would have the first pick of the food, when you noticed Bucky walking back into the room.

With a newly written note carefully clutched in her hands so that she would not smudge the ink, Carol gave you a friendly nudge with her hip before skirting around the outside of the room to deliver the letter.

The giddiness that had become synonymous with secretly exchanging notes with your beloved fluttered in your stomach as butterflies. This was potentially the most important letter you had penned - earlier in the night Bucky had asked you in writing whether you were willing to overlook the stain on his reputation and allow him to officially court you, with the intention of marriage. Your response, which was an effortless yes, was currently being delivered to him over the other side of the room.

You watched on with a smile as Carol went to hand over the note, as she had done many times over the past couple weeks, however, this time it was met with Bucky refusing to take possession of the piece of paper. He leaned in, whispered something into her ear, before glancing at you with despair and something of resentment on his face, before striding out of the room without the folded letter, causing your heart to sink through the floorboards.

Carol awkwardly turned on her heel, not quite meeting your eye as she scurried to return to your side, the remorseful expression on her face foretelling the agony which would puncture your chest with the words she would use to confirm your heartbreak.

“He said he does not want to receive letters from you anymore.” She gulped, fiddling with the page in her hand as if she was deciding whether or not to give it back to you. “He said it’s over.”

You had not held a greater hatred of the court and the custom of finding a husband more in your life than the week following Lord Rogers ball. Unaware of what led to Bucky’s change of heart, you were all but powerless to keep the doubtful thoughts at bay and stop them from invading your mind.

The main question the taunting voice in your head kept circling back to was what had you done wrong?

Were you not of a high enough standing for him? He was a Duke after all and you were merely the daughter of a Baron. Was he wanting a lady with a wealthier dowry? Someone who was higher in the order of precedence who would help restore his reputation?

Had you not been explicit in stating the affection you felt towards him? Had someone else caught his eye? Were you not proficient at all the duties which made an acceptable housewife?

If you had been thinking clearly, you would have recalled Bucky never once asked about, nor placed any significance on the qualities the other men of the court usually considered when taking a wife, but in your state of anxiety that detail slipped your mind.

You continued to replay the events of that night over the course of the next few days, looking for any reason behind Bucky’s sudden detachment, but with each rehearsal your recollection of the truth blurred even further, only making you increasingly frustrated.

Though he initially held you at arms length, it seemed to have more to do with him being chivalrous in his attempts to protect your reputation, but this time, you could not ignore the grievance in his gaze which was apparently directed at you.

The following ball, held at the grandeur Stark estate, was your hope of seeking clarification for his sudden indifference, however, you were greatly disappointed to find neither Bucky nor Becca were in attendance. Nor were they at the following three events which concluded the week.

Were you truly that abhorrent that he could not be in the same room as you?

Your mind could not comprehend why someone who seemed to cherish every letter you penned him to the extent that he would retain them in a treasured drawer in his desk, would rescind his courtship so quickly.

This tormenting affliction continued for another week. You found every dress fitting, social event and formal ball entirely futile with the knowledge that Bucky would not be in attendance.

Why were you going to the effort of getting all dressed up, wearing your best clothes and having your hair styled to perfection, when it would only be the pretentious men of the gentry you would be presented in front of?

You were hiding in the corner of the Odinson palace ballroom, in an attempt to evade being asked to join the energetic dancing couples in the centre of the room, when you finally saw him again. Bucky strode into the ballroom with Becca by his side, the blue fitted coat he donned made his steel blue irises shine like stars.

His eyes found yours instinctively. The other attendants, the upbeat music and hum of conversation faded into nothing as you stared at the face of the man you loved.

Comparable to the night you first met, you flashed him a sweet smile from across the room, however this time, you were not met with his dazzling smile but instead with a bitter glare.

Tears brimmed in your eyes as you watched Bucky choose to ignore your presence and instead enter into conversation with Lord Rogers as far away as possible from your position in the ballroom.

The man you loved loathed you.

It was as if your lungs and throat filled with thick, sticky tar. Your hand shot to your corset, which was suddenly too tight, squeezing the remaining life out of you which Bucky’s antipathy had not yet eradicated.

Air.

You needed air.

Your lungs did not find the reprieve of fresh, cool air until you burst from the ballroom into the gardens, rushing past bushes and blooming flowers until the music in the ballroom was only a faint hum, and the main source of light was the moon. At the end of the path you followed from the palace was an octagonal viewing pavilion, adorned with a lattice railing and hanging lanterns.

It was there that you gazed out at the beautifully manicured gardens of the Odinson estate and allowed yourself to catch your breath. After the events of the past week you were in no mood to be surrounded by crowds of people, having to fake a smile and pretend that your chest was not perpetually aching in heartbreak.

Your temporary relief from the gentry was interrupted by a monotonous voice behind you.

“I was wondering where you got to.” With a shiver running down your spine, you turned to find Baron Brock Rumlow leaning against a pillar, blocking the only opening to the railing and your only exit from the pavilion. His face was half in shadow, but the uneasiness you always felt in his presence did not fail from settling in your stomach.

“My Lord, I did not realise anyone else was out here.” You tried to suppress the surprise in your voice, but the sly grin tugging at his lips informed you he knew he caught you off guard.

“I saw you fleeing from the ball and desired to know you were all right.” There was a concern in Brock’s words that did not meet his eyes nor his tone of voice as he stepped into the light of the lanterns.

“I assure you, my Lord, I am perfectly fine.”

“If you are indeed fine, I doubt you would be out here, all alone, rather than inside enjoying the party.” His slow, calculated steps made you weary of his true purpose, trying to quickly survey for another way out of the pavilion. “What can I do to cheer you up?” He was now close enough that you could smell the alcohol on his breath.

“My Lord, I am out here to admire the gardens, nothing more. I do not require cheering up.” You attempted to pass by him casually, but his firm hand shot out to the railing to corner you from escaping.

“Oh, but I think you do.” He took an eager step closer, a venomous glint in his eye. “And I know just the way to do it.”

Without any way to get past him, you were vulnerable to his desires, his hand reaching up and caressing your cheek with a greedy possessiveness that had bile rising in your stomach.

“Get off me!” You yelled, thrashing in attempts to push him away, but his strong hands took control of your wrists and prevented you from forming a counter attack.

“Stop resisting you little bitch!” Brock’s voice was low and demanding, scorching fear fired through every neuron in your body. He pushed you against the railing of the pavilion, his weight hindering you from making a run for it.

You yelled out for help into the silent night before his calloused hand harshly covered your mouth, panic rising in your chest at the thought that you were too far from the ballroom for anyone to hear you and that you were not strong enough to prevent whatever devilish intentions Brock had for much longer.

Then, before you could register what was happening, the heavy weight of the Baron was released from you.

Your heart was still thumping rapidly, almost painfully so, in your chest when you recognised the broad man who had intervened.

Bucky.

“I will end you.” Bucky’s threat was dripping in pure spite.

Given that Bucky had managed to pull him off you with reasonable ease, you did not expect Brock’s reaction to these words to be an amused laugh.

It seemed to take Bucky by surprise as well.

“With your dainty little gloves and fragile condition - I’d like to see you try.” The challenge hung in the air between the two men, and though from your position you could not see Bucky’s face, the slump in his shoulders informed you Brock’s words affected him.

“Bucky, let’s take our leave.” You implored, reaching for his shoulder to turn him to look at you. If you could prove to him that you were in truth physically unharmed, then maybe he would not need to engage in the brewing duel.

“No, I will not let him get away with this! What he was going to do to you - he should no longer be breathing.” Bucky’s voice was almost unrecognisable with the rage consuming his tone.

“What are you going to do to me, Your Grace?” Brock asked in a mocking tone. “You cannot even face me like a man.” He continued, gesturing to Bucky’s gloves.

There was a moment of hesitation from Bucky. Though you did not care about the reason he concealed his hands from view, it was clearly very important to him as he never failed to be in public without them.

Deciding that bringing vengeance to Brock’s actions was more important in this moment than concealing whatever secret he had been hiding, Bucky slowly removed his pair of gloves.

The reason Bucky concealed his hands became apparent before the gloves he tossed to the edge of the pavilion hit the ground. Though you found yourself not fazed in the slightest by what you saw.

His skin was severely scarred, profoundly enough to disappear beyond his sleeve, but in your opinion it was nothing to be ashamed of. Having the only man who had ever cherished you and treated you like something worth loving, defending your honour, was what you placed importance on in this moment.

Brock gave a hearty chuckle to the revelation, and you could see Bucky's shoulders tense in response.

In a matter of seconds, Bucky had evaded an attack from Brock and landed a bone crunching punch directly to the Baron’s cheekbone. The sound itself had you wincing, but the sudden panic-stricken look in Brock’s eyes satisfied the part of you which had been terrified of his intentions moments earlier.

Clearly in his own arrogance Brock had not expected Bucky to be able to land a clear punch, and in his now alarmed state was cowering in fear. Before Bucky had the chance to finish him completely, Brock scurried away towards the security of the ballroom, and rather than following him, Bucky turned around to find you. The worry in his gaze almost knocked you off your feet.

“Are you unharmed? Did he hurt you?” The lantern light was dim in the crisp night, but Bucky did not waste time in examining every inch of your exposed skin to ensure you had not been physically harmed. The concern brimming in his eyes softened the ache in your chest which had been present since he declined your letter at Lord Rogers ball.

It was not until he pulled you into his chest did you realise you were shaking. Though you noted the hand which displayed scars was covertly hidden in his coat pocket.

“I am fine, now that you are here.” You murmured into his lapel. Briefly, the thought of how scandalous it would be considered to be caught in this position with a man entered your mind, though the intoxicating rich scent of Bucky’s cologne, and the safety you felt being so close you could hear his rapid heartbeat pushed the notion from your mind.

There was a minute where you merely cherished being close to him, your body relaxing from the anxiety coursing through it earlier. A moment where you could simply enjoy being in the presence of one another.

However, that minute lapsed entirely too quickly before Bucky pulled away from you with a look of determined restraint in his eye.

“I shall escort you back inside.” Bucky declared, however the petrifying thought of returning to a room in which you could potentially encounter Rumlow again paralysed you.

“I cannot return to a party where I could see him.” You announced, wishing for Bucky to comfort you again as the memory of Brock’s vile hands touching you sent a shiver up your spine.

“Then I shall take you directly to your carriage and inform your mother-” Bucky began before you decided to interpose.

“Why are you so adamant to take your leave from me, Your Grace?” It was one of the many questions you wished to ask him. Bucky took a moment before answering to contemplate his words, though once he spoke, his tone was resolute.

“The last lady to learn about my deformity wanted entirely nothing to do with me - she was utterly disgusted at the sight. You must be completely repulsed by me.” Instinctively he pushed his hand further into his pocket, and your heart clenched in your chest.

“Repulsed? Not in the slightest. Bucky, every part of you is beautiful. I have never cared about anyone the way I care about you. Nothing about your appearance could ever change that.” No truer and more earnest words had ever left your lips. You desperately needed him to believe them, for them to alleviate the hate he had been conditioned to feel in response to his injury. To show not everyone thought a scar was something worthy of being ashamed of.

“Truly?” There was a harrowing vulnerability to his voice and you suspected if you were to retract your previous words, the rejection may end him completely.

“Truly.”

His eyes were filled with a mixture of burning adoration and utter disbelief. The corners of his mouth twitched into a smile as the rest of the world melted away, completely forgotten when his stare had heat rising from your chest to the tips of your ears.

You closed your eyes, leaned closer and waited in suspense for the moment his lips would finally touch your own. You wanted to feel him everywhere, have your body meld into his so you could not determine where he stopped and you started. However, you would settle now for a kiss, for his rosy pink lips to caress your own in a demonstration of his desire.

The anticipation in the air was palpable.

So much so you could cut it with a knife.

But you were kept waiting.

It was not until Bucky cleared his throat did you open your eyes again, only to find your vision blurry with tears.

“You do not want to kiss me?” Your voice cracked as you attempted to hide the searing heartbreak ripping a hole in your chest, dejectedly peering down at the cobblestones underneath your shoes.

“There is nothing I want more.” Bucky said with a determination to prove you wrong, tilting your chin up with his index finger so you would yet again meet his gaze, running his thumb feather light over your bottom lip. The forced restraint which had been so evident in his eyes dissolved to reveal the pure guilt behind them. “I am afraid if I do kiss you, I’ll never stop.”

Hope swelled so largely in your chest that perhaps you would have floated away from happiness if Bucky had not been tethering you to the ground.

“But as grateful as I am that you do not find me hideous, this,” he gestured to his arm, “is also the reason I cannot bring you the peace you deserve. I will always look like this, the incident of my debut year will be my legacy and I cannot let it tarnish your life too.” You suspected there was more to his reasoning which he was not divulging - more than simply a deformity you had already declared your acceptance for.

You opened your mouth to protest, to tell him that you did not mind in the slightest about his perceived reputation, which had been falsely tarnished, all you needed was for him to continue to care for you as he had proven tonight he was more than capable of doing. However, before a single syllable could leave your throat, Bucky continued in his attempts to convince you.

“Lord Walker is intending to propose, and you should accept. His family has a relatively high standing in court, he would be able to provide for you in a way I never could.” The despair was clear in Bucky’s voice, and more so than your surprise at the Viscount’s plans to propose, you longed to free Bucky’s mind from the belief that any other man would be a more suitable match for you.

“No, I cannot marry him. I will not marry him.” You firmly refused as you shook your head. Gently taking hold of his left wrist, with light enough pressure that he could pull away if he were uncomfortable with the contact, you brought his exposed, scarred hand up and placed it to the uncovered skin above your sternum, where he would undoubtedly be able to feel every beat of your thumping heart.

“My heart belongs to you.”

Your heartbeat quickened even more so in your chest as he leaned so dangerously close that you could see the way his eyes darkened with desire. Something intangible within his demeanour changed as a result of your gesture that you knew he was about to kiss you.

Any trace of the remaining restraint in his eyes dissipated before his lids fluttered shut and he closed the remaining paltry space between you. His nose bumped yours and his hands grabbed the curves of your waist just before his soft lips captured yours.

The unfamiliar yet perfectly natural feeling of his lips against yours had you completely opening up to him. Instinctively, your lips parted and allowed his tongue to glide against your own, exploring your mouth as your body pressed impossibly close to his, your hands tangling in his lush hair.

A new, foreign heat pooled below your stomach, between your legs. You were not sure what it signified, all you knew for certain was you wanted even more of the man whose hands were currently caressing every swell and dip of your body. To have his bare hands remove every layer of clothing from your form and have his supple lips place tantalising kisses to every exposed inch.

To your disappointment Bucky pulled away sooner than you hoped, leaving your lips hungry and desperate for more. Resting his forehead against yours, he let out a shaky breath as you attempted to catch your own.

You expected him to feel as ecstatically happy as you now did having kissed the one person who you would not hesitate to devote your life to. However, distraught indecision was painfully written on his features, contorting your stomach with nerves.

Then, with an affectionate swipe of his thumb over your cheek, a longing in his eyes as if he may never get an opportunity to be this close to you again, and a ghost of a smile tugging at his lips, Bucky seemingly reached a conclusion to his internal struggle.

You could sense the walls restoring around his heart before he spoke a single word.

“You need to forget about me and marry Walker.” He stated as firmly as possible through an obvious lump in his throat, striking a sharp chisel excruciatingly deep within your chest. His eyes were glassy with tears and it was at that moment he decided to put precautionary distance between the two of you, which made you feel more vulnerable and alone than the entire week your mother locked you away from society. As if to punctuate his instruction and throw a final, killing blow, Bucky spoke one final time.

“I cannot marry you.”

With a helpless, tearful look, which you could have sworn was filled with more remorse than rejection, Bucky raked his fingers through his dishevelled hair before shoving them into his pockets, quickly turning on his heel and striding out of the pavilion.

Your lungs and throat burned, as though Bucky had stolen all your air through his kiss and you were left to die a slow, suffocating death. No sound was able to escape your constricting throat and though your heart wanted to chase after him, your legs felt as if they were made of stone, frozen like a statue, all but powerless to watch on as your life fell apart before your eyes.

Time painfully slowed as you fought back prickling tears, waiting anxiously for the moment Bucky would turn around to look back at you, when his beautiful blue eyes would meet yours and your world would once again make sense.

But that moment never came.

Once you saw Bucky disappear around the side of the palace to where the horses and carriages were kept, all hope of him retracting his actions completely lost, you let the confusion and sorrow swallow you whole as you collapsed to the ground in a fit of sobs.

Your heaving weeps were the only other sound filling the still night air besides the faint, upbeat music played in the main ballroom. Your heart as good as glass shattered into sharp, hazardous shards on the cobblestones in front of you, irreparably damaged and likely to cause further harm if attempting to reassemble.

Because if there is one way to destroy someone who loves you, it is to kiss them once and then never again.

Part three coming soon

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watchmegetobsessed · 4 years ago

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Prisoner - Bucky Barnes

a/n: hi everyone! i am really excited to share this with you, because this one was written for a writing challenge! it is part of @wkemeup ‘s 9k writing challenge and it’s the first time i take part in anything like this with a Bucky fic! not that i have many but im sure more is about to come lol! let me know what you thought after reading!

prompt: Character A is possessed/controlled and attempts to harm Character B. [B] refuses to fight back in fear of hurting [A].

pairing: Bucky X Reader

warnings: blood, violence, mind controlling, just the usual jazz lol

word count: 7.8k

masterlist

Bucky and you were a pair made in hell. Only that he is the only one out of the two of you who really went through the deepest and darkest corners of it while you were basically just waiting in the lobby, as you like to say it.

He wasn’t the only person HYDRA had plans with. Being an orphan from the age of four, you didn’t have the life you probably deserved. Abducted at the age of twenty, you lived in cells and labs for years before they gave you the serum, turning you into a super solider, with determined plans to turn you into a kind of winter soldier 2.0, eventually wiping your head like his and turning you into the perfect assassin. Only that before they could start with the torture, you were rescued by none other than Captain America during a raid on one of HYDRA’s secret bases.

The Avengers gave you shelter when you had absolutely nothing left in life. Your previous life was long forgotten, almost entirely non-existent, all you had is the safety these extraordinary people were offering you, that you took more than willingly.

You were there when Bucky was captured, still very much fighting with his own conscious. You were in the building when Zemo triggered him into being a murderer again and he broke free, fought his ex best friend, saved his life and then disappeared again. You often found yourself thinking about how you’d be just the same if you weren’t saved. How you’d be out there, used as just a toy to end lives.

You never had to go through the process of ripping this side of yourself out of your head, because they never succeeded with you. But Bucky didn’t have it as lucky as you did. When Shuri contacted you that he was awake from his hibernation and they were working on wiping the winter soldier out of him, you didn’t hesitate to drop everything and be there for him. You didn’t know him that well back then, but you felt like you shared a deep connection through the torturous things you had to go through. You were there for him until he finally became entirely himself. No more winter soldier, just Bucky.

The two of you have tens of missions together behind your back at this point. Partners in work, friends in life, that’s what you are. And in your dreams?

Definitely lovers.

Now as you are rotting in a dark and musty cell somewhere in the middle of Poland, you are starting to regret you never really told him how you feel. You had so many chances to come clear but you were too afraid of rejection and the possibility of ruining your strong friendship and most importantly partnership that you chose to keep it all bottled up inside you.

It might have been days or hours since they locked you in your cell, you wouldn’t know. You lost track of time and you’re not expecting to see the daylight anytime soon either. Are they looking for you? Or do they think you died? No one was around you when you were abducted and there were no signs left behind that would have let your team know you survived. There was a massive explosion near your location in the raid, anyone would easily think that you were caught in the middle of that.

Does Bucky think I’m dead too? Has he given up on me?

You’re starting to think you’ll never find that out. Just like how you’ll never find out what it’s like to grow old, have a home that’s not just a room in a facility, spend your days with your hobbies rather than trainings and missions.

As the thick metal door opens and a creak of light breaks the heavy darkness in your cell, you look up at the man who walks in. If your hands weren’t cuffed with fucking vibranium cuffs, you would easily kill him in a heartbeat along with the three bulky guards he brought with himself.

“It’s time to make a use out of you,” the man grinned before two guards grabbed you by your arms, dragging you out of the cell, taking you God knows here. Probably to your death.

“You have to check twice,” Buckly growled upon hearing Agent Hill’s report from what was found at the scene. Or what was not found.

“No signs of Y/N were found, Bucky. But that explosion was so massive, it wiped out everything in it’s close radius. If she stood close to that…” “But what if she didn’t?!” he snaps, barking at the innocent agent. The room falls silent, no one dares to speak up against Bucky’s raging anger. Fury steps forward and places a hand to the upset soldier’s shoulder as a soft warning to control himself. Bucky takes a deep breath before looking over at Fury, no longer determined to rip anyone apart who wants to argue with him.

“Let’s all calm down and see what we can do. Do you think she survived?” Fury simply questions him. Bucky taps on the panel and a map of the location pulls up on the big screen, showing a little red dot at the places where the team members were located last before the explosion.

“Her last location was far enough of it for her to survive,” he explains pointing at your dot.

“But if she moved just a little closer—“ Hill starts again, but she quickly silences herself when Bucky shoots her another warning look.

“I think she was captured. We can’t just assume that she is gone that easily,” he insists, refusing to even think about the possibility of you dying in that explosion. That’s just simply not an option for him.

Fury stares back at him hard, searching for something in his eyes before he finally nods.

“Alright, let’s get on the case. We need to find out where they could be possibly hiding her.”

Bucky breathes out in relief as the team gets down to work immediately. This is not the part he can help with, he sucks at technical things, so now he is left with just the painful wait until a lead pops up and he can come to your rescue.

The gym is eerily quiet without your bickering. He always trains with you and it’s been one of his favorite things to do. The two of you liked to race in everything and thought you both knew he was faster and stronger, he always let you win a few times, giving you the chance to tease him about being second after you.

But now as he is punching the heavy bag on his own, he wishes he could hear one of your snarky comments about his lopsided moves, because he still hasn’t entirely gotten used to the uneven strength in his hands.

“If she is really out there, I’m sure she is doing fine.”

Sam walks in, his steps echo in the empty room and though Bucky stops for a moment, he doesn’t look at him, just keeps punching the bag.

“She is tough, Bucky. She can take care of herself.”

“Not when she is outnumbered by a dozen,” he growls back. “I know she is tough, but sometimes that’s just not enough.”

For a long time Bucky thought Steve is the only person he can work with as partners, but he had to realize that he had a special bond with you through the tortures you both had to go through and sometimes he felt like you were the only one who understood him truly. Even though your brain wasn’t washed like his, you were close to it and it gave you a great understanding of what he had to go through.

But it wasn’t just about the trauma. As you grew closer to each other you easily became friends, really good ones for all that matters. Bucky loved spending time with you on and out of missions as well. He finds your humor a little dark but quite entertaining, he likes how you are more social than he is so whenever you need to work with someone else you always take the role of the communicator, building a bridge between him and others easily. He loves how much you care about others, how you show your appreciation for your loved ones in the tiny details as making breakfast or baking their favorite cookies. He loves the way you smile whenever he messes up something and you have to take care of it eventually, he loves the way you laugh at his lame, old jokes, he loves how you always fall asleep on horror movies and he loves…

He loves you.

For years he thought he would never feel this way again for anyone, because it’s so raw and human, he thought it was wiped out of him when he became the winter soldier, but you proved him wrong. And now he wishes he told you how he felt, because if you won’t return, he has to live his life knowing you never knew how much you meant to him.

Tossing and turning in his bed, he stays wide awake, not able to even close his eyes when he knows you are out there somewhere, because you have to be. He refuses to nurse the thought of you gone for even a second. You’re qualified, the best fighter he has ever met and he has this feeling in his gut that you made it out of there alive. Maybe you knew the explosion was about to happen. Maybe you ran the opposite way before it was too late. Or maybe you found shelter, or simply was just knocked out of the impact of it and they captured you.

So many possibilities that are way more better than the fatality of your death.

Kicking the silky sheets off his body, the ones he deep down hates because it’s way too smooth against his skin, something he still has a hard time to grow accustomed to, he pulls a hoodie over his head before creeping his way out of his bedroom, down the hallway until he reaches yours. He stands still at the door, a sense of anxiety washing over him as he thinks about what’s inside. Not that it’s the first time he is here, he has spent endless nights in your room, the two of you talking and laughing as you showed him your favorite movies he hasn’t seen. You often bought a big bag of snacks for your movie nights and the two of you sprawled across your comforter, your legs sometimes touching, or there was this one time when he let you braid his hair.

“You should come to missions like this,” he remembers your teasing as you ran your fingers through the neat braids running along his head.

“And give the boys another reason to tease me? No thank you,” he chuckled.

“Another? What do they tease you about?” you asked furrowing your eyebrows as you popped a gummybear into your mouth.

You. It was you they teased him about and how obvious his feelings for you are. Seemingly everyone saw how you looked at each other but you and him.

He twists the silver doorknob before pushing the door open, part of him hoping to see you curled up under the sheets, snoring lightly and peacefully, but the room is terribly empty without your presence.

Everything is just the way you left them. The abandoned workout clothes hanging from the edge of the hamper, your running shoes under the window, your journal lying on your nightstand with a pen on top and his favorite… a framed picture of you and him on your bookshelf with all your favorite romantic novels stacked neatly on the shelves.

Bucky steps closer, his hands hidden in the pooch of his hoodie as he stares at the photo. It was taken a few days after the two of you returned from Wakanda, Bucky was finally free from the winter soldier and it was probably the best few days of his life. The two of you decided to take a trip to London before returning to your duty, a place you always wanted to see, but never really got the chance. It was just the two of you, taking some time away from the avengers, SHIELD, all the bad in the world, pretending like you’re two normal people for just a weekend before returning to your duties in New York. The photo was taken when you returned from the getaway, Steve took it in the gym, the two of you sat at the edge of the boxing ring after a killer fight. It was a simple moment, his arm stretched behind you as you leant against his side. The glow from your alone time was still apparent on your faces, neither of you felt happier in life before, or not at least in the last decade.

His vision blurs as he runs a finger through the frame, a sharp pain stabbing in his chest as he watches your bright smile and rosy cheeks. He never thought he would feel this way about anyone, not after everything he went through, but you proved him wrong. You showed him how much more human he still is that what he thinks of himself and you might not even have realized it.

Too restless to go back to sleep, Bucky storms out of your room, carefully closing the door behind him before going down to Tony’s office, determined to make himself useful. He can’t just sit around and wait, he needs to feel like he is doing everything he can.

When the first rays of the sun shine above the horizon and the first agents arrive for their shifts, He has already gone through an immense amount of security tapes from all around the world that had even the slightest match through the face recognition system with yours. None of them turned out to be real, but he never gave up.

“Barnes, were you here all night?” Tony asks in awe when he finds the long-haired avenger with his eyes glued to one of the screens, watching yet another tape.

“Not all night, but… for the majority, yes,” he nods without even sparing Tony a look.

Any other day Tony would tease him for maybe finally doing something useful, or not only using his fist in a case, but not today. Everyone on the team knows how much you mean to him and how hard it is to not know where you are. So he just nods, places his coffee down to the desk and gets down to work without a word.

Soon enough the rest of the team joins them and everyone is working together to find even the slightest lead. Every other minor case is put aside, you are their priority.

The more time passes by without anything found, Bucky feels like a part of him is dying more and more. Hopelessness and fear is taking over his already messed up mine, but he is still holding onto the light and that small little feeling in his gut that you are still out there somewhere. And then they find a lead.

“We’ve got a match!” Nat beams from behind her screen and everyone gathers around her as a series of blurry photos play in front of them, showing a group of men carrying a clearly unconscious person to a minivan before driving away. The quality is definitely not the best, your face is also half covered by your hair, but your uniform gives you away. It really is you.

“Where and when was this taken?” Bucky asks in a hurry.

“Last night, outside of Krakow. We have one last coordinate for the van,” Nat informs the group as she brings up a map, a red dot signaling the last spotting of the same van.

“There’s a closed off military based near,” Steve chimes in, pointing at the map a few miles away from where the pictures were taken.

“Alright, suit up everyone. Guess we are going to Poland,” Tony announces and a moment later everyone is running off to get ready for takeoff.

The ground doesn’t feel that bad anymore. It’s wet and there’s gravel here and there, the coldness is not too comfortable either, but you are getting used to it. Probably because it makes you feel things and that’s important to you now. In times when you often lose contact with your own body and mind, feelings keep you grounded and they remind you of who you are.

Last night you finally found out who caught you and it wasn’t a pleasant surprise. Aziel Nowak is a name you’ve already heard before, but not in the best way. The guy is totally crazy and if that’s not enough, he is kind of a genius as well. These two never sit well with each other and you knew it was just a matter of time before you had to face him, but you didn’t think these would be the circumstances.

Nowak’s father, Aleksander was a well-known scientist in the circles of HYDRA, he was one of the assholes responsible for wiping Bucky’s head, unfortunately, his own creation brought his death upon him. Bucky killed him during a raid, all while Aleksander was trying to trigger him, but Bucky was faster than him and shoot him in the head before he could get the second trigger word out. Aziel swore to seek revenge for his father’s death and made it clear that his big plan is to take out every avenger one by one, but all during completely destroying Bucky in every possible way.

Stuck in a clear tube, one that was built specially for super soldiers, you stood in his lab as he got everything ready for his master plan with you.

“The winter soldier was full of flaws,” he started to explain to you, working behind his computer while you couldn’t do anything to stop the madness. Even if you could break out of the tube, you were terribly outnumbered with the hoard of guards in the room, all of them armed and ready to rip you apart. It would have been a suicidal mission.

“The trigger words take a lot of time to enlist and sometimes, we just don’t have time for that. We need our soldier instantly, in a push of a button, if I might add,” he smirked and you almost gagged. He was a lowlife, disgusting middle-aged man, completely out of touch of reality, wrapped up in his own head with his ridiculous misconceptions and twisted view of the world.

“But fear no more, I have a better solution,” he grinned at you, holding up a tiny chip between his fingers and your jaw flexed. You didn’t know what it was, but you had guesses. “Spent years working on this little thing and now I can finally test it out and you get to be the lucky one to do it. Start the gas,” he ordered and a moment later some kind of gas started to fill the tube up. Your pathetic attempt to escape was cut off shortly when you felt your whole body freeze as you inhaled the gas. You just stood there, completely no control over your own body. The back of the tube opened with a hiss once the gas cleared out from around you and you felt a sharp stabbing at the back of your neck. You couldn’t even gasp, you were as frozen as a statue, unable to defend yourself and you truly felt like it’s the end. You wish it was though.

Nowak implanted the chip into your spine and you could feel the wires cling into your nerves, melting into your body like a parasite. A single tear rolled down your cheek as your wound was closed off.

“This is going to be so much fun,” Nowak smirked when he walked into your sight again. He had a control panel in his hands and as he pushed some buttons electricity bolted through your whole body and you completely lost control over your actions. Your body moved without your consent, arms and legs acting without your brain actually telling them.

You became a prisoner in your own body.

The night was spent fighting with Nowak’s best guards as he tested out his new toy: you. He could control your whole body thanks to the chip and while you were screaming and shouting in your head, there was no escape. He made you into his ragdoll and there was nothing you could do against it.

He switched the chip off when you were thrown back into the cell. You sobbed for hours probably as you tried to get the thing out of yourself, blood was dripping down your back, but you had to accept that it was too deep, clinging onto your spine, you couldn’t get it out with your bare hands.

Now you are lying on the floor and try to remember who you are, because you’ve been feeling like you lost touch with your true self. The only thing that has been helping is remembering your favorite memories.

It makes your heart flutter when you realize that most of them have Bucky in them. Your most favorite? The time you spent in London. Those days are the closest and dearest to your heart and now you just wish you could go back in time for even just an hour. Strolling down the streets like any other tourists without a worry in the world, watching the city lay in front of you as you ride the London Eye or walking along the River Thames. You felt so normal, so happy, sharing your time with the man you probably love the most in the whole wide world.

“I could live here,” you sighed when the Big Ben came into view above the brick buildings.

“It rains too much here,” Bucky furrowed his eyebrows at you, his arm brushing against yours.

“I like the rain. Love the smell of it, love how refreshing it feels after it,” you chuckled.

“And what would you want to do here?”

“I don’t know,” you shrugged. “Maybe I would work at a library. Or a café!”

“You want to be a barista!” He chuckled, smirking down on you. “Is this why you wanted Tony to get a fancy espresso machine?”

“Well, not just because of this, I just really like good coffee,” you smiled up at him. “What, do you not like my coffee?”

“Oh, I do. You make the best in the tower,” he nodded.

You could always talk about anything and everything with him. He understood you so well and you liked to think it worked the other way as well. That you were just as important to him as he was to you.

“Bucky.” His name falls from your lips like a desperate plea, as if you could summon him and he’d be here any moment to rescue you. But nothing changes and you are still on your own.

You’ve been wondering if this is how he felt when they made him to be the winter soldier. If he went through the same struggle or if it was worse. He said he doesn’t remember everything he did, as if sometimes he just completely disappeared in his own head, but other times live vividly in his memories.

You remember everything too. The chip has no control over your mind and thoughts, it works as another brain that takes over control in your body, caging your mind in your own head while it works your body.

A siren rings through the building and you gasp, your head snapping in the direction of the metal door. You hear orders in a foreign language and running footsteps somewhere down the hallway. Pushing yourself up you move to the far end of the room as you hear someone approaching your cell. Before the lock clicks on the door, you feel the familiar electricity run through your body and you breathe out before you lose control over your body again. You stand up, not because you want to, but because this is what they ordered. The door swings open and Nowak walks in.

“Guess your little friends figured out where you are. It’s time to show them my masterpiece.”

The military base is pretty lively for a closed off one. As the team is approaching the complex they inspect the possibilities they have to get inside.

“Alright, we have to be smart about this. Nowak is a psychopath,” Tony announces when the quinjet is nearing the base. “Barron and Natasha, we need a diversion. Banner, you stay here and only come in if it’s needed,” he starts and everyone nods along. “Wanda, the same goes for you as well. Listen to the call word and be ready to interfere. Sam and I are going to clear the main building, try to find Nowak. Barnes, Cap, you are tracking Y/N down. Everything clear?”

“As daylight,” Steve nods as he grabs his shield from the side.

Once the quinjet touches down, everyone goes their own way, going along the plan they discussed. Nat and Clint do well with the diversion, a great amount of guards and soldiers are drawn in their way as Tony and Sam make their way into the main building of the base.

“Where should we look, Buck?” Steve asks his friend as they hide behind one of the quarters. Bucky looks around, inspects the place and nods towards a building that’s clearly powered with a lot more electricity for whatever reason, Thick cables running inside, snaking under the doors, pouring extra power inside. Steve nods and once the way is somewhat cleared out, they head inside.

They take down the few HYDRA agents that try to get in their way as they run further into the building without even breaking a sweat. They easily reach the lab and it almost feels way too easy.

“Something is not right,” Steve says as the two of them walk into the empty lab, curious inspecting all the machines and equipment they have absolutely no idea how to work.

Bucky’s eyes fall on the tube in the far corner of the room and walking closer he gets an eerie feeling and he can already picture you trapped inside, the thought making his stomach churn.

“Anyone found Nowak yet?” Steve asks through the com.

“Negative,” Nat grunts back in the middle of her own fight.

“Haven’t seen the fucker either,” Tony answers and Steve sighs.

Just as Bucky is about to head to the door that leads out of the lab at the other end from where they entered, the sliding door opens and they both get ready to fight whatever is about to come into sight. But neither of them were expecting you to walk out.

“Y/N?!” your name falls from Steve’s lips as he lets his shield down, staring back at you confused. But you don’t answer, just stop a few feet away from them, staring blankly ahead of you and Bucky swears he was on the verge of fainting from his anger, because he knew those eyes all too well, because he used to see them in the mirror.

“Y/N, what did they do?” he whispers desperately, a hand reaching out to you, but it’s quickly cut off when you grab his hand and easily throw him over, his back contacting the floor with a painful thump.

Hell breaks loose fast as you start fighting them off, using the advantage of their shock upon seeing you, working against them while they try to make you remember them.

“Y/N, it’s us! We don’t want to hurt you!” Steve growls when he saves himself from one of your hits, his shield coming between the two of you.

I know! I know it’s you, but I can’t do anything! You scream in your own head, unable to even form the words. You’re a prisoner in this body you thought to be yours, but it betrayed you.

You never fought both of them before at the same time, but now that it’s happening, you’re surprisingly good at it, handling two super soldiers at the same time when one of them has a vibranium arm while the other one keeps throwing a vibranium shield at you, though it’s clear they aren’t giving their best, afraid of hurting you even though you’re in killer mode right now and determined to rip them apart.

“Do you think they did the same to her as they did to you?” Steve asks out of breath when you throw them against a wall and return to fight Bucky.

“It’s something else. Look at the back of her neck!” he growls when you throw a punch in his way that he catches with his metal arm, holding your fist tight as you keep pushing it and this moment of pause allows Steve to take a look at you from the back.

“Oh shit,” he breathes out.

Yes! Take this shit out and I’m free! You scream, but no one hears. Your fist frees from Bucky’s grip and you kick him in the stomach so hard he snaps against the desk behind him and wasting no time you jump right at him, the fight continues.

“If anyone finds Nowak, don’t kill him. We’ve got Y/N and she is being controlled by something,” Steve explains through his earpiece before throwing his shield in your direction right when you’re about to attach your hands to Bucky’s neck. It hits you in the side and you fall to the ground grunting.

“Don’t fucking hurt her!” Bucky growls at him, but Steve gives him a look.

“She is trying to kill us, we have to do something!”

You’re on your feet fast, already charging at Steve and it catches him by surprise, he stumbles back as your knee collides with his stomach, a punch thrown at his pretty face.

“I see Nowak!” Tony’s voice comes through the earpieces, but they don’t have the chance to celebrate, because you’re kicking their ass big time.

When you want to launch yourself at Steve again, Bucky’s arms wrap around your waist from behind and he pulls back, pushing you away, making you stumble, but you’re back on your feet quickly. Your eyes meet and you want to touch him so badly, run into his arms, tell him how happy you are to see him and that he was the only thing that kept you sane, but instead, you throw yourself at him, fist colliding with the side of his head.

I’m so sorry, Buck!

“We’ve got Nowak!” Tony announces and Steve sighs in relief.

“Does he have something like a remote or controller?” he asks while you and Bucky are at each other’s throat. You throw him to a desk and drag him across it, papers and equipment flying everywhere before he ends up on the floor groaning. You have the perfect chance to throw a punch in again, but you turn around and run back towards the door you came through.

“He has a controlling panel, do you think it’s connected to Y/N?” Tony asks.

“Very much likely, but please hurry up, she is trying to run away!” Steve begs as they both start to chase after you in the labyrinth of hallways. You’re footsteps are echoing on the checkered floors as they are trying to catch up with you. You take a left turn and get out of their vision just for a split second. As they get around the corner they immediately freeze when they find you standing there, a gun pointing right at Bucky’s head, a deadly, but still rather blank expression in your eyes.

“Shit,” Steve breathes out.

“Y/N, I know you are in there,” Bucky speaks up.

Yes! I’m here! I’m here Bucky!

“The controller is locked, but we are working on it,” Tony announces through the com, but it doesn’t help their situation right now. If he can’t unlock the controller, you are likely to shoot them both if they don’t do something. As you stare back at your two friends, you are using everything in you to try to get back the control over your own body, but it’s like you’re just silently screaming in an empty, locked room.

“I know you hear me. Please, try to fight it off. I know how hard it is, but if anyone can do it, it’s you,” Bucky continues and if only you were in charge of yourself, you’d already be sobbing at the broken expression he is staring back at you with. Your finger is on the trigger and you can feel your muscles trembling.

“Buck, we need to disarm her,” Steve tells him, but he shakes his head.

“No. We can’t do that without hurting her and I’m not doing that.”

Oh Bucky! That’s the only way now!

“She is gonna shoot, Bucky. We have to do something!”

“She could have already fired. She is fighting it off, I know it.”

“Or maybe it’s just whatever it is inside her messing with her head as Tony is trying to break the controller.”

“Y/N, sweetheart, I know you can do this. I’m not gonna hurt you, you can fight it!” Bucky continues, ignoring Steve’s words, who stands behind him with his jaw flexed.

I can’t do it, you need to knock me out! I’m not strong enough to do it!

You are trying everything you can and you are already holding your finger back, you would have already pulled the trigger if it wasn’t for your resistance somewhere in this cage. But you just know you’re not strong enough to stop yourself forever, they will need to disarm you, there’s no choice.

You stare back at Bucky, his forehead and left cheek bloody from wounds you gave him and he probably has a few bruises under his leather jacket as well, all because of you. Nowak made you hurt the person you love the most and now his life is being threatened. You know he won’t fight you, he will not try to disarm you, he would rather take the bullet than cause pain to you, more than what he already did during your fight.

The gun trembles in your hand as you’re desperately trying to gain your control back, sweat beading on your forehead, your chest heaving.

“Stark, we are running out of time!” Steve warns him through the com.

“Just one more second!” he answers, but you’re afraid you don’t have that much time.

“Y/N, please!” Bucky begs, a single tear rolling down his cheek and you can feel your own heart breaking at the sight of him. You can’t believe it’s because of you, you are causing him pain when you swore to work to see him his happiest in his life.

Your jaw flexes and you are on the verge of breaking, the tiniest light flashing in front of you as you keep pushing, trying to take back control, but then you feel like losing again. It all happens so fast, you can barely process.

You know you’re about to pull the trigger, you can’t stop yourself, but just as you are about to do it, Tony’s voice rings through the com.

“We got it!”

In a blink of the eye, the invisible grip that’s been keeping you tight vanishes, the cage opens up and suddenly you feel yourself come alive again as the most painful, deafening and desperate scream rips from your throat, the gun falling from your grip before you collapse on the ground in complete shock of everything that went down.

“Get it out! Get it out! I can’t do this!” you scream, your nails scratching the back of your neck once again, trying to reach the chip, but you’re just breaking your own skin once again, blood dripping down your back.

“Hey, it’s alright, sweetheart. We got you. You’re gonna be fine!” Bucky falls to his knees, cradling you into his arms as you sob into his hard chest, hands gripping the fabric of his jacket tight as your salty tears soak your cheeks, your whole body shaking.

“I’m so sorry! I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” you repeat, shaking your head as if you were trying to get rid of the memories, but they are still there, you still know what it’s like to be a prisoner in your own head but at least now you are with Bucky and that brings you the peace of mind you’ve been seeking all along.

“You don’t have to be sorry, it’s alright. You’ll be alright, sweetheart, you’re safe with me now,” he murmurs into your hair, his arms holding you so tight it’s starting to get hard to even breathe, but you wouldn’t have it any other way.

You cling onto him as if your life depends on it and in a way, it really does. Bucky gathers you into his arms as you keep mumbling your apologies and begs to make it stop even though you are not being controlled any longer. He carries you to the quinjet as he keeps murmuring reassuring words into your ear, telling you that everything is going to be alright now. You are in good hands.

You don’t let go of him on the way back and he doesn’t seem to want to do it either. Curled up on his lap, you let yourself fall into a shallow slumber as his fingers are dancing up and down your back, keeping you close to his chest, the feeling of finally being home taking over your senses.

Arriving back to New York you are helped off the jet by Bucky or course as he walks you to the med bay where Dr. Cho is already waiting for your arrival.

“Don’t worry, Y/N. We’ll fix you up,” she smiles at you as you are expected to let go of Bucky, but your head snaps back in his direction in panic, hands grabbing onto his anxiously.

“It’s alright, I’ll be here waiting for you. My stupid face will be the first thing you see when you wake up,” he jokes, his tired eyes fixated on you as you hesitate to let go of him, but eventually do it.

Keeping his promise Bucky stay outside as long as you are under Helen’s hands, not able to even drag him away to change clothes. The only thing he can make himself is dragging his ass to the nearest restroom to at least wash the dried blood off his face, but he quickly returns to his previous spot.

It turns out removing the chip is a bit more complicated than anyone thought. The micro wires are so deep in your nerves, Dr. Cho has to be careful if he doesn’t want to paralyze you with just one wrong move. Five entire hours pass by before the chip is finally out of you, before they place you in one of the rooms until you wake up from the anesthesia. Bucky is right by your side, holding your hand soothingly as he waits for you to open your eyes again. When he sees your eyelashes fluttering, he holds his breath as your eyes open and you adjust to the light and the view around you.

“Hey, sweetheart. How are you feeling?” he softly asks, gently brushing a strand of hair out of your forehead.

“Like… I just fought against two super soldiers,” you breathe out in a joking manner that makes him chuckle. You’re back and he missed you more than he could ever express.

As you let out a long and heave breath, you feel everything coming back to you and you can’t stop your sobs and the tears falling from your eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Bucky,” you gasp and he is quick to leap forward, one hand holding yours while the other one cups your cheek as he makes you turn your head towards him.

“No, no, no. You have nothing to be sorry about, Y/N. You did everything you could, you fought it so well!”

“But I hurt you! I didn’t want to hurt you, I was screaming inside my head, but I just couldn’t stop!” you sob shaking your head.

“I know, it wasn’t your fault! Please don’t think for a moment anyone blames you!” he begs, his bright blue eyes glued to your pained face as you fight your tears back. A hand moves to the back of your neck, feeling the wound where the chip used to be.

“Is it gone?” you ask in a whisper.

“It is. Helen took good care of you. You’re free now,” he smiles and you feel a wave of relief washing over you right away. Your body is yours again, finally.

“I didn’t think I would be myself again,” you admit, your voice slightly shaking. Bucky’s heart breaks at your words, but remains silent as you carry on. “I kept thinking of memories that feel the closest to me and it was the only thing that kept me sane. And I realized that the dearest ones are all with you, Bucky.”

His lips part at your revelation as his heart is beating fast against his ribcage. He has been waiting for this moment to come for what feels like eternity and now it might become his reality.

“When I thought I would never be the same again, I just thought about… you. That I don’t get to see you again, when I always wanted to spend all my days with you, Buck.”

“I want to spend all my days with you too, sweetheart,” he breathes out, leaning closer until his face is only inches away from yours. “I hated the thought of you being gone without ever telling you how I feel.”

“How do you feel, Bucky?” you ask in a trembling voice.

“You are my everything, Y/N. You are my best friend and everything beyond and I was such a fool for not telling you before this, but the thought of losing you made me realize that I have to stop being a coward,” he chuckles with tears bubbling in his eyes. You reach out and cup his face in your palms, your thumb running along the dark circles under his eyes and you wonder if he even slept a moment since you’ve been gone.

“We were both idiots, don’t beat yourself,” you chuckle softly, making his mouth turns into a grin before he leans closer and his lips finally press against yours, capturing them in a sweet, so-good-to-have-you-back kiss you’ve been dreaming about for probably way too long but at least since London. It’s soft and gentle, filled with the promise of many more to come. Thought you’re trying to stretch it as long as possible, a cough is heard from the door and you both pull back, turning your attention at the rest of the team standing there, all of them happy to see you again, or maybe to see the two of you finally taking the step they’ve been waiting for to happen.

“I guess you are feeling better now, yeah?” Nat smirks as she walks further inside, giving your shoulder a gentle squeeze.

“Much better,” you admit with a shy chuckle. “Thank you for the rescuing, guys.”

“It’s the least we could do,” Sam smirks at you.

“And Barnes would have gone nuts if we didn’t find you so that was also quite motivating,” Tony jokes nodding towards the man by your side, who is still holding your hand as if you could disappear any moment.

“Steve, I’m sorry for trying to hurt you,” you breathe out at the sight of the tall blonde man, but he just shrugs with a warm smile.

“It’s alright. At least now we know that you could easily kick our ass at the same time,” he jokes nodding towards Bucky, though you all know they were holding back, not wanting to hurt you. You still remember the look in Bucky’s eyes when you held him at gunpoint. He could have easily disarmed you but it would have cost you at least a broken arm, yet he refused to lay a hand on you and believed that you could control yourself again.

When the team is gone and it’s just the two of you again in the room, Bucky sits at the edge of your bed, his fingers playing with your hand over the white sheets as you let yourself fall into the sense of safety again.

“You should have disarmed me, Bucky,” you tell him, breaking the silence.

“I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“I could have killed you,” you retort.

“I know,” he nods, his lips pressing into a thin line. “But I just couldn’t cause you any more pain.”

“The fact that I was hurting you was already a pain, Bucky. You should have just knock me out.”

“Would you ever do the same to me?” he questions and though you open your lips to answer, you realize that he is right. You would have never hurt him on purpose, not even if he was back at being the winter soldier. You could have never hurt your sweet Bucky, the man that means more than anything ever in your torturous life.

“See? How do you expect me to do it then?” he smiles softly. “But it doesn’t matter, you are free now. It’s all in the past.”

“It still broke my heart, seeing you like that.”

“I can only say the same,” he breathes out, his eyes softening on you. “I wanted to help you so bad, but I couldn’t…”

“You helped me a lot,” you smile at him, brushing a few loose strands of hair out of his forehead. He smiles back at you and through his ocean eyes are still looking tired and a little bloodshot, but there’s a tiny little glimmer in them, something you’ve seen before, it was the most apparent when Shuri was successful at ridding him from the winter soldier and you also saw it in London. You’ve been seeking this little shine for a long time and you’re happy to have it back.

“We should go on a vacation,” he suggests, his smile growing wider with each passing second.

“Oh, I didn’t know avengers had vacation days,” you tease him.

“They do, as much as they want,” he nods grinning. “Where would you want to go? Do you want to go back to London?” he questions as he brings your hand up to his lips, kissing your bruised knuckles.

“Mm, we should go somewhere new,” you purse your lips. “I’ve always wanted to see Amsterdam.”

“Then Amsterdam it is,” he chuckles before leaning closer he kisses your lips gently with a promise of a bright future together.

Thank you for reading, please like and reblog if you enjoyed it!

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beyondspaceandstars · 3 years ago

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While You Sleep

Chapter 16

Relationship: Bucky Barnes x Reader Warnings: mentions of violence Summary: Soulmate!AU - Throughout life, you’re given glimpses of your soulmate through dreams. As you sleep, memories flash in your mind showing you the life your soulmate has lived. Everyone around you raves about how their soulmate reads great books or volunteers in their spare time. But you can’t relate as your dreams end up being more like nightmares. Through initial images of death and violence, you come to learn your soulmate is the Winter Soldier.

Masterlist | Series Masterlist

“You’re coming to me about soulmate bonds?” Bruce Banner asked for what seemed like the umpteenth time. Once again, you and Bucky nodded in sync, standing awkwardly in the middle of his lab.

Bruce let out a sigh as he turned back to whatever he had been working on. He hadn’t totally dismissed you two yet, thankfully, so you were just forced to stand there, waiting.

When Bucky had told you this was who would potentially help you, you were a bit hesitant. You had only encountered Bruce briefly in your time at the compound. In fact, you hadn’t really gotten to know anyone outside of Bucky and Steve. So, coming to an Avenger, let alone a literal nationally recognized genius, for help with such a thing...made you nervous, to say the least. You’d have to confess your troubles to a third party once more.

But Bucky assured you over and over again that Bruce could be trusted. He didn’t know the scale of his research on the topic but he felt he was a trustworthy person for this. Eventually, you agreed. After your first shift back at work - a new addition back to your routine as you worked to regain some stability - Bucky took you over to the compound. You had thought he had gotten an appointment or at least gave Bruce some kind of rundown on the proposal but, apparently, no.

“What makes you think I can answer any questions on that?” Bruce grumbled as he furiously wrote notes on his current project. You and Bucky shared a look.

“I heard you did some research on it,” Bucky explained.

Bruce huffed. “So?”

“So,” Bucky sighed, “we think we… we have a problem with ours.”

This vague statement was enough for Bruce to perk up a bit. His writing had stopped. He was looking forward now, away from the project. “A problem?” Bruce asked, slightly glancing over his shoulder.

You shifted your weight as you stood a bit uncomfortable with the admission out in the open. Bucky, though, was the definition of cool, calm, and collected. You were just a little bit jealous of him.

Bucky nodded. “To put it simply, my girl has nightmares.”

Bruce seemed very interested now. He finally turned back around, facing you two fully once again. He looked intrigued but not really excited. You wondered greatly what his research really encompassed.

“Nightmares?” Bruce was beginning to sound like some sad echo. But you and Bucky just went with it, nodding your head in confirmation. Bruce continued, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of nightmares. They’re dreams we have — soulmate dreams.”

You sighed, greatly out of annoyance. You’d been hearing the same thing day after day after day for years. “I know,” you finally said. “I am well aware of that but it just isn’t how ours work. I’ve only ever seen the…bad things Bucky has encountered. And for a while, after we met, they stopped.”

“As you would hope.”

You nodded. “But then that…thing happened. And it’s all started over again except somehow stronger. I’m seeing it all through Bucky’s eyes. Through his feelings. Through his — his everything. I’m back there twice over and many times after.”

Bruce shook his head as if he couldn’t believe it. You didn’t know what to do. Bucky was very tense beside you, hands balled into tight fists waiting as anxiously as you for Bruce to just say something about it. But he didn’t, not yet, as he raced over to his desk. From one of the drawers, a very particularly locked one, Bruce pulled out a file. He flicked it open and began reading, his finger roaming over the pages wildly, hunting for whatever it was he needed. You and Bucky just watched the situation unfold, practically holding your breaths.

Eventually, Bruce walked back over, a very specific page opened in the filed documents. You couldn’t make out what it was about from your sneaky glance so you waited for the genius to begin. He looked between you and Bucky, jaw slacked in amazement and concerned.

“Before I get into this, I want you both to promise me this knowledge doesn’t leave this lab unless it is on my account, okay?” He spoke strongly and seriously. You two nodded. Once he was pleased, Bruce looked back at the file and began, “Gosh, I can’t believe I forgot about this… You were right, Bucky, I have researched soulmate bonds. I didn’t do it for long, God knows it’s a hot topic, but part of my research involved what I nicknamed toxic bonds.” He looked pointedly at you two. “It just started out as a little theory stemming from the old stories about soulmates ‘moving on.’ It’s really a bit more than just not liking someone. This theory revolves around stories of soulmates, in these cases, receiving unflattering or uninteresting dreams from their partnered mates. I was basing these off the accounts of long ago as there are no known partners that fit this mold. At least, until now.” Bruce motioned between you two. You didn’t like where this was all going. “I believe what you two share is a toxic bond, a sort of glitch in Fate. Except, where you two fall flat in this is the fact the nightmares have come back. All dreams change after meeting your soulmate, right?” No one said anything. Bruce continued, “Yes, they technically should. Something has in fact fallen off with you two. I can’t say what but it doesn’t add it and could be significant to this research. With permission, I would like to run some tests on each of you.”

You stiffened. “T-Tests?” While you should be kind of relieved there’s some answer - or idea - for what you’re experiencing, you were suddenly hung up on the prospect of being an experiment. Bucky’s hand reached out to grasp yours, trying to offer some comfort. The thought of being strapped to a chair flashed through your mind. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Bucky shoot Bruce a harsh look.

“Nothing harmful, I promise,” Bruce insisted. “I would just like to take a peek into your brains, into the bond.”

“That’s possible?” Bucky asked. You were glad he at least had the strength to speak.

“It’s attached to the brain function in various ways,” Bruce explained. “A look into your brainwaves can tell me a lot. Or nothing, if that's the case, too.”

You knew you were doing an absolutely horrible job at hiding your worries but, thankfully, neither man was bringing much attention to it. They just looked at you, waiting for an answer. You were quite impressed by how Bucky was just going along with this. But, at the same time, there was a reason he came here instead of seeking a true outsider. If this was okay with Bucky, it was going to have to be okay with you. At least this time, you weren’t being thrown in a chair alone.

“Okay,” you nodded. “Let’s see what we can find out.”

***

You didn’t know which was more daunting: the actual test itself or waiting for the results.

The test was more like a true test of patience. You basically just had to sit there as Bruce wrote notes and saw things you never could make out from the weird squiggly lines on the monitor. All while he’s doing that, you’re trying not to just break down from being in a lab again. Thankfully, Bucky offered more comfort the best he could. He let you squeeze his non-metal hand, never flinching once no matter how much your nails dig into him. He even tried striking up conversations with you, trying to distract you. He tells you about the new romance movie he thinks you two should go see. You try to stay engaged, feeling a bit bad you couldn’t focus well on it, but he didn’t seem to mind.

When the roles were reversed, Bucky didn’t ask for any help from you. You still tried to offer something by taking his hand in yours. But he just didn’t need distractions, perhaps a bit too familiar with being subjected to testing. This had to be on the easier side, you figured.

Once you both were finished, Bruce instructed you to take a seat and wait. He had some things to double-check. The longer you sat, the more you were worried it was bad news - but you didn’t even really know what bad news would actually entail. What was he looking for? How much of the bond could actually be seen? You hadn’t heard of this ever. If you did, you probably would’ve looked into it a long time ago just to clarify if you were fucked in the head or not.

“How are you feeling?” Bucky asked, gently. You fiddled with your fingers, unsure.

“It wasn’t so bad,” you said. “Just not sure what he’s going to find.” Bucky agreed and you two fell back into your silence as you waited.

Minutes later, Bruce finally re-entered the room. You two must’ve been wearing hopeful looks because he motioned for you to calm down. Bruce wasn’t matching your excitement. Something twisted in your stomach.

“I’ve reviewed your tests,” he said, holding up a folder labeled with your names. You two nodded. Bruce motioned towards you first and said, “Your test came back perfectly normal. Everything is fine with your part of the bond which quite surprised me but I checked and rechecked. The issues aren’t with you-,”

Bucky sighed, cutting Bruce off as he mentally pieced it together. “They’re with me.”

You felt your body tense as Bucky looked defeated beside you. He wasn't meeting either of your gazes despite you trying to reach for his hand again. He shrugged it off, you quickly turned to Bruce.

“What’s the problem?” You just about demanded. Bruce didn’t look very phased by your outburst. He pulled up a seat in front of you two looking like he had to mentally prepare himself for this.

“There’s an unnatural disturbance in Bucky’s side of the bond,” Bruce explained as he flipped open the folder. You didn’t even try to understand the printed results. Bucky was fully disconnected at this point. “I can’t say for sure what caused it, but if I had to guess when he underwent what...Hydra did, it affected lines in the transmission process. They probably thought they were severing the lines but they were really just scrambling them, hence the nightmares. They’re the dominant memories the bond reads in transmission. Bucky’s missions and recent healing process didn’t help anything. All in all, to put it simply, any intense moments Bucky experiences will be projected back to you due to a disconnect in the function of the bond.”

“So, I really was the cause of all this?” Bucky finally spoke up. His voice was hoarse, almost weak. You knew he thought his hair hid the look of distress written on his face but you could feel it. Boy, could you feel it.

You immediately began shaking your head and reaching for him again. He didn’t move under your touch but at least he was allowing it. “This isn’t your fault, I promise.”

Bucky looked like he wanted to protest further but Bruce stopped him, “You couldn’t do anything to prevent this.” He looked back at you. “Either of you. These were the actions of some deranged individuals and they are the only ones responsible. I’m just sorry you two have to pay the price.”

“I-Is there anything we can do to fix it?”

Bruce closed the folder, looking more uncomfortable - if that was even possible. “I’m afraid not. It’s hard enough to damage soulmate bonds, essentially impossible to bandage.”

Upon hearing that, Bucky abruptly stood up. You jumped at the sudden action, suddenly convinced he was going to walk away. Forever. But instead, he made his way over to the window, his back towards you two, lost in whatever self-deprecating thoughts were flooding his brain. You’d address that later but were currently focused on pressing Bruce.

“There’s really nothing at all?” You were sounding desperate at this point but Bruce didn’t seem to mind, giving you the most sympathetic look.

“My best advice would be that Bucky finish his healing treatment and then get him out of this...profession.”

You could feel Bucky’s eyes on you two now. “What, like retirement?”

Bruce shrugged. “Whatever you want to call it. Essentially, the less he fights, the less traumatizing situations he’s put in, the fewer nightmares you’ll have.” He glanced back at the folder. “In theory, you could be rid of them all. Get back to having actual dreams. It’s an optimistic take but you’ve already proven it’s possible to some degree.”

You looked over your shoulder, your worried eyes meeting Bucky’s intense ones. He wasn’t exactly protesting but you saw the hesitancy. You turned back to Bruce.

“Thank you for all your help,” you said.

He nodded. “I’m glad I could be of some assistance. If you ever want to look even further into it, I think I know someone else that could help.”

“I think we’ve learned enough for a while.”

“Of course,” Bruce agreed and then stood from his chair. “I’ll let you two go. Probably got a few things to discuss. Call me if you need anything.” With that, he exited the lab, leaving just you and your soulmate to move forward. Somehow.

Bucky had turned back to the window. You shifted in your seat, unsure of what to say now.

Thankfully, Bucky was the first to speak. “Do you want to get some dinner?”

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avengerscompound · 4 years ago

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Until the End of the World - 11

Until the End of the World: A Captain America Fanfic

Masterlist PREVIOUS //

Buy me a ☕ Character Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Steve Rogers x F!Reader

Word Count: 2579

Rating: E

Warnings: pregnancy, smut (MMF, vaginal fingering, double vaginal penetration)

Synopsis: Four years after Steve and Bucky got to the bottom of the HYDRA conspiracy that had led to you and your son being hunted for the first three years of his life, you, Bucky, and Steve have carved out a nice life together. Things are calm and you feel like a family unit. When Geo starts calling Bucky and Steve ‘dad’, a decision is made to try and add to your family.

Things aren’t as calm as they seem. When your pregnancy hits the papers, HYDRA rears its head once again, and Steve and Bucky need to track you down to protect the family they had created.

Chapter 11

Steve had been contemplating quite a few things lately. That was understandable really. There was a baby on the way. That always came with the usual concerns, about doctors appointments to attend and getting the place ready for an infant, and making sure there were the things needed to raise a baby in the house. On top of that was the existential dread of being a bad parent, the world being the state it was in, and getting them to adulthood so they were both happy and healthy. There were also those worries specific to him about passing on the super-soldier serum and what that would mean for a baby, as well as how having parents in a polyamorous relationship might affect them growing up, and what it might be like to have Captain America as your dad.

There was a lot to consider - from small things like what color to paint the baby’s room, to huge things like winding back on work so he could be home more to be with them.

The thing that had been on his mind the most lately though, was Geo.

He had been thinking about the little boy and how he could make sure he felt loved and wanted and not just the accidental spare that Steve and Bucky had gotten stuck with simply because they’d fallen in love with his mother. That as far from the truth as it could be in Steve’s mind. He’d always worried about so many things when it came to being a parent, that he’d written the whole thing off a long time ago. It wasn’t until he’d been thrust into the role with Geo that he realized how much he loved it, and how much he loved him. In Steve’s mind, Geo was his son. As much as the new baby would be his daughter. He wanted to make sure that Geo knew that and felt safe knowing that no matter what Steve would be there for him.

The problem was, legally that wasn’t true. If something were to happen to you, Geo was not Steve’s son. Nor was he Bucky’s. There was no knowing for sure they’d get custody. Steve wasn’t sure about your family at all. You spoke about your ex-husband a lot, but not about your parents or any siblings you may or may not have. He had no idea if Geo would get to stay with him.

He wondered if Geo was old enough to worry about such things. He was obviously aware that neither Steve nor Bucky were related to him. Did he know that they had no legal bonds either?

The thought of adoption kept repeating on Steve like an itch he couldn’t reach. The question was never one of ‘did he want to’. He wanted to adopt Geo as much as he had ever wanted anything. There were so many variables though. For starters, there was the Bucky factor. For the same reason he hadn’t married either you or Bucky, he worried about the fairness of it. Steve had looked up the laws and in New York, they didn’t allow three legal parents to a child. It was one thing to raise the baby together. They couldn’t put all the names on the birth certificate, but they knew they could make sure if either Bucky or Steve died, the other could take the place as legal guardian. They could even potentially have the non-biological father on the birth certificate as the father. If one of them adopted Geo, they were making a legal call on whose he’d be legally, and was it fair that only one of them could be that person.

Hand-in-hand with that was Geo’s biological father. John hadn’t been a bad man who abused Geo. He wasn’t this dark entity that loomed over them. He had been a loving man, who had selflessly risked his life to protect his wife and son and ended up dying in the process of keeping them safe. Steve worried that by adopting Geo, it would somehow dishonor that. It would take away that last piece that connected the man that had died keeping Geo safe from the boy.

So he let the idea fester in him for a while. Tossing it over and over in his mind. Trying to work out a way that it might be fair and wouldn’t mean Geo was losing anything.

In the end, he couldn’t let it go, and all he could think to do was bring the idea to you and Bucky and see what you both thought.

“I’ve been thinking,” Steve said, as the three of you lay in bed together. It was that time of night, a little after Geo had gone down when he’d unwind with you both. Maybe you’d watch a movie or catch up on some show together. Sometimes you would all just read side-by-side, or mess around on your phones - together but separate - comfortably. The way that only people who truly love each other can manage. Sometimes you’d just lie together sharing your day or talking about big picture things or things that needed to be done. Sometimes it was all about sex and no one could keep their hands off each other.

“Mmm…” you hummed, trailing your fingers over his chest. “You’ll do that.”

“I want to… or I want Bucky to… or … hmm…” he babbled, in an unusual state of not being able to find the right words.

You and Bucky seemed to take specific note of his struggle and you both sat up more and looked at him. Bucky’s brow was furrowed in concern.

“Sorry,” Steve said quickly. “I’ve just been thinking about this a lot lately and I don’t want to phrase it as a demand. More of an idea to be floated for discussion.”

“What is it, Steve?” You asked.

“I’d like to adopt Geo. Or Bucky,” he said. You tensed up and he knew right away what was bothering you. You were thinking about John. His ghost haunted you in the way only someone good and kind can. The ghost of a person you don’t want to let down. It affected so many of your decisions. A lot of the time in very good ways. His ghost had been what kept you strong when you were on the run, protecting Geo alone. Now that you were settled and had fallen in love again, it had made you hesitant to be happy. If you were happy then how was that fair on John?

Survivor’s guilt, his therapist called it. Steve had a pretty bad case of that himself. When you live and so many die, you begin to wonder why and what you can do to make up for it. Steve knew right now that you were thinking about all those things he’d worried about himself. You worried that if you let Steve adopt Geo, it would be letting John down and taking his son from him.

“I know,” Steve said quickly. “I have been thinking about all the things you both are now. I don’t want to dishonor John. He was Geo’s dad. He sacrificed himself. I don’t want to take Geo from him. I just want to make sure Geo is safe here with us no matter what. I want to make sure that if something happens to you, he stays with us. But I also want Geo to know that we are his dads. Not just for now - but forever.”

You didn’t say anything and Steve just let you go over the prospect in your mind. He has been mulling it over for weeks now and he knew that you weren’t going to agree to it there and then.

“I do worry about what would happen to him if something were to happen to me,” you said. “That’s always been something that plagued me. The thought of him ending up with anyone but the two of you terrifies me. It’s just…”

“John,” Bucky finished.

You frowned and nodded. “We were so excited when I got pregnant. Like the three of us are now. He didn’t deserve this.”

Steve put his arm around your shoulder. “No, he didn’t.”

You sat quietly and a single tear ran down your cheek. After a little while, you wiped it away and looked up at them. “How would you decide which one of you does it?”

“I don’t know,” Steve said. “Toss a coin?” He shook his head and ran his hand through his hair. “I thought maybe whichever one of us didn’t go on the birth certificate for the baby might be the one that adopts Geo. But that’s just an idea.” He rubbed your shoulder gently and kissed the top of your head. “I’m not suggesting he change his name. Just that we make sure he’s safe here with us and officially our son.”

You nodded and twisted your hands together in your lap. “We need to speak to Geo first. See what he wants.”

“Of course,” Steve said. “I wouldn’t want to do anything he didn’t want to do.”

You closed your eyes and took a deep breath before letting it out slowly. “Okay.”

Steve pulled you close and rubbed your back. “Everything is going to be okay. I promise.”

“I know,” you said.

“You need some distracting, babe?” Bucky asked.

You nodded. “Yes, please.”

Bucky leaned over and kissed you. You closed your eyes and melted into it, wrapping your arms around his neck. Steve rubbed your side and kissed your neck. You hummed and pulled back slowly putting your hands on Steve and Bucky’s thighs. “I love you both so much, you know?”

“We know,” Bucky said.

“And we love you too,” Steve said.

You nodded and turned, kissing Steve. Steve hummed softly and his hand ran down your side to your ass, gripping it and pulling you closer to him. You slid your hand up Bucky’s thigh and began to palm his cock as Bucky kissed your neck and nosed at Steve’s.

Steve lay back, pulling you down with him so that you were lying face-to-face, and Bucky was spooning you from behind. Bucky’s arm circled your waist and he slipped his hand into your pants. You moaned, pushing back against Bucky and circling your tongue around Steve’s.

Bucky hummed and when you broke your kiss with Steve, Bucky leaned over and captured Steve’s lips.

Things moved slowly and intimately. It was the kind of love-making that Steve liked best. The kind where it was more about connection than release. You rolled a little, so you were on your back a little more and reached down and began to stroke both men as Steve and Bucky focused all their attention on you, wanting you to feel how much they loved you.

They opened your pajama shirt and Steve trailed his mouth down to your breasts as Bucky resumed kissing you. His fingers rolled over your clit while Steve sucked on one breast and massaged the other. Your moans got louder and you began to arch your back and roll your hips. Steve traveled further down. When he reached your cunt, Bucky pulled his hand away as Steve pulled down your pajama pants. He ducked his head down between your legs and without focus or intent, began to suck greedily on your folds. He moved his lips like he was French kissing your pussy, sucking your sweet fluids from you. He couldn’t see your reaction due to the swell of your belly but he didn’t need to. Your moans and the way your cunt flooded told him that you were enjoying yourself.

He began to focus on your clit more, sucking it into his mouth and running his tongue quickly back and forth on it. You mewled and bucked your hips, the only thing stopping your legs from closing around his head was the fact he caught them and held them open. Your sounds got louder and more desperate. It was as if you had no control of them - they just bubbled out of you as your pleasure grew. Steve pushed two of his fingers inside you and began to fuck you with them, never letting up on your clit.

Your cunt clenched and you jerked up hard under him as you came, your back curving off the mattress as you moaned loudly. “Oh god please, just fuck me,” you begged.

Steve chuckled and crawled back up your form. Bucky intercepted him, capturing his lips and sucking your fluids from them as he hummed. When he pulled back they both turned their attention back to you. Bucky lay down behind you and Steve returned to facing you, grabbing the lube from the bedside table before settling into position. He pushed his pants down enough to free his cock and slicked it in the cool gel. Bucky took the tube and Steve teased his cock up and down your folds. You brought your knee up and hooked your leg around the middle of Steve’s back. Steve slowly rolled his hips, so the head of his cock moved up and down your folds. It caught at your entrance and he pushed forward slowly sinking into you.

As Steve slowly fucked you, Bucky lubed up his own cock and began to run it up and down your crevice from behind. Steve leaned over you and kissed him as the head of Bucky’s cock rubbed against the base of Steve’s. Bucky pushed it up against your entrance and slowly sunk into you.

You mewled, your head falling back against Bucky’s shoulder as both men stretched you. Bucky’s cock squeezed in tightly beside his inside you and Steve groaned at the sensation of heat and cool in the vicelike clamp of your internal muscles.

They both began to thrust. The three of you kissed from one to the other. It moved between you like fluid trying to find a place to settle. Steve’s skin prickled as his cock throbbed inside you. There was always something so intimate about both he and Bucky penetrating you at the same time. Each of you was connected and bringing pleasure to the others.

You cunt pulsed and clenched around both of them and both Steve and Bucky groaned at once as it felt as though you were milking them. Bucky’s hand wrapped around you and he began to finger your clit in tight circles. You gasped, breaking the kiss with Steve, and cried out, jerking between them.

That was all it took for Bucky. His hips snapped forward and he released, his come coating Steve’s cock as he spilled inside you. Steve groaned, his cock moving more easily with the extra lubrication against Bucky’s softening cock. He groaned and pressed his face into your shoulder, his hips beginning to stutter. With a grunt he released, his come mixing with Bucky’s.

You hummed and Steve could feel you relaxing in his arms as both he and Bucky slipped from you. “Mmm that helped,” you said lightly, making Bucky laugh.

“Good,” Steve said, caressing your cheek. “Because what I want most of all is for you, Bucky, and Geo to be happy and safe.”

“Oh Steve,” you whispered and leaned in and kissed him. He held you close and drew Bucky in behind you so he could hold you both at once, and relax into the thought that at least - in this moment, he was getting everything he wanted.

// NEXT

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