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tomhollandish · 5 years ago

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Always Like This

A/N: After maybe two years of never writing anything, I’m back for @pparkerwrites writing challenge! This is my magnum opus, clocking in at 14k, and it’s inspired by Studio Ghibli’s Whisper of the Heart, The Louvre by Lourde, the prompt “I wish we could stay like this forever”, and my own anxiety about finishing college and growing older.

Summary: As you begin wrapping up your final year in college, you have some wishes, fears and regrets. This is the story of how you overcame all of them, with a little help from your friends. Platonic!Avengers x Reader, Bucky Barnes x Reader, mentions of past Bruce Banner x Reader and Quentin Beck x Reader (Yeah, I know,)

Warnings: Cursing, Mentions of (public) sex, and the reader being an anxious wreck

Word count: 14k (my bad)

* * * *

There is a tap once, twice, three times against the plastic cubicle, but your attention is elsewhere. As you breathe heavily, you can still see the black and white pages of your latest research endeavor printed underneath your eyelids. You swim in the words, trying to pick out what you can even comprehend when the rapping becomes less gentle.

“’Tis some visitor,” you recited, mumbling out the lines of a poem you’d once memorized. “Rapping at my chamber door.”

“It’s campus police,” the visitor said, and you fumbled to sit up properly. The harsh florescent lights made your eyes bleed, and the ugly khaki uniform of the man hovering over you was just as terrible a sight.

“Fuck,” you cursed, and then upon realizing that you just cursed in front of an officer (a glorified security worker, but you weren’t about to take pot shots right now), you covered your mouth. “I’m sorry, I just–”

“I just need your ID.” He smiled politely and you squirmed under the gesture.

“Right.”

You found it wholly ridiculous that this man was carding you in your campus library at—what time was it? —three in the morning as if you could be anyone other than a student. No sane person would be doing this without reason, and even so your reasons were wearing incredibly thin as your shitty bachelor’s degree grew closer into your clutches.

A bachelor’s degree in English? What will you even do with that?

Doesn’t matter what it’s in. It just matters that I’ve got it.

You didn’t want to spend four years doing something you hated. (With your bullshit Liberal Arts Program, it was really only two years of English, but who was counting?) You thought it would be easy to just pick up some desk jobs that would pay the bills once you graduated. But then you decided to grow noble and have an ambition and things rapidly changed.

The officer handed your card back to you. His eyes flitted over to the mess of a work station you had, before giving a pitying smile. “Long night huh? Haven’t seen you stay here this late in a while.”

Goosebumps ran up your arm. You tried to play it cool, painting on a smile as you wracked your brain for familiarity. “I’m sorry, have we met before?”

“No, not really. I’ve been working this shift for maybe two years, and you’re on this floor a lot at night. I just, uh, remember you.”

“Uh,” you blinked, unable to answer. The odds of this guy remembering you were like, twenty thousand to one. And while you were a regular patron of the third floor (it is the film section after all) it seemed unlikely that someone could pick out your face.

The guard seemed to understand that he’d stumped you, so he scratched the back of his neck sheepishly and moved on. Still stunned, you stared back at the pile of books across the table and groaned at the thought of continuing. It was late, and you had class at ten the next morning. The very class you were doing all this work for.

You sighed deeply and pondered whether or not to call it a night—it was only the third week of the fall semester and you were already working like a dog. There was a terrible feeling in your gut that if you didn’t save your energy for later, it would bite you in the ass.

Settling for checking out one last book, you scribbled down its call number and pulled yourself out of the mini cubicle, heading for the stacks. As you made your way you noticed that there were really only a few other people with you, many of them with their heads ducked into textbooks or laptops, engrossed in their own worlds.

The people began to fade away as the rows and rows of books dominated the room. You looked up and down between your notebook as you stomped through sections, passing anatomy, then biology before glancing at American literature. You ducked down one row, fingers grazing every book as you mumbled the call number under your breath, afraid it would escape you.

Finally, you knelt down, wincing as your knees cracked audibly in the quiet library. Sitting on the bottom shelf like it had been waiting on you for eons was the book in question; an innocuously black bound book, the title in plain white letters on the spine. A library reprint. You opened it, just be sure it was the exact copy you were looking for, when you realized something.

Someone had annotated this copy. Your school didn’t charge damages for writing in library books, but this person seemed to have written paragraphs worth of content between margins and on blank pages. It was the kind of analysis that could only belong to someone taking it very seriously; perhaps a fellow film studies major.

But the writing wasn’t mesmerizing because it was insightful, rather, it was because you recognized it. You stomped your way back to your seat with purpose, looking for the other companion novel; a newer, cleaner, bigger book and yet, as you flipped the pages you caught glimpses of the handwriting—legible, but obviously a quick scrawl. The e’s were always connected to the letter after it, and the m’s were hardly definable squiggles, but it was still nice to look at.

As you’d combed your way through these books, you’d found their handwriting more than once. They usually echoed the sentiment you’d been trying to capture, but they had done so first. It had discouraged you at first, thinking yourself a simple copy-cat, but it later comforted you that someone shared your ideals.

It was wishful thinking to wonder about them. Useless and distracting.

You still entertained the thought.

The whole trip back to your dorm, you busied yourself with thoughts of them–their major, if they had graduated already or if they were still here; what if you shared a class with them, or better yet, if you knew them? Your mind filled with romantic possibilities as your body took you through the process of getting you home—a maneuver you could pull in your sleep.

Once at home, you forgot all the formalities of bedtime routines and simply stripped down, crashing straight into bed. Sleep would overcome you in any moment, but in your last fleeting moments of consciousness you dreamed of flipping pages and handwriting.

* * * *

If college were a racket, you’d be fucking rich.

You’ve been at the same shit for nearly two decades, and still you felt like you were the absolute best at it. Sure, you weren’t top of the class (probably not even close) but your professors loved you and other students made the effort to know your name. You weren’t the obnoxious teacher’s pet, nor were you class clown, but people acknowledged your existence, which was honestly more than you could ever ask for.

It was moments like these when you thought twenty thousand a year (all in loans!) might have been worth it; you were talking with your professor—whom you called Kyle with the ease of an old friend—after class about some nonsense that had happened over the weekend, about the movies you had watched recently, and about school.

You felt a strange bittersweetness as he began to talk about your undergraduate thesis again, bringing up all the regalia that your presentations entailed. Maybe he noticed your sudden hesitation at the topic, because he stopped speaking and hummed.

“You’ve already started working on it, haven’t you?” It was a confirmation, but there was still a layer of trepidation to his voice you couldn’t decipher. You nodded, but it didn’t disappear. “You’re far more prepared than the others.”

“I’ve been thinking about this since sophomore year,” you confessed. “It’s nerve wracking, thinking about the presentation, but I like the topic.”

“When you blurted out your thesis during the first meeting, I think everyone wanted to kill you,” he laughed. “But as I’ve gotten to know you, I’m not surprised at all. You always know what you want.”

There was a lull then—a moments hesitation where you wanted to bluntly correct Kyle and tell him that you didn’t actually know what you wanted, but the words wouldn’t come out. Instead you smiled, and took that silence as a good place as any to end the conversation and quickly walk out of the room as the reality of your situation crashed back into you.

Staring at the tiles beneath your feet, you tried not to trip over your own mental leaps. Everything came folding in on itself as you thought of the upcoming semesters like the end of an era; the last of your eighteen years of education. Anxiety crept up your spine like a chill, and you felt yourself gripping your books tighter to keep from shaking.

And them something jammed into your shoulder, hard, the books in your hand spilling all over the floor. You grumbled to yourself, thinking you’d clumsily walked into a wall, but then you heard “Um, hello?”

Fear struck your heart as you turned to face someone: a boy, looking at you with knotted brows and his arms open with the expectation of an apology. Your fear turned to annoyance as you studied details like his tiny, low ponytail, his navy-blue blazer and the copy of The Sound and The Fury clutched in his hand.

You looked back at his face, painted with clear annoyance and spat out a half-assed, “sorry,” topped with a fake smile. His animosity was near palpable as he heel turned and kept walking, leaving you to pick up your things alone. You muttered under your breath angrily.

“Asshole, English Major Prick.”

* * * *

It was ironic to call the boy you’d bumped into earlier an asshole, considering who you spent your time with.

Your Monday/Wednesday afternoon schedule ended with a late as hell lunch with some old friends. Emphasis on old, because you were pretty sure after your major switch you had nothing in common with these men anymore.

“And what I’m telling you,” Tony Stark punctuated with a wave of his hands, “is that there’s no way Beck’s design would even theoretically work, let alone should Dr. “MIT graduate” allow him to continue with this completely doomed to fail idea.” He pointedly took a bite of the (likely now cold) pasta he’d spent ten minutes raving over before spitting it out onto a napkin. “God, what the fuck is up with this cafeteria?”

“Maybe if you would shut up for ten seconds, your food would still be warm.” You never had any clue what the self-proclaimed genius was ever talking about. It was a wonder you considered him a friend still, but even his annoying tendencies couldn’t break the brotherhood you all had from sharing the shittiest dorm on campus freshman year. You felt like you still owed Tony a debt for killing that roach in your shower all those years ago.

“I agree with Y/N, for once.” You side eyed Strange, wondering if there was some sort of punchline, but then he gave a nod of solidarity. “You’ve been complaining about this guy non-stop.”

“Beck is just,” Tony banged his fists on the table, shaking every one of your trays. “So infuriating. Y/N, how did you ever fuck this guy?”

“Stop,” Bruce says, his arms hovering over his drink and other objects that might fall over. “Tony, I’m begging you to let this go.”

“See, even Bruce admits he’d tired of this. Can we move on please?”

“Oh? Tired of me bring up your ex in front of your ex?”

“Tony, knock it off,” Bruce warned, but there was no threat in his voice. Tony dropped the subject, but still looked at you with a mischievous glint in his eye.

“Or do you have any exciting developments in…what is it you do again?”

You threateningly held out your fork towards the engineering major and he flinched. “I’m about to major in murder if you don’t Shut. Up.”

The three science majors stopped their babbling and hurriedly shoveled their food into their mouths. You sighed into your cup of powered lemonade. While you were used to Tony’s jabs, he was right: your future felt inconsequential next to their aspirations. But you would be damned if you let either him or Stephen Strange know that you felt that way.

Bruce laced his fingers together and fidgeted for a moment. You turned to him, and he smiled nervously. “So, how’s your paper coming along?”

There was another awkward pause as you sipped your drink, trying to come up with something impressive or dramatic enough to hold their attention. And then you rolled your eyes at the thought. “Well, I’m at the part of the process where I sit in the library until my mind goes numbingly blank from staring at an empty word document or director interviews or companion books and then I go home and never sleep.” You said honestly. This earned a laugh out of Tony.

“English Majors: They’re just like us!” he joked.

“That fact that you think college majors are equivalent to high school cliques is very telling of your immaturity,” you sneer at Tony. He throws a fake smile at you—not that any of his smiles are ever real.

“Psychoanalyze me all you want, Dickinson,”—his habit of calling you whatever writer came to his mind was also telling— “But the fact is, the three of us are more like each other than we are to you. It’s just facts.”

You looked to Bruce for a moment. Like always, he was on the same wavelength as you—he averted his gaze the moment you two locked eyes. “Be that as it may, we’re still friends somehow.”

“‘Somehow’ being the operative word,” Strange spoke under his breath. You narrowed your eyes at him.

“Not my fault the three of you are giving into society’s capitalist ways and are only in it for the money.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Tony says, dropping his fork in his barely touched food. He purposefully scoots his chair back with a grating noise and you wince at the sound. “Y/N, I can’t handle you when you’re like this.”

You huffed. “Now you know how we feel about you all the time.”

“I’m done with this discussion. Strangelove, Brucey,” he acknowledges his friends by their stupid nickname before rolling out. Strange sighs before following his lead, but Bruce stays put.

“He’s sensitive about that.”

You shrugged. “Then maybe he should try going into a career that helps people instead. No ones making him become a money mongering executive.”

“You know what his dad is like.”

“Yeah, rich.”

Bruce dragged his hands down his face, but there was a chuckle underneath his exasperation. “Your coldness is honestly so incredible. Aren’t writers supposed to be compassionate?”

“I am compassionate,” you stated defensively. And then, more flippantly, “Just not to rich industrialists who steal from the middle class.”

You laughed when Bruce shook his head at you. “You’re unbelievable.”

“So are you,” you said, nudging his shoulder with your own. There was nothing in the gesture, not like there used to be. “I mean, you want to be a nuclear physicist, or whatever. Ain’t nothin in that but prestige and your name on same wall.”

“You know that’s not what I want.” He used that voice, the one you’d become intimately familiar with towards the end of your relationship. “I just want to pursue something I’m passionate about. Isn’t that what you want too?”

The fruit under your fork slid out and rolled across the table. Both of your eyes followed it as it fell out of sight, and then you said nothing. Bruce sighed.

“I didn’t mean too—”

“Yeah you did.”

The buzzing of your phone jolted you two out of the tense moment. You lifted it up, seeing a message from Steve. You felt Bruce’s eyes peering over at your phone.

“You got to go?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll walk you there.”

“No, Tony’s probably waiting for you outside. He’ll just follow both of us if you don’t go with him.”

He pursed his lips, caught between a rock and a hard place. He looked up at you as you prepared to leave.

“I really didn’t mean it.”

“Even if you didn’t, you’re right.” It wasn’t hard to admit anything to Bruce, even after everything. “You’re damn good at it too.”

He tried to swallow back his bashful smile, but there was still a shimmer of it in his eyes. “You’re good at what you do, too.”

“Well, after four years, I’d fucking hope so.”

Bruce laughed through his goodbye, and you reveled in that small victory as you booked it to the art building.

* * * *

Perhaps it’s the creative part of you, but a piece of your heart fully adored that decrepit, godforsaken building. The elevator was broken, the hallways were a rotating gallery of amateur and professional projects, and it always smelled like some sort of chemical, but the building has charm.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” Steve stopped in his tracks to look at you when you said that. He’d been guiding you through the labyrinth known as Bauer Hall with a well-trained quickness. He resumed it after the initial shock of your statement wore off. “You’re a real romantic, you know that?”

“I do,” you said, knowing there was no way to defend yourself from such a true statement. “But so are you.”

“There’s only so many things I can romanticize, and I have to say, Bowser Hall ain’t one of them.” You laughed through your nose at the ridiculous nickname. “Besides, I’m all romanced out.”

Steve walked through a room lined with canvases bigger than the both of you. In different corners students painted in different styles, with different elaborative brush strokes that revealed their subjects in a matter of moments. Someone’s music played from a wireless speaker, but you imagined everyone had tuned it out.

Steve lead you to his station, which was currently covered with photos of you. It was embarrassing to see yourself plastered all over his desk, but as you studied to pictures closer, you became enthralled.

“Is it narcissistic to compliment how awesome these looks?” Awesome didn’t even encapsulate the emotion. Not by a long shot. Over the summer Steve had approached you about featuring in his senior art show pieces, and you’d shot preliminary photos. He couldn’t guarantee that he’d paint you given the complexity of his idea (as well as his own perfectionism) but now he was promising that he would paint you.

So, you stared down at the photos, remembering the how he’d climbed onto your roof at night and shined a flashlight taped with blue gels through your window and you tried not to laugh. The fruits of that night where in your fingertips, and you were struck at how much more somber your face looked on a physical photo than it had on the camera that night.

“It’s not narcissistic considering Nat took the photo,” he said, leaning over your shoulder. He rummaged through the stack before he pulled out a specific picture. “I think I’m going with this one.”

“Of course you are,” you poked fun at him, but you actually did like that photo. The light that shined across your eyes was blue, but you were shrouded in a hazy purple. It was a close shot, with your hands framing the expression on your face that was equal parts haunting and beautiful. Steve had been trying to capture those hard-to-explain moments that crossed people’s faces, and yours had been the most agonizing. In his words.

“With most people it takes forever to get the shot. You got it in one.” There was veiled concern in his statement, but you’re a master of words. You drop the photo and step back from it all, looking at Steve.

“Wasn’t hard,” was all you told him. Steve took the photo and tacked it up to a ready to paint canvas.

“I’m thinking about using these two as well.” Steve handed you two other photos of different subjects, only one of which you really know.

“When’d you take this?” You flipped over the photo Sam, his face caught precisely between elation and realization. Steve took it gingerly before sitting back on his stool. You wished he could paint the look of utter longing that plagued his own blue eyes.

“He got the deployment letter that morning,” Steve explained. His voice was low as he talked through the lump in his throat. “I asked him to pose for me, because I knew when I saw his face that I wanted to capture whatever the hell it was I just saw.”

“He’s used to being your guinea pig. I’m sure he liked knowing he’s the inspiration for your project.”

“He’ll probably hold it over my head ‘till I die,” Steve managed a laugh, but it was hollow. The sigh he took afterwards could have cracked his ribs.

“It’ll be a great gift, you know? A huge photo of his favorite thing—himself.” His laugh this time was slightly more genuine. You’d have to take it.

“Who’s this?” You showed Steve the second photo, one of a man whose face was marred with the shadow of blinds, his eyes looking back as if it pained him to. Nat was a wonderful photographer, and Steve had an amazing vision, but you knew Steve well enough to know that whoever this was, the look was all his own.

“Oh, that’s Buck,” he said easily, and you lean forward as a gesture to elaborate. “Bucky, my best friend?”

“Not ringing any bells.”

“Hmm. You probably don’t know him because he was in Prague the semester we became friends.” Steve had been part of your freshman dorm nightmare, but he lived on a different floor than the rest of you. You didn’t get to know him until you realized Nat was a mutual friend.

“Did he spend a whole year there?” You leaned forward and stared at the picture, trying to find any recollection of this guy. “Cause it’s been like, a year since then.”

“No, but he did have an internship when he came back, I’d forgotten about that.”

You dropped the photo, feeling jealousy prickle down your arms. “Wow. Busy guy.”

“He tries to keep himself busy. Otherwise he looks like that all the time.” You understood the implication. You pinned the photos next to each other and contemplated just how Steve was going to recreate them in all their glory. He seemed to have the same thought, because he ran a hand through his hair.

“It really will take me all semester, but I’m excited.” He bounced on his feet. “I think I’ve found my thing.”

“Your thing?”

“Yeah, my niche, I guess,” he shrugged, but his excitement was contagious. “It’s good to be excited about something again.”

“I’m glad you love your project, because it’s going to turn out amazing,” you assured him.

“Thanks. I started Sam’s painting already and it wore me out. I think I’ll start on Buck’s next. Sorry,” he shot you an apologetic grin. “I’m just tired of looking at the same colors.”

“You don’t have to apologize to me for anything,” you said earnestly. “I totally get it. In fact, I think I’ve taken a long enough break on my own work.” You backed away from the blank canvas and glossy photos, feeling claustrophobic all of a sudden. “It’s no masterpiece, but.”

“Hey, your writing is always incredible. I read that paper you wrote about the mis-en-scene of Art Cinema.” He recited with your work with such ease, it made you blush. “You’re really good at writing., Y/N.”

“You remembered.” You tried to laugh off the little swell of pride in your chest. “You’re sweet, Steve, but this is a lot more than a three-page writeup.”

“If it’s yours, it’ll be great. What’s your thesis again?”

“The politics of monster movie horror films.” When you told him, Steve shook his head with a proud grin.

“See? That’s brilliant!”

“It’s been done before—”

“Everything’s been done before. But you haven’t done this. You’re smart, you love movies, and you’re the most well rounded, analytical person I know. You’ve got this.”

You wanted to run back and give him the clingiest hug of your life, but instead you swung bashfully on the doorframe. “Thank you for your support, Steve, but I have to at least write it first.”

He waved you off. “Fine. Go, be great.”

You felt something unidentifiable rise in your stomach as you left, the knot only growing bigger and bigger until you reached the library. You wanted to exhale it out of your chest as you pushed the up button in the elevator, but it stayed stuck in your throat instead. You decided to leave it be as you settled into one of the plastic cubicles on the third floor, your home for the foreseeable future.

* * * *

Anxiety. That had been the feeling.

It gnawed at your stomach and in return you gnawed at your lip, thinking about Steve’s success as an artist and Bruce’s summer spent applying to grad schools. The future was in sight for both of them while yours was blocked by your laptop screen, showing you the three pages you had done out of the twenty you needed.

Angrily, you slammed the computer screen down and shoved it into your bag. The buzzing overhead light made red spots dance in your eyes even when you closed them, so you figured it was time for a break.

And by “break”, you meant spending the fifteen minutes between your apartment and the library trying to reword the sentence that had been bugging you over and over again. You were so out of it that when you opened your apartment door you were in shock of all the people sitting in your living room, despite having seen all their cars parked out in front.

Someone’s greeting went whizzing by you, but it’s only after the door slammed shut did you piece together that it was Pietro. The rest of the group chorused “Hi Y/N” with varying levels of enthusiasm.

“Hey, sorry they’re so loud,” Wanda pulled her cardigan close when she crossed her arms, smiling uncertainly at you. “I won’t have them here too late.”

“Nah, they’re fine,” you brushed off, slipping out of your uncomfortable shoes. You hated the fall—it always encouraged your terrible habit of style over function. “I’m just here for a quick costume change then it’s back to the ol’ grind.”

Normally Wanda would chuckle at your ridiculous phrases, but she creased her brows when she continued talking. “Actually, we were thinking of grabbing some food. Pietro’s bulking, or doing some other stupid diet and Viz thought we could go back to the diner. You know, the one on the corner of 11th?”

Oh, you knew the 11th street diner. It was the premier spot; you’d been there on dates, 21st birthdays, celebrated there after long arduous projects, and gorged on fries after movie marathons with Peter. The sheer mention of the diner was enough to make you swoon, and Wanda was likely exploiting that weakness.

So, when you sighed, her eyes lit up. “I’m sorry,” you said, watching as her shoulders deflated. Your heart broke at the sight. “I have to work on this paper. It’s—��

“Your senior thesis, I know, but. Y/N when was the last time you ate?”

You had the audacity to look defensive. “I ate with Bruce and Tony earlier today.”

“I saw Bruce and I asked him. He said you only ate a bowl of fruit and some lemonade.”

Snitch. “I wasn’t hungry.”

“You need to take a break from your work or you’re going to burn out.”

The sound that came out of your mouth was harsh and condescending. “I’m already a burnout, Wanda. I’ll be fine. Have fun at the diner.” You dodged the rest of her questions by slipping into your room and closing the door. As you hurried into a sweatshirt and old jeans, you heard the gang walk out of the house and leave you in silence. You checked to see if the apartment was empty before grabbing your things and locking up.

You planned on daydreaming the rest of the way back to the library, but the sound of a bicycle following you made your hair stand on end. When you turned to see who it was, you relaxed the grip on your pepper spray.

“Fucking hell, Parker,” you chastised as the teenager as he hopped off his bike and came up to walk beside you. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“You looked like you were going to shank me,” he laughed, falling into stride with you. Regardless of his own destination, Peter would always ditch his own path to walk with you, day or night. The night part was incredibly sweet and chivalrous. “Where are you going anyways?”

“Library,” you said curtly. You were tired of explaining yourself. “You?”

“Came back from MJ’s, I’m heading home.” Peter still lived on campus due to his scholarship, and frankly, you were a little envious. It would be amazing to live seven minutes from the library again.

“How is the new girlfriend?” The smile in your voice made Peter roll his eyes.

“MJ’s fine. She’s in abnormal psych and she hates it because it’s too basic for her.”

“Ugh, yeah I took that class. But it’s a prerec for—”

“Psychopathology,” you two said simultaneously. “She told me.”

“If she wants, she can have my old notes from the class.”

Peter quirked his brow. “You still have them?”

You shrugged. “I keep all my old notebooks.”

“Why?”

The question was simple, but you felt yourself pondering the answer for longer than you’d care to admit. Why did you keep all that old stuff? You never went back and studied any of it, so it was essentially junk. Yet you treasured it like a childhood keepsake.

“I don’t know,” you lied, completely aware that you felt exposed by Peter’s question and embarrassed by the real answer. “I thought they’d come in handy one day. Looks like I was right.”

Peter looked at you, and it struck you how similar the expression was to the one Bruce had given you earlier. When he’d asked you about passion and doing what you wanted.

He seemed to drop the topic, because when he opened his mouth again, he said, “I don’t think she needs it, considering how much she loves that kind of stuff, but thanks for offering.”

You only hum in acknowledgment, spending the rest of your walk together listening to the cars passing by and the soft clicks of Peter’s bike chains; sounds that had plagued you since sophomore year.

After this year, you’d never hear them again.

You bit your lip to keep from sighing. Peter would surely ask you what was wrong, but you couldn’t admit all this to him. He had way too much on his plate, between his honors scholarship, his biochemistry major and his job running the Photo Lab, it was a wonder he even spent time with you.

There was no way to tell Peter you missed him without spilling your guts, and you were too tired and too scared to say it. So instead you made a joke when you parted ways, and spent too much time in your head worrying about what you should’ve said.

And if you’d been paying attention instead, you wouldn’t have bumped into someone for the second time that day. This time the person had spilled all their books, a large stack of hardbacks that scattered in the doorway.

“Oh, shit, I’m so sorry,” you said, not looking them in the eye. You crouched down to help them pick up their books, but when you placed The Essentials of Faulkner into someone’s hand, you looked up.

The blue eyes were soft on yours for a brief moment before recognition sparked in them. The man furrowed his brows before standing to his full height, which towered over you even when you stood too.

“You again,” he said, arrogance still pronounced. The English Major Prick.

Your blood pressure seemed to spike with anger. “Hey, I said I was sorry.”

“I’m mostly just shocked at my odds,” he said. “I must be the unluckiest person in this whole university to get knocked over by the same spaced-out girl twice.”

“One,” you glared, “I didn’t knock you over, my shit fell the first time. Second of all, you could also avoid me, ya know.”

“Oh, so this is my fault?”

“Hey,” a third party cut through your arguing. Someone walked around you two, flicking his middle finger at the both of you. “People have to fucking walk here.”

“Mind your business, asshole!” you whisper-yelled, and at the same time the English Major Prick said “Take a fucking hike, buddy!”

You were about to stare at him, but he was already disappearing into the pitch blackness. You shook off the encounter and headed back up to your regular post on the third floor.

Determined to actually get farther than before, you treaded through the floor stacks, searching up and down for the theory books you needed. One such book you found on your first stop, flipping through the index to find the pages you were looking for. A flash of blue caught your eye, and marked all over the page was the mysterious handwriting, like in the books from before.

“Huh,” you said, wondering what the odds were that you had checked out the exact same books as this person. It was unbelievable, and quite fantastical, if you were honest, but here it was; their handwriting in your hands once again.

“I wonder if I’ll find you, mystery person,” you lamented, before closing the book and carrying on.

* * * *

Weeks passed by in a similar haze: you would spend your days pretending to take notes while in reality you were highlighting sentences in articles, re-wording paragraphs and rearranging structures in your head. Mid-terms came and went, stringing you out even further. Time was unraveling at the seams, only stitching itself together when you needed to know what day it was or where to be.

Everyone around you seemed to be planning for something though; whether it was grad school or lining up jobs, or even something as simple as graduation, their eyes were on some far away prize while you could barely visualize waking up the next day.

Kyle noticed this. “You look awful,” he’d said, after he begged you to stay and talk after class. You rolled your eyes.

“Is that all you wanted?”

“No,” he said pointedly. “But it is concerning. You’ve been working on your paper?”

‘Working’ was both an understatement and a gross misuse. “I’ve been staring at the screen wondering why it doesn’t sound like I know it can.”

“That’s the dilemma of the author,” Kyle chuckled, but you were too numb to respond. “Tell you what. When you come in for your advising,”—he put emphasis on the word because he knew you hadn’t signed up for a time slot yet— “bring your essay and I’ll edit it. Sound fair?”

“You know it’s still a first draft,” you whined, mostly to hide the dread that bubbled in your throat.

“I know, and I expect it to be rough. But I know you’ve been working hard, so let me help you out. Please.” He added the extra please to sweeten the deal, and it had worked. Which is how you ended up outside of his office, contemplating which spot to take when something caught your eye.

It was blue ink, the m’s and n’s nothing but little scribbles, the capitol J hanging well below the line. It was familiar, so familiar that you fumbled around in your backpack for the research book you’d been carrying around with you, the one that held mystery persons notes.

You held up the defaced text, looking between the scrawl on the page and the name written on the line. It was exact match down to the ink, and you gasped in elation.

“I found you,” you whispered, making a squeal of delight. “I actually found you, James Buchanan.” You squinted, reading the name in the slot. Your excitement died down as you tapped your finger to your lips.

The name didn’t ring any bells. You didn’t expect that you would know the mystery writer, but the fact was, you shared an advisor. You pressed your fingers to the name as if it would disappear before your eyes.

“You complicate things,” you told it, as if somehow, they could hear you, feel you. Maybe they could.

“I’m no shrink, but talking to pieces of paper is definitely on the spectrum of insanity.”

His voice couldn’t scare you, even if it was so sudden. An office door closed, and Thor looked at you in amusement. He looked better than you last remembered, considering you hadn’t seen him since he had told his father—the college professor—he was dropping out.

“What are you doing here?” you straightened up, facing him with a beaming smile. He mirrored the expression.

“Talking to dear old dad about some things,” he took a few steps way from what you presumed was his father’s office. “Checking in on Loki.”

“How is the snake these days? Haven’t heard from him since you left.”

“I suppose there really is no reason for Loki to speak to any of you anymore.” Thor side eyed you. “Not that he shouldn’t.”

Thor’s departure had been a curveball in your sitcom-esque life up until that point. He was the connective tissue in your helter-skelter friend group; smart, compassionate and charming, he’d taken all of you out of your fussy shells and made you relax in ways you didn’t even realize you needed to.

And then, just like that, he was written out, and in his absence the void grew and grew until you didn’t feel like friends with anyone anymore.

It hadn’t been Thor’s fault. He’d done it for himself, and you were proud of him. You just wished it didn’t make things so goddamn complicated. So different.

You couldn’t dump that on Thor. “Yeah, well, he’s probably busy freaking out over the LSAT to even remember we exist.”

“God, it’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen!” Thor laughed. “I have all these videos of him cramming and falling asleep on the dinner table. I once picked him up and put him back in bed and Hela filmed the whole thing.”

“Shut up,” you said, a maniacal grin forming on your face. “Odinson, don’t lie to me.”

He wasn’t lying. The two of you laughed loudly in the hallways as you watched Thor lift Loki like he was a little girl into his arms and proceed to walk through their house, Hela snickering behind them. You were bracing yourself against a wall trying not to howl, while Thor held no such qualms about letting his booming laughter fill the silence.

It registered somewhere between your fourth gasp for air and Thor’s winding down laughter that someone had opened a door. And then, in a low, pointed voice they said, “Hey, people are trying to study in this lounge.”

You tried to hold back your laughter, but Thor’s insistent giggling kept a smile on your face. “Sorry,” you said behind your hand. “We didn’t realize—”

The smile slipped off your face when you looked up, seeing the angry pout of the English Major Prick staring back at you. His eyes glanced between you and Thor, leaned cozily up against a wall and laughing at something private. Embarrassment coiled in your stomach.

“Didn’t realize the lounge was right there. Sorry.” You averted your eyes. Thor had stopped laughing at this point, turning to you with an expectant look. You nodded and waved goodbye, noting the look he gave the English Major Prick as he walked past him.

And then he turned his accusatory stare back to you. “Was that Thor Odinson?”

“Yeah?”

“I thought he dropped out.”

“So what if he did?”

“What’s he doing hanging around the English department?”

You crossed your arms. “His father is a professor here, smartass.”

“Oh.” All his malice seeped out as his shoulders deflated. The two of you stood awkwardly facing one another. It had been a long time since you’d bumped into him that day (twice), but you’d started to see his face everywhere. Out of the corner of your eye in the stairwell or sitting on a table in the school café you’d catch brunette hair and distant, sad eyes.

They were never that way when he looked at you. It was probably the anger.

“Read any Faulkner, lately?”

You wanted to fucking die. It was lame as hell, but he didn’t seem like he was leaving anytime soon and you just had to break this tense air.

“What?”

“Every time I see you, you’re reading Faulkner.”

He looked away for a moment and you banged your head against the wall when. You muttered stupidstupidstupid to yourself while he chuckled.

“You’re paying too much attention to me, mystery girl.”

The nickname made you perk up you head. “Mystery girl?”

It was his turn to look embarrassed. “Uh, yeah,” he stammered. “That’s what I’ve been calling you in my head.”

He seemed to realize what he’d said too late. You sucked in a breath to calm down the nerves that felt like they were frying all over your body. “You think about me, huh?” It didn’t sound cheeky like you wanted it to—it sounded almost hopeful.

“You left quite an impression on me. Literally, my shoulder is bruised.”

You hummed. “Better than what I’ve been calling you in my head.”

“Oh, and what’s that?”

“Oh, you really don’t want to know, buddy.”

He was out of the lounge now, leaning on the door frame and fully facing you. “But I really, really do.”

You smiled down at the ground, partly because you were about call this boy a prick to his face, but also because he was smiling at you for once, and he looked rather sweet when he curled his hair behind his ears.

“English Major Prick.” His eyebrows shot into his hair and you had to put your hand over your mouth to stop laughing. “I told you you didn’t want to know.”

“No, no, it’s—” he scuffed his shoes against the ground. They were well shined oxfords with scuff marks on the very tips. “I deserve that.”

“So, we finally agree on something.”

The bashful smile he gave was infectious. “Well, I’d prefer you not refer to me as that.”

“Who says I’ll be referring to you at all?”

“Well, you do think about me.”

It shouldn’t have affected you as much as it did, considering you knew he did the same. And yet your reaction was textbook flustered. “I mean—”

“Bucky.”

“What?”

“My name,” he continued. “It’s Bucky. Bucky Barnes.”

Oh shit. Oh no. “You’re Steve’s friend?” It came out as a question because you were suddenly terrified. You had been off-handedly telling Steve about this guy for the better part of the semester and now you knew he was his best friend but you were also—no, you were not falling for this guy you barely knew.

But you did feel something in this stupid little interaction. Especially when you saw a new expression on his face—surprise.

“You know Stevie?” Stevie. Cute.

“Yeah, he’s—I, huh.” You took a minute to gather your thoughts. He was patient about it. “I modeled for him? You know, for his senior exhibition.”

Something crossed his face before he said, “Oh,” in a tone that was supposed to be surprise, but sounded like something else. “You’re the girl he’s painting.”

God, this could not be any more complicated. “Yeah, I am.”

The conversation came to a full stop, and from behind Bucky a familiar bearded face popped out, looking for him. “Hey, Barnes, don’t leave me hang—” Quentin Beck’s entire face went pale when he saw you, muttering out a “sorry,” before disappearing into the lounge.

Bucky whirled around, and you didn’t expect the wide eyes he gave you. “How did you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Get Quentin to shut up?”

You snorted and he shushed you, but it was no use. The two of you broke into suspicious giggles, trying desperately to be quiet.

“It’s a long story. One you don’t have time for. Quentin will set this building on fire if you don’t pay attention to him.”

Bucky bounced his shoulders against the wall. “You’re probably right.”

You stood there dumbly for a moment, not meeting one another’s gazes until Bucky cleared his throat.

“I guess, um, I’ll see you later.”

“Yeah.” You turned around on your heels so you wouldn’t have to see him anymore, but also to hide the stupid, childish grin you got from thinking about bumping into him again.

* * * *

You found yourself thinking about Bucky Barnes at the most inopportune, and rather inappropriate times.

You were never going to make a move on him; he was smart and well rounded and Steve’s best friend, three things that intimidated you into only confessing your feelings in drawn out day dreams. In your head he would always say yes, but there were many other discrepancies between your head and real life.

For example, in your head your essay was a masterpiece, but on paper you weren’t so sure.

A strange assembly of people sat around your table to read your magnum opus: Nat, Bruce, Wanda, MJ and Pete all flipped through the copies of your first fifteen pages, highlighting and scratching in notes. You had decided to stay with them and answer any initial questions, but it got very quiet very quickly as they became absorbed with your writing.

To keep from bursting with anxiety, you’d let your mind drift, thinking of the earlier days when this might have been a dinner party, or maybe even one of Tony’s house parties. And then you remembered that Steve had been to those too, but on the peripheral of everyone else. And if Bucky was his best friend, he must have been on the fringe as well. What it would have been like if you’d known him then…

Their insistent chittering interrupted your daydream, so you engaged them by saying “Something you want to share with the class? Peter, MJ?”

Peter shrank back at your raised eyebrows while MJ’s bored look persisted. “I was just telling him that I think your topic has been done before.”

You instantly remembered why the younger girl intimidated you so much. MJ seemed to read your face, because she continued: “I like your take on it though. You break it down in new ways, but you don’t dumb it down for your readers.”

“Okay, okay,” you repeated. There was nothing you could do with praise except keep your paper the way it was, but that wouldn’t help you write the remaining pages. “Everyone else? Thoughts?”

Nat kept scribbling down something in the margins while she spoke, never looking at you. “Your argument is well thought out, and your choice of movies reflects it really well.” She added one last embellishment before smiling up at you; small and genuine, but gone in a flash. “I might even add in one more film if you can.”

You breathed out to keep your elation under control. Had you seriously pulled this off? And so far away from the deadline? “You think so? Like the theory doesn’t feel like an afterthought?”

“Not at all. It feels like you’ve developed it pretty well. It’s solid.” Bruce complimented. His smile was warm and there was a twinkle in his eyes when he slid your paper back to you. “It’s a pretty good paper.”

The elation disappeared, replaced with a cold rush of fear. “Is that all? It’s just good?”

Your panic must have been alarming, because everyone tripped over themselves to console you.

“I like the part where you call the films low-key racist.”

“Thanks, MJ.”

“Yeah, you picked some good movies. You should use Jurassic Park.”

“Huh?”

“It’s a monster movie,” Peter explained this like you were stupid, and hadn’t just write fifteen pages on the ethics of monster movies.

“It doesn’t, it’s not—”

“It doesn’t work. No one wanted to fuck the T-Rex, Peter.”

“Can we focus on my theory and NOT on fucking T-Rex’s?”

Wanda came to your rescue. “Y/N, the theory is sound. It’s a well-constructed paper, with very minor issues—”

You wanted to tear out your hair. “What issues? You guys haven’t said anything!”

“Hey, hey,” Bruce came out of his seat and walked around you, placing his hands on your shoulders. Your short breaths became a sigh as you let him soothingly rub out the tension. You hadn’t been this close to Bruce in a long time, not since you two broke up sophomore year. But he could still read your anxiety like a book.

“Calm down. We know this paper is important to you.”

“I won’t graduate without it.”

“But you did a great job.” The occupants of the room smiled at you, and they felt honest. “You picked us to read it because we wouldn’t lie to you, right?”

You nodded. Bruce really did know you well.

“This is a great paper. Your teacher will love it.”

Bruce had never lied to you, but it didn’t mean he was infallible.

Kyle had a strange look on his face while he read your paper. A couple of times you’d broken away from your daydreams (usually about Bucky—you really did think about him in your worst times) and caught him whispering questions to himself or underlining furiously. You caught words being written in bold red ink and your heart dropped out of your stomach.

“Y/N this is,” he started, but was unable to finish. “It’s rough.”

“It’s my second draft, Kyle.”

“I know,” he was trying to use a calmer voice, but he was strained. “But it’s very early, and if you go back and fix some things, I think it’ll make more sense.”

“It doesn’t even make sense?!”

“Hey.” His tone was firm against your hysterical whine. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”

His hands were laced across his desk as he looked to you pointedly. Your words died in your throat. There wasn’t anything you could tell him, there was no reason your draft was shitty. It was all you, all in your head, everywhere except on the page where it needed to be.

When you didn’t answer Kyle sighed. “You know you’re one of my favorite students, right?”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“No, it does matter.” He was offended, you could hear it. Offended, concerned, and angry.

“You’ve never gotten higher than an A- on your papers. Not in my class. But you’re extremely smart and I know you can read my comments, so I’m just wondering why you think it’s okay to waste my time—and your hard work—not changing your essays when I tell you to.”

You felt like a scolded child. Tears pricked in your eyes, but you held it together. Just not enough to speak.

“Everything is here, but it feels like you’re holding back. Like you can’t see the bigger picture, and that’s not like you. So, I’m asking you, right now, why you’re afraid to put everything in this essay.”

“I—” your voice was thick with emotion. He knew you were on the brink of collapsing, and he sat back, defeated.

“This paper isn’t the same as all the others. You can’t get an A- and go. As you go farther in academia things change, and you have to step it up. You’re a senior, Y/N.”

“What if I don’t want to be?”

You weren’t sure how that thought slipped out of your mouth, but Kyle sat up when it registered to him what you’d said.

“That’s just how it is. Are you…are you scared of that?”

Your heart rattled in your chest. The obviousness of his accusation hit you like a freight train, and Kyle could tell he was right.

“Y/N,” he started, but you stood abruptly, snatching the paper off his desk. “Y/N, wait.”

“I’m sorry, professor, Kyle, I just—” you left it at that before bolting, shooting down the stairs and storming out of the building. The tears came dripping down your face and you crumpled, breathing heavily like you’d never had air before.

It was utterly humiliating. Passerbys would look at you and remark in hushed tones, avoiding you like the plague. You wanted to scream about how normal this breakdown was, but it didn’t feel normal.

He’d seen through you like glass and shattered you twice as easily. Everything was raining down too fast, and there was no way to stop it.

You were shaking so hard that when a hand came to rest on your shoulder you hardly felt it. “Whoa, Y/N?” came Peter’s warm, boyish voice. “Hey, hey what happened?”

He slid next you, curling his arm around your back and forcing you to lean on him. You did so with very little protest. His heart beat was steady as he coddled you, and through bleary eyes you could see Ned Leeds squatting to look you in the eye.

“Hey, do you want to talk about it?” His voice was so soft, like he was talking to a baby. The thought made you laugh.

“I’ll be fine in a minute. I’ll just, bounce back up and it’ll be like nothing ever happened.”

“You don’t have to pretend, Y/N.”

“Yes, I do Peter,” you sighed, feeling another round of tears prick at your red rubbed eyes. “I have to, or else everything will come fucking crashing down—”

“Hasn’t it already?”

The statement pierced through your sobs like an arrow and you glared at Peter. Even through watery eyes you managed to take him aback.

“I’m not going to sit here and have you fucking patronize me, Parker!”

“Fine then, let’s go somewhere else.”

“Like where?”

Peter didn’t exactly smile, but his mischievous look was enough to ground you. “Somewhere the entire campus can’t see you have a breakdown.”

* * * *

Now that winter was approaching, the sunsets crept up earlier and earlier until by 7 pm the sun was already set, and twilight brought out the first twinkle of stars. Peter led the way up the scaffolding stairs to the sloped roof of the creative sciences building, despite having the afterhours key.

“I wanted the nostalgia of sneaking up here,” he told you, tossing his backpack over the highest point of the building and hauling himself up. The two of you helped Ned and the walked over to the best vantage point on the entire campus.

This far from the city, and with the lights out in most of the buildings you could see the stars wink into existence. It felt like lifetimes had past since you were last up here—it was Thor and Valkyrie who’d imparted this knowledge on you and you’d kept it confined within your friend group ever since.

The three of you laid down, backpacks under your heads like pillows. The only sounds were of the wind in your ears or the cars down below. You breathed deep to clear your lungs, and you hiccupped out your last sob.

“My professor says I’m afraid of change.”

There was a shift on either side of you as Peter and Ned simultaneously sat up and stared.

“He said that?” Ned asked incredulously. “Like, to your face?”

“No; he kind of asked me, I guess? I don’t know. He fucking read me.”

“Are you scared?”

Peter’s voice was as uncertain as you felt. No, that was a lie—you’d know this for quite some time now. You closed your eyes, letting it all wash over you.

“I wish we could stay like this forever.”

“You mean crying over a paper that’s worth all of your grade and contemplating jumping off a roof?”

You laughed outwardly and loudly at Ned’s response. “No. Well, Maybe.”

“Elaborate.”

“I want to always be in college. It’s been the most stressful, chaotic, stupid crazy time of my life and I just,” you opened your eyes to face the truth. “I don’t want to give it up. I don’t want to leave all of you, some of us scattered in the wind, the rest of you left behind. I want us to stay like this forever: sitting on the roof and counting the stars and pointing out constellations we don’t even know the name of. Laughing in the diner until midnight and screaming on the streets every time we jaywalk. Drunken house parties, movie marathons. This era, forever.”

There was a moment of silence after your confession, and you dragged your hand down your face. “Sorry, that was—”

“That was sooo poetic,” Ned told you, reveling in your embarrassment. “How long have you been holding that in?”

“Y/N,” Peter said seriously. “You can’t just fail your classes and bomb your senior thesis and stay in college forever.”

“That wasn’t the plan.”

“You sure? Because it’s all going according to plan.”

“Peter, what if I’m not ready to leave?” You sat up to face him. “I’ve been going to school my entire life, and now I’m just supposed to walk out and be an adult? I never thought I’d even make it past the age of sixteen, let alone do all this! What if I can’t do it?”

“You think any of your friends are ready? You think Bruce, or Wanda or Steve are just, full fledged adults, ready to take on the world?”

They hadn’t even occurred to you. The mention of them felt like a slap in the face.

“God, for someone so smart, you’re really stupid. None of us are ready for whatever the hell is out there. We never were!” His voice had that pain in it, the one that shouldn’t belong to someone so young. “We all wish it could be crazy fun teen shit all the time, but we have to move forward. And we have to do it together, so we don’t leave each other behind. That means you have to move on.”

“Damn,” you let his words sink in. “When did you get so wise?”

“Sophomore year,” he said precisely. “When I had a mental breakdown over chem class and you told me the exact same thing.”

You blinked. “What?”

“You told me that the crying and the failing happened to everyone, but that I couldn’t dwell on it and stay stagnant. I had to be the best version of my myself, and that included moving forward from my mistakes.”

You remembered that moment. Peter had been curled up against the wall of his tiny, dirty dorm room and you, Bruce and Tony had coaxed him out with the promise of ice cream and you knew for the first time in your life that you always wanted those boys in your life. You smiled at Peter.

“Sneaky trick, Parker.”

“I learned from the best.”

Your phone buzzed against the roof and you picked it up before it rattled off the edge. Wanda had called three times, and she was calling again.

“Hello?”

“Where are you? Peter said you were crying?”

You shot a look over at the brunette and he played dumb. “Yeah, I was.”

“Well I was worried about you! You usually come home and change by now, or at least tell me you’ll be late but…” her voice morphed into concern. “What happened?”

You didn’t want to be at home right now. In fact, you didn’t want this night to be like all the others—with you laying in bed until your mind finally shut down. You turned to Peter and Ned and mouthed a question, to which they nodded vigorously.

“Hey Wanda, I was thinking we could get some food and catch up. Say, 11th Street Diner?”

She grappled for words before giving a snort of disbelief. “You’re a heart attack, you know that?”

“Meet me at 8.”

* * * *

Wanda had brought everyone—and by everyone you meant her usual motley crew of Clint Barton, Nat, her boyfriend and her brother. They were all wreaking havoc in different sections of the diner: Pietro, Peter and Ned were outside filming skateboarding tricks while Vision was taking his sweet time picking something at the jukebox. Nat and Clint had taken seats at the bar to get their food faster, leaving you and Wanda sipping your shared milkshake. Strawberry, like you both liked.

“Wanna hear a secret?”

“Tell me.”

You two used to do this when you realized you hadn’t talked in a while. You’d tell her something no one else knew, because she was both your roommate and the best at keeping secrets. So, you leaned over and whispered into her ear about the time you gave Quentin Beck a hand job in the corner booth of this very diner, and she sucked down her drink to keep from screaming with laughter. Or possibly disgust.

“How long have you been keeping that in?” Pink liquid still escaped her mouth and you handed her a napkin.

“Since we dated.”

“Do you regret it?”

“While I never want to do it again, no, I don’t.”

“It’s breaking the rules, but can I ask for another secret?”

You tilted your head. “‘Fraid I’m all out.”

“Not quite,” she said coyly. “What happened, when Peter said you were crying?”

You watched the ice in your drink while you swirled your straw and monotonously recounted the events of your disastrous advising meeting and the roof with Peter and Ned. Wanda’s face fell into its usual pensiveness.

“Is he right?” The question was leading, but you fell for it regardless.

“Yup. Peter and I have established that my subconscious is sabotaging my paper.”

“I always knew you’d be your own worst enemy.” She wasn’t not smug when she said it, but the sip of her milkshake is. You snatched the glass yourself and she pouted.

“You’re right, I just hate hearing people say it.”

“Well, it’s because you’re always in that big brain of yours.” She prodded her finger on your forehead, like fuckin E.T. “And your overly romantic heart.”

“God, you’re like the fourth person whose told me that.” You counted them on your fingers. “You, Bruce, Q, and Steve. That’s entirely too many.”

“Five,” Nat interrupted, walking up to your table with Clint in tow. “I’m saying it now. Also, Bucky Barnes has been staring at you for ten minutes.”

A shot of adrenaline went through your heart. “Bucky Barnes? Where?”

“He’s at the bar, alone, so I suggest you do something about it.”

Wanda looked at you expectantly, then leaned out of the booth to get a look at him. You hissed at her to stop, but her mouth curved into a satisfied grin.

“Well, he sure is handsome. I wouldn’t mind if you ditched us for him, but you’ll have to tell me the details of this later. After you properly explain the Quentin hand job thing.”

“The what now?” Nat’s stoic face broke into one of pure shock, so you found it a good a time as any to escape the tension and enter…new tension.

Bucky turned his head to act like he wasn’t overtly staring at you, but you’d caught the sight of his eyes going wide. You sat on the stool next to him and waved off the server before leaning over the counter.

“You know I can see you even though you aren’t looking at me, right?”

He seemed to be ready for the confrontation now, because when he swiveled around there was confidence painted on his face. He opened his mouth but you stopped him in his tracks.

“Actually, before you say anything, do you want to get out of here? We have an audience.”

He looked behind you to see three sets of eyes peering over the booth you’d just left. He huffed before placing exact change next to his plate and standing up. You followed suit, snatching a few fries off his plate and flipping off your friends.

When you two stood on the curb of the diner, he confessed, “I walked here, so, there’s really nowhere for us to go.”

“Oh.” You realized it was the same for you, but you tried to hide your disappointment with a smile. “That’s okay. We can walk.”

So, you did. When you told him you’d go anywhere but the library, he seemed surprised. “You like, live there.”

“So it would seem. I’m just not really in the mood to do any work tonight.”

“Oh, so it’s one of those days.” He said it so knowingly, and you realize that he is also an English major, and a senior.

“Yeah, I’ve been working on my senior thesis.”

“No shit,” he said, but without the condescension. In fact, he’d been perfectly civil. “Same here.”

He talked about how he was taking Southern Literature because it was dark and surprising. His paper was on the Southern Gothic, and how that idea had moved on to other aspects of modern American ideology. Bucky moved his hands when he talked, his broad shoulders going up and down. He was wearing a blue bomber jacket that you liked because it caught the light from the street lamps nicely.

“What’s yours on?”

“Oh,” you came out of your thoughts abruptly, unsure of what he’d said. “Well, I specifically study film—”

“That makes sense.” He blurted out, and you creased your brows.

“What do you mean?”

He hissed out something to himself. “Nothing, it’s just when you’re on third floor sometimes I see you watching the weirdest shit and I wonder ‘why is she doing that in the library?’”

It took a minute for you to fully understand the implication. “You’ve seen me around?”

He rolls his head with a laugh. “You’re hard to miss.”

This was news to you. You’d flown under the radar for quite some time, never having joined any clubs or sports people could recognize you from. You’d gotten a few compliments on your outfits in the past four years, but nothing you thought could make you known.

He was very good at making your stomach turn into a mosh pit of butterflies. You felt not exactly vulnerable, but strangely delicate around him. Like you were floating on air.

So, to quell that feeling, you replied. “I’d beg to differ.”

“I’ve seen you around the library since, what, sophomore year? You’re always on third floor, you walk in like you own the goddamn place.” He smiled down at the ground when he talks about you. It was the cutest thing in the world to watch him curl his hair behind his ear and smile at you sideways.

“You never noticed me.”

It was true, you hadn’t. “I try to pick through my memories and find you. I feel like I’m retroactively learning about you.”

“Thinking hard?” It’s an accusation you’re okay with, because he was bashful, not arrogant when he said it.

“Maybe.”

You swayed when you walked beside him, thinking you could listen to his stories for hours. At times you felt like you were boring him, because the stories of Austria and internships were large compared to your freshman dorm party memories, but he laughed like he’s never been more entertained in his life.

“I wish I’d talked to you earlier. Gotten your name from your lips before anyone else had said it to me.”

Your eyes widened. “I never told you my name?”

He shook his head, and the hair came out from behind his ears. “No. that day I told you mine, was it the first time you’d heard it?”

“Maybe. I think Steve just calls you ‘Buck’.”

“Steve talked about you first. And then when I became friends with all his adjacent buddies, they talked about you too. And then, of course, when I went back to Quentin that day, he told me.”

“God,” you groaned. “What did he say about me?”

“That you’re smart and crazy and kind. He would say your name like it was cursed and enchanted all at once.”

“And my friends call me romantic,” you rolled your eyes.

“I’ve been branded that too. But I don’t mind it so much. There’s worse things to be.”

“Like what?”

“Like an English Major Prick.” He emphasized that last consonant and you hid you face in your hands.

“You won’t let me live that one down, huh?”

“Maybe. If I like the way you say my name, I might consider it.”

There was a split second where you realized how fragile the moment was; one wrong step and it was broken on the floor like humpty dumpty. You thought of your professor pegging your fear of change. Peter’s words echoed in your brain and you felt like you were jumping off the roof when you said:

“Bucky Barnes, you smooth son of a bitch.”

He smiled, brighter than the moon. All at once, everything that was ever certain was shattered, but you leaped over it and left it behind.

* * * *

Steve called you in one last time about two weeks before the showcase. You were scribbling over the words written by the mystery writer (James, you affectionately called him) while Steve wiped sweat from his brow. And incidentally, paint in his hair.

Tapping your leg to the beat of whatever pretentious song, you were too engrossed in your ‘work’ to hear Steve say “You look happy.”

“What?” you screamed over the music.

He turned it off and sat next to you with a smug look you disliked. You pushed his face away and he only laughed, that big almost fake sound you knew was real.

“Seriously, you’re so empathic that whatever your feel, I feel. And today’s goin’ great.” He gestured to the painting that was supposed to be you, but all you saw were swirls of paint. You took this to mean things were going well.

“I don’t know,” you shrugged. “I had a rough week last week, but things are getting better.”

“Did you talk to your advisor again?”

“Yeah.” Kyle had spent the better part of an hour picking apart your thesis in ways you couldn’t have even imagined. By the end of it you’d had at least three pages worth of new material, but still a hell of a way to go. “Kyle and I worked it out.”

“That’s good. You know my advisor’s freaking out about my work? He thinks it’s too complex.”

“It’s just faces.” It sounded dumb to say, but that was the way you saw it.

Steve picked up your chin. His fingers were wet and cold with paint. “You’re not just a face, Y/N.”

“Ah!” you screamed as lilac rubs off on you. “Let me go, paint monster!”

You dropped your book into his lap as you ran around looking for the sink. Steve’s laughter subsided as he looked down, puzzled at the writing that swirled around the pages of the library book.

“Hey, Y/N?” he called out, but you’re preoccupied with wiping paint off your neck. “Y/N?”

“What?”

“Where’d you get this?”

“The library, doesn’t it say that on the spine?”

“But this hand writing,” His voice tapered off.

You exchanged the book for the rag and assessed James’ words. “I’ve been curious about it too. It was in like, all the books I checked out, isn’t that wild? And—get this—it belongs to some guy named James Buchanan, and we have the same advisor. Isn’t that crazy?”

Steve looked like he was trying to say something, but he eyes turned towards the door as someone knocked twice.

“Yo, punk? You in here?” Bucky’s voice carried into the room. When he walked in, he immediately paused, taking stock of the two of you staring at him.

“Oh,” his voice wavered and a nervous smile appeared. “Hey.”

Steve’s eyes cut to yours, and you feel immense pressure. “Hi, Bucky.”

“Hey, Buck.” Steve’s voice is a bullet, and Bucky turned to him, automatically annoyed. “Y/N has this book I think you’ve read.”

“Oh, which one?” He crossed the room in easy strides, and you were helpless in the situation you thought Steve was orchestrating. When you handed it to him his eyes lit up in recognition as he flipped through it.

“Holy shit, I really wrecked this one, huh? Good thing the university really doesn’t give a shit.”

You were having trouble processing what he’s said. Steve had gotten up wordlessly, but there was a particularly blank look on his face as he avoided your eyes. You turned back to Bucky, who was fondly reading over James’ words.

“Though Scott himself does not adhere to Weaver’s interpretation, the fact still remains that the tension between the Alien and Ripley,” he trailed off with a stunned look. “I was a regular old critic, huh?”

Your eyes nearly popped out of your skull. “You wrote that?”

He was startled at the way you raised your voice, and answered cautiously. “Yeah, like, years ago. For a film class I took.”

You reeled back at the information. You fought the urge to open your backpack and ask him if he’d written in all the other books, but that couldn’t—how could he be—

“I checked out, like, seven books from the library this semester and they all have the same handwriting in them. And then, I found out that it matched to a guy named James Buchanan—”

“Barnes,” He finished.

“What? No. That’s not what I saw.”

“That’s my name. James Buchanan Barnes.”

You sat there dumbly, your eyes narrowed in thought. There was no fucking way that he’d written in all these film books. In every single one you’d painstakingly read with romantic ideals and dreaming of who it’d belong to and how you’d meet. The fantasies were crumbling around you, leaving you in the dust.

Bucky’s face was earnest though. Steve was silent behind both of you, painting away like your worlds weren’t colliding.

“You. Okay,” you restarted. “If your name is Bucky,”

“Doll, it’s a nickname—”

“Let me finish.” You ignored the ‘doll’ part and tried to Sherlock your way through this. “If everyone you know calls you Bucky Barnes, why did you write ‘James Buchanan” on Kyle’s sign-up sheet?”

Bucky settled into the stool Steve had been sitting on. “It’s a joke between the two of us. He thinks it’s funny, so I humor him when I can.”

“Okay but, the books are companion pieces for films, I thought you were an English lit major?”

“I am, but I took Intro Film sophomore year.”

“What? With who.”

“Kyle.”

You thought back to two years ago, when you’d been new to the world of film, and you’d met Kyle for the first time. You’d aced that class with flying colors, quickly becoming one of his star students. Coincidentally, so was Quentin Beck, a cock sure boy who got into arguments over any little thing with you. The two of you were the most outspoken in the class, and you never paid much mind to anyone that wasn’t him. But there had been other people that would wait after class for a moment with the professor, and it was in those memories that you recalled him.

Brunette hair, but far shorter. Crystal blue eyes and impeccable clothes. Bucky.

“That…you were in that class? But I never—”

“You never noticed me.” His voice was resigned and so was his smile. He’d told you this before, that he’d seen you around before, but you never imagined he’d known you since sophomore year. “I remembered you from all the way back then: you had long, shiny, impeccable hair and this glint in your eye whenever you talked. Which was a lot. You could dazzle the class just by breathing. And I sat rows and rows behind you, and never spoke. There was no reason you would have ever seen me.”

There was a wavering sadness in his voice, and for a moment, Bucky looked exactly as he did in Steve’s portrait: haunted by the past, unable to fix it.

“Why didn’t you tell me? Why am I just now figuring out that you’re the boy of my dreams?”

There was music playing in the background that hadn’t been there before; a cozy, soft melody by one of Steve’s favorite artists. It matched Bucky’s breathlessness as he gazed at you with a tilted head and eyes full of hope. A far cry from just seconds before.

“What did you say?”

“I’ve been thinking about this mysterious ‘James Buchanan’ who’s written exactly what I think, and has seen all the same movies as me. And I’ve been wondering what he’s like, or if he’s nice, of if he’d ever even like me if I met him.”

A coy smile stretched across his face. “Well, what is he like?”

“He’s,” you blanked for a moment, trying to tone down all the wildly romantic thoughts you’ve been having ever since you’d met Bucky Barnes. You decided to risk it all and tell him the truth.

“He’s very smart; he reads Faulkner but think Hurston has more heart. He dresses like he already has his PhD but it looks good on him. He’s sweet but extremely romantic, which is okay because I could listen to him talk for hours. He’s a bit of a prick, though.”

He hung his head back when he laughed at the last part, and you felt your heart swell tremendously. He wasn’t mocking you. He was agreeing with you. You knew this to be true.

“Well, do you think he does like you?” Bucky suddenly became serious. He was nervous.

“I don’t know, does he?”

“Can you two just fucking kiss already?”

Bucky threw something at Steve, but you couldn’t tell what. In the moment he threw it you were laughing, but once it’s over his hand slid onto your face and pulled you into a kiss. Your eyes closed when you felt it, and he tilted his head to keep you occupied. Otherwise you would have heard Steve triumphantly yell “yes!” behind you two.

Bucky rested his forehead against yours. His blue, blue eyes were so much lovelier this close. He whispered, “I think he does.”

You kissed him quick, once, then twice, then sighed contentedly. “Good. I like him too.”

“Well I for one am happy for them.”

This time you see a wet paintbrush beam for Steve’s eye. “Less talking, more painting, punk!”

* * * *

Bucky is lost in thought when the door to Kyle’s office opened. There was a low chatter between two people and he looked up to see Kyle propped up in the door was as you spoke to him. You were dressed up nicely in a tweed coat that matched his own.

Kyle’s eyes rested on the chair Bucky sat in and he perked up in recognition. “Oh, James,” he said, looking apologetic. “I’m sorry, were you waiting for me?”

“No, not you.” He stood up and brushed out the wrinkles in his shirt before coming to your side. You gave him a quick smile before turning back to your professor, whose face was openly shocked.

“Oh,” he said in a dubious, but delighted voice. “So, this is happening.”

“We’re going to the senior art exhibition to see our friend’s graduation project,” you explained, looking rather annoyed at the two men. “We’re both in one of his paintings.”

“Together?” he asked, a bit of scandal in his voice.

“No,” you droned, shutting it down. “Mind your business.”

“You’re both my advisees, this is my business.”

“Good night, Kyle,” you said pointedly, turning around and marching down the hall. Kyle sent a congratulatory wink at Bucky, who acknowledged it with a salute.

As he caught up with you, he handed back a thick essay, riddled with blue ink and yellow highlighter. You added it to another similar essay, one with exclamation points and significantly less marks.

“How’d he like it?” Bucky made conversation as you two trekked across campus. Winter made the nighttime seem even darker, but the two of you glowed underneath the street lamps.

“He loved it. Said it was infinitely better, and then apologized for the millionth time for making me cry.”

“What did he say about the part about Ripley and the Alien?”

You shot him that crazy grin, the one that looked unbelievably beautiful as you approached the traffic lights. Your face was highlighted in red and Bucky thought of the painting you two were about to witness.

“He didn’t say a thing. I should have cited you on that.”

“I’m not a published writer.”

“I know. But one day when you are, I can tell people I gave you your start.”

Bucky laughed, mostly to keep his heart from beating out of his ribcage. Crazy, crazy girl.

You two entered the exhibition hall and traded your backpacks for flutes of fake champagne. The room was lighted lowly, the works of art brandished with bright lights to show off their artistry. You two walked through still life paintings and abstract canvases, marveling some he understood and other’s that made him think.

“Art’s not my forte,” he confided. You hummed, taking a lofty sip.

“Mine either. But they’re gorgeous.”

You floated down the hall as if pulled by a string, and Bucky noticed what you were hung up on.

Steve’s paintings were hanging in a trapezoid shape, and when you walked closer, they seemed to engulf you in color. To your left was Sam and to your right was Bucky, but you stared dead ahead at yourself.

Bucky had seen the painting early, per Steve’s request. He’d helped him move them from his apartment, and had seen the three of you looking very somber and one another.

You were silent as you examined the pieces, and Bucky strode right up to your side.

“So, what do you think?” you started. “I know art isn’t your forte.”

“She’s gorgeous.”

You hummed, pointing to your right. “I like this one better.”

He rolled his eyes. “What do you like about it?”

“His eyes; they’re so expressive. I remember being moved when I saw the reference picture. It’s haunting, but ethereal.”

This wasn’t poking fun now, you genuinely meant it. Bucky tilted his head.

“I was thinking about the future.”

“But you’re looking back.”

“Isn’t that ironic?” There was no humor in his voice. “I was thinking about how it could be the last time I ever modeled for Stevie, done everything at his beck and call, whatever the fuck he wanted. How it was my last year to do something impressive, something memorable. How I had,” he eyes looked to yours for a flash, but you caught his meaning. “Wishes. Regrets.”

Your hand snaked up his back and rested on his shoulder. The touch burned and comforted him all at once. “Do you still have them?”

“Some of them. Not all of them.” He gave you a smile and a quick kiss. Not you.

“Good. That’d be a shame. These three deserve to be happy.”

“They look so beautiful when they’re upset, though.”

“Don’t they?” you sighed and laid your head on his shoulder. “They should hang them in The Louvre.”

“They’d shove me in the back.”

Steve’s voice echoed from your left, and Sam strolled up with him. He stared at his own giant face, all mellowed out with blues and pinks.

“This face deserves to be in every museum. Front and center.”

“God, I did not miss the sound of your voice,” Bucky groaned.

“And I didn’t miss your sour attitude Barnes, and yet here we are. Y/N, remind me again why you’re with this loser?”

“Hmm, I don’t know. He’s had a crush on me for a looong time,” you drawled, lacing your hands together when Bucky rolled his eyes. “Decided to give him a shot.”

“I’m glad you did. Now he can finally stop talking about you with that look one his face.”

“What look? You mean that one?” Sam pointed to the portrait.

“That same exact one.”

“I’m leaving.” Bucky marched back the way he came, with you, Sam and Steve laughing at his heels. He tried to turn away and hide his smile, but everything was falling into place very nicely. All those wishes and regrets withered when he walked back to the entrance and found all their friends gathered loosely on the street.

Bucky had never been part of a friend group so large, but they cheered at his arrival. You greeted everyone in different ways; shoving Peter light heartedly, hugging Bruce and telling Tony to fuck off. They walked as a pack down the street to the 11th street diner, stupid, young and infallible as they all jaywalked, hollering like they were committing murder and not a minor traffic offence. In the hilarious chaos your hand found Bucky’s and you ran like hell, racing Pietro though you two knew you would lose. He kissed the back of your hand. Tony gagged.

He wished they could always be like this.

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