#it meant letting go of the one person he ever loved

[muliwamm]

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Boxer!Toji Fushiguro loved when people did things for him.

He loved when fans gave him gifts. He loved getting gifts during holidays. And he especially loved getting free samples from food establishments—he thinks the samples were deliberately put out for his enjoyment.

"How did you know I love raspberries?" Toji would smirk, winking at the innocent cafe worker before grabbing one three more samples and walking away.

But Boxer!Toji Fushiguro did not like doing things for other people. The only people he's ever willingly helped in his life was his mother, and he wanted to keep it that way.

Doing things for people meant you were below them and they were above you and that was not Toji's way of life.

Doing things for people showed you cared—which shows vulnerability which then gives the other person the impression that you like them and Toji does not like people.

Especially if he's not getting anything out of it.

So why, you ask, was Boxer!Toji Fushiguro following you around Tokyo, carrying your shopping bags as you shopped to your hearts desire?

On his card, of course.

Boxer!Toji Fushiguro blames himself for this, honestly.

when he asked if you were single, your hand slowly raised, preparing to land a harsh smack to his cheek.

"Wait, wait, wait, okay hold on," He pleaded.

"Look, I'm-" he runs a hand through his hair before sighing.

"I'm sorry, okay? I was being an asshole, let's- let's restart okay? Hi, I'm Toji," he said as he put a hesitant hand out.

But before you got a chance to give him your two cents, fans came crowding asking for autographs and pictures, which was when you put the dots together and realized he was famous.

You smirked, and patiently waited until the crowd cleared out, watching the way Toji switched from sad puppy to ladies man in a matter of seconds.

"You want to make it up to me?" You question, crossing your arms.

Toji nods.

"You have officially been graduated to my personal butler for the day," you give his a sweet smile, dubbing him with a banana on each shoulder before turning and making your way to the register.

so now Toji is here, bags from various clothing and shoe stores adorning his arms as he follows you around Tokyo like a lost puppy.

Boxer!Toji Fushiguro was the best butler you could ask for.

He carried your bags, gave his opinion on the different blouses and jeans you picked out, and he paid for everything.

"What do you think about these jeans? Do they make my butt look big?" You say as you exit the dressing room, turning in the mirror to examine the fit.

Toji huffs, not looking up, "they're fine."

"You're not even looking," you pout.

He huffs louder, forcing his eyes away from his phone to focus on you. Well—your ass.

He takes a goooood second, admiring the way the jeans hug your ass perfectly.

"They look good, ma" he finally says.

You raise your eyebrow at the nickname before turning to go back in the dressing room.

"Oh!" You say, poking your head from behind the curtain.

"They're thirty six thousand yen, is that okay?" You ask in a honeyed tone.

"Thirty six thou- wait hold on-" Toji says stunned before you cut him off.

"Kay, great!"

He huffs, slouching in his chair, wondering why he even agreed to this.

Even though he's spent almost all his money on a person he just met, he enjoyed the time you guys have been spending together over the course of 3 hours.

You talked, had a cute little date at a secluded cafe after you practically dragged him inside when you saw they were selling cat shaped cakes.

He told you more about his boxing career and you told him about how life has been after moving to Japan. You both talked about everything and nothing, and Toji wished that moment could never end.

Until it did.

Because you saw a pair of shoes you wanted and he lost another 200 dollars.

Boxer!Toji Fushiguro let out a sigh of relief when you got a call from your neighbor, informing you that your pet chickens, marlo and bean, escaped into her backyard again, meaning your little shopping spree had to be cut short.

"I think I'm broke now," Toji grumbles.

"You'll manage," you say, giving him an affectionate pat on the arm.

"Well, I should get going now. You can just put those in the trunk," you gesture towards your car before walking past Toji and getting inside.

He just stands there, mouth gaped in disbelief, yet again.

But for some reason he found himself complying. Which he hated himself for.

When he finished he made his way towards the driver side, crouching to meet your gaze.

"So, apology accepted?" He asked hopefully.

"Hmmm..." you ponder, tapping a finger on your chin while playfully smirking at him.

"I guess," you conclude.

"Can I at least get your number then? I mean I deserve a reward after chasing you around all day," Toji dramatically huffs.

You laugh at his antics, pulling your phone out and handing it to him.

"As long as you promise to respond," you say.

"I'll always respond, doll," Toji says once he finished putting his number in, handing you your phone back.

"Y'know you're real sweet once you get your way."

You roll your eyes and laugh before turning on your car

"I'll see you?" Toji asks.

"Mhm," you nod

"Good," he says in a low tone, bringing your chin between his pointer finger and his thumb and pressing a barely there kiss on your forehead.

Boxer!Toji Fushiguro had never met anyone like you.

You were so nice yet you never hesitated to speak your mind.

You didnt care what people thought, stating that "we're all going to die anyway. Why waste life on worrying about what some rando on the street thinks?"

Boxer!Toji Fushiguro thinks that was the moment he folded.

Boxer!Toji Fushiguro texts you later that night, planning to win back his pride and peace of mind after losing it all in the span of 4 hours by a single person.

His slap on the face was already trending on twitter, Shiu had been busting his chops, calling and texting him non-stop—to which he ignored every one, and Toji decided that he needed to show you why every man across the nation feared him, and why every woman wanted to fuck him.

He is Toji Fushiguro.

Rich Boxer Dude 🥊💴 4:24 pm - you save your chickens? Read

Mamacita 😛 (you) 4:30 pm - yup they're safe in my back yard now 😭

Rich Boxer Dude 🥊💴 4:32 pm - cool cool 4:33 pm - so wyd now

If you couldnt already tell, Toji is struggling to execute his plan "to win back his pride and peace of mind".

Mamacita 😛 4:37 pm - also I didnt say it earlier but Ty for today 4:37 pm - you could have said no, i was js rlly pissed off 😭

Rich Boxer Dude 🥊💴 4:40 pm - nah dw abt it 4:41 pm - I wanted to 4:41 pm -even if I'm broke now

Mamacita 😛 4:45 pm - okayy 4:46 pm - how about I treat you to lunch as a thank you? 4:46 - I'll wine and dine you nd treat you reeeealll nice 😌

That was suppose to be his line.

Rich Boxer Dude 🥊💴 4:50 pm - isnt that suppose to be my line?

eventually, after tedious planning and excessive flirting on your end, you guys planned a date at the park after Toji's upcoming boxing match on Sunday.

You both agreed that you would bring lunch and he would bring dessert, where he suggested he just bring himself if he's bringing dessert.

Mamacita 😛 5:23 pm - what? Why would you do that? then we wouldn't have any dessert 5:24 pm - Just bring cake from that cafe we went to today 5:26 pm - I love cake

The joke completely flew over your head.

It's safe to say Toji left that conversation with an even more damaged pride (of whatever was left of it) and failed flirting attempts.

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A/n: pookie is in such high demand 😭 and two fics back to back WHO IS HERRR

also 36,000 yen is equivalent to about 250 usd and 376 aud. Dont ask me why a person would drop 250 on some jeans I would

Series Masterlist

Taglist: @moncher-ire @sugarphoric @blitziwitch @starmapz @astrasworldsblog @yamadramallamaqueen @emi311 @cam-ilaaaa @naammiii @uhhellnogetoffpleasenowty @saitamaswifey @xylov @suckkuna @gringardsreagent @coralbae @makeitrainonsomehoes @onecrafterr @cccccccccccleo @kentoslvr @p1nkfl0wers @aldebrana @aiicpansion @seulbeomie @a1zennn @posttraumaticscribblez @aldebrana @satorupied @shigamiryuk @nanamisbbygirl @summrriot

@mimiluvzu2 @tojisblkwife @bokotarou @nana1344 @idleviewer @itsinherited @yourfavgurls-blog @shibataimu @erenspersonalwh0re @zzbloody-animezz @emoedgylord @zzz-auds @shigamiryuk

@indiewritesxoxo @blueemochii @gojoswaterbottle @pelicanpizza @shinrjj @leave-rae-alone @simp-for-wanderer @quinny23 @flowerpot113 @universal-s1ut @ifiwereabug @luluminati @blobbyblogsdraws @s-1-xx @firesgod @candy-s72 @hypomaniac-oneirataxia @spam-and-eggs @tojiscvmdumpster @g3n3v13v33 @amp-444

@ll0rona @kailovsun @aksqui

[alloftheimagines]

abby anderson | always hers, part ii

masterlist | part i

words: 3k warnings: 18+. post TLOU2/Santa Barbara, trauma, hurt without enough comfort, angst, injury, not much resolution bc I intend very much to make this several parts 🤞🏻, hunting a rabbit?, mentions of sex, mentions of sexual assault and torture, sapphic pining, so much of it, lev being a cutie, abby being a mom, these aren't warnings anymore i just love them, ummmmmmm synopsis: In which you reunite with an old flame while in search of Fireflies, only to find her half the woman she used to be.

Abby has spent the night staring at you, trying to decide if you’re real or if she’s finally lost it. Not only that, but she’s worried. Your fever hasn’t eased since you took the antibiotics, and you’ve been whimpering in your sleep. Sometimes mumbling her name. She doesn’t like it, because she knows the person you’re searching for isn’t here anymore. She isn’t her anymore. She has tried to come back to herself in the months since escaping the Rattlers — for Lev, because he needs her. But for the first time in her life, she doesn’t feel strong, physically or otherwise. She’s gaining back her muscle, slowly, but without enough protein to bulk up, her body will never be what it was. 

And her mind? Fucked, too. The Rattlers did things to her that she will never, ever talk about. She doesn’t need to: the trauma clings to her like a thick winter coat, and no amount of tugging will peel it off. 

When she saw your face last night, the one she’d almost forgotten — a devastation that had wrecked her the night she’d realised you were fading, sometime while imprisoned when she'd needed to cling onto good memories — a flicker of something for once not pain, not trauma, had passed through her. 

Now, with morning bleeding through the curtains, highlighting your wan, waxy face, she places her hand to your forehead. You groan like it hurts.

Lev watches from the couch, curious. “Who is she, Abby?”

“An old friend.” Except friends don't touch each other like you two had. Friends don't savour each other the way she had savoured you. Part of her conscience she’d thought long since lost is nagging her, telling her that she should feel enormous fucking guilt for leaving you behind. She can’t let it touch her, because she isn’t sure she’ll survive it.

“Is the infection bad?” he asks.

“I’ve seen worse.” Not a lie. “We just need the fever to break.”

“I could search the forest. There are plants that could help.”

“Not alone.” She hasn’t let him out of her sight since getting him back, and she refuses to now, even if he’s grown some of late. They got lucky with supplies in their last spot; found an old, abandoned camp where they’d been able to hunt and gorge themselves on stashes of tinned fruit. It was the first time they hadn’t been starving since escaping. 

Still not enough. They needed to move, soon, otherwise they’d run out. And that meant they needed to get you better, because despite the distance between the two of you, she couldn’t leave you alone.

“I won’t go far,” Lev pleads. “She needs something, right? We need something. We need to hunt.”

“So I’ll go, and you’ll stay.”

“You don’t want to leave her.”

She snaps her eyes to him. Too damn smart, that kid. She can’t get a thing past him these days. Has stopped trying, until you. 

She ignores him and shakes you slowly. You need more antibiotics. Maybe double, but that wouldn’t leave many for backup. 

A sharp breath cuts through you as you flutter your eyes open, and she recognises that vacancy in your eyes as you try to figure out where you are, and who she is. 

“Hey,” Abby whispers. “You’re still running a fever. Need you to take more meds, okay?”

Your brows knit together, and then you must remember your pain, because your face crumples. “Fuck. Is it morning?”

“Yeah.” 

As you scramble to sit up, she gets water and pills ready, offering them out. You take them, and she soaks a cloth in the remaining water.

“When are you leaving?” you mumble, struggling to swallow. Your lips are chapped, pale. A wave of panic rolls through Abby at the sudden worry that this might be worse than she anticipated. That she might lose you, months after she thought she already had. 

“When you’re healthy enough to come with us,” she answers, no question in her voice. 

It makes you falter as she glances between you and Lev, the latter of which is poised to go with his bow and arrow. Another thing about him? He’s defiant, now. He doesn’t need her to lead anymore. It scares the shit out of her. 

And then you fold into a wheezing laugh, and Abby is jarred into alertness. “God, you think things are just going to go back to normal now? I’m just going to” — you wince, clutching your stomach, and Abby’s heart hammers — “go back to the way it was? You say jump, I ask how high?”

She has no idea what you’re talking about, but decides now is a good time to give Lev the freedom he wants. Part of her doesn’t want him to know what she was like before they met, when she was hellbent on spilling blood.

“Okay, Lev. Go hunt. But don’t go far, and mark the trees so I know which way to find you. Come back before dark.”

“Uh-huh.” Lev disappears, and Abby twists back to you. 

“We’re going in the same direction. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t do it together.”

“I told you last night that I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“You said you’re no good to me,” Abby corrected, “which isn’t true. We’ll get the infection under control—”

You interrupt her with a bitterness she isn’t prepared for. “And then eventually, you’ll leave me again, right? When I’ve served my purpose, when a better option comes along?” Sweat beads in your Cupid’s bow and she wants so badly to wipe it away, along with all the anger you’ve been saving. 

She deserves it. All of it. She was a piece of shit for not looking harder, for not staying. But she was so afraid that she wouldn’t be able to protect Lev if they lingered in Seattle, and she couldn’t watch him die at the hands of Wolves the way his sister had. 

So she has no argument, no defence, only this need to make sure you survive this — because there is something in her chest that wakes up when you say her name. She takes a protein bar from her back, unwraps it for you, shoves it in your hands. 

“You need to keep eating. Do you have any other supplies in your pack?”

“Why are you doing this? Why don’t you just fucking go?”

“I’m not leaving you again!” Abby yells so loud that the cabin seems to rattle. “And I sure as hell am not letting you rot in this place. Keep being stubborn, go on a hunger strike if you care that fucking little about living, but I swear to god, I am not letting this be it for you, so eat. your damn. protein. bar.”

Your mouth opens, then closes. She didn’t think you, stubborn fucking you, was capable of being rendered speechless. 

And then something softens, and you look at her as though it’s the first time you’ve really noticed her.

“There you are,” you breathe.

Abby fights a shudder. There she fucking is. In no time at all, she’s fallen back into her own skin — because you’re here to remind her what it used to look like. 

She forces your hand, holding the protein bar, to your mouth, and you obey her orders finally. She can breathe again, finally. When she places the damp cloth on your forehead, your eyes flutter shut, and you lean back into the wall. 

“Gonna take another look at the wound, okay?”

“Hm.”

She nudges back your shirt, grimacing at how red it still is. A little more swollen than yesterday, maybe — or is it just wishful thinking? Had it been leaking then, or is the stain on your shirt fresh? “Thought you were a nurse. You did a shitty job of these stitches.”

“Ex-fucking-scuse me for not not suturing myself better with decades’ old needle and thread in my non-dominant hand.”

She fights back a smirk. “You’re going to be okay.”

“Yeah, unless I’m not. You can’t bullshit me, Abby.”

“Lev and I will do a supply run. Find more medicine.”

“So I guess I’ll see you again in, what, ten months? A year?”

Abby rolls her eyes. You still haven’t opened yours.

“Is this how it’s gonna be, now?” she demands.

You take a cocky bite of your protein bar. “Yup.”

She rubs the back of her neck in frustration. “Would it help if I told you that... that I’m sorry?”

You’re willing to look at her again, chewing slowly. Swallowing.

“Did you even miss me?” Your voice is wispy, close to tears. 

Abby’s scarred chin quivers as she looks down at her hands. “You know how I felt about you.”

“I didn’t, actually. You never let me in. You’d fuck me and then not talk to me for days afterwards.”

Did she? She couldn’t remember. Her days in the WLF were blood-spattered and hazy. You were the break from that, the clarity, but she didn’t dare let herself become addicted. She knew too well what it felt like to lose someone she cared about, and she couldn’t let herself get attached in a world where tomorrow wasn’t certain.

Even now, she wants to recoil, to put a barrier between you. This is too personal, too raw, and… fuck, she is aching and broken and maybe still a little bit yours. It will kill her. Protecting Lev has almost killed her, and you…

She never let herself mourn you. Never let herself think of how you might have died, or who pulled the trigger. Ellie, a Scar, maybe even another Wolf for your connection to her. She couldn’t imagine a world where you ceased existing, so she denied herself anything more than what she knew: you were likely dead, because everyone was dead. It was likely quick, because everything about that night was quick. 

It was likely her fault, because it always is. 

“It’s okay,” you say when she remains silent. “I let you.”

“You always talk like everything is so black and white,” she accuses. “Like it’s simple. It isn’t.”

“If the question is ‘did you give a shit about me?’, the answer is pretty damn simple.” Your cough is wet, a reminder that she isn’t doing enough. Being enough.

“That part of our lives is gone. Why don’t we just keep it that way?” Abby rises to one foot, half-ready to go find Lev just to avoid this conversation. “We can figure things out when we get to Portland, maybe.”

Your features shutter, mirroring her stoniness back to her. If this is how she makes you feel, she’s a cruel bastard, because fuck, does it hurt. 

And yet she can’t change. Now more than ever, she has things to protect. You always got closer to breaking through than most, and she can’t…

She can’t. If you knew what had happened to her in Santa Barbara, she thinks, you wouldn’t even want this conversation. You wouldn’t want her. 

You turn your face away, protein bar forgotten in your clenched fist. 

While waiting for Lev to get back, she pretends to be busy preparing their packs, searching the cabin cupboards as though she might have missed something the first five times. You fall in and out of sleep, and she always waits until you’re unconscious to rewet your face cloth. You still snore, she notes with the softest of smiles. She’d give anything to go back to the time she’d lay next to you, fighting with the clock because it was always too close to telling her it was time to get up. She never wanted to leave you, the softness of your body around hers intoxicating. 

It’s almost dark when Lev returns, and she can finally relax at the sight of him safe, here. He holds a rabbit in one hand and a fistful of plants in the other. 

“How is she?”

“The same. What d’you get?”

“Wild chamomile, I think. Yarrow. Peppermint, maybe.”

“Your confidence is overwhelming.”

Lev smiles wryly. “We can boil it over the fire, like a tea.”

“Sounds like you know what you’re doing.” And she trusts him more than she trusts herself. She never had to forage before Santa Barbara. The Fireflies, and then the WLF, kept her fed. Safe. It was Lev who taught her how to hunt, though she still can’t get the hang of his bow. 

She lets him boil the water and then, when your tea is made, goes outside to roast the rabbit over a campfire. That, she can do. Besides, she’s glad not to have to force-feed you herself, though she still feels your eyes on her as Lev rouses you from sleep. The door is propped open — she refuses to have it any other way. Just in case.

“I’m very grateful for your strange herbs, kid, but this tastes like piss,” you tell Lev.

Abby clamps down on a chuckle, glad for the crackling meat disguising the noise. 

“It should help,” Lev assures, and then slurping. 

“Or kill me?" A pause. Thank you, Lev.” 

“How long did you know Abby?” he asks, nosy little pest he is. 

She hears you hesitate. “Most of my life. We grew up in the Fireflies together, and then the WLF. What about you? Were you always a Scar?”

“No, but I don’t remember much before.” His voice was solemn. 

“Shouldn’t you hate our guts?” you ask. 

“Shouldn’t you hate mine?”

“Touche.” 

Another smirk from Abby. He could win over the stoniest of soldiers, but she never thought it would take much when it comes to you. You’ve always been kind beneath your fire, something many people saw as a weakness. Not Abby. She saw how it hurt you when you were fighting on the frontlines, and it only made her want you more. 

“Food’s ready,” she declares shortly after, when the forest falls silent again. 

When she turns, you’re hauling yourself up, using the wall as support. Your legs are shaky, but it’s the first time you’ve managed to do it alone, and it’s a small mercy. 

She dishes out the rabbit, more for you because god knows you need it. You nibble tentatively, face flushing from the fire. 

“Maybe you should eat inside. All the smoke—”

“Jesus Christ, Abby, the fire will not be the thing that kills me.”

She rolls her eyes. Stubborn, stubborn, fucking stubborn. 

You eat in silence after that, but she watches you over the fire, your skin glowing golden in the flames' light. Hopes that this is real, not a dream she’ll wake from in the morning. It hurts, how much she’s missed you. Now you’re here, she’s feeling it properly for the first time, enough to wind her. Occasionally, you choke on the smoke, but she knows better than to say I told you so.

“What was the plan?” you ask finally. “Where are you headed from here?”

“Lev wants to see some place called Crater Lake, so we’re headed slightly off-track,” Abby says. 

You frown. “What is this, a road trip?”

“Why the fuck not? Might die anyway. Might as well enjoy the view.”

“Shit, maybe you should put that on a T-shirt," you retort.

Lev snorts, which is bad. It means there are two of you now. Abby is outnumbered. Maybe she should have worried about you winning him over rather than the other way around. 

“I never saw the real world before Seattle,” he explains. “My sister used to be obsessed with maps. She would highlight every town she wanted to see just because she liked how it sounded.”

Abby sees understanding dawn on you, that empathy you always worked so hard to hide bleeding through. 

“She must have been really great." You nudge Lev. "I like that idea.”

Abby hasn’t seen Lev smile so hard in a while, the scars on his cheeks crinkling, almost non-existent. “I’m gonna go read before bed,” he decides, and leaves the two of you alone. 

“Well, shit, Abby. You’ve raised a whole ass kid,” you point out, words slurred slightly as exhaustion makes you slump. “Congrats.”

Abby pushes her plate aside, rubbing her hands in the warmth of the fire. “Yeah. He’s something. You should get some rest, too.”

“Hm,” you hum as though you have absolutely no intention of moving. Instead, you tilt your face to the night sky, where stars twinkle in a velvet blue sea. 

Abby stands, making her way to sit on the forest floor beside you. Her knee brushes yours as she twists to check your temperature. Your skin is only a little clammy now, not burning like before, though she still urges you further from the fire. 

Groggily, you look up at her, a finger twisting through the choppy ends of her hair. When your fingertips brush the nape of her neck, goosebumps rise on Abby’s skin, warring against the fire’s heat. 

“D’you miss it?” you ask.

“It’s just hair. It’ll grow back.”

“I miss it,” you admit. She’s worried for a moment that Lev got his herbs wrong. That you’re high, or worse. But then she sees your lids droop. You’re so fucking exhausted that her own bones feel heavy on your behalf. 

So she doesn’t think as she tugs you closer, a hand snaking around your waist. Like last night, her shoulder props up your head, and she thinks you might fall asleep that way. Until you nuzzle into her neck, drinking in her scent. It sends every fiber of her on high alert, detecting a threat that isn’t there. 

You must sense the change, because you pull away before she can force you, rubbing your eyes. “Sorry. Shouldn’t have done that.”

“It’s okay.” It isn’t, but she wants it to be. She wants to feel you against her without also feeling those other bodies, the ones who tortured her and invaded her. 

“No. No, we can’t… We can’t fall into old habits, okay? I can’t…” Your voice thickens, cracks. She isn’t sure she knew just how much you cared for her until this moment, and she is so, so fucking sorry. 

She says your name, but there is nothing else left beyond it. 

“Goodnight, Abby.” 

Abby tries to compose herself. “Goodnight.”

And then you stumble back inside, and she sits by the fire until it dies — because she’s afraid that she’s already falling. 

She’s afraid she never stopped.

[nuelles]

You’re the fast-talking, story-rambling, chaos-brained ray of sunshine. He's the quiet, soft-smiling, “just happy to be here” listener—who’s maybe not as chill as he looks when it comes to you.

You didn’t stop talking.

Not out of nerves. Not because you were trying to fill the silence. No, you just had a lot to say, and unfortunately— or fortunately, if you asked him—for Spencer Agnew, you’d decided he was going to hear every single bit of it.

“And I’m not saying Courtney went feral during the improv challenge, but when she climbed onto the table, screamed ‘I’M YOUR NEW GOD NOW,’ and tried to baptize Damien with a Capri Sun? That’s not ‘yes and’—that’s ‘arrest her.’”

Spencer snorted softly, curled up beside you on the Smosh green room couch.

He didn’t say anything. Just leaned his cheek on his knuckles and watched you with that tiny half-smile that meant he was enjoying this, even if his mouth didn’t move much. But his eyes—his eyes were soft, full of the kind of quiet love that didn’t need words. Like there was nowhere else he’d rather be than next to you, listening.

“And THEN,” you continued, shifting to face him better, “Emily tried to de-escalate with the puppy voice, which just made it worse, and honestly? At that point, we all deserved chaos.”

“You always choose violence,” Spencer murmured.

“I choose accuracy.” You sipped your drink. “Anyway. I haven’t even told you what happened after filming. Do you wanna guess how many times Shayne dropped his mic?”

Spencer tilted his head. “Three?”

“Five. Five. One of them bounced into a plant. It’s in the blooper reel.”

He grinned. Still quiet. Still watching.

And you knew this rhythm by now.

You yapped. You rambled. You ping-ponged from story to insult to theory, sometimes circling back like a walking Google rabbit hole, like if Wikipedia got caffeine and a personality. And Spencer? Spencer sat with you in it. Always listening and always nodding at just the right moment. Always smirking when you hit a particularly unhinged punchline, like he’d been waiting for it the whole time. He never interrupted. Never rushed you. Just watched you like you were his favorite show, soaking in every wild tangent like it made perfect sense. Like your voice was the best background noise the world had to offer—and maybe the main event, too.

You paused for a beat. “I talk too much.”

Spencer blinked. “No, you don’t.”

You gave him a look.

“Okay, you talk a lot,” he amended, eyes warm. “But it’s never too much.”

Your stomach flipped.

You tried to hide it with sass. “You know, most people would say ‘shut up’ by now.”

“I’m not most people,” he said simply.

And that… made something in your chest tug.

You softened. “You ever get tired of listening to me?”

He shook his head. “Never.”

“Even when I rant about my neighbor’s emotional support chinchilla at 2 a.m.?”

“That was riveting.”

“Even when I psychoanalyze everyone’s childhood via their Starbucks orders?”

He smiled. “I still think about Shayne’s being a cry for help.”

You laughed, warm and caught off guard.

Spencer reached out—quietly, slowly—and brushed his fingers against yours on the couch. You blinked at him.

“I like your voice,” he said.

You stilled.

“It’s not just the stories or the jokes,” he went on, gaze focused, steady. “It’s you. You could read the back of a cereal box, and I’d still sit here like it was a movie.”

Your face heated. “...You’re literally in a room with trained comedians.”

“I’m aware.” He leaned in a little. “Still only listening to you.”

You bit your lip, heart stuttering.

“You gonna kiss me or just compliment me to death?”

His voice dropped, low and teasing. “You gonna let me?”

You didn’t answer. Just leaned in and kissed him like you’d been waiting through three seasons and two spin-offs.

His hand caught the side of your face halfway through, steady and careful, like he couldn’t believe this was real—but wasn’t about to let it go. It wasn’t rushed. It wasn’t clumsy. It was exactly right—warm and a little dizzying, like laughing too hard in the sun.

When you finally pulled back, breathless, eyes still half-lidded, Spencer just smiled.

That soft, crooked little smile like you’d just handed him the moon.

“You good?” you asked, voice low.

“Mm-hm,” he nodded, still looking at your mouth. “Gimme a sec. My brain's doing the Windows loading wheel thing.”

You laughed, giddy and flushed.

He tucked a hand behind your knee, squeezing gently. “Okay. Yeah. I'm fine. Great, actually. You kissed me. That's… illegal levels of cool.”

You grinned. “I’ll confess later.”

Spencer leaned in again, forehead pressed to yours. “No rush. I’m a patient man....You’re gonna have so much to say about this, huh?”

You grinned. “Oh, absolutely. Buckle up.”

He nodded.

“Cool,” he said softly. “I’m listening.”

✨ Reblogs + likes | Feedback feeds the writer

📎 Requests and fic recs welcome!

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[hargreeves-duncan]

⎯⎯ MEET CUTE

visual is for vibes only, reader’s appearance is nondescript!

pairing: spencer reid x fem!reader

summary: spencer comes into your store looking for more than just a book recommendation

warnings: n/a

word count: 2.8k

a/n: this one’s a little bit more descriptive than my usual writing style but i kind of love it?? let me know which you guys prefer and, as always, enjoy!

Being in the BAU meant that Spencer got to travel, a lot.

Most of the time, he enjoyed the opportunity to see new places. Growing up, travel wasn’t really an option, and in college he’d barely looked up from his textbooks long enough to notice where he was.

But, recently, he’d come to realise that all the moving around meant he hardly even knew where he lived anymore.

He was always focusing on the next case and when he wasn’t, he was too exhausted to anything except collapse onto his bed.

This year, he’d vowed to change that.

On his off days, he didn’t just switch off, he went out. He’d started by walking the neighbourhood, mentally mapping it out and taking note of all the new buildings and businesses.

Which was what had led him to you.

He didn’t want to sound like some kind of creep, but on one of his first walks, back when he’d started this new “resolution”, he’d noticed you.

You worked at a bookstore, one that hadn’t been there before. If he remembered correctly, and Spencer usually did, it used to be a post office.

He didn’t normally go to bookstores, he much preferred libraries. Their borrowing system suited him better.

There were very few books he ever re-read and he knew that if he started buying them, he’d have no space in his apartment and no cash left in his wallet.

But when he saw you through the store’s window, wrapping a book in brown paper and string, he couldn’t deny his own curiosity.

The door chimed as Spencer pushed it open, and he glanced up to find a traditional shopkeeper’s bell mounted just above the frame.

It was made of brass. He knew that these kinds of bells hadn’t been installed as standard since the 1920s, which meant it was a stylistic choice of yours. He liked that.

He made a mental note: you had an interest in old architecture, or, at least, in things that felt timeless. He wondered if your taste in books would follow the same pattern.

“Good morning,” you said with a bright smile, setting the book you’d been wrapping on top of a stack of others, which were also neatly bundled in brown paper and string.

“Morning,” he nodded with a polite smile, before continuing further into the store.

It was much larger than it appeared from the outside, a maze of bookshelves that stretched in every direction, once you were past the front counter.

He was honestly a little intimidated by it, until he noticed the laminated chart you’d affixed to the ends of each shelf, detailing how the books were organised.

Alphabetically, by genre, followed by the author’s surname. Standard format.

He noticed, as he wandered through the aisles of books, that you had much more fiction stock, than non-fiction. He’d have to ask why later.

The store was practically empty, save for the two of you, and Spencer wasn’t entirely sure what to do with himself.

He hadn’t come in for a book. He’d come in for you.

But now that he was looking around, did that mean that there was some sort of obligation for him to buy something?

You were an independent bookshop. He didn’t have to be a genius to know a store like this couldn’t be making a very large profit, if at all. He didn’t want to waste your time.

He lingered near a display table, pretending to study the covers whilst stealing a glance towards the front counter.

You were still there, glaring at the piece of string around your book like it had personally offended you, fingers working carefully to retie it.

You were engrossed in your knot-tying, but Spencer could tell that you knew he was still there.

He could either leave awkwardly and spend the rest of the day regretting it… or say something to you.

He cleared his throat quietly and took a cautious step back towards the counter, holding a book he hadn’t really read the title of when he’d plucked it from the display.

“Is there… a reason that you wrap them like that?” he asked, lifting the book slightly and gesturing towards the stack behind you, “The brown paper, the twine… It’s a little old-fashioned, don’t you think?”

You smiled softly, setting the last wrapped book aside with a small shrug, “Maybe, but I think it makes them look a little classier than, say, polka dots or some other pattern.”

Spencer nodded, still holding the book he’d blindly grabbed, then glanced back down at the neatly wrapped stack.

“They’re all packaged the same,” he noted, “No titles. No author names.”

A smile tugged at your lips, as you brushed a stray strand of hair from your face and picked up one of the bundled books again.

You turned it over so that he could see both blank sides, “That’s on purpose.”

“It’s meant to be a surprise,” you explained, returning the book to its brethren, “Think of it like a blind date… but with a book.”

“That’s…” Spencer’s eyes lit up, nodding in approval, “actually pretty clever.”

“Statistically, it’s a strong business model. It removes literacy bias and helps avoid decision paralysis.”

He shifted his book in his hands, suddenly wishing he had the nerve to pick one of the wrapped ones instead of just admiring them from a safe distance.

You watched him hesitate, the way he shifted the book like it suddenly weighed a ton.

“Why don’t you try one?” you suggested softly, a smile playing at your lips, “I can help you pick something you might like.”

Spencer blinked, caught off guard by the offer, “You’d do that?”

“Of course!” you gushed, your smile growing brighter by the second, “I’d love to.”

“Here,” you reached behind the counter and picked up a book wrapped in the same brown paper as the others, handing it to him.

“This one’s a personal favourite of mine,” you said quietly, your eyes meeting his for a moment longer than necessary.

“It’s a little short but, trust me, it’s life-changing.”

By the time he got home, later that day, Spencer had spent fifteen dollars on your mystery book - money he hadn’t planned to spend - and he hadn’t even gotten your name.

And the worst part? When he finally unwrapped it, he realised that it was a book he’d already read.

I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman.

It was incredibly impressive, both in impact and prose, but he didn’t have the heart to tell you that he’d read it twice over. He could already picture your enthusiasm deflating like a balloon, if he did.

He should’ve guessed, given the thousands of books he’d read in the last decade, that he’d have stumbled across, at least. one of your mystery picks before. But your excitement had been so infectious, and he hadn’t been able to resist.

Naturally, when Morgan found out about this, he tore him to shreds:

“You spent fifteen bucks on a book you already own?” Morgan asked, arching an eyebrow as he leaned back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest.

Spencer frowned, shifting uncomfortably in the seat across for him, “Technically, I don’t own it. I borrowed it from the library both times I read it.”

Morgan smirked, “Man, that is not the point and you know it.”

Spencer let out a quiet sigh and stared down at the wrapped book, which he’d brought with him in the hopes that carrying it around long enough would provide him with a solution.

“I didn’t mean to buy it. I just… she was so excited to be recommending it to me, and it felt rude to walk out without getting something. I don’t want to tell her that I’ve read it twice, she’ll think that her recommendation was useless, but, equally, I don’t want to lie. What kind of message would that send?”

Morgan shook his head, still grinning, “Okay, genius, relax. Here’s what you do: Next time you go in, you tell her the truth. But not like you’re apologising.”

“You tell her you’ve already read it because you read everything, and that it’s one of your favourites. Then you ask her to pick another one for you. Boom. Now, it’s a thing.”

“That’s… actually not a terrible idea.” Spencer blinked in surprise.

Morgan raised a smug eyebrow, patting him on the back as he walked past him, “You’re welcome.”

The next day, when Spencer arrived at your store, you were in the same spot behind the front counter. Today, though, you were scribbling numbers into a notebook.

As the door’s bell chimed, you looked up from behind the counter, a smile blooming when you spotted Spencer, “Hey! You’re back soon.”

Spencer hesitated for a moment by the door, clutching the wrapped book a little tighter, “I… wanted to talk to you about the book I bought yesterday.”

You closed your notebook, the band around it snapping into place, and gave him your full attention, “Oh? What about it?”

He adjusted his glasses and took a breath, trying to steady his nerves, “I actually… I’ve read it before. Twice, in fact.”

You blinked, pursing your lips, then smiled softly, “Really?”

Spencer nodded, feeling a bit exposed but relieved to be acting honestly, “Really. It’s one of my favourites, actually. I didn’t want you to think your recommendation was wasted.”

You laughed softly, “Well, that’s very sweet of you. And I’m glad you liked it, even if it was prior to my recommendation.”

Reaching under the counter, you pulled out another wrapped book and handed it to him, “Here, this one’s for you. It’s a little different, but I think you’ll enjoy it.”

Spencer’s smile grew warmer as he took the new mystery book, “Uh… thank you. I can’t wait to read it.”

You leaned forward slightly on the counter, watching the way Spencer’s hand flexed as he set the new wrapped book down beside its counterpart.

“So, if you’ve read that one twice,” you began with a teasing lilt, “I have to ask, what is it that you usually read?”

“Honestly? A little bit of everything. I read a lot of nonfiction for work: psychology, criminology, history, that kind of thing.”

“But when it comes to fiction, I tend to gravitate towards literary fiction. Things that are… emotionally complex. Thought-provoking.”

“I get that,” you nodded along, jotting something down in the margins of a sheet of paper on your desk, “So… character-driven stories?”

“Yes,” he said, his voice gaining confidence as he watched you write, “I like novels that explore what people are capable of. I guess I appreciate writing that doesn’t underestimate its readers.”

You smiled, raising an amused brow, “So, no dragon-slaying, space-exploring adventures for you?”

Spencer let out a small laugh, “Not usually. Although, I read a few science fiction novels a while back that I really enjoyed. I think I just like when the emotional core still feels grounded.”

You tapped your pencil against the desk, thoughtfully, “Okay. That helps.“

He tilted his head, curiously, “Helps with what?”

You smiled coyly as you scooped a stack of books into your arms to shelve, “Finding books for you.”

From there, your relationship only grew.

Spencer fell into the routine of taking his neighbourhood walks and stopping by your store whenever he could escape work. And, every time, without fail, you had a new book waiting for him.

Sometimes, on the rare occasion he’d already read your pick, you’d simply hand him a backup, with a smirk, as you boasted: “I came prepared.”

Somehow, in just a few weeks, you had managed to catalog every one of Spencer’s reading preferences, always providing him novels, perfectly attuned to him.

It had been a quiet afternoon in the BAU bullpen, and Spencer had brought the latest book you’d given him with him resting on his desk, during a lull in paperwork.

It had been staring at him from the bottom of his satchel since you’d given it to him, right before he’d flown out for a three-day case in Kentucky. He hadn’t even started it yet.

Morgan walked by, a coffee in one hand, eyebrows shooting sky-high at the sight of the novel on Spencer’s desk.

“That another gift from Bookshop Girl?” he asked with a grin.

Spencer gave a half-smile, eyes lingering on the cover, “Yeah. I haven’t gotten around to reading it yet.”

Before Spencer could stop him, Morgan reached out and plucked the book off the desk, flipping it over in his hands and cracking it open.

“Hey-“ Spencer protested, shooting out of his seat to reach for it back.

Morgan held the book just out of reach, squinting at the back page. He let out a low whistle, “Well, would you look at that.”

“What?”

Morgan turned the book around and tapped the corner of the last page with his index finger. Written in small, elegant handwriting was a string of digits.

Your phone number.

And your name, just below it.

“I think she’s been trying to tell you something, pretty boy.”

Spencer took the book back, blinking down at the inscription, but it stayed the same. He wasn’t dreaming. Your name and number were there, clear as day.

“I… I didn’t even see this.”

Morgan arched his eyebrow at him, “You’ve had, what, five of these books, already?”

Spencer nodded and that only made Morgan grin wider, “Check the others.”

Spencer did. He pulled one out from his satchel, then another from his desk drawer. Sure enough, every book had the same note inside the back cover.

Your name. Your number. All this time.

He stared at the page like it had personally betrayed him. He was kicking himself, now. How could he’ve missed it?

“I can’t believe this,” he muttered, half laughing, “I thought she was just… really into giving book recommendations.”

“She is,” Morgan said, clapping him on the back, “But she’s also really into you. So the only question is, what are you gonna do about that?”

Just as you always did when the evening came, you flipped over the welcome sign to read ‘CLOSED’, flicked off the bookstore’s lights, and locked the front door.

You were a little sad to be doing so today. It had been almost five days since you’d last seen Spencer.

You’d found out his name by peeking at his credit card as he paid, instead of just asking like a normal person. You thought it suited him well.

Still, you hadn’t heard anything from him. No texts, no calls - despite having left your number in every book you’d gifted him.

You weren’t sure what you’d done wrong. Maybe you’d misread the signals. Or come on too strong. Maybe he hadn’t seen the notes. Or maybe he had and he simply wasn’t interested.

Either way, it didn’t seem like Spencer would be coming back anytime soon.

You wished you hadn’t been so forward, you though bitterly as you tucked your keys into your coat pocket with a quiet sigh.

“Wait! Hang on! Wait!”

Hurried footsteps slammed against the pavement.

You turned, just as Spencer came into view, breathless and flushed. His curls were windswept, his scarf slightly askew and he had one hand raised while the other clutched a familiar wrapped book to his chest.

“Spencer?” you asked, eyebrows raised in disbelieving concern, “Are you okay?”

“I… yeah… sorry,” he wheezed, catching his breath, “I didn’t mean to scare you. I just-“ he held up the book in his hand, then gave a breathless, crooked smile, “I finally read the back.”

You blinked at him, visibly confused, “You… read the back?”

Spencer exhaled a soft laugh, nerves threading through it, “The back inside cover. Where you wrote your name. And your number.”

Your heart skipped a beat, “Oh! That back.”

“Right,” he nodded, pointing at you, “I didn’t see it at first. Not in any of them. I thought you were just really into book recommendations.”

You gave him a sheepish smile, glancing down, “I couldn’t tell if you’d noticed. When you didn’t call, I figured… you had, but I’d weirded you out in some way.”

Spencer shook his head quickly, “No. No, you didn’t. I just-“ He laughed under his breath, “I’m probably the only person alive who could miss a sign that obvious. It wasn’t you.”

A brief pause washed over the two of you as you stood opposite one another.

“Y/N, I kept coming back to your store, yes, because I liked the books,” he said, a little softer now, “But, mostly, because I liked seeing you.”

Your gaze met his again, startled by the honesty in his voice, “I hoped you’d say that,” you whispered.

A fond smile spread across Spencer’s face, and he stepped a little closer, hesitating for just a second, “Would it be alright if I… kissed you?”

His eyes flickered from your mouth to your eyes. You nodded.

He leaned in, slow and careful, giving you time to pull away, but you didn’t. You met him halfway, and the kiss was soft and tentative, like a page being turned for the first time.

When you parted, your forehead rested briefly against his.

“I have more books for you,” you murmured, barely above a breath, giggling to yourself.

“Well, that’s great,” Spencer grinned, “because I want to read every single one of them.”

[himasgod]

HAPPY PRIDE MONTH AH 😝😝😝

Going straight to the point can I request a spicy fic?

With Kalim?

I like to think he has MANY piercings.... And curiosity leads to ask him about them, and that lead to him showing his nipple piercings and THAT may lead to smth if ykwim.

Ty

KALIM X READER SMUT!

Where you are too interested in the piercings around his body

KALIM THAT DAMN SMIRK- SORRY I DIDN’T KNOW WHAT IMAGE TO USE.

⚠️Warnings! This scenario is set during third year, where both reader and Kalim are adults. There's full consent and an established relationship. Kalim takes on a more submissive role in this, while the reader leans more dominant. The reader’s body is not described explicitly, so it can be read as g!reader (gender-neutral reader). Kalim is super OOC because honestly I had zero writing energy yesterday and today. I did my best, but I couldn’t keep his personality intact—so I made him a little less sunshine boy Kalim and a little more damn okay bold Kalim. I’M SORRY FOR TAKING SO LONG TO FINISH THIS even though Pride Month is already over... BUT STILL—HAPPY (BELATED) PRIDE MONTH TO YOU TOO!! 🌈💖

It wasn’t unusual for Kalim to lounge half-dressed in your room. Shirt undone, gold chains across his chest, his bronzed skin—he was a work of art, laid out on your bed.

He had one leg propped up, a pillow behind his back, an apple slice hanging from his mouth when you caught it.

A flash. A shimmer. Something metallic underneath his open shirt. You raised an eyebrow.

“Babe. What’s that?”

“Hm?” He chewed, swallowed, and grinned like he knew exactly what you were talking about. “Which one?”

You sat up straighter. “Have you gotten a new one?”

Kalim laughed, his beautiful laugh, bright and carefree.

“Of course! I told you, didn’t I? I got more piercings when I was back home last break. You only ever see the easy ones.”

He tugged his earrings playfully, then tapped his tongue against the back of his teeth with a little click. The glint caught your eye. That one, you had seen.

But you hadn’t seen what he showed you next.

“I got a few down here,” he said casually, drawing his shirt further apart with both hands. That’s when you saw them—two silver hoops through his nipples, shining against his chest.

Your mouth went dry.

“What the hell, Kalim.”

“Pretty, right? You wanna touch?”

“You’re asking like you don’t already know the answer.”

“Haha! Then why don’t you stop staring and come get a feel? They’re sensitive, hehe”

You narrowed your eyes.

“You’re the worst.”

“Don't say that!—I’m the best, and you’re drooling over my chest right now.”

You rolled your eyes, but your hands were already sliding up his torso, greedy to test his theory.

You weren’t sure which was hotter—the silver hoops through Kalim’s nipples, or the way he looked at you when you touched them.

Eyes half-lidded, lips parted, breath hitching the moment your fingers brushed the jewelry. He bit his lip and let out a soft sound.

“… yeah, like that,” as your thumb circled one of the piercings, watching your every move.

“They’re really sensitive,” he murmured, voice dropping into a low purr. “Guess you’ll have to be gentle with me, baby-”

You straddled his lap with no hesitation, hands sliding up his chest, thumbs pressing teasingly against both piercings this time. Kalim’s hips bucked under you, a soft moan escaping before he even tried to hold it back.

“Oh, you like that?” you teased, already feeling him growing hard beneath you. He chuckled with his pretty smile, warm against your neck as he pulled you close.

“I love it. I love you so much, yeah... only you could have me like this. You can... do whatever you want to me, love.”

And God, he meant it.

You leaned down and flicked your tongue across one nipple, gently tugging the ring with your lips. Kalim whined, arms tightening around you, and his head fell back with a needy little sigh.

“I take it back. You’re not the worst. You’re evil.”

He grinned, breathless. “Only for you.”

It didn’t take long before clothes were being shed completely—his shirt tossed aside, your own slipping off with his help as kisses dragged down your throat and across your collarbones. Kalim’s hands roamed your body, fingers worshiping every inch.

And when you finally lowered yourself onto him, both of you gasping at the feeling, he grab your face and kissed you like he meant it.

No, like he was addicted to you.

“Look at you,” he breathed, watching the way you moved on top of him. “So beautiful like this… riding me like you own me.”

"I do,” you said between heavy pants. “You did say I could do whatever I want.”

He moaned as your hips rolled harder, his hands grabbing your waist, piercings glinting as he arched up to meet you. “You can. baby—please don’t stop, you feel too good—”

The metal against your skin added a delicious contrast—the cool bite of steel, the warmth of his body, the rush of his whines as you leaned forward to mouth at his nipples again.

He lost it.

“My love— you’re gonna make me come—don’t stop, don’t stop—”

You didn’t. You wanted to see those pretty piercings bouncing with each thrust, wanted to hear him cry out your name like he had no shame left.

And he did.

Kalim came, trembling under you, his mouth open in a silent moan before it broke into a needy cry. You chased your own release moments after, collapsing against him as he held you close, the metal on his chest cool against your cheek.

When you caught your breath, Kalim laughed weakly and kissed your hair.

“I should get more piercings.”

“You won’t survive it if I keep playing with them like that.”

“Sounds like a challenge, I could try-”

[byhuenii]

Pasilyo

Pairing Bucky Barnes x Reader

Synopsis When you tell Bucky that a Filipino love song reminds you of what it feels like to love him, he learns it—for you.

What begins as quiet practice becomes a quiet promise.

A song. A vow. A path walked slowly, hand in hand.

Word Count 7K

Themes + Warnings Soft love , unspoken gestures , language of music , semi-tower fic , cannon-divergence , tender masculinity , FLUFF , FILIPINO READER. (No if ands or buts) , unspoken devotion , Bucky Barnes learning how to be loved </3 , MENTIONS OF PETER x MJ , found family

— Pasilyo “Hahagkan na’t 'di ka bibitawan” I’ll kiss you and I won’t let go - Sunkissed Lola

M. List | Request (open)

The compound was quiet.

A rare thing.

No alarms, no clashing egos echoing from the gym, no Tony sarcastically narrating someone else's mistakes over the intercom. Just silence—soft, golden, and late at night.

Bucky walked down the hallway slowly, towel slung over his shoulder, fresh from a shower. His damp hair clung to his temples, and he was halfway to his room when he heard it.

A voice. Yours.

Not speaking. Not laughing. Not cursing at an exploding espresso machine. Humming.

He froze.

It wasn’t just any tune—it was lilting, delicate, something foreign to his ears but familiar in the way a dream sometimes is. The notes were simple, repeated softly under your breath. He took a step closer to the kitchen, peeking around the corner.

You were washing dishes, hair messy, sleeves rolled, swaying ever so slightly with the rhythm you made. It wasn’t performed—it wasn’t for anyone���it just was.

The song.

And the way you hummed it, gently under the fluorescent light, like it had lived in you for years... He didn’t know what it meant. But he knew he wanted to hear it again.

To understand it.

To give it back to you.

He stepped away before you could notice him, the notes still echoing in his mind long after he made it to bed.

The next day, over coffee, he asked, casual but curious,

“What’s that song you were humming last night?”

You blinked. “You heard that?”

He nodded. “Sounded… nice. Familiar, almost.”

You smiled softly. “It’s called Pasilyo. It’s a Filipino song.”

“Pasilyo,” he repeated slowly, tasting the syllables like they were something sacred.

“What’s it mean?”

You looked down at your mug for a moment, then up at him.

“It’s... a hallway. An aisle, technically. But in the song, it’s about love. Like walking down an aisle toward the person you’ll spend your life with,

“It’s a love song. A really soft one. Not about grand gestures or shouting from the rooftops. It's just about choosing someone—everyday, quietly, fully. Walking down the aisle together like… that’s it. You’ve found home.”

Bucky stilled.

You added, quieter now, “It’s a song I fell in love with. About slow love. Choosing someone every day. Loving someone like they’re the home you’re walking toward.” You met his eyes, smiling shyly.

“It feels like what loving you is like.”

You look up. He’s not blinking. Not moving.

“That’s what being with you feels like, Bucky. Like I’m walking down that aisle. Like I don’t need to look anywhere else.”

His lips part slightly, like he wants to respond, but the words don’t come yet. He looks… stunned. Moved. Like no one’s ever told him he feels like home before. Not in a way that wasn’t laced with fear or obligation or war.

You take another sip of your now-cold tea and smile through it.

“I know it’s in Tagalog, but maybe one day I’ll translate it for you. Or sing it.”

He said nothing at first.

Just stared. A little stunned. A little overwhelmed. Like you’d handed him something precious, and he didn’t know how to hold it yet.

Then he nodded slowly. And said, softly, “Will you sing it for me sometime?”

You smiled. “If you promise not to laugh.”

He chuckled. “I would never.”

But he didn’t ask again. Because he had something else in mind.

Something that would take time. Something he wasn’t sure he could do right.

But something he needed to do—for you.

His fingers twitch against the edge of the table. Like they’re remembering the feel of piano keys.

Like a seed’s been planted.

And you?

You just go on with your night, not knowing you’ve just handed him the map back to himself.

Not knowing that, while you sleep soundly that night, Bucky Barnes is pulling up the sheet music on FRIDAY’s display, heart thundering in his chest like he’s standing on a ledge—

Ready to jump headfirst into love. Into music. Into you.

“Pasilyo,” you repeat slowly, your tongue wrapping around the syllables like a memory you’ve never let go of. “It means aisle. Like a wedding aisle. Like… a hallway you walk through—towards forever.”

Bucky doesn’t say anything right away. He’s looking at you like you’ve just dropped something fragile in his hands. And maybe you have.

You're both sitting on the compound’s balcony, two steaming mugs between you and the chill of the night air brushing past like a whisper. It’s one of those rare moments of stillness—when the world isn’t asking you to fight, or lead, or bleed for it.

Just breathe.

And tonight, just talk.

You glance over and find him already looking at you—elbows on his knees, fingers curled around his mug, eyes soft.

“You really wanna know what the song means?” you ask, a little nervous.

He nods. No hesitation.

So you take a breath. And give him your heart.

“It’s not just about getting married. Not in the shallow sense, anyway.” “It’s more like… choosing someone. Every day. Step by step. Even when it’s hard. Even when it’s quiet. Even when it’s been years and the butterflies are gone, and what’s left is just... devotion.”

Your voice is quiet now, as if louder would cheapen it.

“It’s the kind of love where you walk beside someone. You match their pace. You don’t rush ahead. You don’t fall behind. You just… walk. Together.”

You look down, fiddling with your fingers, a little shy. “The first line says ‘Ikaw at ikaw.’ It means you and only you. Like... no matter what. It's always going to be you."

Bucky swallows hard, jaw tightening like he's trying to stay calm but failing a little.

“The chorus says ‘Sa pasilyo tungo sa ′kin, At hinawakan mo ako't aking ′di napigilang– Maluha nang mayakap na” “It’s saying—this hallway, this aisle, it feels like heaven. Like where we’re going… it’s somewhere sacred.”

You laugh a little, more to yourself.

“It sounds dramatic, I know. But when you’re in love the way the song describes… it feels dramatic. Like everything slows down just because that person exists. Just because they look at you like you’re the end of the path they’ve been walking their whole life.”

You finally look up.

Bucky hasn’t moved.

Not even blinked.

His eyes are locked on you—not in that intense, soldier way, but in that soft, soul-crushing way that says he’s cataloguing every breath you take like it’s gospel.

“That’s what the song means to me,” you finish, voice barely above a whisper. “And when I said loving you feels like it—I meant it.”

He sets his mug down slowly, like he needs his hands free to feel this.

“No one’s ever talked about me like that before,” he says, voice rough.

You don’t rush to fill the silence. You let it sit between you. Let it echo.

He shifts toward you on the bench, eyes still full of something heavy—tender, almost scared.

“What’s the word again?” he murmurs. “That first one you said. The one that means ‘you and only you’?”

You smile, slow and genuine.

“Ikaw at ikaw.”

“Ikaw at ikaw,” he repeats. Clumsy but careful. And then again, this time a whisper: “Ikaw at ikaw.”

Like a vow.

You lean into him, shoulder against his, and let the silence take over again—this time, not empty, but filled. With understanding. With warmth. With the soft kind of love that doesn’t need fixing or fighting.

You don’t know it yet.

But he’s already made the decision.

He’s going to learn that song. Note by note. And one day, he’s going to play it for you. Because that’s what you do when someone tells you they found heaven in loving you.

You walk the aisle back to them— every damn time.

“Play it again,” Bucky muttered to himself. “No—wait. That’s wrong. Shit.” A clumsy chord echoed through the common room. “FRIDAY, run it back.”

“Again, Sergeant Barnes?” “Yes.” “Third time in an hour.” “I didn’t ask for sass, I asked for the song.”

The piano in the corner of the Avengers compound was usually more decoration than instrument—a sleek black upright Tony had bought on a whim after a gala. Dust collected on the keys. No one really touched it.

Until now.

Bucky sat hunched over it, his metal hand hovering above the ivory like it didn’t belong there. Because, honestly, it didn’t. His fingers were built for holding weapons, not crafting tenderness. His hands had been wired to hurt, not to create.

And yet, here he was. Learning to play your song.

For the past week, he’d been coming down to the lounge every night after everyone had gone to bed—when the halls were empty, the lights dim, and the only sound was the soft click of his fingers over plastic keys.

At first, he just had FRIDAY play the song over and over while he listened. Eyes closed. Jaw clenched. Not really understanding the words, but memorizing the way your voice softened when you hummed it. The way your shoulders relaxed when the first chord came on your playlist. The way you once said:

“That song feels like love walking beside you.”

And if he could just learn it, maybe he could show you he felt it too. That he understood now. Even if he couldn’t always say the right things, or believe he deserved you.

It wasn’t easy.

The first night he sat at the piano, it was nearly an hour before he even played a note. His metal fingers were too heavy, too clunky. His left hand hit two keys at once, and his right hand—shaky from frustration—kept missing its place.

He almost gave up.

But then he remembered the way you said “Ikaw at ikaw.” How sure you sounded. How certain.

So he kept trying.

Over the next few days, he practiced every night.

FRIDAY was surprisingly cooperative (with a dash of sarcasm):

“Would you like to hear the first verse again, or shall I prepare tissues for your fourth emotional breakdown, Sergeant?” “The verse. And shut up.”

He wrote the chords down in that neat, soldier-style handwriting of his. Over and over. Scribbled Filipino lyrics beside them, even though he didn’t know what half of them meant.

He watched videos. Listened to instrumental covers. Slowed it down to half-speed, grimacing every time he got it wrong. He would mouth the words, not fully understanding, but feeling the shape of them in his chest.

One night, Sam caught him at it.

“Damn, Barnes. Didn’t know you were dropping a heartbreak album.” Bucky didn’t look up. “It’s not for you.” “No kidding. It’s for her, isn’t it?” Silence. Then, quietly: “Yeah. It is.” Sam smiled, uncharacteristically gentle. “Then don’t stop.”

The breakthrough came one night when his hands finally moved together, smoothly, like they were meant to do this.

FRIDAY played the reference track. And this time—this time—Bucky played along.

He didn’t think. He just let it happen. Let the song live in his hands the way it lived in yours.

The melody was sweet. Patient. Like the person he’d become with you—softer, but stronger.

He finished with a shaky breath, sitting back on the bench like he’d just run ten miles. His heart pounded.

“That’s it,” he whispered to himself. “That’s the one.”

And for the first time in his entire life, James Buchanan Barnes smiled at himself.

Because he finally had something he couldn’t wait to give.

He practiced it a few more times, just to be sure. Memorized every pause, every breath between chords. He even started quietly mouthing the first line in your language, repeating it over and over.

Ikaw at ikaw. Ikaw at ikaw. You and only you.

Your voice echoed in his head, telling him what the song meant:

“It’s about love that chooses you. The kind that walks with you.”

And soon, you’d be home from your mission.

He would wait until the timing was right. Not a performance. Not a surprise. Just a quiet moment. Just the two of you.

“Can I show you something?”

The compound was unusually quiet for a Tuesday afternoon, which was suspicious enough on its own.

Peter was upside down on the couch, legs propped on the wall, halfway through a bag of Goldfish. Tony was arguing with Sam about whether the compound thermostat had been tampered with. Steve was reading something ancient and probably morally upright. And then—

A single piano note echoed from the hallway.

Everyone paused.

Peter blinked. “Was that the… piano?”

Another note. This time, slower. Softer. Followed by a gentle string of chords, unsure and tentative, like someone was figuring out where their fingers belonged.

Tony stood up. “Okay, who’s emotionally spiraling? We made it four days without someone dramatically playing an instrument. That’s a new record.”

They all followed the sound like curious cats, poking their heads around the corner.

And there he was.

Bucky Barnes.

Sitting at the piano, back to them, hunched forward like the music was something sacred. FRIDAY was softly giving instructions through the room speakers.

“Left hand on G. Good. Now, right hand follows with D major. Yes, Sergeant.”

The boys stood frozen in the doorway.

Peter whispered, “Uhhh since when does he play?”

Tony raised a brow. “Since never. That piano has been collecting dust since I bought it for aesthetic reasons.”

Sam folded his arms, squinting. “Wait… is that the song she always hums?”

Steve, leaning against the doorframe, just smiled to himself.

“He’s known how to play,” Steve said casually, arms crossed over his chest. “Just doesn’t talk about it.”

Four heads turned.

“Wait—what?!”

Steve nodded once, still watching. “Used to play before the war. Said it helped quiet his head. Took it up again recently, I guess.”

Inside the room, Bucky cursed under his breath, hitting the wrong note.

“FRIDAY—run it again.” “Of course, Sergeant. At bar twelve, from the top.”

Peter whispered, “Why does this feel like watching someone fall in love in slow motion?”

Tony frowned. “Because it is, Underoos.”

Bucky hadn’t noticed them yet—his face was serious, brows drawn together in focus, jaw flexing every time he missed a note. His metal hand trembled slightly when it hovered above the keys, as if unsure it even belonged there.

But he kept going.

Over and over.

Like he was playing for someone who wasn’t even in the room.

Steve tilted his head, a knowing warmth in his voice.

“He’s not just playing music. He’s making something for her.”

Sam smirked. “Goddamn. Barnes has got it bad.”

Peter nodded solemnly. “Like... marriage-song bad.”

Tony looked mildly offended. “I thought I was the only one here with a soft side.”

Steve chuckled.

Then, Bucky finally realized they were there.

He turned around slowly, suspicious.

“How long have you been standing there.”

Tony threw up his hands. “Excuse us for witnessing the Winter Soldier’s Piano Redemption Arc.”

Peter clapped his hands like he was watching the finale of a K-drama. “Can you play it again? It was really pretty.”

Bucky narrowed his eyes. “No.”

Sam sat down dramatically on the floor. “C’mon, Barnes. Don’t be shy. We love a man in his musical era.”

Bucky grunted, standing up from the bench.

“Not doing this with you people.”

Steve just smiled and clapped him on the shoulder as Bucky passed.

“You’re doing good, Buck. She’s gonna love it.”

Bucky paused at the door, head tilted.

And maybe—just maybe—there was a small smile on his face as he muttered:

“That’s the plan.”

It’s late again.

Everyone’s asleep—or pretending to be. The compound is quiet except for the soft clicks of keys under Bucky’s fingers, and FRIDAY’s gentle whispering instructions.

“Repeat the last measure. You missed the root chord.”

Bucky sighs through his nose and resets his hands. The notes are getting smoother, more natural, but he’s still not satisfied. It needs to be perfect. Not polished. Not flashy. Just... full of her.

He presses the first chord, and the familiar melody starts to spill from his hands.

He doesn’t notice Peter slip into the room until the song ends.

“Was that Pasilyo?” Peter asks softly, standing in the doorway with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders like a cape.

Bucky turns a little, surprised, but not annoyed. Not like he would be with anyone else.

“Yeah,” he mutters. “You know it?”

Peter nods, padding across the room like he’s scared he’ll scare the music away.

“It’s been everywhere on TikTok. All the versions too—wedding edits, proposal videos, those aesthetic compilations where people film rain and talk about their soulmate like it’s a poetry slam.”

Bucky huffs a quiet laugh. “Didn’t realize it was that popular.”

Peter sits down cross-legged on the floor, facing the piano, chin resting in his palm.

“One time, she told me this song reminded her of you. Said it was exactly what falling in love with you felt like.”

Bucky’s fingers falter.

Peter’s eyes are soft.

“I didn’t get it then. I mean, I knew she loved you. It was obvious. The way she looks at you like you hung the moon... but I didn’t feel it.”

He gestures toward the piano.

“But when you play it? Like this? I get it now.”

Bucky doesn’t speak. Just listens. Takes it in like a truth he’s still learning to hold.

Peter’s voice is quieter now, almost reverent.

“When MJ and I started dating—really dating—I heard this song again. One of the mellow versions came up on my feed while I was walking her home. And I just... got it.”

He looks up at Bucky. “The way love slows you down. Makes you pay attention. Makes you want to match someone’s pace.”

Bucky’s hands return to the keys, and this time, he starts humming. Low and quiet, just under his breath, the melody threading into the space between them.

Peter closes his eyes.

The notes are softer now. Bucky’s pace more confident. Each chord falls exactly where it’s supposed to. His hums trail into the air like they’ve been waiting for this moment to land.

Peter opens his eyes again, barely above a whisper.

“You know what pasilyo means, right?”

Bucky nods once. “She told me. The aisle. A hallway. The walk toward someone.”

“Yeah,” Peter says, voice cracking just a bit. “But it also means not rushing. Just being there. With them. Through it. I think… she chose the perfect song. For you.”

Silence settles between them again. But it’s not empty.

It’s full of something soft. Something shared.

Bucky presses the final chord, and this time, he lets it ring out fully. No flinching. No pause. No correction.

Just… completion.

He exhales and leans back on the bench, shoulders looser now.

Peter gives him a quiet smile.

“She’s gonna cry when she hears it.”

Bucky nods.

“I hope so.”

The song fades again, slow and deliberate, like a whispered promise at the end of a letter. Bucky lifts his hands off the keys, but the sound lingers—the kind of quiet that doesn’t ask to be filled. Just felt.

Peter doesn’t say anything. He’s still sitting cross-legged on the floor, elbows on his knees, just… watching.

And Bucky lets him. Because for once, the silence between them doesn’t feel awkward. It feels understood.

Peter finally breaks it, voice low.

“It’s weird. It’s like… the piano’s singing.”

Bucky doesn’t answer right away. He gently presses a single note again, slow, sustained. The kind of note that vibrates through your ribs and settles in your chest.

Peter’s eyes stay on the keys. He’s not smiling—not fully. He’s feeling.

“The way you play it,” he says quietly, “it’s not just notes. It’s like… the music knows how much you love her.”

Bucky’s shoulders rise slowly with a breath.

Peter swallows.

“It made me think about MJ.”

He laughs a little, embarrassed. “She loves this song. Used to send me clips of it when we were just friends. Said it made her think of the kind of love she wanted one day.”

He glances at Bucky.

“I didn’t get it. Not until we were walking home together one night and it started raining. She grabbed my hand like it was just… obvious. Natural. Like we were supposed to be walking side by side all along.”

He pauses.

“That’s what this song feels like. Like that.”

Bucky presses another chord. Soft. Careful. Right where it belongs.

Peter lets his head rest on the back of the couch behind him, eyes tracking the rise and fall of Bucky’s shoulders as he plays.

The piano sings.

Not loud. Not flashy. But full of warmth.

Like walking hand-in-hand in the rain. Like coming home after a long, hard day. Like whispering “I love you” when there’s nothing else left to say.

Peter swallows thickly.

He thinks of MJ.

Her laugh when she throws popcorn at him. Her sleepy voice on late night calls. The way she looks at him like he’s not broken, even on the days he feels that way.

“Hey, Bucky?” he says softly.

The music slows, but Bucky doesn’t stop playing.

“Yeah?”

Peter fidgets with a string on his hoodie. “Could you… maybe teach me? Sometime. The song.”

Bucky doesn’t look up from the keys. But his metal hand glides smoothly into the final chord, holding it like a quiet promise.

“You play?”

Peter winces. “I was in band. For like... two years. I quit. Too many trumpet kids. They were terrifying.”

Bucky chuckles under his breath. The sound is so rare it almost startles Peter.

He just lifts his metal hand, plays the opening line again—your song, soft and familiar. And then he speaks.

“If it’s for MJ…” A pause. A small smile pulls at the corner of his mouth. “…anytime, kid.”

Peter’s throat gets a little tight. He blinks fast, hides it with a sniff and a rub of his sleeve.

“Thanks,” he says, voice cracking a little. “That means a lot.”

“I know it does,” Bucky says softly. “That’s the point.”

They sit there a while longer. Not playing. Not talking. Just being.

The song echoing in both their chests. A melody about walking beside someone—not ahead, not behind.

Just together.

The Quinjet lands with a low hum, night spilling over the landing pad like ink. You stretch your back, roll your shoulders, feel the ache of the last few days settling deep in your bones.

Nat slaps your arm lightly as she disembarks. “You’re getting soft.”

You snort. “You were the one who said your knees were cracking like popcorn during that rooftop sprint.”

Wanda comes up behind you with a smile, levitating her bag for the drama. “Are you going to go see him first? Or pretend to play it cool?”

You blink. “What?”

Nat shrugs. “You always do. You get back from a mission, and five minutes later you're either in his room or pulling him into yours like a human weighted blanket.”

“I do not—”

“She’s home,” FRIDAY interrupts over the comms. “He’s asking for her in the piano room.”

You freeze.

The piano room?

He never— Bucky doesn’t perform. He doesn’t ask. He disappears, or waits outside your door like some kind of lost dog with love in his eyes.

But this?

This feels different.

Wanda grins and floats away like a fairy godmother who already knows how this ends.

Nat just smirks. “Go.”

You move through the compound slowly. Not rushing. Because something about the way FRIDAY said it made your chest clench tight.

He’s asking for you.

Like he’s ready to give you something.

As you near the hallway leading to the music wing, you notice little things.

The lights are dimmer than usual. Warm. Intentional.

There’s a faint echo of a chord—not music yet, just the shape of it—like someone’s checking the sound of their own heartbeat before they let it speak.

And then you hear it.

Laughter.

Not loud. Not teasing.

Just soft.

And his.

You pause outside the cracked door, peeking in.

Bucky’s sitting at the piano—nervous, fidgeting, adjusting the bench like it might change the outcome. His metal fingers curl and uncurl.

Peter stands nearby, setting a guitar back on its stand with the kind of smile only someone who’s seen something real can carry.

“She’s gonna cry, you know.”

Bucky huffs. “Don’t tell her that.”

“I won’t,” Peter says, slinging his backpack over his shoulder. “But she will.”

Bucky doesn’t argue.

Peter starts walking toward the door and spots you frozen just outside. He stops, smiles softly, and doesn’t say a word.

Just brushes your arm gently as he passes and whispers:

“It’s time.”

And then you’re alone. Just you. And him.

He hasn’t seen you yet.

His fingers hover over the keys. He breathes in through his nose, steadying himself. His lips move soundlessly—mouthing words he’s probably rehearsed a hundred times.

You stay in the shadows a moment longer. Because you want to remember this. This version of Bucky Barnes—nervous and beautiful and brave in a way that has nothing to do with bullets or war.

He adjusts the sheet music one last time—though you’re certain he doesn’t need it.

Then he speaks, quiet but sure.

“FRIDAY… let her in.”

And that’s where we pick up the Reveal scene. Right at the door.

Right at the start of everything.

(Before you land)

The compound is too quiet.

That kind of quiet that feels loud in Bucky’s ears. Even with FRIDAY running soft diagnostics and Peter’s guitar case long gone, it still hums wrong—like the walls are holding their breath with him.

He’s alone in the piano room.

Again.

Fingers hovering over the keys. Again.

“She’s coming home in forty-seven minutes, Sergeant Barnes,” FRIDAY says gently.

His stomach lurches.

Forty-seven minutes. Less than an hour until you walk through the doors smelling like wind and danger and stars. Until you’re home again.

And he’s still not sure if he can do this.

His metal hand twitches. He shakes it out.

Again.

He starts with the intro. Slow. Careful. Like he’s whispering a secret to the room before you can hear it.

But his hands stumble—wrong chord. He curses under his breath and pulls back from the keys like they bit him.

“Shit—”

He exhales, jaw clenching tight.

He’s not scared of much anymore. He’s seen war. He’s been it. He’s jumped out of planes, ripped through walls, walked into bullets without blinking.

But this? This has him pacing.

Because he’s never played something that meant this much.

He’s not just playing you a song.

He’s showing you every piece of his heart. Every scar, every breath, every fragile, soft, terrified part of him that has learned how to love again because of you.

What if it’s not enough?

What if you hear it and it doesn’t say everything he needs it to?

What if you don’t cry? What if you do?

He drags his hand through his hair. Sits back down. Stares at the keys.

“Get it together, Barnes.”

He looks at the music—not because he needs it, but because it reminds him this was something real. Something you sang when you thought no one was listening. Something you hummed under your breath like a prayer.

“Pasilyo,” you’d told him. “It’s like a wedding aisle. But it’s also a path—one you choose to walk down. To meet the person you want to spend your life with.”

He remembers how your voice had cracked when you said it. How you looked at him. How he wanted to cry right then and there, but he didn’t. He couldn’t.

Now he wishes he had.

He plays it again. Slower. Breathing with it. Feeling where each note catches in his chest.

It’s not perfect.

But it’s true.

And it hits him, somewhere deep and raw:

This is what love sounds like.

Not clean. Not polished. Not without tremors in the middle of the melody. But still—it arrives. Still, it walks.

Just like you did. Into his life. Into his heart. Without flinching.

His fingers hover at the bridge—his least favorite part, the one he always messes up. Too many emotions there.

Because that’s the part where the song lifts, right? Where it believes. Where it’s not just aching— But hopeful.

And Bucky’s never been good at hope.

But for you?

He forces his fingers down. Lets them play.

And for the first time—

He doesn’t mess it up.

His shoulders fall. He doesn’t even realize he’s shaking until the room settles.

“Thirty-three minutes,” FRIDAY says softly.

He nods once.

“Keep the lights low,” he murmurs. “She likes it soft when she gets back.”

“Of course.”

He breathes in. Breathes out.

Waits.

And somewhere in the compound, an alert pings.

She’s landed.

He doesn’t hear her footsteps at first. But he hears Peter—murmuring something as he passes by. A quiet laugh. A hand on his shoulder.

And then—her.

You.

Standing just beyond the door.

He doesn’t look yet. Because if he looks, he might cry.

And he wants to play this right.

He wants to give you this moment the way you gave him the courage to exist again.

“FRIDAY…” “Let her in.”

You don’t even realize you’ve dropped your bag until you hear it hit the floor.

The hallway is quiet now. Peter is gone. Wanda and Nat are halfway across the compound. But you—you’re standing at the threshold of something undeniably big.

Something warm and soft and intentional.

The piano room glows low with amber light. No sharp whites. No tactical coldness. Just this amber haze like candlelight, like golden hour had been pulled inside just for you.

And in the middle of it all—

Bucky Barnes.

Sitting at the grand piano, lit like a memory.

He’s wearing that soft henley you love—the one that stretches across his shoulders and makes him look almost breakable. His head is bowed, fingers flexing above the keys like they’re trying to remember something holy.

You don’t breathe.

And then, without looking—

“Can I show you something?”

His voice is low. Unsteady. Like it’s been soaked in silence too long and is finally ready to speak.

You nod, even though he can’t see it. Your throat’s already tight.

“Yeah,” you whisper. “Of course.”

He shifts. Settles his hands. And begins.

It’s quiet, at first. Hesitant. Like footsteps on a new floor. The melody of “Pasilyo” unfolding from his fingers, soft and reverent.

But then— You hear it.

The heart.

Not the perfection. Not the technicality.

But the way it feels.

Each chord is him. Every note—his past, his pain, his impossible hope, all woven together into this aching confession he’s never been able to speak aloud.

Your lips part. Because you know this song. You know it so well.

And yet… It’s different in his hands.

He’s not just playing it.

He’s praying.

He’s walking.

Toward you.

You step further into the room, chest tight, every hair on your arms standing up.

Then—your voice cracks into the air:

 Hahagkan na′t 'di ka bibitawan— Wala na 'kong mahihiling pa…

(I’ll kiss you and won't let go— I wont ask for anything more)

His head lifts just slightly. Eyes flick to you.

And he sees it—

The tears. The awe. The recognition.

You’re looking at him like he’s just handed you the moon.

“You remembered,” you breathe.

He doesn’t answer out loud. He just keeps playing.

Your feet move on their own—closer, closer—like you’re being drawn by a string wrapped around your ribs.

′Di maikukumpara, Araw-araw kong dala-dala 

(Nothing compares, I carry it everyday)

His playing swells. Not loudly. Not boldly. Just… full. Full of everything he’s ever wanted to give you and didn’t know how.

The bridge hits.

The part where you always said the meaning lives.

And his hands don’t falter.

He doesn’t even blink.

Because this is what it’s always been about.

Not flowers. Not rings. Not dramatic kisses in the rain.

A path. A choice.

A pasilyo.

He finally stops. The last note hangs in the air like smoke.

The silence after is just as loud.

You cross to him, eyes shimmering, heart racing.

He opens his mouth—but you speak first.

“Do you know what this means?”

He watches you, still breathless. “Tell me.”

You sit beside him on the bench, hand resting on his thigh.

“This song is about walking toward someone and knowing that no matter what came before, they are your future. They’re the one at the end of the aisle. And not because it’s perfect—but because it’s yours.”

You swallow hard.

“It’s about choosing them. Over and over.”

He blinks, and tears spill over—real ones. Not silent. Not hidden.

“I never thought I could be that for anyone,” he whispers. “Someone worth choosing.”

You place your hand over his metal one. The hand that learned this song for you.

“Bucky,” you say softly, “I’ve been walking toward you since the day I met you.”

His breath shudders.

And then, with his head bowed and your hand over his heart—

“I love you.”

You lean in close, forehead pressed to his, voice shaking like a candle flame.

“Then walk with me.”

And outside the room, the hallway stays quiet. But inside— Inside, the aisle is lit. The path is clear.

And Bucky Barnes, for the first time in his long, haunted life, doesn’t just feel loved.

He feels chosen.

The music room isn’t full. But it feels full.

There’s no announcement. No plan. No gathering call.

Just a soft chord drifting down the hallway, a melody warm enough to pull people in like gravity.

It starts with Bucky—fingers drifting across the piano like he’s remembering something instead of reading it. Then Peter, beside him, grinning quietly as he joins in on the keyboard.

Different layers. Same song.

“Pasilyo.”

But this time—this time it’s not for practice. Not for nerves. Not even for confession.

It’s pure.

It’s joy. It’s the feeling of love after the tears, after the fear. It’s the sound of two men finally understanding what it means to be held and seen and chosen.

And on the old couch near the window—you and MJ sit, legs tucked up, cheeks in your hands, watching them like they just spun the stars into a lullaby.

Peter’s tongue sticks out slightly when he concentrates. Bucky hums softly under his breath, a habit he doesn’t even know he has.

They glance at each other—sync without speaking.

You whisper to MJ, voice trembling from the sheer softness of it all, “Do you hear that?”

She nods, eyes wide and glassy.

“It’s like they’re speaking in a language they only just remembered.”

One by one, the others appear.

Not loudly. Not all at once.

Sam leans against the doorframe, arms crossed, a quiet grin tugging at his lips.

Steve slips in behind him, posture soft, eyes damp.

Natasha sits on the floor near the corner, knees pulled to her chest, breathing like she’s afraid to make a sound.

Wanda hovers close to the window, fingers fluttering at her side like she’s trying to touch the music itself.

Bruce stands at the back, utterly still.

Thor ducks slightly through the doorway, his massive form surprisingly gentle in the silence.

And Tony—

Tony stops in his tracks, eyebrows raised like he’s trying to pretend it doesn’t hit him the way it does. But his hand moves to his chest like something cracked there, something long rusted and unopened.

None of them speak.

Because there’s nothing to say.

Bucky glances over at you now and then. Just a flicker of blue eyes, checking, anchoring.

Every time he does, you smile.

You don’t realize it, but your head is tilted the exact way it was that day you sang it. Back when you were barefoot in the kitchen, humming it like a secret prayer.

MJ reaches for your hand and squeezes it gently.

“They’re doing it for us,” she says softly.

You nod.

But it’s more than that.

They’re doing it for themselves too. To remember. To believe. To hold onto the feeling that love doesn’t have to hurt. That it can sound like this—like keys and strings and the breath between two chords.

The song slows.

Not because it’s over, but because it doesn’t need to rush.

The final notes echo—soft and slow, like footsteps fading into a forever that doesn’t scare them anymore.

When it ends, no one claps.

No one needs to.

There’s just this stillness.

This moment suspended in amber.

This one, impossible truth:

They made it.

Not just through war. Not just through pain. But through the long, aching walk back to themselves.

And when Bucky finally speaks, his voice is barely a whisper:

“You taught me this song…”

He turns to look at you.

“But loving you taught me how to play it.”

Peter laughs under his breath, ducking his head.

“Yeah, and MJ taught me I wasn’t terrible at music. Just stuck with the wrong instrument.”

MJ wipes her cheek. “Trumpet kids,” she jokes, voice cracking.

Laughter rolls across the room like thunder softened by love.

Bucky chuckles, glancing at Peter.

“You wanna play it again?”

Peter nods. “Yeah.”

But before they begin, Bucky reaches over—hand brushing your knee—and asks:

“Stay?”

You don’t move. You don’t blink.

You just say, voice thick with tears and certainty:

“Always.”

And behind you, in the silence left behind by music and memory—

The Avengers watch.

Not as soldiers. Not as heroes. But as people who have seen fire and ash and death.

And now—

They see love. And for once… It’s enough.

The music room isn’t full. But it feels full.

There’s no announcement. No plan. No gathering call.

Just a soft chord drifting down the hallway, a melody warm enough to pull people in like gravity.

It starts with Bucky—fingers drifting across the piano like he’s remembering something instead of reading it. Then Peter, beside him, grinning quietly as he joins in on the keyboard.

Different layers. Same song.

“Pasilyo.”

But this time—this time it’s not for practice. Not for nerves. Not even for confession.

It’s pure.

It’s joy. It’s the feeling of love after the tears, after the fear. It’s the sound of two men finally understanding what it means to be held and seen and chosen.

And on the old couch near the window—you and MJ sit, legs tucked up, cheeks in your hands, watching them like they just spun the stars into a lullaby.

Peter’s tongue sticks out slightly when he concentrates. Bucky hums softly under his breath, a habit he doesn’t even know he has.

They glance at each other—sync without speaking.

You whisper to MJ, voice trembling from the sheer softness of it all, “Do you hear that?”

She nods, eyes wide and glassy.

“It’s like they’re speaking in a language they only just remembered.”

One by one, the others appear.

Not loudly. Not all at once.

Sam leans against the doorframe, arms crossed, a quiet grin tugging at his lips.

Steve slips in behind him, posture soft, eyes damp.

Natasha sits on the floor near the corner, knees pulled to her chest, breathing like she’s afraid to make a sound.

Wanda hovers close to the window, fingers fluttering at her side like she’s trying to touch the music itself.

Bruce stands at the back, utterly still.

Thor ducks slightly through the doorway, his massive form surprisingly gentle in the silence.

And Tony—

Tony stops in his tracks, eyebrows raised like he’s trying to pretend it doesn’t hit him the way it does. But his hand moves to his chest like something cracked there, something long rusted and unopened.

None of them speak.

Because there’s nothing to say.

Bucky glances over at you now and then. Just a flicker of blue eyes, checking, anchoring.

Every time he does, you smile.

You don’t realize it, but your head is tilted the exact way it was that day you sang it. Back when you were barefoot in the kitchen, humming it like a secret prayer.

MJ reaches for your hand and squeezes it gently.

“They’re doing it for us,” she says softly.

You nod.

But it’s more than that.

They’re doing it for themselves too. To remember. To believe. To hold onto the feeling that love doesn’t have to hurt. That it can sound like this—like keys and strings and the breath between two chords.

The song slows.

Not because it’s over, but because it doesn’t need to rush.

The final notes echo—soft and slow, like footsteps fading into a forever that doesn’t scare them anymore.

When it ends, no one claps.

No one needs to.

There’s just this stillness.

This moment suspended in amber.

This one, impossible truth:

They made it.

Not just through war. Not just through pain. But through the long, aching walk back to themselves.

And when Bucky finally speaks, his voice is barely a whisper:

“You taught me this song…”

He turns to look at you.

“But loving you taught me how to play it.”

Peter laughs under his breath, ducking his head.

“Yeah, and MJ taught me I wasn’t terrible at music. Just stuck with the wrong instrument.”

MJ wipes her cheek. “Trumpet kids,” she jokes, voice cracking.

Laughter rolls across the room like thunder softened by love.

Bucky chuckles, glancing at Peter.

“You wanna play it again?”

Peter nods. “Yeah.”

But before they begin, Bucky reaches over—hand brushing your knee—and asks:

“Stay?”

You don’t move. You don’t blink.

You just say, voice thick with tears and certainty:

“Always.”

And behind you, in the silence left behind by music and memory—

The Avengers watch.

Not as soldiers. Not as heroes. But as people who have seen fire and ash and death.

And now—

They see love. And for once… It’s enough.

(You've got mail!) YALL DONT GET THIS SONG LIKE I DOOOOOO. IKAW AT IKAWWWWW. IKAW AT IKAWWWW. IKAW AT IKAWWWWWW. I’m so pasilyo about Bucky it makes me so sad like genuinely. This is one of the 2 fanfics I have been talking about. And yes I know x Readers are supposed to be inclusive but reader being Filipino makes sm sense to me (I’m Filipino im projecting.) but in our culture songs and music is such a big part of our love language, that’s really how we founded the acts of serenading. So Bucky taking time out of his day to learn this song is like HEART GUTTING FLUFF SOFT I LOVE YOU. But I hope you liked this because I deadass cried while making this…

Tag List (For Mr. James Buchanan Barnes is open)

@bbsbrina @herejustforbuckybarnes @barnesandbouquets @winchestert101 @totallyanxiousart @lovinqbella @starstruckfirecat @beestarsuck

[iamthatonefangirl]

bad luck part 3 - winter soldier/bucky barnes

word count: 3.8k disclaimer: heavy themes of insecurity. graphic depiction but no occurrences of suicide. general dark themes. a/n: this might not be the ending you were all hoping for, but it's the ending my heart needed.

part 1 - part 2

~~~

the next week goes by in a blur.

you’re placed on administrative leave, or some bullshit, until it’s determined if you can be trusted to remain on the team.

trusted? you? after what you've done to the team, to yourself, to Bucky?

you've burned all those bridges by repeatedly breaking protocol, withholding information, explicitly lying when asked a direct question.

and what for, exactly? you can't pretend that it was to protect Bucky. not anymore. you've exploded your relationship with the love of your life for what reason, exactly?

how did you get yourself into this situation?

why did you do it?

you used to think that there was a part of you that could possibly be salvaged. that not every part of you was darkly corrupted, that maybe you could almost be a good person.

Bucky made you feel like a good person.

he was always there for you in the moments you needed him, reminding you of how much you meant to him, how he saw nothing but good in you. yet you never believed it.

so what did you do? you turned around and made him feel like nothing, like he could never be more than the murderer he used to be. like you didn't actually love him for who he was.

of course you did.

but clearly, he had been wrong. there wasn't a fiber of your soul that could be reconciled, and through your transgressions with the Winter Soldier, you'd irreparably hurt the man you loved.

even so, you can't help yourself from trying to fix it.

you call Bucky every day. a few times, even. you don’t go to his apartment. you know you’re not welcome, and you don’t even know if he’ll be there.

the marks left on your skin are a constant, painful reminder in the days following that you've ruined everything good in your life. you shouldn't be surprised, because when have you ever been able to hold onto something good?

the bruises on your skin will eventually fade, but not the ones imprinted on your heart. not if you can't fix this.

~~~

the second he walked down that hallway, walked away from you, he instantly regretted it.

of course this was all his fault. of course you didn't have a say in any of it, even if you tried to tell him you did. of course his alter ego had seen that Bucky finally had something good and had forced himself onto you to get the upper hand on him. to ruin his one good thing in life.

he'd ruined it.

he could never trust himself again.

every time you called, he raced to look at his phone. he never could answer, though; he sat, staring at your picture on the screen, praying it wouldn't go to voicemail just so he could continue looking at your face.

when he listened to said voicemails, he prayed they would never end just so he could hear your voice.

every time he dared close his eyes, images of you, covered in bruises that he caused, tormented him. thoughts that he hurt you plagued him, the scene of finding you, covered from head to toe in marks that he left, playing out like a horror film behind his eyelids.

it was hell on earth. the solution?

days passed in a blur, spending every waking moment in bed but never once letting himself sleep if only to keep himself from reliving the worst moment of his life.

he was a super soldier. he didn't get tired, could stand to go without sleep for longer than most people, right?

wrong.

the emotional pain coupled with the fact that he hadn't eaten in days exhausted him, his body eventually shutting down, sleep taking over.

visions he's never seen before play out in his head as he sleeps.

entering your apartment through your window. grabbing you by the waist with a strength he's never exerted on you before. thrusting into you so brutally and forcefully that you're crying out under him.

walking up behind you in a vaguely familiar kitchen. wrapping his arms around you and feeling your body tense up when he speaks. dipping a flesh hand below the waistband of your pants and slipping underneath your underwear. the same scene morphing into one of him behind you, on top of you. you, once again, crying.

~~~

feeling rough hands pinching and pulling at your skin. wrapping your lips around him as he forces himself down the back of your throat. repeatedly admitting his claim on you while metal fingers tighten around your neck.

you shoot up in bed, gasping for air as the ringing of your cell phone blares loud in the otherwise silent room.

2:57am.

you pick it up without hesitating.

"Bucky?"

"baby, let me in. I'm outside. please."

you're at a loss for words, dreams of the soldier still fresh in your mind as you try to process his words. he's here? this late?

is he crying?

you move down the hallway like a zombie, your legs cramped from being awoken mid-REM. "'m coming," you mumble through the line.

when you open the door, you're still not fully functional.

"it's the middle of the night," you say quietly, trying to force your eyes to wake up and look at him. you've been waiting for this for a week, to have the chance to talk to him, except now you're too sleepy to get any meaningful words out.

"I saw it all," he whispers.

you shake your head, the dots not connecting in your head as you try to process his words. he saw...

the visions. the dreams. what actually happened in those moments he lost. the moments you'd ruined your entire life for, just to keep them secret.

"I saw what he did to you," he tells you, the crack in his voice cutting through the haze of your tired mind. the pained sound feels like an ice pick being jabbed right through your heart.

"can we... can we talk about this in the morning?" you whisper to him. you're still tired, but now, you're wide awake.

except you can't stand to have this conversation with him, not yet. the one you've been dying for, been calling him on repeat in the attempt to make this very moment happen.

he's here, ready to give you what you've practically been begging for, and you can't do it.

you'd rather let yourself believe you still stand a chance.

"yeah. in the morning," he agrees.

your eyes have finally adjusted, which means you see the way he smiles at you sadly, the look of silent pleading in his bloodshot eyes. how he does look like he's been crying, how his whole body tremors.

you can't stand it.

you step back, opening the door enough for him to come in, and you stare up at him apprehensively as you wait to see what he does.

your prayers are answered when he takes a few weary steps forward and into your apartment.

he clings to you as you both lay in your bed, his arms wrapped firmly around your waist as though he's worried someone is going to take you from him.

nothing could ever take you away from him.

you would fight to the death just for the chance to make things right with him. you'd slit your own throat and feel yourself slowly, painfully go to sleep as the blood seeped out just to be able to genuinely apologize.

since your first encounter with the Winter Soldier, you'd felt a million conflicting emotions: need. guilt. desire. dread.

you didn't deserve Bucky. you were too screwed up to be with someone as good as him.

as you drift off to sleep, it all begins to click in your mind.

~~~

you wake up before him the next morning.

he's still wrapped around you, his body heat like a furnace in the bed with you. it makes you feel so loved, so deserving of his love, when deep down, you know you aren't.

your whole body freezes the realizations you made the night previous resurface in your head.

Bucky stirs next to you and it jolts you out of your daze.

"baby? are you awake?" you whisper to him, brushing your fingers through his mussed hair.

he takes a deep breath in as his body rouses. "I missed you."

somehow, his words are a relief and an extra weight on your heart all at once. you watch as he pulls back, blinking his own eyes open before finally looking up into yours.

"I saw it all, in a dream," he begins, unwilling to wait any longer to finally get his words out. "I saw what he did to you. how I made you cry."

you're about to protest, tell him that it's not on him, that this was all your fault.

"but, you told me last week that you wanted it, and I just... why would you want me to hurt you? why would you want him to use you like that?"

your breathing stops.

"listen, it's not about you, Bucky. I need you to know that, okay?" you try to reassure him.

as the pieces all fit together in your head, you scramble to hold yourself together.

except this is Bucky. and you've already lied enough to him.

"the pain just feels good sometimes, you know? like, scratching an itch," you tell him honestly. that's the only way you can describe it. the only way you can explain to him that the pain is the only way everything else goes away.

except, you don't get the understanding answer you were hoping for.

"the pain feels good?" he says, face contorting in confusion. "why the hell would you say that?"

you're not prepared for him to get upset over your words. you try to backtrack, try to explain yourself as he sits up in the bed, pulling away from you.

"so all those years I spent in pain, all those years they spent torturing me, what? you think that was just fun for me? you think that sounds like your idea of a good time?"

no. no, that's not what you meant. how could he ever think that that is what you think?

"Bucky-"

"no," he responds, voice shaky. he flinches when you try to reach for him, kicking the sheets off and jumping from the bed. "all I ever wanted to do was protect you from him, from me. you shouldn't have let this happen."

he's right. you shouldn't have.

and yet, the response angers you far more than you anticipate.

"no, I shouldn't have," you retort through gritted teeth, voice raised, "but you're not listening to me. let me explain-"

"no. you've explained enough. I was just idiot enough to not listen when you showed me the truth." his response is equally as angry as your own, his voice pointed in a way you've never heard directed at you before.

"Bucky, I didn't mean for this to happen!" you try to reiterate, near yelling now as you try to get through to him. "I know it's my fault, and I know I'll never be good enough-"

"you were supposed to kill me!" he yells back, voice piercing through you as he cries, "you promised me!"

you see the tears begin to well up in his eyes as he deliberately stands away from you, holding a hand out in front of him as though to keep you away.

your eyes fall shut as your jaw stutters and lips tremble, trying to make sense of all of this.

"that's what you're upset about?" is all you can come up with, trying to speak as softly as possible so as to not aggravate him any further. "that I didn't shoot you when you turned?"

your chest hurts more than you've ever felt, worse even than you feel with the reminder of all the terrible things you've done that your nightmares continue to remind you of. the pain is so all-encompassing you can barely breathe, can hardly take oxygen into your lungs with the way your throat begins closing up on you.

"I don't know," he cries. "I just... I wish you'd done something. I wish you had told me how you were feeling. I wish you hadn't lied to me."

"I know," you whisper, slowly standing from the bed to approach him. "I know. I fucked up so bad, but I didn't want to ruin this, I..."

your voice trails off as you place your hands gently on his shoulders. you watch him hang his head, face contorted as though in pain, tears silently falling.

"you said you wished I had killed you. maybe you didn't explicitly say it's what you wanted, but I know you, Bucky. I do," you whisper to him. "and I could never do that, ever. not to you. not even to protect myself."

"baby," he begins, but you continue.

"I had the chance," you admit to him. "I knew what was happening. I had the shot, and I hesitated, because I couldn't bear to hurt you. but maybe... maybe I hoped you would kill me, too."

his head shoots up to look at you when you say that.

"obviously, he didn't kill me. he protected me. but when he showed up and did... what we did, it felt good because the physical pain let me escape. I guess the lines got blurred in my head because of that. it was all just a terrible, sad excuse for an escape from my own mind, from feeling like I wasn't good enough for you."

his own chest aches at hearing how you felt.

"I should have told you the first time. but all of it just started piling up on me, and I didn't know what to you."

"you could have talked to me," he pleads with you.

"no, I couldn't," you say, your own tears welling up in your eyes. "I tried to tell you just now how I felt, and..."

"I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to get mad baby, please," he says, hands reaching out to hold yours. "I get it. I do. I just can't trust myself to think straight, so hearing you say something like that..."

"and I've made that worse," you say, beginning to cry quietly. "that's my fault. I'm broken, Bucky, and I've hurt you because of it. I'm so fucking sorry I dragged you into my bullshit."

he gazes down at you, looking into your eyes, and he sees it. your fear, your pain, how he somehow managed to overlook it all and inadvertently gave way to this whole situation.

"come here," he whispers, wrapping his arms around you once more. "you're not broken. it's okay."

as you cry softly against his chest, you know his own tears are still falling.

"this isn't your fault," he whispers to you. "you were in pain. I wouldn't have been able to handle it if you had told me because I've been stuck with my own. I'm supposed to be there for you, but clearly, I don't know how to do that."

those words sit in the air, hitting your ears and filling your head with nothing but doubt.

"we're both so fucked up, Bucky," you whisper. "how are we supposed to be together? how do we find our way back?"

"I don't think we do," he whispers, and your heart shatters into a million pieces.

you can't be done. no. even with everything you've done, it can't be over.

"but maybe we can find a way forward."

~~~

you lay in bed once more, resting your head on his chest, your mind busy whirring as you contemplate what comes next. how you're supposed to learn to trust each other wholly, talk to each other honestly.

you've never been able to do that before, but your relationship with Bucky is more than worth trying.

"baby?" he whispers to you. you turn to look up at him, humming your acknowledgement. "can I see the bruises?"

you take a deep breath, wondering if this is a good idea, ultimately nodding and sitting up. you have to start somewhere, you suppose.

he sits up, too, and begins to reach for the hem of your shirt. you hold your breath as he pulls the fabric over your head; once your skin is bared to him, he rests his hands on your waist tentatively.

he hasn't touched you like this in so long. soft. gentle.

you don't deserve his delicate touches.

"Bucky," you hesitate, beginning to pull away.

"I love you," he whispers, his grip on you firm so you can't withdraw from him.

you take a shaky breath in and out. he's said it to you a million times before, and a million times, you realize now, you haven't let yourself feel it. believe it.

this is the first time the words really sink in.

"I love you, too," you whisper, forcing yourself to lean into his touch instead of pulling away once again.

the bruises have mostly faded away, a few of the deeper marks still remaining in small, discolored patches. he watches his hands as he runs his fingers over the few left on your hips, moving to trace the ones left on your neck.

this is what you thought you deserved?

you thought this was the only way to hide from the self-loathing thoughts that plagued your mind?

he's not angry anymore. he's determined.

you gasp sharply when he leans in to place soft, innocent kisses over the marks on your neck. the motion is so careful and deliberate, and you have to force yourself not to tense up.

he feels the urge to say something, to remind you how much you mean to him. how you don't have to be stuck in the past anymore. he doesn't say a word.

you let him lay you back on the sheets, your body finally relaxing as he kisses down your neck to your chest, all the way to the rest of the marks at your hips.

you want to cry, you think, from how emotional the scene is. just as you think you're safe from completely falling apart, he pipes up,

"no more hiding. not from me."

and the waterworks start all over again.

this time, you listen. you don't try to mask your pain or your fears. you let him hold your trembling self while you cry into his chest, and once the exertion exhausts you, he continues to keep you close as you sleep.

as you rest, he gently cups your face in one hand, pressing a kiss to your forehead.

how couldn't he still love you?

he vows to himself that he'll never let you doubt it again.

~~~

an hour later, your phone blares once again.

shit, he thinks, trying to reach for it to silence it before it wakes you. he's unsuccessful.

you stir in his arms, your body immediately grabbing for it before your brain can even catch up with the action.

"hello?" you say into the phone, voice hoarse after sobbing and subsequently falling asleep.

you hear a distinct voice on the other end of the line saying your name. you hadn't paid any attention to who was calling when you answered. you immediately shoot up and force your mind to wake up as you respond.

"Nat?" you ask, looking over to Bucky in your confusion. he follows your lead, sitting up next to you, equally as confused.

"how are you doing?" she asks you over the line.

"um, fine," you tell her, running a hand through your hair and clearing your throat. "what's going on?"

"listen," she begins, "I'm not supposed to be telling you this quite yet, but Steve is open to letting you come back."

you weren't expecting that.

"what? seriously?" you question.

"it's... on the table. he's not happy, but he's sympathetic to your situation."

she pauses, and you gape, trying to think of what to say next.

she continues, "this is all contingent on Barnes agreeing to it, of course, but Steve has yet to get ahold of him."

"yeah, he... hasn't been answering my calls either," you say, looking over to him as he sits next to you, rubbing your back as you talk. there's a small frown on his face, unable to hear the other side of the conversation.

you don't want to tell her anything yet. your relationship is so fragile right now; you and Bucky need the space to figure this out privately, on your own.

"well, I'll let you know once we have an answer. and, for what it's worth: hang in there, okay?" she tells you.

"yeah. thank you, Nat," you say, hanging up the phone. you stay there, staring down at the screen as you ponder what she's just told you.

"what did she say?" Bucky asks you after a moment.

"Steve might let me come back," you tell him solemnly, "assuming you're okay with it."

he hums his acknowledgement but doesn't respond just yet, continuing to rub your back as you both take in the information.

after a moment, he comments, "you don't sound particularly excited."

you tear your gaze away from your phone screen, which has inevitably gone dark by now, to look up at him with sad eyes. "I don't think I can go back," you tell him, "at least not now. not while I'm still..." you trail off.

"then I'm not either," he says without a second thought.

"what? no, you don't have to give up work just because-" you protest, but he quickly cuts in.

"why don't you want to go back?" he offers. "because of everything that happened?"

the way he says those words clues you in on the fact that he knows that isn't the reason why.

"no," you affirm. "I can't keep fighting, pretending that it's what I need to move on. it's just holding me back."

he brings a hand to run through your hair, holding the back of your head as his gaze roams over you.

"I'm not going back. we're gonna move forward together, you hear me?" he tells you, staring deep into your eyes as he says it.

you've lived a lifetime doing things you regretted, things you could never find penance for. people you've hurt that you'll never be able to make amends for.

deeds and lost lives you'll never be forgiven for.

because you're a monster.

the man in front of you, though, doesn't see you that way. he sees something more in you. he's willing, capable of forgiving you.

and that's more than enough for you.

"I love you, Bucky," you whisper.

he kisses your forehead once more.

"I love you, too. we're going to be okay."

you wholeheartedly believe him.

~~~

masterlist

join my tag list

bucky tag list part 1: (send an ask or dm to be removed)

@starfly-nicole @avengersfan25 @thewiselionessss @hextech-bros @a-book-lover-things @ruexj283 @mrsnikstan @sleepysongbirdsings @sapphirebarnes @multiversefanfics @winchestert101 @andziabarnes @chrisevansleftnipple @daisydark @luckyhornet @maryevm @avengemepercy @mandoloriancookie @starstruck-cowgirl @doubledizzy22 @yvespecially @shereadzzz @blaineandergel @flow33didontsmoke @iiamlynn @belovedmoony @tellybearryyyy @doilooklikeagiveafrack @analovesmarvel @izzy698 @ketchumid24 @annabethboleyn @luv4kook @buckyseternaldoll @planetzeidy @thegirlfatherr @cieraboobear @wint3rbarnes @quinnofdrama @jeannie-beannie @buckysslut @peaceinourtime82 @poiscntree @sooberrt @yaboyguzma69 @dragonsoverall @barnesonly @drxies @morgan-getty

[sydwritess]

Groupchats With Y/n Pt. 9

F1 grid x fem!reader

Notes: requests are open!

01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10

Lando-tastic

Hey guys...

George the giraffe

Yeah?

Roscoe's dad

?

Charlie

What happened?

Kimi Kardashian

It's Y/n

Roscoe's dad

What happened?

Lando-tastic

Well, after your date last night, she came to my house drunk and started GUSHING about you. Which isn't a bad thing but...

Kimi Kardashian

I was also there, and she went on and on about how now that you are a movie producer... well she wants you to hook her up with Will Smith, and then went on and on about him.

Lando-tastic

So we just want to know what happened???

I-sack

Yeah.... I just saw her running down the hallway... back and forth...

Bearman #1

I also have seen her. And she NEVER runs. Unless she is in danger which she has stated many of times.

Francisco

Same with me. Just saw her, and she screamed, 'I'm so happy.'

Roscoe's dad

Ah yes... well, we were at the movies, and she had a couple of glasses of wine. But she said she could handle it so... you know. After that she completely melted into her seat. Literally like slouching. So yeah... I dropped her off at your place because she said she lived there now, which I didn't want to question because it's not personally my business so.

Lando-tastic

Okay, well thanks for making her safe.

Y/n

HEY LANDO!!!!

George the giraffe

🥲🥲

Y/n

Georgie!!! Why are u Sadd

George the giraffe

It's more of like a happy sad?? I suppose.

Lando-tastic

Y/n, how's your day.

Y/n

AMAZING NOW THAT I FOUND THE COOKES IN UR FRIDGE!!!

Kimi Kardashian

Why the caps?

Lando-tastic

Please tell me you didn't eat them??? 🙏🙏

Y/n

TWO! TWICE HOLE OnE's

Lando-tastic

Y/N THOSE ARE SPECIAL COOKIES U TWAT

Y/n

Special alright! They taste sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo gooosdd

Alexandria

Special?? As in like weed special??

Lando-tastic

No shit sherlock.

Roscoe's dad

Why would you have those at work??

Charlie

She just kicked me out of Lando's drive room and locked the door.

Y/n

You stupid if ur going to think ur sharing cookies. My cookies

Alexandria

She's making my dyslexia levels rise again...

Kimi Kardashian

I have some pasta in my driver's room. My secret recipe :)

Y/n

oooooooooooooo

Charlie

She is now running down to Kimi's room, and tipped over the jar of cookies in Lando's room

Lando-tasic

MY COOKIES!!!

George the giraffe

Pasta for breakfast??? Weird.

Y/n

You eat fish and grits for breakfast. THAT'S disgusting as ur face dickhead.

Lando-tastic

HAHAHAHAHAHA

Y/n

GUYSSSSSSSSSS

George the giraffe

What?

Y/n

Team George Russell just posted a video of George when he was younger. HE WAS SO CUTEEEE

George the giraffe

I think you mean 'is'

Kimi Kardashian

No she meant was.

Lando-tastic

😭😭

Alexandria

How did your date with Lewis go?

Y/n

GREATTTTTTT

Gas station boi

Aren't you way younger than him?

Y/n

UHM, I'M 10 YOU BALD BASTARD

Lando-tastic

Love that show 🤣🤣

Roscoe's dad

Let's not say that out loud, shall we?

Y/n

Can sum1 get me mcdonalds?

I-sack

Didn't you just eat? Special cookies at that.

Y/n

DON'T EVER TELL A WOMEN TO STOP EATING YOU ABSOLUTE DICK HEAD MOTHERFUCKER.

Gas station boi

🫣🫣🫣

Chili

I think I just witnessed a crime 😳

Kimi Kardashian

#scared #y/n is about to throw pasta every where in my room.

George the giraffe

Reasonable. Learned that the hard way.

I-sack

....

Chili

Y/n.... I am throwing a dinner together at this restaurant and... well, since you weren't invited to the last one, I thought the first person on my guest list should be you 😁

Y/n

...

Kimi Kardashian

Awe

Charlie

That's sweet 🥲

Lando-tastic

Carlos in his BFF era.

Alexandria

That's actually sweet

Kimi Kardashian

Update: y/n is now crying and says she wants to marry carlos for how nice he is.

George the giraffe

😂😂😂

Chili

Oop- well I didn't mean that. It's a team dinner but okay... 👍🏻😀

Roscoe's dad

Hey what about me? I took you to the movies!!

Y/n

That's soooooo sweet. Yes I'll come 😌. And.............. isn't there a law where it makes it okay to marry 2 guys at once??

Redbull #1

😳😳 let's not test that out.

Roscoe's dad

That's really weird.

Chili

I already have a gf.

Y/n

Fine. Roscoes dad is better than you anyway 🫵🫵🫶🫶

Chili

Can we define what he's better at?

Roscoe's dad

Let's not...

George the giraffe

Jaws dropped 🫣

Lando-tastic

Mine fell through the second story floor.

Kimi Kardashian

I need to leave this goddam room...

Gas station boi

Interesting...

I-sack

Uhmmm awkwarddddd

Y/n

Y/n

💋💋 also can we talk about Carlos' and Alexs' arm mussels 😮‍💨😮‍💨😲😲

Alexandria

Anyway... these conversations get carried on way to far.

Chili

Best muscles on the grid 💪

Gas station boi

You miss spelled muscles y/n

Y/n

Shut up whore!

Lando-tastic

Live, laugh, love y/n

Y/n

Live, laugh, Lando sucks his own dick

Pastry 🥐

Please, not my teammate too. I can't look at him anymore 😔

Y/n

Just to good to be true, honey.

Roscoe's dad

Can we not bring this stuff up?

Y/n

About our movie night ?🌙 😌

Charlie

HEHEHE KEEP GOING Y/N I CAN SEE HIM GETTING FLUSTERED IN THE CORNER HES IN. 😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣

Y/n

I think when you texted the gc you forgot to mention that time frame between after the movies... and before you dropped me off at home.

Roscoe's dad left the group chat

George the giraffe

🤣🤣🤣🤣

Charlie

😭😭😭 left the GC and the room!!!!!!

Gas station boi

Oh my God, man 🤣🤣

Alexandria

Wtffff 😭😭😭😭

Y/n added Roscoe's dad to the grouchat

Y/n

Love you Lew Lew 💋

Roscoes dad

Thanks...

Y/n

ANYWAYYYYYY ALEX UR SITTING NEXT TO ME AT DINNER CUZ YOUR COOL

Alexandria

Thanks 😌

Lando-tastic

What about me?

Charlie

And me?

Chili

And me?

Y/n

WORRY ABOUT YOURSELF 🔪🔪🔪🔪

Lando-tastic

I feel threatened.

George the giraffe

So do I...

Gas station boi

Loosers. A fake knife isn't threatening.

Y/n

But a real one is... a nice... sharp... gritted steak knife...

Gas station boi

Kimi run while you still can.

Y/n

I WOULD NEVER HURT MY KIMI!!! WATCH IT SLUT OR ILL HURT YOU!!!!

Gas station boi

Yes, ma'am.

Charlie

Love it!

Y/n

Charlie

...

Roscoe's dad

I think I look quite good 😌

Y/n

Yes, you do 😏😏😏where! Also, I want those glasses.

Roscoe's dad

...

Gas station boi

Love the pic. Where'd you get it?

Y/n

Pinterest, you uncultured swine.

Riccardio

Don't hate on Max.

Y/n

Okay you whore.

Riccardio

... wow. I took you golfing! With my clubs!!!

Y/n

And they sucked ASS!!!! DIDIN'T EVEN HELP ME WIN A GAME.

Riccardio

It's the operator not the clubs.

Y/n

YOUR THE ONE WHO TAUGHT ME THE GAME!!!! YOU BITCH. JUST FOCUS ON YOUR OLD MAN SPORT WHILE I FOCUS ON MY NEW AGED, YOUNG MAN SPORT.

Lando-tastic

Oop-

Y/n

YOU WHORE!

Pastry 🥐

😂😂

Y/n

FINALLY HE PUTS SOMETHING IN THE CHAT THATS NOT AS DRY AS HIMSELF!!!!! PARTY AT MY PLACE MOTHERFUCKERS!!!!!

Lando-tastic

YASSSSSSSSS BYOB I CAN'T AFFORD NONE.

Y/n

Didn't you legit have a contract with Monster? AREN'T YOU A MILLIONAIR???

Pastry 🥐

No he's not. Trust me.

Y/n

Lewis is a millionaire. He special.

George the giraffe

Trust me. WE KNOW

Y/n

Worry about yourself 🔪🔪🔪

Alexandria

Getting old?

Y/n

Never. Love how your accent fucking thickens as you say it. I legit laugh my ass off every time.

I-sack

I felt threatened that day...

Y/n

Cry about it 💋🔪

I-sack

Oh- gurl

Y/n

LET ME SEE YOU DO YOUR DANCE LET ME SEE YOU TWIRLLLL

Chili

GET IT BESTIEEEEEEEEE 💅

Charlie

😂😂

Lando-tastic

#jealous

Y/n

Aweeee, did I steal your Carlando moment??? Sucks for you, sweetie 😘

Chili

You knowwwww I know another person who would LOVE to see you twirl

Y/n

Love it, love it. Keep the ideas coming, bro 👌

George the giraffe

Lewis is in for a rude awakening 🙈

Y/n

😈

Roscoe's dad

It was... one night. Let's stop this please.

George the giraffe

We are never going to let you live this down.

Redbull #1

Guys, where did max go?

Y/n

OH I KNOW!!!!! ME, ME, ME!!!!

Chili

😅😅😅

Redbull #1

Yeah?

Y/n

I think he got jealous of me and Lewis so like he took Kelly to go get their shit's and gig's on.

Kimi Kardashian

AHHHHHHHH, I CAN'T WITH THIS TALK ANYMOREEEEE. PLEASE, I HAVENT EVEN PROCESSED HAND HOLDING YET 😔 😭

Y/n

I fucking hate you guys

Lando-tastic

What why???

Y/n

Upsetting my kimi.

George the giraffe

She says like she literally didn't just type it out.

Y/n

Man-whore.

George the giraffe

!!!!!!!!

Y/n

It's okay, kimi. I'm sorry for all their bad talk. Fucking men am I right??? LAME.

Kimi Kardashian

Lmao I forgive you.

George the giraffe

Men huh?

Charlie

So Lewis isn't it for you?

Lando-tastic

Might have to get out the rainbow flag???

Chili

YOU GO Y/N!!!!

Y/n

Oh.... me and him are vibing. 😏 Love it 😀

Alexandria

Love what exactly??

Roscoe's dad

Jesus christ.

Y/n

Abs of FUCKING STEEL, DO I TELL YOU. I AIN'T EVEN KNOW IT WAS POSSIBLE BITCH

Charlie

🤣🤣🤣

George the giraffe

Wtffffff 😂

Lando-tastic

Omg 🤣🤣🤣

Y/n

Aren't you his gym partner?

Charlie

Yes, for work at least.

Y/n

Wanna switch spots next week??

Charlie

Sorry, I can't miss this workout or fred will have my ass.

Y/n

Man-whore. Next question please.

Charlie

😭😭 what did I do??????

Hey loves! Pt. 9 is here! Requests are open!

Tag list:

@mimisweetz @latay7

@leviathan0000 @makanirock05

@smogballsstuff @averylambros

@shadowreader07

[wisdomseulogy]

NOT YOUR TYPICAL ALPHA ROMANCE

Omega!Bruce Wayne x Alpha!Clark Kent imagine

TW: implied mpreg, some romance, some angst.

This is PG 13.

Also I took some liberties with the timeline of things. I know Dick is canonically in his teens when his parents die, but I decided to make him around 8 years old

---

It was supposed to be just another normal interview. Bruce can't even remember what it was supposed to be about. Since him and the reporter ended up doing a lot more than just talking.

Bruce put a lot of work into appearing as the most desirable alpha, and his body helped him keep up that visage. But when he presented as omega, he decided that he was going to keep the truth with him to his grave.

He kept up the playboy act really well. An alpha that cant seem to settle down and spends his free time going to charity events and keeping up his image. He never fit the image of an omega anyways, he was strong and tall. But his body had another idea when he was alone in the room with the alpha reporter who just so happened to forget to wear scent blockers.

Clark was running late to the interview. The paper wanted it to be done in Bruce's manor with a few shots of him in his office. The interview was going to be about how he manages to balance his work and home life.

When Clark first arrived in Metropolis he quickly learned about the enigmatic alpha bachelor from Gotham. Its impossible to not look up at the alpha for inspiration, admiration, and maybe a little desire. Bruce had everything Clark liked, a strong dominant flirty personality who seemed to deeply care about others.

The Wayne Foundation was doing more for Gotham than the government or anyone else ever would. And Clark admired that. How someone so strong and revered could still have empathy for others and still try to do good.

Most alphas fall into a pit of constantly having to prove their masculinity and alpha status. But Bruce didn't need to do all of that. He didn't need to be mean and rude to prove that he was an alpha to be reckoned with. Proved that there could still be good role models for young children.

So maybe Clark was a little bit blinded by his devotion to notice that Bruce was an enigma. An omega stuck in an alphas body. If Clark tried hard enough he could probably use super senses to smell Bruce's true presentation, but the illusion and dream was too strong. And Clark would be lying if it didn't give him a thrill every time he thought about being alone in the same room with such a strong alpha.

Bruce had been using his military grade suppressants for far too long and his body was starting to give out. He knew that if he used them for too long without a break then they would lose their effectiveness, but he figured it would just be one interview and then he could go on vacation somewhere remote for a few weeks and come back as the same strong alpha as before.

The whole interaction started innocently enough. Clark was a bit disheveled struggling to carry a camera, tripod, and a lengthy folder of possible questions. Bruce smiled and leaned in, putting on his playboy charm. He grabbed the stack of papers. "Let me help you. I can't have such a lovely reporter as..." Bruce gave Clark his signature long and suggestive look. Biting his lip a little to continue the façade.

The playboy alpha stereotype was a role that Bruce played amazingly well and it also helped to deepen his image. Omegas weren't supposed to be flirty. They weren't supposed to imitate at all, and Bruce made sure to be everything an omega isn't.

"Diligent as yourself." Bruce pondered calling the poor alpha something like 'lovely' or 'caring' but that felt a little too over the top even for him. And this was meant to be a business transaction. The poor alpha was on the job and Bruce didn't want to harass him too much. A little was okay though.

But a little quickly turned into a little more and then eventually the folder of papers was scattered across Bruce's expensive mahogany desk as he tenderly held Clarks head as the two kissed.

Clark, for his part, thought that this was just a part of Bruce's personality. He also knew that this could jeopardize his job and his future at the Daily Planet. But when Bruce leaned in, his eyes half lidded and his breath coming in a bit to ragged to be normal, Clark threw decorum out the window. This was a once in the lifetime chance with his idol, and even he wasn't going to miss it.

Clark was so engrossed in the moment he didn't even notice that Bruce doesn't have alpha specific anatomy. He just wished that moment could last forever. Every breath, a prayer. Bruce could have been saying the most outrageous things at that moment and Clark would still have received it as a divine message.

Meanwhile, Bruce was in his own personal hell. He was at war with his body and his desires. Mentally, Bruce was going through the moral implications of sleeping with a reporter for a newspaper that he owns. If Clark decided to say anything this could blow up in his face and the only way Bruce would be able to save himself would be by revealing the truth.

Bruce was...cordial after. A little bit too much for Clark's liking. Clark wondered if it was naïve of him to think that he actually meant something to the billionaire playboy. He was probably just another name on a long list of trysts.

Luckily, Clark never said anything about the interaction afterwards. Granted he would lose his job is he did, but it at least gave Bruce some hope that the reporter didn't find out about his true presentation. Even an upstanding reporter wouldn't be able to hold back from a tell-all article about how one of the most famous alphas in the world was actually an omega. No doubt it could generate Clark millions of dollars if he went public with the information or sold it to some new agency of information broker.

As decided, Bruce went on a long impromptu trip to Rome. The official statement was that he was scouting the area to possibly put the European head quarters of Wayne Enterprises, but the truth was a lot more dubious. When Bruce cut off the suppressants entirely he expected to go into heat, or maybe something of the sort. But nothing happened.

And after a month Bruce's suspicions were confirmed, he was pregnant.

Alfred had seen many crazy things while working at Bruce's side. He saw the young boy turn into a strong young man and a protector of an entire city. But crazier than all of that was seeing hearing of the pregnancy. Alfred nearly broke an expensive bottle of wine and nearly tipped over a wine cart of crystal glasses.

Bruce is the one that came up with the plan. He was going to have the kid in secret. Pay a family very good hush money to raise the kid as their own and when the time came, Bruce would adopt the kid. Call it a charity. And even if the child looked like him, he would have elaborate falsified documents to prove that its just a coincidence. And no one would be wiser.

Though his plans came crashing down when he went to visit the child at the circus and discuss the next stage of the plan with the parents when, due to the ropes in their circus act getting intentionally cut, the parents fell to their death. And his kid, Dick, watched it all happen.

Bruce wondered then and there if he should tell Dick the truth. That he was his 'real' father but he decided against it. Maybe it was the empathetic part of him, but he didn't want to hurt his son anymore than he already has been. And with the adoptive parents being dead, it was a lot more believable for Bruce to adopt his son.

And everything would have went perfectly...if his son was not obsessed with Superman. Bruce didn't have any particular feelings for the metropolis hero, but Dick didn't even care that Bruce was Batman. When Bruce told him his identity, all the kid asked is if he knew Superman.

This made Bruce's jaw twitch. And that became a common theme. While trying to get over the grief of losing both his parents, Dick consumed himself with Superman. A pillar of hope. A ray of sunshine in a dangerous world. Someone who would not think twice about saving a kid in danger.

Bruce indulges his son, giving him a Superman themed room and all the Superman merch the kid could want. And every night Bruce sat through the same YouTube videos of Superman saving people. It was honestly exhausting, but the guilt of lying to his son was reason enough to continue the indulgence.

Dick took to being Robin like a fish to water. The second Bruce framed it as Dick being just like Superman Dick was already swinging from the banister showing all the cool moves he was going to use against the bad guys.

"And then!" Dick shouts while getting ready to show Bruce his next move. "I do a flip and I kick the bad guy in the face! And I punch him in the arm and I say 'This is to truth, justice, and a better tomorrow!'" Dick said excitedly.

Bruce's smile didn't reach his eyes, staring to wonder if this obsession was unhealthy. "That's Superman's catchphrase, you can't use it kid."

Dick pouts. Then, as if a light bulb turning on in his head, he perked up. "What about, 'Holy moly I'm going to turn you into guacamole'."

Alfred stifled a laugh.

"Let's put a pin in the whole catchphrase thing and we can come back to that later," Bruce offered while trying to gently lead Dick into the Batcave.

"But Superman has such a cool catchphrase and I need a cool catchphrase too."

"You don't need a cool catchphrase. You just need...to make sure the bad guys don't get away. Got it? Now lets get ready-" Bruce was cut off by Dick running down the stairs at a lightning speed that made Bruce pause for a moment.

The first time Bruce brought Dick with him to the Watchtower he knew it was going to be a whole event. He had already emotionally prepared himself for Dick to run off immediately to find Superman even though he told Dick many times to stay by his side and to not bother any of the other heroes.

And without fail, Dick immediately ran off looking Superman. Bruce sighed as Wonder Woman walked up and greeted him.

Bruce had already mentioned his new sidekick at the last meeting and everyone was so interested in meeting the kid. But Bruce warned them that Robin was a bit...special. Maybe a bit obsessive. And at times hard to keep still. He conveniently left out the part where he's obsessed with Superman since Bruce still hold onto a slight hope that Dick would listen and stay by his side.

"I see the little one ran off," Diana said with a smirk.

Bruce sighed. "He can be a bit of a handful at times."

"Don't you think he's a bit...young to be in this line of work?" Diana asked. Bruce never told them how old Dick was, so the others were imagining at least a 13 or 14 year old, not an 8-9 year old.

Bruce did wonder that at first. If Dick wasn't ready to be on patrol. But the kid just had such a...zeal for being a superhero that he's sure Dick would have snuck out and joined him on patrol anyways.

"Do you remember that time you saved that family from the burning building? You were so cool when you came out holding them like whoosh woosh and you landed like boom boom and everyone was clapping and that you said," Dick was talking a mile a minute and Clark was barely understanding his jumbled words. "It's only a part of the job," Dick said in his mock deep voice. "And then you flew up and it was so cool. I watch that every night."

"Oh."

Clark was a little stunned as he walked over to Batman, ready to return Robin to his caregiver. Clark loved kids and was very excited to meet Robin for the first time. But now he understood all the vague things Batman said about the kid. Though, it warmed a piece of his heart that such a broodish and cold alpha like Batman would be so gentle and caring to such a kid.

For all that Clark is worth, he never stopped liking Bruce Wayne. But when he first met Batman, it felt like love at first sight. Tall, handsome, strong, and he had a mysterious cold edge to him that just made Clarks heart flutter and his head fill with every possible scenario of their future life together.

But liking Batman felt like he was cheating on his first real love, Bruce Wayne. Though he knew the billionaire would never love him back, Clark still felt like he was doing something wrong. He hadn't talked to Bruce one on one in practically 9 years and it was finally time for Clark to put aside his impossible crush.

"I hope he didn't bother you too much," Bruce said in his deep Batman voice while reaching for Dick. Dick turned to Bruce and stuck out his tongue.

"Do you remember that time the bad guys blew up the train tracks and you had to grab the trains and stop them from colliding? It was like screeeech." Dick ignored Bruce and turned back to his true hero and inspiration. "Or the time there was that big earthquake and you and Krypto were going through the...the uhh the"

"Robin," Bruce said in a firm voice.

Clark gave him an awkward smile while once again trying to hand the kid off to his guardian. "I think maybe it's your bed time."

"No!" Dick flipped out of Superman's hold and hid behind him.

Clark was impressed at the speed and agility. No wonder a kid like him was able to hold his own against criminals.

"Robin."

"I don't want to go home!" Dick pouted furiously, tears threatening to fall down his face at any moment.

Bruce sighed.

"Sometimes we have to make sacrifices kid," Superman said encouragingly. "Next time you come maybe I can sign something for you."

"Really?!?" Dick's emotions were like the swing of a pendulum, one moment sad and depressed the next happy and excited.

"Yes, but you have to listen to Batman."

"...Ok...I guess we can leave." Dick kicked the ground lightly, defeated.

Superman gave Bruce an encouraging smile. "He's a good kid. Nice of you to -uh- take him in."

Diana gave a knowing smile as she looked between Batman and Superman.

After that first interaction, Bruce made sure Dick could at least contain his obsession slightly and not instantly run to Superman and bother him.

Bruce and Clark were scheduled to be just two boats sailing off, never meant to cross paths again. At least as civilians. And yet somehow Bruce found himself cursing whatever God or power that be there was which caused him to have to be alone in a room with Clark Kent again.

The interview was going to be simple, the public loved the fact that Bruce adopted a child orphaned due to crime and the Daily Planet decided they wanted to full inside scoop. Bruce made sure it wasn't going to be Clark that was interviewing him, but as fate would have it, the original interviewer got sick and that was how Bruce found himself sitting across from the father of his 'adopted' child.

Dick wasn't interested in doing an interview. It took a lot of coaxing on Bruce and Alfred's part to get him to agree to sit still for at least thirty minuets. Bruce had promised him that they could have whatever Dick wanted for desert and that Bruce would try to bring Dick with him to the next Justice League meeting.

"What's it like being a new parent? It's not often we see lone alphas willingly adopt a child."

All of Bruce's responses were prepared in advance. "Well I am not just any alpha."

Clark swallowed hard and tried to keep himself from blushing at that. Man, he felt like a kid experiencing his first crush all over again.

"And what's it like having such a successful man as a role model?" Clark asked Dick.

Dick finally turned and looked the reporter in this face. He paused and knitted his eyebrows together. "Superman?"

Bruce closed his eyes and took in a nice and controlled breath. Not even noticing the way that Clark visibly stiffened. Bruce had went over all the questions with Dick the night before, but one of the first rules of raising a child was to expect the unexpected.

"Sorry, he's a huge fan of Superman these day. Isn't that right?"

Dick didn't answer. He studied the reporter. "Are you Superman?"

"Now Dick- sorry like I said this is a bit of a...special interest of his. How about you answer the nice mans question?" Bruce's eye twitched as he tried to steer the conversation back.

Dick shook his head and pointed at Clark. "You look like Superman. I met him. He looks like you."

Bruce ran a hand down his face. "I am so sorry Mr. Kent. We may have to reschedule the interview for another time."

Clark didn't register a word Bruce said, he was too busy staring the kid down trying to figure out why his enchanted glasses weren't working on the kid. And what was this about Bruce Wayne's charge meeting him? Could it have been before Bruce adopted him? Clark mind spun.

"Oh yes well I can also skip onto the next questions, um" Clark stammered as he tried to blink away his fear of getting found out.

Meanwhile, Bruce is just happy that it doesn't seem like Clark realizes that Dick is his kid. The last thing Bruce needed was for his secret to get found out. He already managed to dodge the bullet of his omega status being known, now he just needed to make sure that no one knew that Dick was his biological child.

Eventually, Clark and Bruce continued the interview as normal. But Dick only wanted to talk about Superman after that. Crossing his arms and staring Clark down like he was trying to size him up.

Fuck, Clark thought, this kid really does know. Why aren't the glasses working?

That night, Clark was consumed by his thoughts and worries. But he couldn't put his finger on how the kid knew his identity. The glasses were obviously working, Bruce thought the kid was just playing games. So why was this child special?

And where did he meet him?

"Ugh," Clark lightly hit his head against his desk. The act was more symbolic than anything else. He was at an impasse.

As if grabbing onto an invisible string, a thought so impossible solidified in Clarks mind. Clark had two obvious crushes, Bruce Wayne and Batman. And both alphas recently look in a young boy. Both boys were obsessed with Superman and he had personally met Robin on multiple occasions.

But the next string of thought felt even more impossible. People like...Clark were immune to some magic enchantments. The glasses probably wouldn't work on someone who was a Kryptonian. Or even half Kryptonian. Though it is possible that Dick was something else entirely that was also immune to the enchantment.

"That would be impossible," Clark groaned. "I might as well be grasping at straws."

In a sea of impossibilities, this...option felt the most likely. If anything, Clark would just ask Bruce about it and they would have a good laugh. Or Clark could lose his job for bringing up their one-night stand.

The waves of curiosity were nipping at him and he decided to take the plunge. At the next Gala, Clark managed to fenagle himself an invite through his work. It took a bit of convincing and maybe a few under handed tactics, but he needed to know if his theory was correct.

Bruce is his usual suave self, making Clarks heart jump as he builds up the confidence to confront him.

Is the kid mine? No... I can't say it like that. So I noticed that your child looks a lot like you. No...Hey I'm Superman and I think you're Batman. No... Clark grabs a random champagne flute and downs it as he notices Bruce step out onto a terrace outside.

The cold air bit into his skin as he opened up the door. Bruce was standing there nursing a cigar, his body tensing when he heard the door open.

"It's occupied," Bruce said.

"Um," Clark started. In all honesty, he still didn't know what to say. The words were stuck in his throat and they were threatening to stay there forever. "I-"

Bruce whips around. Smoke billowing slowly around him. His eyes no longer portraying the calm and collected demeanor that he always had. Bruce had expected it would come to this.

"I didn't know it was customary for entry level reporters to attend these things."

This wasn't the Bruce Wayne he knew. This wasn't the Batman he knew. Clark didn't know who this was but he didn't like any second of it.

"I-someone couldn't make it so..."

"That was the excuse last time too, right? Clark, is it? What we had was a one time thing-"

"Is the kid mine?" Clark blurted out.

The air stilled. No one dared to move. The truth hanging in-between them. An invisible red string of fate tying them together.

"How much do you want? Just say a number. Better yet, I will have Alfred send you a blank check and you can just put whatever amount you want on there."

Silence. "Or would you prefer a promotion? I can pull some strings and-"

"That's...he's...he's my kid?" Clark was stunned. He thought for sure that he was wrong. That it was so impossible that it was laughable. Never in a billion years did he imagine that he had a kid with the alpha playboy billionaire Bruce Wayne....omega playboy billionaire Bruce Wayne.

"What do you want? For your silence." A million emotions ran through Bruce's head. His heart feeling like a jumbled up mess of yarn. This was his worst nightmare. All the other times that he thought he would surely die and shrivel up did not come anywhere close to this. His entire reputation was on the line. His entire livelihood. Everything he fought so hard for. So hard to protect. His city. His family. Everything was slipping through his fingers.

"I-Can I be in his life-does he know?" Clark asked.

Bruce opened his mouth to respond but nothing came out.

"How did you do it? I mean no one suspected a thing. If it wasn't for the fact my glasses don't work on him because he's half Kryptonian then I would have never known."

"Kryptonian?"

"Oh."

Bruce took another drag of the cigar and run a hand through his hair. This was more complicated than he even imagined. Not only was his baby daddy a reporter, he was also Superman. God, Dick is obsessed with Superman.

"I-Can I-I want to be a part of his life. He obviously likes me and-"

"No!" Bruce shouts a bit too loud making Clark flinch. "He likes you because you're his favorite superhero. No. He can't know."

"He looks like us," Clark tried to reason, but he might as well be reasoning with a brick wall.

"And so do his parents. Just-Just tell me what it is you want and I will give it to you. He can't know. He can't. He misses his parents so much. He can't know they weren't his real parents." Bruce didn't realize when exactly his anger turned into pleading. Bargaining. Begging.

Clark nodded slowly. "I understand. I just...I have a lot to think about now."

"Me too," Bruce offered, his cold aloof mask completely cracked.

"Even if he doesn't know that I am his...dad...I still want to...hang out with him sometimes." Now Clark was doing the pleading.

Two broken boats, their rudders knocking them into each other once again.

"I can make that work."

---

Not beta read.

Should I do a part 2?

[man-i-love-fanfiction]

To Share The Space With Simple Living Things - Hozier x fem!reader

Chapter 7: Daisies - Loyal Love

Summary: After a night of some internal turmoil, Andrew seeks out some advice of his own.

Word Count: 2800

Author's Note: WE ARE SO BACK!!!! guys i can't believe it's been *checks watch* 5 months since i posted about these blorbos. lets just say yeah. ao3 curse is real. anyways we are back in the groove and i cannot WAIT for yall to read what's in the future. as always, i hope you enjoy 🖤

tag list: @celery-grace @gayandfairycore @deathmybride @harry-bowie-mercury @hodgepodge-musings @blue-eyed-bug @secretttytttttttttt @dinner-n-dxatribes @wub-wub-wub-wub-wub @padfootblackswh0r3 @axel-the-boy-witch @notmanagingmymischief

you know the deal, fic below the cut :)

He swore that writing songs wasn't this addictive in college. Though in reality, Andrew couldn't swear anything about that time. His college years were a blur — as most times spent around friends and less-than-legal substances are. But he was sure that if he had remembered, there would’ve been an inkling in his mind, a voice that warned him of its compelling nature: This is a rabbit hole you can't come back from. This one hobby will be more addicting than any substance you've ever taken. Put the pen down.

He would, occasionally, write about previous heartbreaks or even previous heartbreaking, but those were merely a verse or two, maybe a chorus if the subject was especially emotional for him. An exception and not the rule.

This was opposed to you, the one person who had pages upon pages dedicated to you. Since he had started writing again a few months ago, Andrew had filled up around three-quarters of the journal, and there were pages that were flooded with his ideas, with the words that spawned when he thought about you. The worst (really, most enticing) part was how naturally it came to him. It wasn't uncommon for a line to come to him in the middle of sketching a design for a client, or even worse, in the middle of tattooing a client. He’d often be stuck repeating the phrases over and over again until he could get his hands on a pen and paper. Once he did, he would cling to writing like a drug. If only he had a little voice in his head he could've listened to.

As he turned over the memory of the rest of the day in his head, his thoughts lingered on his every action. He prayed you hadn't noticed the ink on the side of his hand, seeping into his palm. The same palm that had smudged a fantastic lyric earlier on that day, and the same hand that had jotted down an idea right before he left to visit you. The same hand that wrote about longing to hold yours. And the same hand he would sooner cut off before telling you any of that information.

He happened to be particularly proud of a few lines, though they were few and far between. He had grown attached to one line, one that he would hopefully develop into one song. It was hastily scribbled on a random page, in handwriting messier than usual:

All the fear and the fire of the end of the world, happens each time a boy falls in love with a girl.

When he revisited his notebook that very night, this line seemed to capture him in a trance. He could feel a narrative surrounding it. There was a story screaming at him, inspired by the end of the world. The perseverance of love despite everything and anything that could go wrong.

The words poured out of him, spilling onto the paper and flooding his notebook. He had never written so quickly in his life. Some of his words would be unintelligible, he was sure, but he didn't care; no one else was going to read this, so he could be as messy as he needed.

In his fervor, he was able to knock out an entire song. It meant he stayed up until midnight to do so, but sacrifices must be made for the sake of art. He sat and stared at the words on the page and felt a strange sensation of… discontent. There was something missing. Just words couldn't do the topic justice. He needed something he had been dreading since he started writing. He needed a melody.

He knew just where his guitar was hiding: in the back of his closet, following his “out of sight, out of mind” mentality for the other artistic things he indulged in. Quickly, he stood up and went to his room, opening his closet door. It took a bit of digging, but there it was, nestled behind sweaters and jackets on hangers: his guitar.

He picked the acoustic guitar up, sparing it from leaning against the wall, stuffed away in the back of his closet. He was not as strong a man as he thought. At least, he was not as resistant to temptation as he thought.

Considering the fact that he never thought it would see the light of day again, his guitar was in good shape. This was the only circumstance it would be considered in good shape. Out of tune, banged up, and an actual spiderweb built in between the neck of the guitar and and the wall. One more wake-up call for Andrew: clean his closet.

He had to tune it by ear, since it was collecting dust for the better half of a decade, only used if someone pressed him about it. The days of his fingertips becoming calloused by pressing on the strings and strumming were far behind him. He knew they'd soon be approaching him, as well.

Once everything was all tuned and ready, he set up his phone to record. He started this adventure plucking at strings, placing fingers on random combinations of strings and frets until something stuck. If something sounded right, he kept it. Although it was brief, the melody he had created turned out… good. Satisfactory, at least. It was soft, temptingly so. It deserved lyrics just as gentle — the lyrics he had written in a rush before came to mind. Now, when he wrote, they were songs, lyrics meant to be matched to melodies. It was definitely something he needed to get used to.

He couldn't put the feeling he had into words. When he tried, the only words he could conjure up in his mind were negative. It pained him to think this way, but he couldn't resist it. He was cheating on his passion, his love, the very art form he had chosen to make a living with. But God, did writing feel good.

He needed to get it off his chest. Everything. His internal battle of the arts, his feelings for you, his constantly frazzled train of thought. In his time of need, there was only one person he could think of turning to.

He snatched up his keys and left the flat, taking the elevator down. He could even feel a growing appreciation for whoever had to compose elevator music. What was happening to him? He stepped out of the elevator and briskly walked to the parking lot. When the cold night air hit his lungs, he exhaled, breath visible in front of him. Thank goodness he got to his car quickly, soon warming up as he sat in the driver's seat.

Andrew twisted his key, turning on the ignition, and began to drive.

He lightly knocked a few times, letting his knuckles hit the door — it was too late to ring the doorbell. Though he knew it was unlikely he'd be turned away, it was a matter of courtesy.

He waited a moment, one that might have lasted a bit too long, before rhythmically tapping his knuckles against the door again. This time, he heard shuffling behind the door, and immediately adjusted his gaze, lowering it so that when the door opened, he would make eye contact with the woman on the other side. He had gotten pretty used to it considering he'd done it for most of his life.

“Hey, mum.”

The beam of sunshine that was his mother's face looked back at him, a gentle smile on her face.

“Andy! It's great to see you, but goodness, it's late. Is something the matter?”

He pursed his lips in thought, trying to chose what words to say to explain his situation.

“I don't think so? Nothing’s the matter, in particular. I just… I wanted to talk to you. Needed your opinion on something.”

“That's what I’m here for. Come in.”

Andrew entered slowly, lowering his hood and taking off his shoes by the door. He would be there a while, he knew it. Might as well get comfortable. He looked around quickly, taking in the state of the house before something caught his eye: a new bouquet, in the same vase and placed on the same windowsill as the bouquet that led you two to meet. He took a few steps closer, leaning in to properly admire them.

“Beautiful, aren't they?”

“Yeah. They're gorgeous… ehm…” He trailed off, blanking on the name. Raine picked up where he left off.

“Daisies. I got them from a florist a few days ago.” At the mention of a florist, Andrew's eyes widened with fear, which was quickly shut down. “Don't worry, I didn't get them from your little girlfriend or anything, just another place while I was out of town.”

He let out a sigh of relief upon hearing she hadn't visited you, though the label she had used for you was less than ideal. He took a step towards her.

“Mum, she's not my girlfriend. You know that, right?” he corrected her.

“I’m well aware that she's not your girlfriend. Yet.”

“Mum, please!” He rolled his eyes. It felt so juvenile, being with his mother and dismissing discussion of a crush. When he was in love, he really was no better than a teenager. Raine began to walk to the kitchen, where they both sat down on opposite sides of the kitchen table. As if she knew he was coming, there was a batch of chocolate chip cookies in the middle. He couldn't bring himself to eat in this state, but the gesture was nice.

“Andrew. I don’t like to think about it much, but you are a grown man. You should know at this point that denial will do you no good.”

“What do I have to be in denial about?”

“You know. This girl, you like her. You call me every day to talk, and all our conversations circle back to her. I’m not sure how much longer you can pretend.”

Another sigh escaped Andrew, though now it was more of annoyance rather than relief. He began to explain himself, the words flowing out once he started to speak.

“Alright. Fine. I like her. Is that what you wanted to hear? That I’ve only known the woman for a few months, and she already has this grip on me, this incomprehensible hold on my heart? That I can’t stop thinking about her, can't stop creating for her? That she's made me so… so crazy that I started writing songs again, just about her? Is that what you wanted, mum?” Andrew rambled, nearly ranted. His frustration was not truly aimed at his mother, but rather his own fear. He felt like this and was too scared to admit it. He had never even said it aloud. Well, not before that moment, at least.

His confession lingered in the air, creating a new atmosphere. Raine had opened her mouth to reply, but nothing came out. Andrew had successfully rendered his mother speechless. His gaze went down to her fingers, now drumming against the table in thought. When she finally found the words, she spoke in a lower tone.

“You’ve really started writing again?”

Andrew nodded with a face of defeat.

“Every. Damn. Day. Couldn't stop if I tried. And I’ve tried.”

Her fingers continued to tap, a sign she was deeper in thought than Andrew expected. They sat in silence, a nervous expression on Andrew’s face and a concentrated one on his mother's. He finally piped up.

“So… what's the diagnosis, doc? Is it fatal?”

“Andrew. You are in love, my dear. There's not much I can do about that.”

He sighed, knowing his mother’s words were the harsh truth. He knew those words I Love You were lingering somewhere in the back of his throat. It was a matter of if he would say them or choke on them first.

“I’m frightened, Mum. I don't know how you can be scared of love, but I think I am. Scared to be open again, I suppose.”

The woman opposite him nodded, like she had felt the same emotion decades before he had.

“I know the feeling. I know it all too well. To love someone is to make a choice: you either open up, you let your skin get soft, and you end up getting hurt, or you close them off. Keep yourself protected. Take the risk of never taking a risk.”

“Or? There has to be one more ‘or’,” he replied. If those were his only two options, he wasn't happy with either.

“Or… you let someone in and it works. You think your father charmed me the first time we met? It took years of my showing up to his gigs until I realized I was willing to knock down my walls and let him in.”

“And wasn't that hard? To let him in without knowing what he'd do.”

“Of course. When your skin gets softer, it makes it easier to bruise, doesn't it? But, you don't always bruise. Sometimes it lets you feel comfortable.”

Andrew nodded pensively, turning over her words in his mind. Maybe letting you in, letting you under his newly soft skin, could be a good idea. He got up from his seat, becoming restless. Raine copied her son and did the same.

“I don't want to bruise.”

“Nobody does. That's a risk you have to be willing to take.”

He nodded once more, pursing his lips in thought.

“I think I’ll take the risk. I’ll do it scared, but I’ll do it.”

She broke into a smile, a toothy grin that practically radiated from her. There was a shine in her eye, a glassy look that indicated she might cry. She couldn't help it.

“I’m so proud of who you are,” Raine admitted, the corners of her eyes crinkling. “Come here, love.”

He leaned down, burying his face in the crook of her neck and latching on to her. If a stray tear ran down his cheek at the moment as well, neither of them minded. She patted the back of his head, the other hand rubbing up and down his bed. Andrew felt his tension dissolve, as if he could finally breathe again. When he finally pulled away — only done once he felt he was ready to let go— Raine left a kiss on his cheek. She looked up at him as he headed towards the door.

“Goodbye, my Andy. Best of luck.”

“Thanks, ma. I’ll need it.”

By the time Andrew had parked in the parking lot of his apartment complex, he'd tried about every method in the book to distract himself. Each and every thing he tried was to no avail. Turning on the radio made him think about writing songs, but sitting in silence gave him too much free time to sit with his thoughts. Caught in a catch 22 of his own creation, he couldn't feel his breathing return to normal until he turned his ignition off.

He sat in silence, running through the interaction with his mother again. There had been flowers in a vase when he entered; if he could remember, he could find out what they meant. It took a hot minute, but the name finally popped into his head. Daisies. What were daisies? Pulling up Google he hurriedly typed away, asking his search engine what the meaning was. His screen glowed back at him, and he scowled; the answer taunted him. Loyal love. God, the universe was laughing in his face at the moment.

Maybe it was a sign. He was taking more things as signs and not coincidences recently. Flowers on the street dictated how his day would go. A stray sighting of a crow was an omen. He was searching for meaning in the simplest of things. All because of what you’d unknowingly done to him.

All because he loved you.

The thought of those words strung together in one sentence gave him the chills. He loved you, yes, but could he summon the courage to admit it? Could be even form the words? Of course he could. He’d just written a whole song on the matter, hadn't he? The real question was if he could form the words in front of you. That question didn't need an answer just yet. But he was sure he’d get it soon.

[avengxrz]

what we destroy to be free ⁃ bucky barnes

pairings: bucky barnes x anti-hero!reader word count: 25.1k words synopsis: bucky barnes was supposed to help take down the most dangerous mind-bender the thunderbolts had ever faced, not end up patching her up in his apartment and watching her feed his cat like she belonged there. but when secrets unravel and loyalty starts to look a lot like love, bucky has to choose between the orders he's always followed and the chaos he can't seem to stay away from. what if the villain he was meant to destroy is the only person who truly sees him? warnings: contains violence, blood, injuries, morally gray characters, mentions of past trauma and war crimes, emotional manipulation, mild language, slow burn tension, enemies to lovers vibes, thunderbolts slander, cat content, and one (1) very emotionally constipated man trying not to fall in love. flight log: this took me like two weeks to write, and yes, it was absolutely inspired by that one tiktok video where someone said “what if the villain crashed on the hero’s couch” and my brain just spiraled from there. i poured way too much love, spite, and emotional damage into this, so please enjoy the chaos, the softness, the yelling, and the chickens. thank you for reading, i hope it wrecks you gently. disclaimer: my works are not made using ai. every word comes from me, my thoughts, my hands, my time. do not steal, copy, or feed my fics into ai for any reason. fuck ai and what it’s doing to creative spaces. support real writers. ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ masterlist

Bucky knew that making the Sentry fight this bitchass enemy would not be a great plan. Hell, he said it in the damn briefing room. Val didn’t listen. Walker barely listened to anyone except his own ego, and the rest of them? They’d been too busy puffing up their chest plates to see the setup for what it was. 

Now, watching Bob, Sentry, rocking himself back and forth near a shattered crate, fingernails carving into his own palms as his mind bent in places no one could reach, Bucky figured the silence in the room said enough. No one dared to move too close. Not even the Red Guardian, and he usually wasn’t afraid of anything that breathed. 

They all just kind of... stood there. Pretending like they weren’t watching him spiral, and pretending they weren’t thinking about the Void.

Meanwhile, Yelena was crouched beside him, whispering whatever she thought might reach him, her voice low and slow like a lullaby that maybe worked once a lifetime ago. It wasn’t helping. 

Bucky could see it in the tremble in her hands. No one wanted to admit it out loud, but they were all just hoping Bob didn’t snap open and let the thing inside him loose.

And you? You stood in the middle of it all like it was a game, head tilted just slightly beneath that sleek, impassive mask, like this was nothing more than a very average Tuesday. You reached up and casually adjusted the strap at your jaw, the mask settling tighter against your face with a soft click. Not armor, just something you wore like jewelry, like a dare.

“You know,” you said finally, tilting your head just slightly, "I almost feel bad for him. Almost, but then I remember your big bad Sentry over there was supposed to be your ace.” You gave them a slow once-over, barely hiding the grin tugging at your mouth. “That’s what you lot are, right? Earth’s... what is it now? Earth’s Mightiest Leftovers?”

No one answered. Even Walker was silent, jaw tight as he shifted uncomfortably beside the collapsed form of Ghost, who was still trying to reboot her damn suit.

You took a few steps forward, deliberate, unhurried, like you had all the time in the world and not a single ounce of fear. “God, it’s embarrassing. You really thought throwing this mess of ex-assassins and government toys at me would go differently?” You laughed, but it was dry.

“You know, I thought maybe there was a plan. A real one, but this?” You motioned around the room, at Sentry twitching on the floor, at Red Guardian blinking through a concussion, at Ghost breathing heavy through half-phased lungs. “This is just sad.”

Red Guardian grumbled something and tried to sit up, but you ignored it.

“Stark would be rolling in his grave if he saw what the replacement Avengers looked like. You all really want to play at being heroes, don’t you?”

Your eyes flicked to Walker then, sharp with amusement. “Even you, U.S Agent. You especially. Parading around with that shield like it's not just scrap metal with a body count. You think I’m the monster? Please, I do not start wars for fun, and I don’t wear uniforms made for stunt actors. I’ve killed bad people, yes, but you people kill whoever’s convenient.”

The silence that followed wasn’t the kind that begged a reply. It was the kind that came after a bruise.

Bucky stayed quiet. He didn’t stop you, and he wasn’t going to, not yet. He watched the way your shoulders stayed loose, how your voice never cracked once. You weren’t angry, not really. This wasn’t rage. It was something colder. Something truer.

“You’re not a team,” you went on. “You’re a patch job. Government glue holding together a bunch of trigger-happy disasters, hoping none of you fall apart before the press can spin your next mission into a victory.”

You smiled again, this time wider. “You know what I am? I’m honest about it. I’m not pretending. I don’t walk around calling myself a hero while doing the government’s dirty work in other countries. I’m not a good person, but I am not you.”

Then you turned, calmly walking past the edge of the mess you’d made. The floor creaked under your boots, soft and slow, like the entire room was waiting for something else to fall apart.

Bucky didn’t move. He just kept watching you. No gun drawn, no order given, not yet. Because somewhere between the blood on your boots and the truth in your voice, he couldn’t decide if you were the threat… or just the only one finally telling it straight.

Walker was the first to break the silence, stepping forward like the conversation hadn't just stripped the paint off everything they pretended to be. Maybe he thought if he moved fast enough, it would cover the fact that you'd just called them all out in front of each other and none of them had denied a damn thing. 

His shield came up quick, arm snapping into motion like muscle could still fix something that was already broken. You saw the move before he finished thinking it. You always did.

You sidestepped him easily, shifting your weight onto the balls of your feet, the movement fluid and light, not rushed. Letting him think he was close enough to land something was almost more fun than knocking the breath out of him, which you did with the flat of your palm against his ribs as he passed. It wasn’t a hard hit. You didn’t need it to be. You needed it to hum through his chest like a warning.

Then, Ghost reappeared just to your left, trying to flank. You twisted into a pivot, watching her phase in too late, already caught in your trap. You flicked your fingers once, and the angle of the room shifted just slightly, like the floor wasn’t quite real anymore.

She staggered, trying to correct her momentum, but it was already off. She clipped the corner of a broken beam and rolled hard across the ground. You didn’t stop to check if she got up.

Meanwhile, Red Guardian had somehow managed to shake off the earlier blow and came charging like he thought brute force was still in style. You spun as he reached for you, your body moving like water, arms loose but precise, the movement almost lazy if it wasn’t so calculated.

You let him lunge and miss, then ducked under his swinging elbow and kicked the back of his knee. He dropped with a grunt and a curse you didn’t bother to translate. You kept dancing.

Because that’s what it felt like now. Not a battle, and not even a struggle, just rhythm. Steps and countersteps. They lunged, and you spun. They reached, and you disappeared. You weren’t angry, you weren’t tired, and you were actually enjoying this. 

The way they tried so hard to keep up, to act like you were something they could contain. You could’ve ended it already, you knew it. Bucky knew it. The rest were still trying to pretend this wasn’t just a lesson in their own mediocrity.

Walker came at you again, more frustrated now, his mouth tight with the kind of rage that only came when pride took a hit. You ducked his swing and laughed, not loud, just enough for him to hear it.

“Is this what they taught you in those shiny government camps?” you said, twisting just enough to let his momentum carry him past you. “You all train for this in between press conferences?”

You turned, hands loose at your sides, and caught Bucky’s eyes across the chaos again. He hadn’t moved yet. Not really. He was watching, taking it in like he wasn’t sure what side of the fight he was supposed to be on.

“Come on, Barnes,” you called to him, voice steady, almost amused. “You gonna keep letting your squad embarrass themselves or are you finally gonna take a swing?”

For a second, he didn’t answer. Then he stepped forward, slow and sure, the way he always did when he finally made up his mind. And you stopped dancing, just for a breath. Because this wasn’t a game anymore, at least not with him.

Bucky moved like a man who’d already decided how this would end, boots slow and deliberate across the wreckage-strewn floor, each step heavier than the last. The others had fallen back, groaning or flat-out unconscious, leaving only him standing between you and the exit.

You watched him come with that same half-lidded calm, like none of this mattered, like he was late to something boring and you were the only thing worth his attention tonight.

"You done hiding behind tricks?" he asked, voice hard now, no more caution, no more measured soldier tone. "Or is this your whole game? Slip in, fuck with people's heads, then vanish when someone actually steps up?"

You tilted your head, hand resting lazily against your hip, weight shifted like you were leaning into a joke. "Oh, Barnes," you said, grinning without warmth, "you’re mad, and it’s kind of cute.”

He didn’t answer, just kept coming closer, fists clenched, jaw set. Then, he said it. "You’re a coward. That’s what you are. Hiding behind that hideous mask—”

You interrupted him, one eyebrow raised in mock offense. “Hey now,” you said, hand flying up in mock hurt. “Hideous?! That’s just rude! This thing’s custom-made. Breathable, heat-resistant, and it doesn’t fog up when I ruin a man's psyche, and at least I get to have two arms.”

That landed. You saw it hit, sharp and immediate, like a slap he didn’t see coming. His mouth twitched. You weren’t sure if it was rage or restraint.

“You think you’re funny?” he bit out, low and rough. “You think this is all a joke?”

“Honestly?” you said, stepping to the side just as he lunged, his metal arm swinging past your shoulder. “A little bit, yeah. I mean, come on, Barnes. You, this team, you’re the punchline. You’ve got Walker playing Captain Discount, a Russian tank with a daddy complex, and Bob over there crying in the dark like he just woke up from a bad dream. You’re all trying so hard to be heroes, but the blood doesn’t wash off that easy.”

He turned fast, feinted left, then grabbed your arm with his right and yanked you forward. You didn’t resist. Let him pull you in, close enough to see the anger lined in the corner of his mouth. His breath hit your cheek.

“You’re still hiding,” he growled, tightening his grip. “You could’ve done something real with your power. You could’ve helped people.”

You smiled then, full and dangerous. “And join the circus? No thanks. I like sleeping at night.”

Then you shifted your weight and drove your knee into his stomach, not enough to break anything, just enough to make him let go. He staggered, barely, but you were already stepping back, giving him space like this was a game of tag and he was too slow.

He charged again.

You laughed, not cruel, just tired of pretending he was different from the rest. “You don’t get to be the righteous one, Barnes. You killed people in your sleep. I do it wide awake.”

That stopped him. For a moment, the room was quiet again. Just the two of you breathing hard, the air thick between you, not with smoke or blood, but something worse. Recognition. You didn’t move, and neither did he. Whatever this was, it wasn’t over, but it had never really started, either. The look on Bucky’s face almost made you stay longer. Almost, but you’d made your point. There wasn’t much left to prove.

Walker tried to get up again, dragging himself upright with a grunt, shoulder still hunched from the hit you gave him earlier. You didn’t even look his way. He was predictable, all bark and grunt and misplaced patriotism. He threw his shield again, too slow, too obvious. You didn’t even bother dodging it fully, just ducked under, let it crash into the wall behind you, and caught his wrist as he charged after it.

You twisted. He screamed.

Not a clean scream. Not a soldier’s grunt. A sharp, cracking, human sound. You let him drop before you broke anything important. You weren’t here to maim, not tonight. Just to remind them where they stood.

Meanwhile, Ghost had her knives out again, flickering fast, trying to catch you while you were distracted. You turned and moved through her strike like you’d been doing this forever, then used the heel of your hand to knock the side of her head. Her body glitched mid-phase, then crashed down hard. She stayed down this time.

Red Guardian got halfway to his feet before your fingers curled again, and the air around his skull bent just enough to make him sink back to the ground. Not unconscious. Just confused. Humiliated. They always came in so loud, and left so quiet.

And Bucky? He hadn’t moved since you last hit him with the truth. He was still standing there, fists loose now, metal hand twitching like maybe it didn’t quite know what to do without orders. That part made you sad, almost. The way he wanted so badly to not be the thing they made him, but still kept showing up when they called.

You walked past him, slow, deliberate, boots echoing through the warehouse like punctuation.

As you reached his side, you paused. Not to attack. Not to mock. Just to speak.

"You know, Barnes," you said, voice low, just for him, "I get it. You're not controlled by words anymore. No triggers. No codes. You’re free, right?"

You leaned in, close enough that he could see how calm you were. How unbothered.

"But the truth is," you whispered, “you’re still that same man. Not the Winter Soldier, no. Not the weapon, but the good little soldier who still waits for someone to point.”

He didn’t flinch, but he didn’t deny it either. You stepped back, smiling just a little. Not smug. Just done.

“I don’t need to control your mind,” you said, walking away now, past the ruins of what used to be a mission. “The world already does that for me.”

You were halfway to the exit when you paused, turning slowly on your heel like you'd just remembered something important. The room was quiet except for a few groans and the distant hum of flickering lights. Bucky hadn’t moved, as he was still trying to process what you said. Walker was cradling his wrist like you’d taken something from him that mattered. Red Guardian looked like he wanted to crawl under the floor and stay there.

You smiled, wide this time, bright and biting. “Oh,” you said lightly, like you were talking to old friends. “I’d love to stay and keep playing, really. This has been such a fun bonding experience.”

You gestured around the room, spinning your finger once as if gesturing to the collective mess you’d left behind. “But unfortunately, I’m late for a very important appointment.”

You started ticking the list off on your fingers, voice chipper.

“First, I have to eat something because ruining your morale takes energy, then I have an episode of my favorite show waiting, don’t worry, I won’t spoil anything, and finally, I need my beauty sleep.” You gave them a wink. “Some of us don’t get to wake up with government-funded bone structure.”

Yelena, still crouched beside Bob, glared at you like she wanted to throw something sharp. You blew her a kiss. Then, you turned back toward the busted loading door you’d walked in through, tossing one last line over your shoulder like a joke nobody else was in on.

“See you all tomorrow!”  You didn’t look back. Just walked out, like nothing had touched you at all.

- Back to the Watchtower - 

The Watchtower wasn’t quiet, not really. It was just full of the wrong sounds. The hiss of oxygen valves. The soft whirr of a scanner. The low murmur of medical droids checking vitals and noting pain thresholds. Someone was groaning behind a curtain, and someone else was cursing under their breath like they thought whispering made the shame sting less.

Alexei was laid out flat on a med table, eyelids fluttering as a nurse reset his dislocated knee. Ava was barely conscious, pale and sweating through the glitching phase of her tech. Bob was strapped to a diagnostic chair that had been built for emergencies, head tilted back, eyes fluttering like his brain was still somewhere else. Yelena hadn’t left his side since they touched down. She sat next to him with her hand clenched too tight in his, still murmuring soft, firm things in Russian that no one else could hear.

And Bucky? Bucky didn’t go to the med bay. He didn’t need to. Not physically.

He was in the briefing room already, leaning back in his chair with his arms folded across his chest, metal fingers twitching against the side of his bicep like they were trying to make a fist on their own. He didn’t look at Walker when he walked in, didn’t greet Val when she entered with a tablet and a pinched look that said I told you so before she even opened her mouth.

They filed in slowly. Walker first, his wrist in a brace, jaw set like he still thought this could’ve gone another way. Then Ava, walking stiffly and refusing to meet anyone’s eyes. Alexei followed, limping but loud, muttering something about needing better shoulder padding.

Val didn’t waste time. She hit the screen and brought up the footage, the glitchy, stuttering mess of helmet cam recordings that made the fight look more like a riot than a mission.

“Let’s go ahead and call it,” she said flatly. “Another failed op.”

No one said anything.

She didn’t look up as she added, “We lost containment again. The Bandit walked.”

There it was. Your nickname. Half-insult, half-acknowledgment. Not assassin. Not rogue enhanced. Just the Bandit. Like you were some petty thief pulling fast ones on the world’s cleanup crew. It started as a joke Walker made two missions ago, but the name stuck. Because deep down, they all knew it wasn’t wrong. You didn’t just fight them. You took from them; dignity, pride, illusions of control. Every damn time.

“She left five of us on the ground,” Ghost muttered, voice low, sharp with leftover adrenaline. “Didn’t even break a sweat.”

“She’s playing with us,” Walker said, bitter. “It’s a game to her.”

“And you’re mad ‘cause she’s winning,” Bucky finally said, voice quiet but heavy enough to draw heads.

Val raised an eyebrow, but didn’t interrupt.

Walker looked at him, fuming. “You want to say that again, Barnes?”

Bucky’s eyes didn’t leave the screen, where a blurry shadow of you flickered mid-kick. He stared like he was trying to find a glitch. Like maybe there was something he missed.

“She wasn’t trying to win,” he said. “She already had.”

There was a beat of silence. The kind that made everyone shift a little in their chairs.

“She let us walk away,” Bucky added. “Again.”

Val tapped the edge of her tablet. “She’s mocking us. She knows we’re limited. She knows she can get in and out without a scratch, and she’s not even trying to hide it anymore. That mask? That’s theater. She wants us to know we’re being humiliated.”

“She’s not just humiliating us,” Yelena said from the doorway. No one had noticed her come in. She looked drained, dark circles blooming under her eyes. “She’s studying us.”

That pulled Bucky’s focus. He sat forward slightly, watching Yelena like her words had weight.

“She knew Sentry was our ace. She took him out first. Messed with his mind, deep. Not just illusions. She knew what to poke. Knew where it hurt. She wasn’t improvising. She came in with a plan.”

Val frowned. “And we keep falling for it.”

Bucky didn’t speak again. He just sat back in his chair, staring at the static pause of the footage, where your mask was caught mid-glint. His jaw flexed, but he didn’t say what he was thinking. That he could still hear your voice in his ear. That final whisper, smooth and quiet, still echoing louder than the shouting had.

You’re still that same man. Not the Winter Soldier, no. Not the weapon, but the good little soldier who still waits for someone to point.

He ground his teeth. You weren’t just in his head, you were under his skin, and you hadn’t even stayed long enough to finish the fight.

Then, three weeks passed.

Seventy-two hours turned to seven days, then doubled again, and still, nothing. No sightings. No messages. No whispered threats or sabotaged missions. Not even the occasional cryptic meme posted to a burner account Bob swore was yours. You had vanished. Like smoke after a fire.

It drove Bucky mad. He didn’t say much, but everyone felt the tension in the way he moved through the Watchtower; silent, taut, like a drawn wire ready to snap. He stopped showing up to shared meals. Ignored mission briefings unless your name was in the folder. Val didn’t push. Yelena didn’t ask, but everyone noticed.

“Maybe she’s finally dead,” Walker said, tossing the words out casually as he popped the tab on an energy drink. “Somebody probably got her. Off the books. Would explain the silence.”

Yelena looked up from her seat, brows raised. “You really think she’d go quietly?” Her tone was neutral, but her meaning wasn’t. “That one dies? She takes the building with her.”

“Not if she bled out somewhere,” Walker muttered. “Could’ve been karma, could’ve been luck.”

“Karma?” Ava scoffed from the end of the table, arms folded across her chest. “If that bitch has karma, it’s platinum-tier.”

Bob glanced up from where he was curled on the couch, hood up, bag of chips untouched in his lap. “Do you think she’s… like… watching us?”

Walker rolled his eyes. “Jesus, Bob—”

“No, I mean,” Bob sat forward, frowning. “She’s quiet. Like, strategic quiet. That’s worse. She didn’t even roast us online this time.”

“She is cooking,” Alexei said with a mouthful of protein bar, gesturing broadly with his hands. “That one? She is at home right now, doing pilates, eating soup, plotting murder.”

Yelena smirked without looking up. “Soup?”

“Yes,” Alexei said, nodding like this was obvious. “Murder soup. Spicy. Russian women make it when angry.”

“That is not a real thing,” Ava said, deadpan.

“Is real if you believe in it hard enough,” Alexei grumbled. “Anyway, she’s not dead. No. She’s hibernating. Like bear. Waiting for spring to come so she can bite someone’s head off.”

That pulled a quiet laugh from Bob, the first sound of joy from him all week.

Val entered the room with a tablet in hand, her expression sharp, tired, and unimpressed. She dropped it on the table in front of Walker with a loud clack.

“Ping in Brussels. Cold lead. She ghosted again.”

“Could be a copycat,” Ava offered, already sounding bored. “People love a mystery.”

Walker leaned forward. “So what? We just sit here and wait? She’ll slip eventually. She has to.”

“She doesn’t have to do shit,” Yelena said, crossing her legs and sitting back in her chair. “You think she’s playing chess. She’s not. She’s making the board up.”

Bucky hadn’t spoken once. He just stared out the window, thumb resting against his bottom lip, metal fingers twitching restlessly against his knee.

“She knew we were coming,” he said suddenly. “She knew everything. Took Bob out first. Turned Ava inside out. Broke Alexei’s knee like she read the blueprint.”

Alexei raised a hand. “Not broken. Just insulted.”

“She's not guessing,” Bucky muttered. “She’s studying us, playing the long game, and we’re letting her.”

There was a pause. A thick one. The kind that made the air feel too tight. Then, Bucky’s voice dropped, barely audible. “I hope she’s dead,” he said. “And I hope it wasn’t quick.”

- Bucky’s Apartment, Brooklyn - 

The door to his apartment creaked open on the second try. It always did that; jammed just enough to be annoying but never bad enough to fix. Bucky didn’t bother kicking it or swearing like he used to. He just gave it a rough nudge with his shoulder and stepped into the dark, the weight of the Watchtower still sitting heavy between his shoulder blades.

Alpine meowed once from the window.

“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, tossing his keys into the ceramic dish by the door without looking. “I’m late. You gonna report me?”

She jumped down with the grace of someone who’d been waiting exactly three hours and twenty minutes to hear his voice again. She circled his legs, tail curling like punctuation, then let out another, louder meow when he didn’t bend down fast enough.

“Alright, alright,” he said, crouching slowly, his knees stiff from training drills and stress. “I gotcha, sweetheart.”

He scratched behind her ears, letting his fingers sink into the fur there. Alpine leaned in hard, purring instantly, rubbing her cheek against the back of his vibranium hand like she was claiming it. He let her. She always picked that side first.

The apartment smelled faintly like lavender from the candle Yelena gave him last Christmas. He never told her he lit it more than once. It was still burning on the kitchen counter where he’d left it that morning, well, more accurately, at three in the morning when he couldn’t sleep and figured folding towels was better than staring at the ceiling.

Bucky stood again, cracking his neck. Alpine trotted ahead of him toward the kitchen like she was giving him a tour of his own place.

He filled her bowl with the dry food she actually liked (not the organic vet crap Val kept recommending) and set it down gently. She immediately went at it, tail twitching, purring into every bite like it was the best damn meal of her life.

He leaned back against the counter and watched her eat, eyes unfocused.

The silence in here wasn’t like the silence at the Watchtower. This one wasn’t heavy or pointed. It didn’t judge. It just… was. The soft hum of the fridge. The tick of the old wall clock. The occasional clink of Alpine’s teeth against ceramic. No one trying to prove anything. No one calling him a coward. No one whispering truths that cut sharper than knives.

Except maybe his own head.

He reached up and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. The mask. The voice. That last line. He hadn’t slept right since. You were still in his thoughts like shrapnel. Still in his hands, the way you let him grab you like it meant nothing. Still in the air every time he walked past an alley or turned a corner or blinked too long.

You were everywhere except where you were supposed to be. And somehow, that pissed him off even more than losing the fight.

Alpine finished her meal and hopped up onto the counter like it was hers, which, honestly, it kind of was. She stared at him with wide green eyes, the ones he always caved to, even on bad days. Especially on bad days.

“You’d like her,” he said quietly, grabbing a sponge and wiping down the counter next to her out of habit. “She’s mean, and smart, and, uh, smug as hell.”

Alpine blinked slowly, then batted her paw toward his hand like she was telling him to shut up already.

“Yeah, I know.”

He dropped the sponge into the sink and ran water over it absently. He didn’t have the energy to cook tonight. He barely had the energy to stand. Still, he moved through the apartment like it helped, like routine could undo what chaos left behind.

Folded a blanket on the couch. Adjusted a crooked picture frame. Checked the locks twice, then once more. When he finally sat down, Alpine leapt into his lap without hesitation. She circled once, then settled, warm and weighty. His real anchor.

Bucky leaned his head back against the worn cushion and let his eyes close. “Where the hell are you,” he muttered under his breath, not to Alpine, but she still purred like she knew the answer.

The apartment was quiet again. Not the kind of quiet that held its breath, but the softer kind. The kind that crept in after the dishes were done, after the cat was fed, after there was nothing left to fold or wipe or adjust.

Bucky sat there, Alpine stretched out across his lap like a living weighted blanket, her tail twitching every few minutes like she was dreaming. He hadn’t moved in half an hour, maybe longer.

The lights were off except for the lamp in the corner; the one with the soft yellow glow that didn’t give him a headache. He didn’t need more light than that. Most nights, he didn’t want it.

His eyes had drifted up to the shelf near the TV. A photo sat there, tucked behind a dusty paperweight and an old cassette tape he still hadn’t digitized. It was a black-and-white print, slightly faded, but sharp enough that he could see the grin on Steve’s face if he looked long enough.

Brooklyn, 1940.

God, they were so young.

Steve looked like a skeleton in a uniform, too small for his cap, shoulders tight with stubbornness, but smiling like he’d just won something anyway. Bucky was standing beside him, tie askew, leaning slightly, one hand on Steve’s shoulder like he’d meant to keep him grounded and accidentally anchored himself instead.

He remembered that day. A double date that ended with Steve getting into a fight outside a movie theater and Bucky sweet-talking their way out of getting arrested. He couldn’t even remember the girls’ names now. He just remembered Steve’s nose bleeding and the way he said, “I had him, Buck,” like he always did.

Bucky had laughed. Not to make fun, just because Steve believed it every damn time.

There had been music playing that night. Someone had a radio up in a windowsill, crackly jazz drifting down with the summer air. A trumpet solo and some woman singing about kisses sweeter than wine. He remembered it like he remembered the heat of the pavement, the stick of sweat on his neck, the clang of someone’s fire escape.

They were boys. They had no idea.

He closed his eyes.

Other memories came easier now, which wasn’t always a blessing. He remembered the streetcars. The smell of roasted peanuts and cheap cologne. He remembered Mrs. Klemenski from 5C, who used to give them hard candy when they ran errands for her, and the butcher down the block who always snuck Steve extra meat because he was too thin for comfort.

He remembered the girls, too, or at least flashes. Dances in basements. Lipstick stains on handkerchiefs. Laughter behind alley doors. A warm hand in his coat pocket on cold nights. He’d been smooth back then. He knew it, cocky, and brave in ways that didn’t survive the war.

Sometimes he caught glimpses of that version of himself. In a mirror. In the corner of a store window. In someone else’s memory, but mostly, he didn’t recognize that guy anymore.

Too much had burned away. Still, on nights like this, when the city was soft and Alpine was warm and the past crept in like fog under a door, he let himself remember. Not to mourn it, but just to see it. To remind himself it was real once. That he had laughed without flinching, that he had loved people before he forgot what it meant to say the word out loud.

That he had been Bucky Barnes, not a code or a weapon or a broken promise. He sighed through his nose, hand resting lightly on Alpine’s side, feeling the slow rise and fall of her breath.

Steve would’ve liked her, and probably would’ve called her a punk and fed her chicken from his plate.

“You’d like him too,” Bucky murmured, voice almost hoarse. “He was… good. The best of us.”

Alpine didn’t respond. Just curled tighter, eyes closed. The picture on the shelf didn’t move. The past didn’t change, but for a second, it felt closer.

His hand rested on Alpine’s fur, unmoving. She was purring still, barely—a soft hum under his fingers like the last string holding him in the room. The lamp flickered once, then steadied, casting long shadows on the wall.

Bucky stared at the photo a while longer. Steve’s smile didn’t waver. It never had.

He wondered, not for the first time, what would’ve happened if he’d died in that fall. Not the metaphorical one, no. The literal fall, off that train in the Alps, years before his name turned into something cold and dangerous. Before he became a ghost in someone else’s war. Before the Winter Soldier was even an idea.

He wondered what the world would look like if that fall had finished him. If there had been a body. A grave. A flag folded neatly in Steve’s hands. Something final.

Would it have hurt less for the people who loved him? Would he have been remembered better?

He tried to picture it. That ending. Falling into snow, bones breaking, lungs burning, and then , darkness. Peace. Maybe even something quiet on the other side. Maybe nothing, but at least it would’ve been his.

It wouldn’t have been needles and cold steel and screaming in languages he didn’t know. Wouldn’t have been seventy years of commands and blood and waking up just long enough to realize what he’d done.

It wouldn’t have been this.

He shifted in his seat, jaw tight, breath stuck somewhere behind his ribs. Alpine stirred, letting out a tiny grumble like she knew he was getting too tense. He exhaled and scratched behind her ear again, grounding himself.

“I think I was supposed to die that day,” he said quietly, more to the room than to her. “That’s the part that gets me. That I didn’t. That somehow they found me. Took me. Kept me.”

He didn’t often say it out loud. Even in therapy, he danced around it, made jokes or shrugged. Because saying it plain made it too real. Made it feel like he was still there, still strapped down, still waiting for the voice to say his name wrong in Russian.

But here, in the safety of his dim apartment with nothing but Alpine to hear, he could be honest.

“I think… if I had just hit the ground a little harder,” he whispered, “Steve would’ve grieved. Maybe he’d have cried, but then he would’ve moved on, married someone, built something, and I’d be… done. Not this. Not some half-version of myself, still trying to make up for all the shit I didn’t even choose.”

He rubbed his face with his flesh hand, callused fingers dragging across his cheek.

“And now I’ve got people calling me a hero. Or a liability. Or both. Got assholes like Walker looking at me like I’m supposed to lead them, like I know what the hell I’m doing.” He shook his head. “And then there’s her.”

He didn’t say your name. Never did. He wasn’t even sure he knew your name. Not the real one. Not the one you whispered to yourself when no one was listening, but your voice was carved into him now. Your laugh. The way you moved. The way you saw right through him like it was easy.

You hadn’t fought him like an enemy. You’d fought him like someone who knew him. Like someone who understood every scar and every failure and didn’t even bother flinching.

And somehow, that had rattled him more than all the blows you’d landed on the others.

Alpine jumped down and padded over to her water bowl. Her soft steps filled the quiet like a heartbeat. Bucky leaned forward, elbows on his knees, eyes on the dark spot where she’d been.

“I don’t know what I’m doing anymore,” he said.

Then, he heard it, a thud, quiet but definite.

Bucky’s head lifted from his hands, body already tense, instincts curling tight around his spine like old muscle memory. Alpine didn’t move. She was by the water bowl, but her ears had flicked toward the sound, alert.

He stood slowly, but didn’t grab a weapon, not yet. He wasn’t sure he needed one, and not sure it would matter if he did.

The hallway was dark, shadows layered thick on the walls, the floor creaking under his bare feet as he made his way to the door of the guest bedroom. It was closed. He didn’t remember closing it. He always left it open at night, easier to hear the city, and easier to breathe.

He placed one hand on the doorknob, the other flexing open and closed.

And then—

“Careful, soldier. You open that door any faster and I might think you’re excited to see me.”

The voice slithered out of the dark like smoke. Smooth, wry, lazy with amusement. No panic. No urgency. Just presence. Like you’d been waiting for the right moment to speak.

Bucky froze. That voice, he hadn’t heard it in twenty-one days, and he’d still memorized it like it had been stitched into the lining of his skin.

He pushed the door open slowly, gaze adjusting to the low light.

Moonlight spilled in through the guest bedroom window, casting long streaks of silver across the walls and floor. The apartment was quiet. Too quiet.

Then, he saw you.

Sitting on the edge of the couch, one leg crossed over the other like you owned the damn place. Like you hadn’t ghosted the Thunderbolts, the mission, and nearly their sanity for the better part of a month. Like you lived here.

The shadows painted you in soft blue tones, eyes half-lidded, mouth curled in that crooked not-smile that never meant anything good. There was no blood on you. No limp. No bruises. Just your presence, poured out like wine across the room, ruining the silence like it had never belonged.

You leaned back slightly, one arm resting over the top of the couch like a throne.

“Hello, James,” you said, tilting your head just enough to catch the light. “Miss me?”

He didn’t move, and he didn’t breathe. And suddenly, that apartment wasn’t quiet anymore.

Bucky moved the second his brain caught up to the image, instincts snapping faster than thought. One second he was standing in the doorway, the next he was lunging, metal arm cocked, eyes dark with something too sharp to be called rage. It wasn’t clean like anger. It was messier. Deeper. A month of silence and unanswered questions and bruised pride boiling all at once into a motion he didn’t control so much as release.

But before he could reach you, before his feet even cleared the carpet, the air shifted.

A pulse, quiet but unmistakable, bloomed from where you sat. Not loud. Not flashy. Just a hum, like a heartbeat made of static, curling through the room like smoke. The color wasn’t bright, not like comic book red. It was darker. A deep, bruised crimson that moved like ink in water, curling around Bucky’s limbs mid-strike.

He froze mid-lunge. His metal arm stopped just short of your throat. It twitched, once, like it wanted to keep going, but the energy around it tightened. Not choking. Not painful. Just absolute. Like gravity turned sideways.

You hadn’t even stood up. You just raised your hand slightly, fingers loose, wrist relaxed, eyes still calm like you were bored more than anything else.

“Now, now,” you said lightly, the power humming a little louder as it wrapped around his chest. “You weren’t really going to hit me, were you?” You tilted your head slightly, watching his mouth twitch, his muscles fighting the hold. “That’s not very neighborly, Barnes.”

He bared his teeth, not speaking, just glaring, jaw tight enough to pop.

You stood then, slowly, the energy retracting just enough to let him breathe easier, but not enough to let him move.

“You’ve been thinking about me,” you said, stepping closer, your voice low and sing-song, taunting in a way that wasn’t entirely playful. “Don’t lie. I’m in your head already. Even without all this—” you wiggled your fingers, the color pulsing slightly, “—you haven’t stopped replaying that fight, have you?”

Bucky didn’t answer. His jaw stayed locked, but the way his eyes flicked to the window told you he was calculating. Not for an escape, but for a hit.

You kept walking, the floor quiet beneath your steps, until you were close enough to speak softer.

“I mean, I leave for three weeks,” you murmured, gaze flicking over his face, “and you start wishing I was dead, but when I walk into your apartment, you don’t even bother asking how I got past your locks. You just jump.” You grinned, sharp and amused. “Classic soldier move. React first, never ask the real questions.”

He didn’t move. Didn’t blink.

You raised your hand again, fingers spread in front of his chest, the energy humming stronger now. Just a whisper of it, but enough that the hair on his arm stood on end.

“So,” you said softly, almost curious, “do I get to control you now?”

The question was rhetorical. You didn’t need him to answer. You saw the shift in his expression anyway, the way his brows pulled in, the way his shoulders fought against the invisible weight holding them in place.

“Relax,” you said finally, stepping back again, letting the power loosen just slightly, “I’m not here to kill you. Yet.” Then you smirked. “Unless Alpine gave you permission.”

Behind you, Alpine made a tiny, offended meow from her perch on the counter, like she knew she was being referenced and was not pleased.

Your smile widened. Bucky still hadn’t moved, but he would. And you were going to enjoy it.

You didn’t move again. Didn’t need to. The pulse of power that still lingered in the air made the room feel heavier, like the space between you and him was soaked in something invisible and humming. The shadows leaned toward you like they knew who owned the night.

Bucky’s breath finally broke the silence, sharp and heavy through his nose. You’d loosened the grip on his body, sure, but not enough to let him forget what it felt like. That stillness. That helplessness. It was too damn familiar.

“What the fuck do you want?” he finally spat, voice low and rough like gravel dragged across steel. “Why the hell are you here?”

His hand twitched at his side, the metal one curling and unclenching, the threat still lingering even if the fight had been stolen from his limbs. His jaw flexed as he took you in again, this time not as a threat, he already knew you were that, but as a question that had been clawing at the back of his mind for weeks.

“You vanish for three weeks after tearing my entire team apart like tissue paper,” he snapped, voice climbing just slightly, “and now you’re sitting on my goddamn couch like you live here?”

He took a step forward. You let him.

“Why are you messing with us?” he went on, heat rising now, thickening his words. “What is this? Some kind of game? You screw with Bob’s head, knock Alexei on his ass, nearly break Ava’s ribs, hell, you made Walker scream like a fucking child—”

You raised your eyebrows slightly at that, almost proud. Bucky noticed. It made him more pissed.

“Don’t smile,” he snapped. “Don’t you fucking smile like that. You think this is funny?”

You shrugged once, slow and infuriatingly casual.

“I’m asking you a real question,” he said, taking another step, his voice a growl now, barely held together by whatever was left of his discipline. “What the fuck do you want from us? From me?”

You said nothing, so he kept going.

“You could be anywhere right now. Causing chaos, robbing banks, taking on another Hydra cell, I don’t know, but no, you’re here, in my apartment, acting like this is just some midnight social call.”

He was closer now. The light from the window stretched long between you, painting the floor in pale streaks. His face was tight, eyes sharp, but there was something underneath it. Not just fury. Not just the remnants of bruised ego and failed missions. There was confusion there. Maybe something else he hadn’t named yet.

His voice lowered again, not gentler, just quieter. More dangerous.

“Why me?”

That was the real question, and you knew it. All the other ones had been warm-ups.

Why him?

Why here?

Why tonight?

You didn’t answer, no, not yet. You just watched him with that same unreadable calm, like the silence was your favorite weapon and he was bleeding slow from every word. And he hated it, he hated that he wanted to know.

Your silence stretched, but not because you were being cruel. Not this time. Bucky could see it, now that the heat of his anger wasn’t drowning everything else. You weren’t smirking anymore. You hadn’t moved to defend yourself. You hadn’t even flinched when he raised his voice. You just stood there, steady but off. Like something was tilting just under your skin.

“I didn’t really mean to come here,” you said finally, voice quieter, slower, not dramatic but tired in a way that didn’t match the chaos you usually carried. “Wasn’t planned.”

He narrowed his eyes, shoulders still tense, arms crossed like he didn’t believe a word coming out of your mouth. “Then why the hell are you here?”

You exhaled, and it wasn’t a sigh, not exactly. More like something that had been trapped in your chest finally slipping out. “I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

The sentence just hung there. You didn’t follow it up with sarcasm. No snide comment. No dig about how his team was pathetic or how Alpine had better manners. Just those words, plain and fragile in the quiet.

Bucky blinked, thrown off for half a second. He tried to recover it with a scoff. “Bullshit. You’ve been dodging satellites for weeks. You can’t tell me someone like you doesn’t have a dozen bolt-holes and safehouses.”

“I do,” you said, nodding slightly. “Had, actually.”

His brow furrowed. “What do you mean, had?”

“I mean,” you replied, looking toward the floor like it might offer an easier version of the truth, “they’re gone. Burned. Raided. I went dark, but someone else went darker.”

He didn’t respond. Not yet. You lifted your hand and tapped your temple twice, slow. “But for whatever reason, my brain decided you were the next stop.”

Bucky clenched his jaw. “So I’m what, a last resort?”

“No,” you said, and there was a flicker of something honest in your voice now, rough around the edges but not lying. “You’re just the only person I could think of that wouldn’t kill me on sight.”

“That’s optimistic.”

“I’m bleeding, Barnes,” you muttered. “Not delusional.”

He paused. Took a step closer. Something shifted in his eyes, still cautious, still guarded, but less sharp now. Then his gaze dropped, finally taking in the way you were standing. You were favoring your left side. Your shoulders weren’t quite level. You hadn’t drawn attention to it, hadn’t made a scene, but now he saw it. The stiffness. The way your right hand hadn’t moved much at all.

“Where?” he asked, voice low.

You didn’t answer. Not right away. Then, without a word, you reached up and curled your fingers around the edge of your jacket, tugging it aside just enough to reveal the deep crimson soaking through the black fabric near your ribs. It wasn’t a scratch. The stain was spreading.

Bucky’s stomach turned.

“Stabbed,” you said flatly. “I think. Maybe a knife. Could’ve been a shard of glass. Honestly didn’t stop to ask.”

His jaw twitched. “And you didn’t think to mention this before you started playing psychic puppet master?”

You shrugged, and it almost broke the spell—almost brought back the old mask of sarcasm. “Didn’t want to ruin the moment.”

“You’re bleeding all over my goddamn floor.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Take the mask off,” he snapped, stepping forward again. “Let me see—”

“No.”

That stopped him. Your tone wasn’t panicked, but it was firm. Quiet, but immovable. You didn’t raise your voice.Didn’t reach for your power. You just said it like it was final.

“I’m not taking it off.”

Bucky watched you for a long moment, still, breath coming slow through his nose.

And then he muttered, “You’re a fucking nightmare.”

You smiled faintly. “Takes one to know one.”

Bucky didn’t move at first. He just stood there, jaw tight, the lines in his face drawn deep by moonlight and something harder beneath. The shadows clung to his features, and the silence stretched so long it stopped feeling like calm and started tasting like pressure.

Then he stepped closer, just one deliberate movement, the floor creaking faintly beneath his boot. His voice was low when he finally spoke again, quieter than before but somehow heavier.

“Do you really think I wouldn’t kill you right now?”

Your head tilted slightly, unreadable beneath the mask, but your body stayed still. The power curling around your fingers had dimmed. It was there if you needed it, sure, but right now you weren’t using it. You weren’t fighting. You were just… there. Bleeding, and watching him.

He kept going.

“You’re standing in my apartment,” he said slowly, every word laced with something old and bitter, “bleeding all over my floor, half-conscious, out of tricks. You’re helpless. And I really, really want to kill you.”

His tone didn’t shake. Not once. He wasn’t bluffing. You could hear it. This wasn’t a threat for show. It was the truth as he saw it. You were his enemy. You humiliated his team. You invaded his space. And now you were here, vulnerable, talking like the war between you was some inside joke.

He meant it. He wanted to kill you.

And yet, you looked at him for a beat longer, then finally spoke, voice quiet but even. Not mocking. Not taunting. Just matter-of-fact.

“You won’t.”

That made him flinch, almost imperceptibly. You took a slow step forward, enough to make the room feel smaller, but not close enough to provoke him.

“Because if you were going to,” you said, “you would’ve done it already.”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. You saw it in the way his fists stayed clenched, not swinging. The way his jaw worked, like his body couldn’t decide if it was more afraid of what you’d done or what he hadn’t.

You stood there for another second, swaying just slightly now, the wound making itself harder to ignore.

“I’ve done worse,” you added. “To better people.”

Still, no reply. You smiled faintly, not from strength, not from pride, just from knowing. From being right, again.

Then your knees wobbled, and the room pitched slightly, and suddenly the silence wasn’t tense anymore. It was something else. Something softer, or maybe sadder.

You didn’t fall, but you weren’t far from it. And Bucky, for all his anger, didn’t move to finish the job. He just stared at you, still deciding.

Bucky didn’t move. He just stood there, still as a goddamn statue, watching you bleed in his living room like it wasn’t the strangest thing that had ever happened to him, and somehow, it wasn’t. Your frame had gone quieter, the tension in your muscles easing not from calm but from exhaustion. Every breath you took now sounded like a gamble, like your body hadn’t decided if it was worth trying again.

The shadows wrapped around you, the room still mostly dark except for the moonlight bleeding through the slats in the blinds. It streaked across the hardwood floor in soft silver lines, casting your silhouette like a painting too old and too wounded to hang anywhere.

He noticed now, fully noticed, how pale your knuckles were, how your right arm hung a little too heavy at your side. The blood hadn’t stopped. It had just learned to hide better, soaking into your clothes and pooling quietly at your hip.

And still, you said nothing.

Until finally, your legs wobbled again, and this time your hand gripped the edge of the couch like it might anchor you to the earth. Your head dipped slightly, shoulders folding in, not like someone afraid, but like someone too damn tired to keep faking strength.

Bucky’s breath caught in his throat. Every part of him screamed to stay still. To let you fall. To punish you for the mess you’d made.

But then, you lifted your face again, and even through the dark, even behind that damn mask, he could tell you were smiling.

“Careful,” you mumbled, your voice frayed at the edges, like you were dragging the words out from someplace deeper. “If you touch me, I might start thinking you care.”

His mouth twitched. Not with amusement. Not even with anger. Just something tight and confused and ancient, like some part of him had heard those words before, in another life, maybe from another mouth.

And then, quieter, barely a whisper, you added, “You don’t want that… I’m really annoying when I’m conscious.”

Your knees gave another shiver, this time sharper. Your fingers slipped from the couch. And Bucky’s instincts, old as war and sharper than any steel Hydra ever forged into him, moved faster than thought.

He caught you before gravity could.

One hand braced flat against the center of your back, steady and firm, while the other curled around your arm just above the elbow, his grip tight but careful. Your body slumped forward, not heavy, but limp in a way that made his pulse jump. You were smaller like this. Not physically, just quieter. All the fight drained, and all the venom simmered down into stillness.

You didn’t jerk away, and didn’t even try to bite your way free. You just leaned into him, instead, head tilting slightly to the side as your breath brushed his collarbone.

“See? I knew you wouldn’t let me fall,” you murmured, and your voice had lost that razor edge now. It was soft. Almost gentle. Almost… human.

Bucky’s jaw flexed, unsure if he wanted to shake you or carry you.

Then your body sagged all at once, weight melting into him as your knees finally gave out for real. Your head dropped forward against his chest, breath shallow, warmth fading beneath the blood cooling through your layers.

You passed out in his arms.

And for a long second, Bucky didn’t move.

The only sounds were the soft ticking of the wall clock, the whisper of Alpine shifting somewhere in the other room, and the hiss of his own breathing as he looked down at you—this walking disaster of a person who’d torn through his team like paper and then stumbled bleeding into his home like it was where you were always meant to be.

You didn’t even tell him who did this to you. You didn’t explain. You just showed up, then fell, but he caught you.

God help him.

Bucky sat back on his heels, breathing hard, watching you like you might sit up and throw another insult at him just for fun, but you didn’t move. You were still sprawled across his bed, limp and half-twisted into the sheets, body heavy with blood loss, breath catching in soft, uneven intervals that were somehow worse than silence.

His eyes flicked back to the wound on your side. The bleeding had slowed, and now that he’d pulled off more of your gear, he could see the damage wasn’t as bad as he’d first thought. It was a deep slice, maybe from a combat knife or a sharp piece of shrapnel, but it had missed anything vital. You were lucky. Or maybe just stubborn enough not to die.

He muttered something under his breath, not quite words, more like frustration disguised as exhale, and grabbed a clean cloth from the kit. Soaked it. Wiped the blood away carefully, methodically, like it might make this whole thing feel less insane.

His fingers brushed your skin again, just near the edge of the wound, and he paused.

Jesus.

You were warm. Warmer than you should’ve been, maybe from the fever starting to settle in your bones, maybe just from the fight, but the heat of your body seared into his palm like a brand. And for a split second, just one razor-edge beat of a moment, he let himself feel it.

The softness of your waist beneath the torn fabric. The steady thrum of your pulse, faint but there, under skin that had no business being this smooth in a life like yours. He caught a glimpse of the curve of your ribs, the subtle rise and fall of your chest. The moonlight spilled across your skin like it had an agenda of its own, catching the faint sheen of sweat that clung to you, the way your stomach tensed unconsciously when his fingers hovered too close.

He cursed under his breath again, this time with more force.

“Goddamn it,” he muttered, dragging his eyes away from the stretch of bare skin and back to the gauze. “You’re not even awake and you’re still pissing me off.”

He worked quickly now, forcing himself to focus. The antiseptic stung where he dabbed it across the gash, and you flinched again, but barely. It was the first real movement you’d made in minutes, and somehow that made it worse. Made it real.

He wasn’t supposed to be doing this. You were supposed to be the enemy. A threat. A walking storm that wrecked everything in your path, including him.

And yet, here you were, bleeding into his mattress while he cleaned your wounds with the kind of care he hadn’t given himself in years.

Another swipe of the cloth, another inch of skin exposed beneath the torn fabric, and Bucky felt his jaw twitch. You were too close. Too still. And despite everything—the missions, the wreckage, the fucking chaos, you looked like you belonged there. In his bed. In his space.

It pissed him off more than anything else.

He taped the final strip of gauze into place, pulling the wrap snug across your side, fingers brushing the dip of your waist again before he forced his hands to pull back.

Then he stood, too fast, like he needed to create space between your body and his sanity. He tossed the bloodied cloth into the sink across the hall, ran cold water over his wrists, and stared at his own reflection like maybe it could talk him out of whatever the hell this was turning into.

He didn’t go far. Just stood in the doorway, watching your body rise and fall with every uneven breath, jaw clenched, throat dry, eyes still tracking every inch of exposed skin like it was a weapon he couldn’t disarm.

“Fuck,” he said under his breath.

Because the truth was? He’d rather be bleeding than feeling whatever the hell this was.

Bucky hadn’t moved from the doorway. He stood still as a statue, arms folded, brow furrowed deep, eyes pinned to the unconscious figure in his bed like staring long enough might make this all make sense. He should call it in. That was the first thought that tried to crawl its way up through the thick, unsettled fog of his brain. 

He should let Val know, let the team know, hell, let anyone know that the problem they’d been chasing for months had landed herself square in his apartment and passed out on his sheets like it was some kind of sick joke.

The comm was on the shelf by the front door. It’d take ten seconds. Maybe less. He stared at the wall. He didn't move.

Then, slowly, Bucky’s gaze dropped back to you. Your breathing had changed. It was heavier now, unsteady and choppy in a way that made his skin crawl. Not from fear. From familiarity.

You were dreaming. No, nightmaring. Whatever hell was clawing at you behind that mask, it was real enough to twist your body in slow, tight jerks. Your hands clenched against the sheets. Then he saw it.

The faint shimmer at your fingertips, glowing like embers under your nails. Not bright. Not wild. Just a low, steady pulse of dark red that crackled with something not entirely stable. It sparked once, then again, and Bucky caught a tiny thread of energy split the air and vanish into your palm like it had never been there.

His stomach dropped. That wasn’t just dreaming. That was a mind screaming in a language he didn’t speak.

You let out a breathless sound. Almost a word. Almost pain. Sweat had broken out across your neck, dampening the collar of your clothes. Your fingers twitched again, and another spark followed, more desperate this time. The kind of movement that didn’t belong to someone faking.

“Shit,” he whispered, barely loud enough to be heard over the soft buzz of the lamp.

He moved back toward the bed, slow now, careful like he was approaching a live wire instead of a bleeding enemy. You didn’t wake. You just turned your head slightly, and the angle of the moonlight hit your mask at a strange slant, catching the carved lines and worn edges.

You were still hiding. Still half the phantom they’d been hunting.

And for whatever reason he couldn’t pin down, that made his chest tighten. He hesitated.

One second. Two. Then, wordlessly, Bucky reached out, fingers brushing the edge of the mask.

It came away easier than he expected. A few clipped locks, a thin band at the back of your head. The fabric was damp with sweat, and it peeled away like second skin, slow and steady. He held his breath as he lifted it free.

And finally, finally, he saw your face. No illusions. No glamours. No sharp grin or sharp tongue. Just you.

Skin pale with blood loss, features drawn tight in the grip of whatever storm was rolling through your mind, lashes damp with sweat, lips parted like you were trying to speak even now. There was no satisfaction in the reveal. No moment of triumph. Just... silence.

Bucky stared. You didn’t look evil. You didn’t look like a threat. You looked like someone who hadn’t slept in weeks. Like someone who’d run out of places to go and had landed here without a plan.

You twitched again, and that red light bloomed at your fingertips once more, a soft flicker curling toward your wrist before sputtering out.

And that was when it hit him. He couldn’t call anyone. Not right now.

Because whatever was happening in that head of yours, it wasn’t something the Thunderbolts would wait to figure out. They’d come in guns drawn, protocols blazing, and they’d end this before you even woke up.

And Bucky? For reasons he didn’t understand, reasons he didn’t want to understand, he didn’t want you dead. Not tonight, and not like this.

So instead, he set the mask on the nightstand. Then, he sat on the edge of the bed, just far enough that he wouldn’t accidentally brush your leg, and watched the flickers of red fade into nothing again, waiting for your breathing to slow.

He didn’t know what the hell he was doing, but he knew this much. He couldn’t let you go. Not yet.

Bucky didn’t move. Not even when the wind outside caught the blinds and made them clatter softly against the windowpane. Not when the radiator groaned like it always did at this hour, settling into itself with a sigh that filled the silence like a whisper. He just sat there, still, quiet, elbows resting on his knees, hands dangling loose between them, watching you breathe like the answers were hidden somewhere in the rise and fall of your chest.

His jaw was clenched tight. It had been since he took off your mask.

The red glow had stopped a few minutes ago, but the heat of it still lingered in the room. He could feel it in the air, a charge that hadn’t quite dissipated. It made the hairs on his arm stand, not out of fear, he was long past that, but out of something closer to instinct. That bone-deep awareness that something powerful had been here. Was here. And he’d let it inside.

You shifted slightly, not enough to wake, just a soft curl of your fingers into the sheets. Your breath hitched again, then settled. Sweat still beaded along your hairline, darkening the edges, clinging to the corner of your jaw like tiny fragments of whatever nightmare you’d just survived.

Bucky looked at you like he was waiting for the truth to rise out of your skin. It didn’t.

Instead, all he had was that voice in his head, Steve’s, maybe, or his own before Hydra carved it hollow saying, What the hell are you doing, Buck?

He didn’t know.

He should’ve called it in. Should’ve tied you up. Should’ve shoved a gun between your eyes and waited for backup. He knew how to do that. He’d done worse to people who mattered less. And you? You’d earned it. After everything. The ruined ops. The mind games. Bob still flinched every time someone said your name.

You weren’t a person to the Thunderbolts. You were a problem. A mission that kept slipping through their fingers like oil and smoke.

But here you were now; unarmed, and unconscious.

Bleeding into his sheets with your mask off and your guard down, and something in Bucky’s chest had curled in on itself the second he saw your face.

He hated that he noticed how young you looked. Hated that he clocked the faint scar above your brow, the subtle pull at the corner of your mouth like your default was half a smirk, even in sleep. He hated that he wasn’t reaching for his gun right now. That he wasn’t dragging you out of his apartment and into the light where the others could finish what they started.

Instead, he was sitting beside you, wondering if your breathing was finally evening out or if you were slipping deeper into whatever hell kept your fists twitching in your sleep.

His eyes drifted down to your hands again. No sparks this time. Just fingers curled into loose fists, stained faint with dried blood. He remembered how those hands moved when you fought, fast, deliberate, surgical. Like you didn’t waste motion because you didn’t have to. And he remembered how you’d looked at him right before you passed out. Like you knew he wouldn’t kill you.

And worse? You’d been right.

“Fuck,” Bucky whispered under his breath, dragging his metal hand through his hair.

He stood for a second, pacing once to the window and back like the motion would shake something loose. But the only thing it did was remind him how small the apartment really was. How close you still were. How this moment, this choice, was already something he couldn’t take back.

So he sat again, this time closer. You didn’t flinch. And he didn’t speak, because if he opened his mouth now, he didn’t trust what might come out.

Suddenly, three days passed. Three days. That’s how long you’d been in his bed.

Three whole days of stillness, of soft, labored breathing, of skin running hot one minute and cold the next. Three days of Bucky keeping one ear tuned to your every movement, eyes always flicking to the bedroom every time a floorboard creaked too loudly. He didn’t sleep much. Not that he did on a good day, but with you there, unconscious and unpredictable, every quiet second felt like a lit fuse waiting to hit the powder.

He'd checked the wound the first night. Pulled your shirt up just enough to see the damage, careful not to touch more skin than necessary. The stab had gone in deep enough to make his stomach drop, blood soaked clean through the gauze he’d wrapped you in the night before, but nothing vital. No organs hit. Lucky, or maybe you were just built like a roach in leather.

So,  he cleaned it again. Changed the dressing twice a day. Sat at the edge of the bed and muttered things under his breath like he didn’t mean to, things like, “Should’ve let you bleed,” and “Pain in my ass, even half-dead.” But he did it anyway. Hands steady. Movements practiced. Like tending to wounds was the one thing he could do right without anyone barking orders.

He tried not to look at your face too long. That part was harder. Especially when the nightmares came again, twitching in your sleep, red curling off your skin like smoke. He kept a damp cloth near the bed, dabbed your forehead when the sweating got bad. It felt too human. Too careful. He hated it.

But last night? Last night he’d peeled back the bandage, fingers moving slow, expecting the same mess. The bruising. The tear.

And there was nothing.

Not a scab. Not a scar. Not even the faintest mark of trauma. Just clean, smooth skin stretched over where the blade had gone in. He’d blinked. Looked again. Touched it, gently, like maybe he’d imagined the whole damn thing, but no, it was gone.

He sat back on his heels, eyebrows drawn together in that familiar look of what the fuck, and stared at your side for a full minute.

“Of course,” he muttered, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his metal hand. “Because nothing about you is normal.”

It wasn’t healing. Not regular healing. This was something else. Something freaky. Asgardian, maybe. Magic, more likely. He didn’t know, and he didn’t care. It just made the whole thing worse.

He leaned back, resting against the nightstand, arms crossed over his chest. The bedside lamp flicked a dim pool of light across your shoulder, your hand limp against the blanket, twitching once like you were chasing something again. He didn’t know how long you planned on staying unconscious, but the idea of explaining any of this to anyone, to the team, made his teeth grind.

He should’ve dragged you out by now. Should’ve handed you over. Let them finish what they started. Instead, he was keeping watch like some grumpy old guard dog, jumping every time you sighed.

“Would be easier if you were dead,” he mumbled to himself, but his voice was softer than he meant, and the room was still, and you were still breathing.

Bucky was on the floor, cross-legged and hunched over like a six-foot-tall kindergartener, his voice pitched into that absurd, soft baby-talk tone he’d sworn to Alpine, and himself, he would never use in front of anyone else. Ever.

“You’re just a little menace, huh? A fluffy little, hey, no, don’t chew on that. That’s my sock, you demon, come on, ow, hey, rude.”

Alpine, as usual, gave zero shits about his authority and launched herself at his wrist with the kind of adorable savagery that would’ve made Bob coo and Yelena suspicious. Bucky just let her wrestle with his fingers, tired amusement softening the hard lines around his eyes for the first time in days.

He didn’t hear the footsteps. Didn’t even hear the door creak or the faint rustle of fabric or the wet slide of a towel being hung up.

No, what finally caught his attention was a voice. Your voice. Warm, smug, and just loud enough to freeze the blood in his veins.

“Well, well, Sergeant Barnes,” you said, leaning against the kitchen doorway like you’d been there the whole damn time. “I always knew you had a soft side, but that little baby voice? Adorable.”

Bucky’s head snapped up so fast Alpine bailed off his lap and fled to the couch. He scrambled to his feet with the reflexes of a man who’d been ambushed a thousand times before, only this time, it wasn’t a Hydra operative or a mission gone wrong. It was you.

Standing there like nothing had happened. Dressed in his clothes.

His gray T-shirt hung loose over your frame, sleeves falling just past your elbows. The drawstring of his old sweats was cinched messily at your hips, like you didn’t even try to tighten it properly. Your hair was damp, skin flushed from a shower, and you looked too clean. Too casual. Too smug. Like you hadn’t almost died in his bed. Like you hadn’t been unconscious for seventy-two hours straight.

His jaw locked. “What the fuck—”

“Language,” you said, lifting a finger, smile crooked. “You wouldn’t want Alpine to pick up your bad habits.”

“You, how the hell—” He pointed, flustered, like there was some rational explanation hiding somewhere in the space between you and the hallway you must’ve walked down.

“Nice water pressure, by the way,” you added casually, pushing off the wall and walking toward him like you belonged here. Like the apartment was yours. “And don’t worry, I cleaned up after myself. Put the towels in the hamper. Very polite of me.”

He was blinking too fast now, visibly processing about ten different crises at once. “You were unconscious. You were bleeding. I stitched you up—how the hell did you shower without me hearing it?”

You shrugged like it wasn’t that deep. “Quiet feet. Also, you were distracted. You and Alpine were having a moment.”

Bucky’s hands were clenched into fists, and not the angry, ready-to-fight kind. The panicked, overwhelmed, trying-not-to-lose-it kind.

Then, you tilted your head, that same glint sparking in your eye again.

“You know,” you said, grinning now, “you’re the first one who’s ever seen my face.”

That stopped him cold.

His expression shifted; wariness bleeding into confusion, confusion tangling with something heavier he didn’t have a name for. His eyes dragged over your features like he was looking at something he shouldn’t, like maybe it wasn’t supposed to be a privilege.

“And yet you didn’t kill me,” you added, voice a little softer. “Interesting.”

He didn’t say anything. Just stood there, breath shallow, Alpine peeking out from behind the couch like even she was trying to read the room.

You let the silence sit a moment longer, then sighed, stretching your arms overhead like you hadn’t just dropped a live grenade in the space between you.

“Anyway,” you said, spinning on your heel, heading toward the kitchen with zero shame, “I’m starving. What’s a girl gotta do around here to get some pancakes?”

Bucky didn’t say a word as he moved around the kitchen, but his silence was louder than most people’s screaming. Every slam of a cabinet, every muttered curse when he realized he was out of the good butter, every pointed glance your way as he flipped a pancake with far too much aggression, it all said the same thing:

What the hell is happening right now.

You were perched at the small table by the window, legs folded under you like you’d lived there for years. Still wearing his shirt. Still smelling faintly of his shampoo. Like this was just a Sunday morning and not the aftermath of a hostile takeover followed by a three-day coma nap.

He stole another glance at you. You caught it, of course. You caught all of them, and then you grinned.

“What?” you asked, chin in hand, absolutely lounging. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“You were supposed to be unconscious,” he muttered, jabbing at the pancake batter like it had personally offended him. “Bleeding out. Dying, preferably.”

“Wow,” you said, mock-offended, “that’s no way to talk to a guest.”

“You’re not a guest,” he snapped.

“Then, what am I?”

He didn’t answer, because he didn’t know. Enemy, maybe. Headache. Puzzle piece from a box he’d thrown out years ago. You were sitting there like a riddle he didn’t have time to solve, all casual confidence and chaotic charm, and Bucky didn’t know if he wanted to lock you up or ask you if you wanted syrup.

He plated the pancakes anyway. Stacked them, buttered them, then dropped the plate in front of you a little harder than necessary. You beamed as you picked up the fork and dug in like nothing was weird about this at all.

Bucky crossed his arms and leaned back against the counter, staring. “You’re not gonna explain anything, are you?”

You shrugged with a mouthful of pancake, then swallowed. “What’s there to explain? I got stabbed. Your apartment’s nice. My mind told me to come here.”

“That’s not normal,” he deadpanned.

“I’m not normal,” you replied cheerfully.

He let out a breath, slow and sharp, like he was trying very hard not to punch something. Probably the wall. Maybe himself.

“Why my place?” he asked finally. “You could’ve gone anywhere. You should’ve gone anywhere.”

You glanced up at him then, not teasing. Just honest. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

The silence hung between you like a wire pulled too tight. Then you scooped another bite of pancake, like you hadn’t just said something quietly heartbreaking.

Bucky sighed, long and low. Then, turned to pour himself a cup of coffee, muttering under his breath the entire time.

“You’re a menace,” he said, not looking at you.

“You fed me pancakes,” you replied.

He turned back, holding his mug, eyes narrowed. “This doesn’t mean I like you.”

You gave him a smile that was all teeth and no apology. “That’s okay. I like me enough for both of us.”

After breakfast, if you could even call your wild, syrup-drenched demolition of three and a half pancakes “breakfast”, Bucky had retreated into silence, the kind of silence that didn’t just fill a room, it watched you. He stood like a statue in the corner of his own kitchen, holding his coffee like it was the last thing tethering him to sense, while you wandered through the space with the gleeful wonder of someone fresh out of a bunker.

You had this habit of reaching for things with both hands. Like your fingertips didn’t trust the world yet but your palms wanted to feel it anyway. You ran them along the grain of the wooden table, over the framed photo on the shelf he thought he’d hidden well; an old picture, black-and-white, of a street corner in Brooklyn. You held it gently, like it might burn you. Then you set it back, reverent.

The living room was your next stop. You padded across the hardwood barefoot—because of course you’d ditched the socks, and of course you were still wearing his shirt, oversized and half-buttoned, paired with his oldest sweatpants tied tight at the waist in a knot that didn’t belong to him.

“Ooh,” you said, dragging out the syllable like it was your first word, “what’s this?”

“That’s a record player,” Bucky said, monotone, not even looking up.

“A what?” you asked like he’d spoken in Morse code.

You crouched beside it, nose practically pressed to the turntable, inspecting it like it was alien tech. Then you spotted the small stack of vinyl tucked into the crate beside it and gasped, actually gasped, as you slid one out. The needle had barely hit the edge of a Nat King Cole album before smooth, warm music filled the space, crackling softly like a memory.

Bucky exhaled hard through his nose, trying very hard to pretend his heart wasn’t doing something weird in his chest.

You kept going. The blanket drawer was next. You opened it, stared down at the folded fabrics like they were treasure, then pulled out the softest one and rubbed it against your cheek with a dreamy sigh.

“This,” you said with absolute conviction, “is the best thing I’ve ever touched.”

“It’s a blanket,” Bucky said again, this time more exasperated.

You turned toward him, standing in the middle of the room now, the blanket draped around your shoulders like royalty, eyes wide, sincere. “You have so many things. It’s like... it’s like you’ve collected cozy.”

That made him pause, because he hadn’t thought of it like that. He just knew what made him feel safe. A soft throw. A record spinning low in the background. The warm weight of Alpine curled behind his knees at night. These were things he clung to, not because they made sense, but because they made him feel like a person.

You danced, yes, danced, into the kitchen next, nearly bumping your hip into the counter as you spun with some leftover rhythm from the vinyl.

Bucky flinched, then glared. “Can you not treat my apartment like a playground?”

“But it’s so nice,” you said, pulling open drawers now like you were hunting for buried treasure. “You have a garlic press! What even is a garlic press? Wait, is this a cheese grater?” You held it up like a weapon. “Do you grate cheese? That’s adorable.”

“You’re going to break something,” he muttered, voice pinched with stress, as he stepped forward and tried to gently tug the cheese grater from your hand. You didn’t let go right away. You just looked up at him with that grin again, playful, wild, dangerous in a completely different way than he was used to.

“I think I’m having fun,” you said softly. “Is this fun? I think this is what it feels like.”

Bucky stared at you. Really stared. Your hair still damp from a shower he hadn’t heard, skin pink from steam, curled in his too-big clothes, standing in his kitchen like you had never known what a home was. He’d seen you rip apart a squad of trained killers like you were walking through a dance routine, and now here you were, cooing at Alpine and smelling every damn spice jar in his cabinet like you were cataloging the world one smell at a time.

“Do you not know how to... live?” he asked before he could stop himself.

You blinked at him, tilting your head slightly like you were considering it. Then you shrugged.

“I know how to survive,” you said. “This feels different.”

And then, like the moment never happened, you gasped again and darted toward the fridge. You opened it, squinted into the contents, then turned back with absolute delight.

“You have actual food in here! Like eggs! And leftovers! Bucky, are you secretly someone's grandmother?”

He groaned into his coffee. “God, please shut up.”

You only laughed louder. And for the first time in a long time, Bucky didn’t mind the noise.

You were on the floor again, legs tucked under you in some unholy pretzel configuration, hair damp, hoodie sleeves rolled halfway up your forearms as you dangled a fuzzy blue mouse above Alpine’s increasingly unimpressed face. The cat, stretched lazily on her back, was pawing at the toy like she was entertaining you out of pity, not necessity.

“You have no idea,” you whispered dramatically to Alpine. “If I ever master mind control on animals, it’s over for you. Over. You’ll be wearing capes. Matching ones. With me.”

Alpine blinked at you slowly, then rolled to her side, unimpressed.

Bucky, still pretending to read the paper he hadn’t actually touched in ten minutes, watched from the armchair. One brow twitched. “You good down there, or do I need to call someone?”

“She likes me,” you replied confidently, shifting to rub behind Alpine’s ear with both hands like you were kneading dough. “She told me.”

“She told you?” he repeated, dry.

You nodded. Dead serious. “Yeah. I can hear her thoughts.”

Bucky dropped the paper completely, eyes narrowing, a flicker of something ancient and curious crossing his face. “Wait, seriously?”

You looked up at him slowly. “Dead serious.”

He sat up straighter. “Okay, okay, what’s she saying right now?”

You paused, one hand pressed against Alpine’s soft side like you were channeling the deepest energy in the universe. Your eyes closed. You inhaled slowly, solemnly. Then you opened your mouth.

“Meow.”

It was delivered with the kind of reverent flatness that made it sound like a holy prophecy.

Bucky stared at you. Just stared. Then, you burst out laughing.

“Meow?” he echoed, incredulous. “You asshole!”

You were wheezing, now doubled over, head against Alpine’s belly like she was your emotional support pillow. “Oh my God, the look on your face. You wanted it to be real.”

“You’re the worst,” he said, but there was a small, reluctant smile tugging at his mouth. He leaned back again, arms folding across his chest. “I thought you were actually pulling some weird psychic crap. You had the voice and everything.”

“I am psychic,” you said through your giggles. “But only when it’s funny.”

Alpine chose that exact moment to get up, walk across your lap, and hop onto Bucky’s armrest like she’d just filed a complaint with management. You flopped onto your back on the floor, hands spread wide.

“You’re both so dramatic,” you muttered. “No wonder you’re roommates.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “She’s not my roommate.”

“She sleeps in your bed, eats your food, and glares at your guests. She owns this place.”

Alpine let out a small chirp, as if agreeing.

You stayed on the floor a beat longer, grinning up at the ceiling like this was the best day you’d had in years. Bucky watched you, that smile still lingering at the corner of his mouth, like maybe he couldn’t quite remember why he hated you so much anymore, or maybe he still did, but it was harder now, with you laying there in his living room, wearing his clothes, pretending to speak cat.

“Do you always act like this when you’re not setting things on fire?” he asked finally.

You turned your head toward him, eyes bright. “No, sometimes I also sing showtunes.”

“Please, don’t.”

“I will if you make me do dishes.”

He groaned, but it was half-laugh, half-resignation, like maybe, just maybe, this wasn’t the worst thing in the world. Not yet, anyway.

After a while, Bucky had finally convinced you to sit on the couch like a regular person instead of lying on the floor talking to his cat like she was your therapist. You had your knees pulled up, your fingers picking at a loose thread on the hem of his sweatshirt. It hung off your frame like it had belonged to you once in another life. Maybe that’s what got to him most. How you made yourself look at home in a place he still sometimes felt like a guest in.

He didn’t ask any questions at first. Just sat at the other end of the couch, long legs stretched out, arms folded. Alpine was curled between you like Switzerland.

The silence wasn’t awkward. Not exactly. It just hung in the air, waiting. You were the one who broke it.

“You ever think about running away?” you asked quietly, still looking down at your lap.

Bucky glanced at you, brow twitching. “From what?”

You shrugged, still plucking at the thread. “All of it. The whole thing. The job. The expectations. The guilt. The ghosts. You ever think about just… vanishing?”

He didn’t answer right away. “Sometimes,” he said eventually. “But ghosts follow, and they don’t need passports.”

You nodded like you knew that already. “I tried,” you said after a pause. “Vanishing, like years ago. Had a new name, and lived in a new city. Stayed away from fights, from powers, from the whole damn mess. Got a job at a library, if you can believe that.”

He looked over at you again. “You worked in a library?”

You smirked a little, still not quite meeting his eyes. “Yeah. Quiet. Peaceful. Smelled like paper and old wood and safety.”

“What happened?”

You finally looked up. There was something there in your expression, something raw and unguarded. It didn’t scream pain. It whispered it. “They found me.”

“Who?”

You shook your head. “Does it matter? Hydra. SHIELD. The Thunderbolts. Some other three-letter acronym. They always find me. They always want to use me.”

“And…you ran again?”

You shook your head again, slower this time. “No, I just stopped running. Figured if I was gonna keep being hunted, I might as well bite back.”

Alpine yawned between you, completely unbothered by the weight settling into the room. Bucky studied your face, the way the laughter had drained from it, replaced by something older. Sadder. Wiser.

“You’re not what I expected,” he said finally.

You smiled at that, but it was tired. “What did you expect?”

He hesitated. “I don’t know. Something colder. Angrier.”

You tilted your head. “I am angry. But that doesn’t mean I don’t like pancakes and fluffy blankets.”

“You’re full of contradictions.”

“So are you,” you said gently. “Metal arm. Soft eyes.”

Bucky looked away at that, jaw tightening like you’d hit a nerve.

You let the silence linger again, then added, “I didn’t come here to mess with you. Not this time. I didn’t even know I was coming here, not really, but when I got hurt… it’s like my body brought me here on its own. And that should probably terrify me more than it does.”

He didn’t know what to say to that. So he said, “You want more pancakes tomorrow?”

You smiled. “Yeah,” you said softly. “I’d like that.”

Bucky didn’t say much when he stood from the couch and pointed down the hall. “Guest room’s second door on the left,” he muttered, rubbing at the side of his neck like the words tasted awkward on his tongue. “You should get some sleep.”

You raised your hands in mock surrender. “Hey, you’re the one patching up your nemesis. I’m just here for the free healthcare and the mystery cat.”

He grunted in reply and turned to head to his own room. He didn’t look back, but apparently, neither did you.

Because fifteen minutes later, when he finally switched off the lights and stepped into his bedroom with every intention of collapsing face-first into his mattress, he found… you. Sprawled out like a damn starfish. One leg tossed haphazardly over his blanket, arms outstretched like you were claiming the entire bed by divine right.

Alpine was curled up on your stomach, tail flicking once like she was daring him to say something. Bucky just stood there in the doorway, jaw clenched, deadpan.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” he muttered under his breath.

He looked over his shoulder toward the guest room, then back at the sight in front of him. You were already dead asleep, breathing steady, hoodie riding up just a little, revealing the edge of gauze he’d wrapped earlier. Your hand twitched once, fingers curling like you were chasing something in a dream.

“Second door on the left,” he whispered harshly at your unconscious form. “It’s not that hard.”

But you didn’t stir. Not even a snore. Just blissful, defiant sleep, like the chaos you carried had finally shut off for the night. Bucky sighed long and slow, raking a hand down his face. Alpine blinked at him once, then went back to sleep. Betrayer.

Fine.

He pivoted and walked back down the hallway, muttering a string of curses that probably would've shocked Steve if he were still around to hear them. The guest room bed creaked when he dropped onto it, too stiff, too clean, like a hotel room no one ever used. He stared at the ceiling for a while, letting silence settle over the apartment like a blanket, except it didn’t warm him. Not tonight.

He hated how easily you had slotted into the rhythm of this place. Like you belonged here. Like his quiet life wasn’t so quiet anymore.

By the time sleep finally came, it was thin and fractured. He dreamed of moonlight, laughter, and voices he couldn’t place.

The next morning, he woke to the smell of… confusion. That was the only way he could describe it. Something was burning.

He sat up fast, heart lurching before his brain caught up. Then he realized it wasn’t smoke. It was just… coffee. Bad coffee.

He pulled on a T-shirt and padded barefoot into the kitchen, blinking against the morning light. And there you were.

Standing in front of the coffee machine like it had personally betrayed you.

You were dressed in his sweatpants now, rolled up at the ankles, and the hoodie was still slung over your frame like it hadn’t moved all night. Your hair was tied back loosely, a little damp, like you’d showered again, but when? He’d heard nothing. Not even the pipes.

Your fingers hovered over the buttons like they might explode. “What the hell is a ‘descaling mode’?” you muttered to yourself. “Why does this thing have so many buttons? Why does it beep like that?”

Bucky leaned against the doorway, arms crossed, watching the scene unfold with a slowly growing smirk. “Need help?” he asked, voice thick with sleep.

You jumped slightly, then turned to him, face lit up like a kid caught playing with forbidden tech. “This machine is cursed,” you said solemnly. “I pressed one thing and now it’s asking me for a cleaning pod. I don’t even know what a cleaning pod is. What are you people doing in the 21st century?”

He rubbed a hand over his face and sighed. “It makes coffee.”

“No, it makes demands.”

He walked over, reaching past you to tap the reset button and clear the screen. “You’re lucky I don’t make you earn your keep by washing dishes.”

You looked offended. “I washed the forks.”

“There were three forks.”

“It was still labor.”

He glanced sideways at you, then down at the shirt you wore. His shirt. “Did you… go through my closet?”

You tilted your head. “You weren’t specific, so I assumed guest rights applied.”

He blinked. “Guest rights?”

“You’re feeding me, bandaging me, and letting me sleep in your overpriced bed, so I’m practically family.”

His eyebrow twitched. “You’re insane.”

“Probably,” you said brightly, then turned back to the machine, hitting a random button again. It beeped in protest. “Seriously though, how do you use this thing without summoning a demon?”

Bucky just reached over, pressed two buttons, and poured you a cup like it was the easiest thing in the world. You took the mug, eyes wide, genuinely impressed.

“I’m gonna marry this coffee,” you muttered after your first sip.

He shook his head, watching you like you were a storm that blew in, turned everything upside down, and now acted like you owned the place.

Maybe you did, and somehow, that thought didn’t scare him the way it should have.

By noon, the sun was carving soft light through the blinds, slicing the living room into bands of gold and shadow. Bucky had cleaned up the coffee disaster with practiced movements, muttering under his breath the entire time about people who shouldn’t be trusted near kitchen appliances. You had followed him around like Alpine, eyes wide, hair damp, socks mismatched, like you’d never been in a home before. And maybe, in a way, you hadn’t.

That’s how it started. With you leaning against the kitchen counter, watching him dry a mug.

“Do you ever cook?” you asked, nonchalant. Too nonchalant.

Bucky paused, then gave a slow, wary look over his shoulder. “Define cook.”

You grinned. “Like… with fire.”

He stared. “What are you planning?”

“I want to cook lunch,” you declared, stepping toward the fridge with the posture of someone about to win a cooking competition they’d never trained for. “I’ve seen shows. I know the basics.”

“Shows,” he repeated. “Like what, Hell’s Kitchen?”

“More like Nailed It,” you said cheerfully, flinging the fridge open with enough force to make the condiments rattle.

Bucky stood very still, like if he didn’t move, maybe the chaos would lose interest and go away, but of course, it didn’t.

You pulled out eggs, cheese, and something he swore had expired last month, and dropped them dramatically onto the counter. “Voilà.”

“That’s expired.”

“It builds immunity.”

“That’s not how food poisoning works.”

You were already cracking eggs into a bowl, shells half-shattered and suspiciously crunchy. Bucky’s hand twitched toward the trash can, but he didn’t interfere. Not yet. He leaned on the doorway, arms crossed, watching you with an expression that wavered between horror and something too soft to name.

“You know,” you said while aggressively whisking with a fork, “the last time I cooked, the stove caught fire.”

Bucky blinked. “That supposed to make me feel better?”

“No, I just wanted to be honest.”

He sighed deeply, dragging a hand down his face. Alpine hopped up on the counter to supervise, her tail flicking like a metronome of judgment.

“Okay, step back,” he said finally, nudging you out of the way with his hip. “Before you summon another demon from the coffee machine or burn down my entire block.”

You stepped back with a smug grin, holding the bowl like a trophy. “So what you’re saying is... I’m charming enough to get out of arson charges?”

“No,” he said, cracking fresh eggs with one hand like muscle memory never left. “You’re lucky I don’t have the energy to deal with explosions today.”

You watched him move around the kitchen, calm and precise. Like he’d done this a hundred times. Like it was a ritual, not just survival. For a second, the silence between you was different. Not playful, not sharp. Just… still.

“Did you do this with Steve?” you asked quietly, the question barely louder than the sizzle of eggs hitting the pan.

Bucky’s hands stilled. Just for a second. Then he stirred the pan slowly, like he was buying time before answering.

“Sometimes,” he said finally. “Back in Brooklyn, before the war. He couldn’t cook for shit, but he made good toast.”

You smiled. “That sounds about right.”

“He always burnt bacon,” Bucky added, a ghost of amusement passing over his face. “Said it made it crunchier.”

You didn’t say anything for a moment. Then, gently, “You miss him?”

He didn’t answer immediately. “Every day,” he said.

It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t heavy. Just the truth, laid bare like it didn’t need dressing up.

You nodded like you understood, because you did. Maybe not Steve, but the aching hollow of what was lost. The weight of could-have-beens. “I miss people, too,” you said after a beat, quietly. “Though most of them weren’t exactly Steve Rogers.”

Bucky glanced at you then, a flicker of something passing between you. Mutual understanding. Shared grief, even if it wore different names.

You cleared your throat and clapped your hands once, the spell breaking. “So, pancakes, coffee, and now… eggs. I’m living the dream.”

He smirked. “You’re easily impressed.”

“I’m easily underfed.”

You sat at the tiny table in his kitchen while he plated the food, and for a while, there was no war. No Thunderbolts. No mask. Just two people who had bled in the same world, eating a mediocre lunch in a sunlit apartment.

You didn’t bring up your powers. He didn’t ask why you hadn’t run yet. And maybe that was the point.

Later, when you tried to make toast and somehow still managed to smoke up the kitchen, Bucky handed you a fire extinguisher with zero emotion, like this was just what came with feeding you.

“You’re lucky you’re cute,” he muttered.

You winked. “Takes one to know one, soldier boy.”

That night, The apartment was quiet except for the soft hum of the fridge and the occasional chirp from Alpine as she pawed at the corner of the rug, her eyes flicking up toward you with feline judgment. You were sitting cross-legged on the couch, head tilted as you tried to figure out how to use the TV remote, muttering to yourself like the buttons had personally insulted you.

Bucky leaned against the doorway, watching from a distance, arms crossed and jaw tight. He hadn’t meant to stare this long. Honestly, he wasn’t even sure when he stopped pretending to fold laundry and just… stood there, staring at you like you were some damn puzzle he couldn’t solve.

You looked ridiculous. His shirt was too big on you, the sleeves half-rolled and the hem nearly touching your knees. Your hair was still damp from the shower you took that morning, and for some reason, you had clipped one of Alpine’s toy bells onto the collar like it was a fashion choice. Every time you shifted, it jingled softly.

He should’ve found it annoying. Should’ve been furious, really.

Because it had only been three weeks since you’d nearly destroyed his team. Since Ava’s shoulder got dislocated, since Alexei had to be half-carried into medbay, since Bob, sweet, soft-spoken Bob, couldn’t sleep for two nights straight because of whatever the hell you’d put in his head. 

He remembered the look on Yelena’s face when they got back to the Watchtower, all bruises and grit and no answers. He remembered the silence in the debriefing room, the shame curling in the pit of everyone’s stomach like smoke they couldn’t cough up.

And now? You were here. In his space. Wearing his clothes. Using his soap. Cooking horrible eggs. Curling up with his cat like you belonged.

He should’ve thrown you out the moment you passed out.

Instead, he kept checking your wounds, changing your bandages. He let you shower. Let you touch things. Let you stay.

God, he was such a hypocrite.

You laughed at something on the TV, loud and sudden. The kind of laugh that filled a space. Bucky flinched at the sound, not because it startled him, but because it did something else. Something worse.

It sounded real.

You weren’t acting like a fugitive. You weren’t hiding, or planning your next attack. You were… living. And somehow, that made it harder, because if you were a villain, he could hate you without question. If you were a monster, he could put a bullet through your head and call it justice.

But you weren’t. You were just this strange, beautiful, annoying thing that danced through their missions like it was a game and then cried in your sleep when you thought no one could hear. He had seen it. The sweat on your brow, the trembling in your hands, the little sparks of red flaring from your fingertips when the nightmares crawled in. He had sat there in the dark, watching from the armchair while you turned in his bed like something was chasing you, and it made him ache in a way he hated.

It didn’t matter. None of it did.

Because what were they supposed to do? Let you stay forever? Let you make pancakes with expired milk and wear his t-shirts and pretend like you hadn’t almost broken Sentry’s mind in half? Like you hadn’t called them out, him out, for everything he was trying to fix?

He couldn’t keep you hidden. He couldn’t keep this secret.

So Bucky pulled out his phone. Slowly. Like it weighed more than it should.

He stared at the screen for a long minute, thumb hovering over the contact. Walker. Ghost. Val. Hell, even Yelena. He could call any of them. Let them know. Tell them he had you. Tell them you were weak. Bleeding. Vulnerable. Easy.

One press. One word. He could end this.

Behind him, you had flopped onto your side, one arm dangling off the couch. Alpine had climbed on top of your legs, purring like a damn tractor. You were humming now. Off-key. Happy.

Bucky swallowed hard, eyes flicking back to the screen.

Then he tapped the message open and typed out five words.

I know where Bandit is.

He didn’t send it. Not yet. He looked back at you one more time. You were holding the remote upside down and arguing with it. He wanted to laugh. He wanted to scream.

Instead, he hit send. The message disappeared. And just like that, something in him did too.

The guilt crept in before the knock ever came. Before the comms even lit up. It settled into Bucky's chest like an old friend, unwelcome and familiar, tugging at the edges of every breath he took.

He couldn’t stop watching you.

You were crouched in front of Alpine now, trying to teach her how to shake hands. Your hair was tied up with one of his old shoelaces, and you kept making little “pspsps” sounds while tapping your knuckles on the floor like it was a ritual. The cat wasn’t cooperating. Alpine rarely did. But you didn’t seem to care. You were laughing, eyes scrunched up, voice soft and focused, like the world wasn’t shifting beneath your feet.

Like you didn’t feel the weight of betrayal crackling in the air.

Bucky turned away. He busied himself with pretending to clean the counter, wiping the same spot three times, heart knocking against his ribs like it wanted to break out and run.

He didn’t even hear you get up. He just heard your voice. Low. Calm.

“I liked it here.”

He froze.

You were behind him. Close. Too close.

He turned slowly, eyes meeting yours. You weren’t smiling anymore. Your hands were relaxed at your sides, but something buzzed beneath your skin, like your powers were pressing up against the surface, waiting.

“I liked the couch. The quiet. The cat.” You tilted your head, studying him. “I liked that you didn’t ask too many questions.” 

Bucky didn’t speak. You took a step closer, and the hum in the air changed. Faint red sparks curled around your fingers. Not threatening. Not yet.

“I really liked the shirt too,” you added softly. “Little tight in the shoulders, but soft.”

His throat worked, but nothing came out. Then, you looked at the counter. At the phone, at his face, and you knew. 

You didn’t need to read his mind. You never had to. You were just that damn good.

“Oh,” you said quietly, breath puffing out like a laugh that didn’t quite make it. “You told them.”

He opened his mouth. Closed it. You nodded once, more to yourself than to him. Your eyes flicked down to Alpine, still pawing at the air like she didn’t know the room was about to turn inside out.

“I figured,” you murmured. “Four days of kindness? That’s a record for you, right?”

The words hit harder than they should have. He clenched his jaw. “You don’t get to talk like you know me.”

“I don’t need to know you,” you said, eyes never leaving his. “I just needed to know the look you gave me when you brought me soup. Like you were trying to convince yourself I wasn’t real.”

You took another step. He didn’t move, and he couldn’t.

“And now you’re standing here like a man who’s waiting for backup. Like a man who regrets not locking the door.”

Then you smiled. Not your usual smirk, not the teasing kind. This one was tired, like you’d done this a million times before.

“You really think I didn’t hear the moment you made the message?” you whispered, voice just above a breath. “Your guilt's so loud, Barnes. It’s a wonder the walls haven’t cracked.”

He stepped back like he’d been slapped. Then, you did the thing that snapped the air clean in half. You reached out, slow, careful, and pressed two fingers to his chest, right over where his heart was beating too fast.

“You really think I’d stay in a place where I wasn’t already ten steps ahead?” Red light pulsed under your skin. “I came here because something told me to, but I’m staying because you made me want to.” You dropped your hand. “But now?”

You didn’t say the rest. You didn’t need to. The silence that followed was thick with everything you didn’t say. With the sound of sirens that hadn’t reached the building yet. With the weight of choices made too late.

And somewhere beneath it all, Bucky wanted to scream. Not at you. At himself. Because he knew then. He didn’t just betray you, he betrayed the only goddamn thing that had made him feel alive in years.

You turned toward the door without a word, hands clenched, your jaw set tight. The air shifted around you, that strange charge building like a slow breath held too long. One foot stepped forward, the other already following. You were halfway to the hall when Bucky said it.

“You could’ve said something.”

You stopped. It was not loud and sharp, but it dropped  enough like a weight between you, and it hit something deep. You turned slowly, your voice flat. “Said what, exactly?”

He stayed near the counter, arms crossed now, like he needed to hold himself together or else throw something. “That you were leaving. That you used me. That you planned it.”

“Oh, screw you,” you snapped, the words out before you could think better. “I didn’t use you. You let me in. I didn’t ask for that. I was bleeding and half-conscious, and your door just happened to be the only one my body dragged me to.”

“You knew exactly what you were doing,” Bucky shot back, stepping closer. “You show up out of nowhere, manipulate everyone around you, make me, hell, make me feel something, and now you’re walking out like none of it meant anything.”

“I didn’t ask to feel anything,” you bit out. “You think I came here to make friends? To play house with a man who’s still trying to remember which parts of him are real?”

Bucky flinched, but you were too far in now. The anger was old and bitter, and you’d held it too long. “You think I wanted this? That I wanted to laugh at your dumb voice when you play with your cat? That I wanted to know how you take your coffee or what it looks like when you fall asleep sitting up on the couch?”

He stared at you, unmoving, but his chest was rising fast, shoulders tight like he was ready to swing or scream. “I didn’t ask for this either,” he said through his teeth. “But it happened, and you stayed. Don’t act like that doesn’t mean something.”

“It doesn’t mean I’m safe,” you threw back. “It doesn’t mean I belong here.”

“Then why the hell did you come to me?” His voice cracked then, just a little, but he didn’t stop. “Why me, out of everyone? Why this apartment? Why my couch, my bed, my goddamn t-shirt?”

You didn’t answer right away. The silence stretched thin between you, full of all the things you wanted to say but couldn’t without bleeding.

Then you exhaled hard, bitter. “Because I knew you’d understand.”

Bucky blinked.

“I knew you’d understand what it feels like to be made into something you didn’t ask for. To be hated just for surviving. I thought—” Your voice caught, and you shook your head. “I thought maybe that meant something.”

For a moment, neither of you moved. Then, Bucky muttered under his breath, voice heavy. “So why are you still running?”

You laughed once, but it was empty. “Because the second I stop, they’ll put me in a cage.”

“I wouldn’t let them,” he said quickly, and you turned on him again.

“Oh, come on. You already did! You told them, Barnes. You made your choice. Don’t pretend you’re some kind of martyr now.”

“I didn’t call them for you,” he snapped, louder now. “I called them because you hurt people. Because you messed with Bob’s head so bad he couldn’t talk for a day. Because you played with Ava’s fears like they were cards in your pocket. You messed with my team.”

“They’re not your team!” you shouted. “They’re a bunch of broken toys with government stickers on them. You think I’m the villain? Look at what they do. What you do. You’ve all just been dressed up and rebranded, like that makes you better than me.”

You were breathing fast now. The red light under your skin pulsed, slow and dim but present. Bucky took one more step, and now you were face to face, the space between you crackling.

“You still haven’t told me what you want,” he said, voice low. “Why me? Why now?”

You stared at him, eyes flicking over his face like you could read something there, something honest. Then, finally, you said it. Quiet, but sure. “Because when I close my eyes, you’re the only thing that doesn’t burn.”

And that, for a moment, shut him up completely, but the damage was done. The argument wasn’t finished. It never would be. And neither of you could look away.

Then, Bucky broke the silence. “Then, come with me, please. This is not you.”

Your hands lifted slowly, fingers twitching in rhythm with the red crackle dancing along your palms. Your voice slipped into something lighter, more venomous. “You think because I spent a few nights in your apartment I’ve suddenly forgotten who I am?”

Bucky’s jaw clenched. “Don’t do this.”

“What exactly am I doing, James?” You took a slow step back, but it wasn’t retreat. It was preparation. “Reminding you that I’m not your responsibility? That I’m not your pet project? That I’m not going to become your redemption arc?”

He flinched like the words hit a nerve, which they did. You could feel it. His silence was weighted, all frustration and guilt packed behind clenched teeth.

Then he stepped forward, voice low but sharp. “You don’t have to pretend anymore. I know you’re scared.”

You laughed. Short. Bitter. “Scared? Of you? Of them?” You gestured vaguely in the air, like the ghosts of the Thunderbolts were standing in the hallway waiting for a dramatic entrance. “You don’t get it, do you? I’ve always been the monster under the bed. I don’t fear cages, I survive them.”

“And what, you think that’s all you’ll ever be?” Bucky shot back. “You think this mask you wear, this whole ‘bitch-ass villain’ routine, makes you untouchable?”

“It makes me safe,” you said. “People don’t try to love what they’re afraid of.”

He took another step, so close now that the air between you tensed. “Bullshit. You’re hiding. You’re hiding behind your powers, behind your trauma, behind that damn mask you wear even when there’s no one around to be afraid of you.”

Your fingers flared again, the red light building. “You want me to stop hiding?” you asked, stepping in so close your chest brushed his. “You want the real me, Barnes? You sure about that?”

He didn’t back down. “I want the one who made Alpine a nest out of his own hoodie. I want the one who got excited about a damn toaster. I want the one who—” He stopped himself, looked away for a second like the truth in his mouth was too heavy. “The one who asked for help without asking.”

Your throat tightened, but you didn’t let it show. You smiled instead. Wide, empty. “That version of me doesn’t exist.”

“That’s crap and you know it.”

Then, all at once, you shoved him. It wasn’t a blow meant to injure. It was just enough force to spark something. A release. A scream without sound.

He stumbled back a step, then launched forward. You met him halfway, powers humming to life in your hands, but you didn’t use them, not really. It was instinct more than attack. A swing blocked. A shove dodged. His hand grabbed your wrist, and yours gripped the collar of his shirt.

It wasn’t a fight to win. It was a fight to feel.

Breathless, tangled, a mess of boots scuffing on hardwood and breath ghosting close enough to blur the line between anger and something darker. You twisted free, threw a flicker of red across his arm, but he caught your other hand and pinned it against the wall.

“Stop fighting me,” he growled, eyes locked on yours.

“Why?” you hissed, heart pounding. “So you can hand me over with a clear conscience? So you can sleep better knowing you tried?”

“I’m not handing you over.”

You froze.

His grip loosened, but he didn’t let go. “Come with me. I’ll deal with Val, with Walker, with all of them. I’ll make sure you’re not locked away.”

“You really think they’ll listen to you?”

“I don’t care if they do.” He leaned in, forehead almost against yours. “I’m not letting them cage you. I swear it.”

Your voice cracked around the edges, not from pain but from pressure. “I can’t be what you want, Barnes.”

“Then just be real,” he said. “Even if that version of you sets the world on fire.”

- Watchtower, Thunderbolts* Headquarters - 

The briefing room had never felt more claustrophobic. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, faintly flickering like they were just as tired as the people sitting beneath them. The table was a battered slab of steel, peppered with coffee stains, old dents, and the ghost of a knife slash courtesy of Walker’s last tantrum. Everything smelled like burnt caffeine and old antiseptic, like this room never really aired out the missions it failed to forget.

Yelena shoved the door open with her hip and tossed her phone onto the table. She didn’t look at anyone as she dropped into her usual seat, legs crossed, one boot tapping against the leg of her chair.

“Barnes texted me,” she said flatly. “Just now.”

That got their attention.

Walker straightened from where he’d been leaning against the far wall, arms folded, scowling like that might summon answers faster. Red Guardian looked up from the ancient thermos he’d been glaring into for the past ten minutes. Ava appeared in the doorway a second later, wiping black grease from her gloves and glancing around like someone had called an emergency meeting she hadn’t approved of.

“What’d he say?” Bob asked quietly, already reaching for the phone.

Yelena pushed it toward him. On the screen: “Meet me. Midnight. Coordinates attached. Come prepared.”

The words hung in the air like fog. Blunt, and no signature. Just Bucky in his most Bucky form: sparse, serious, vague enough to make everyone nervous.

Ava let out a sharp breath through her nose. “Come prepared? What is this, a duel?”

“Midnight?” Alexei repeated, squinting at the screen. “Is ghost hour. Nothing good happens in midnight.” His accent thickened as he reached for the coordinates and plugged them into the projector on the wall. “Where is this, eh? Some forest? Swamp?”

“No,” Bob said as the map flickered to life. “It’s the old power plant. East sector. City’s been trying to tear it down for five years.”

The image settled into view: a sprawling husk of concrete and metal, fences rusted and torn, transformers collapsed like dying beasts. The main building was half-caved in, its windows dark holes. Everything about it screamed forgotten.

Walker leaned forward, arms braced on the table. “You think he dragged her there to finish it? Finally got the guts to do what the rest of us couldn’t?”

“Or maybe she dragged him,” Ava countered, arms crossed. “Maybe he’s not in control anymore.”

Yelena’s jaw ticked. “He’s not compromised. If he were, he wouldn’t have sent a location.”

“Unless she made him,” Ava said, raising a brow.

Alexei huffed, pacing to the corner of the room. “Bah, she twist minds. Turns strongest man into puddle.” He jabbed a finger at Bob, who had the decency to look sheepish. “Made you cry like baby in corner.”

“I wasn’t crying,” Bob mumbled, but it didn’t sound convincing.

“You were,” Walker confirmed.

Bob ignored them and went back to studying the map. “This place… if it’s a trap, it’s a good one. No power, no signal. Nearest responders are ten miles out.”

“That’s exactly why Bucky picked it,” Yelena said. “If this is his plan, it’s off the books. No outside interference.”

“Or he’s gone full Stockholm and she’s got him dancing around like a puppet,” Walker snapped. “And if that’s the case, we better be ready to put him down, too.”

Yelena stood slowly, her voice sharp. “You say that again, and I will put you down.”

A thick silence fell. The air felt heavier now, pressing into shoulders, settling like a storm waiting for the sky to break.

Ava cracked her neck. “So what’s the move?”

“We go,” Yelena said. “Gear up. Keep comms off. If it’s a trap, we deal with it. If it’s not…” She trailed off, and for the first time in a while, she looked uncertain. “We find out what the hell Barnes is really doing.”

Bob rose to his feet last, his gaze still fixed on the image on screen. The power plant loomed, silent and sunken. There were no answers in the dark, only the promise of confrontation.

The Bandit. Four weeks without a trace. No pings. No sightings. Not even a whisper across any of the channels they monitored, but none of them believed you had disappeared.

People like you didn’t vanish. Why? Because you went quiet before the storm.

The power plant loomed like the carcass of something that used to matter, steel ribs exposed, windows gaping, vines growing where glass used to be. The night was still, the kind of cold that crept under armor and made silence feel louder than any gunshot. Wind whispered through broken vents and rattled loose siding, like the place itself was holding its breath.

They arrived one by one, boots crunching against cracked asphalt, weapons slung, shoulders tight. Walker came in first, shield already drawn, his face pulled into a scowl like the wind had insulted his mother. Ava appeared next, half-phased through the side gate like a shadow with a grudge. Alexei and Bob weren’t far behind, the latter squinting at the sky like he wished it would give him a better excuse to turn around. Yelena came last, eyes sharp and chin high, a knife already in her hand even though she hadn’t spoken a word since stepping out of the van.

They found Bucky standing at the center of the yard, right where the main transformer used to be, half-buried under moss and rust. His arms were at his sides, fists clenched but not raised. He wasn’t pacing, wasn’t on edge. Just… still.

“Barnes,” Walker called out, tone already sour. “You gonna explain why the hell we’re meeting in a haunted scrapyard?”

Bucky didn’t answer right away. He let the silence stretch a little longer, long enough for discomfort to settle in their chests. Then he looked up, face unreadable under the low blue light of the half-moon, and said flatly, “She’s here.”

That got their attention. Bob stiffened. Yelena stepped forward. Walker’s hand tightened on the grip of his shield.

“She’s not armed,” Bucky added, before anyone could raise theirs. “She’s not here to fight.”

“Bullshit,” Ava said instantly. “That’s what she wants you to think.”

“She messed with your head again,” Walker said. “Didn’t she? Jesus, Barnes, tell me she didn’t crawl in and rewrite your loyalty.”

“She didn’t,” Bucky said, his voice cutting clean through the accusations. “I asked her to come.”

That landed like a slap. Yelena’s mouth opened, then closed again. Bob stared. Alexei mumbled something in Russian that definitely included a curse.

“You what?” Ava stepped forward, eyes narrowed, voice dropping low. “You invited her?”

Bucky didn’t flinch. “She came to me. Hurt, and alone. Not fighting, not running. She could’ve turned my brain inside out, and she didn’t. She could’ve killed me already, but she didn’t.”

“You think that means anything?” Walker snapped. “You want a parade because the walking red flag didn’t kill you in your sleep?”

“She’s not what we thought,” Bucky said, jaw tight now. “You’ve seen how she fights. If she wanted us dead, we would be.”

Alexei scoffed. “She did try.”

“She pulled punches,” Bucky replied. “You don’t believe me, fine. I don’t care. But you’re going to listen.”

Ava folded her arms. “This is insane.”

“No,” Bucky said. “What’s insane is we keep pretending this team works, that we’re all on the same page when we can’t even agree on who the real enemy is. She didn’t start this war. We did. We treated her like a monster from day one, and now she’s exactly what we made her.”

“She’s not innocent,” Yelena said quietly.

“No,” Bucky agreed. “But neither are we.”

The wind picked up again, sharp and sudden, rustling through the weeds. A door creaked somewhere in the dark. Bucky stepped back from the center of the group and nodded toward the empty space near the edge of the yard. “She’s going to speak. That’s all. You don’t have to like it. You just have to shut up long enough to hear it.”

Walker muttered under his breath. “This is so goddamn stupid.”

“She’s not touching your minds,” Bucky said, scanning their faces. “No powers. Just words. You wanted a chance to bring her in. This is it. You want justice? Listen to her first.”

Bob, quiet as ever, finally spoke. “And if we don’t like what she says?”

Bucky looked at him. “Then you can do whatever the hell you came here to do.”

No one moved. No one lowered their weapons, either. Trust, it seemed, was still a long way off.

Yelena stared at Bucky like she didn’t know him. “And you trust her?”

“I don’t trust anyone,” he said, voice steady. “But I’ve seen enough to know she deserves a voice.”

He took one step back, arms raised slightly like he was stepping out of the line of fire, and turned toward the broken stairwell that led into the plant’s shadowed heart. “She’s waiting.”

And behind them, far off in the dark, someone, something, moved. You were coming, and none of them were ready.

The shift in the air was subtle at first. Just the faintest stir of something not quite wind, something heavier than breeze and lighter than storm. Then the shadows near the broken stairwell curled, like fabric caught in water, and you stepped out from the dark.

You didn’t swagger, didn’t smirk, didn’t let your presence come with theatrics or flames. You walked like you’d been here before, wearing the mask,  like the world owed you the ground you stood on. The same dark red aura shimmered faintly around your hands, not flaring, not rising. Just pulsing like it knew everyone in the yard already had their weapons half-raised.

The team tensed as one. Ava’s fingers twitched. Bob blinked. Walker lifted his shield without being told. Even Alexei adjusted his stance like he wasn’t sure if this was going to turn into a fight or a funeral.

You didn’t flinch. Your voice, when it came, was low and clean, echoing against the rusted walls like it belonged there.

“I didn’t ask for a crowd,” you said flatly. “But I’m going to say this once, so listen close.”

Bucky stayed where he was, a few feet to your left, silent. You didn’t look at him.

“Back off from my life,” you said, louder now, each word landing like a stone in still water. “I don’t care what story they told you about me. I don’t care what version of me you built in your heads so you could feel righteous about hunting me down. You don’t know me.”

Yelena’s mouth twitched. Ava muttered something under her breath.

You stepped forward once, hands still at your sides, but your stance was anything but passive. “You want to know who I’ve killed?” you asked, tone steady. “Fine. I’ve killed people. I’ve ended lives. But every single one of them was someone who helped build the version of me that you’re all so scared of.”

Silence clung to the edges of the lot. The team didn't move. You let your words hang for a second, then filled the quiet.

“Men who chained me up and called it training. Women who made a living dissecting children like they were test subjects. People who signed off on war crimes and called it science. I didn’t kill innocents. I killed monsters in nice suits who thought no one would ever hold them accountable.”

You glanced at Ava. Then Yelena. Then Walker. “So tell me again,” you said slowly, “how you think you’re better than me.”

Walker opened his mouth to speak, but Bucky shifted just enough to stop him. You noticed. You didn’t thank him.

“This isn’t a redemption arc. I’m not standing here begging for forgiveness or trying to join your little squad of government leftovers,” you said. “I’m here because I’m tired of running. I’m tired of being painted as the villain just because I stopped hiding.”

The silence was thicker now, uncomfortable and raw. You took another breath, calmer, but your eyes stayed locked on the group in front of you. “I survived things most of you would lose your minds over. And instead of help, I got bullets. Instead of a chance, I got a hit list.”

Ava blinked, and for a flicker of a second, her face twitched like maybe, maybe, she felt it too.

You shook your head, almost disappointed. “I am not here to be your friend. I’m not here to be your ally, but I am not your fucking enemy either.”

You turned slightly, facing Bucky without fully looking at him. “I came because he asked me to. Because I thought maybe, just maybe, he was the only one of you not lying to himself.”

Then, finally, you let your voice fall quieter, but not softer. “But if any of you still think you can put me in a cage,” you said, “go ahead. Try.”

And you waited. The silence that followed your words stretched too long to be comfortable, too short to be thoughtful. It clung to the air like smog, and no one moved at first.

Then, finally, Walker scoffed. “Oh, that’s rich,” he muttered, taking a step forward like he just couldn’t keep the disdain in his bones any longer. “You come waltzing in here, mouth full of justifications and victim monologues, and you expect us to what? Nod along? Shake hands and say thank you for the trauma?”

He gestured with his shield, the motion jerky and full of heat. “You killed people. Government officials, agents, entire ops teams. I don’t care if they weren’t saints. They had families. You think your sad little backstory makes you special?”

Ava’s jaw was clenched. Her eyes never left you. “She’s lying,” she said quietly, almost like she was reminding herself. “It’s just another trick. That’s what she does. Gets in your head, twists the narrative. She did it to Bob.”

Yelena crossed her arms. “So what? We just forget Ghost spent two weeks in a med pod after your last stunt?” Her voice wasn’t loud, but it was sharp. “You think that’s something we can laugh about now?”

Alexei cracked his knuckles and stepped forward, voice low and firm. “In Russia, we do not negotiate with madwomen,” he said. “Especially not ones who disappear for weeks and come back smelling like trap.”

You tilted your head. “That’s oddly specific.”

He ignored the jab. “You talk good, yes. Very convincing. But words don’t erase what you did to Bob. He could have leveled this whole country when you snapped him.”

Still, Bob said nothing. He stood a few feet behind the others, silent, arms crossed, eyes on the cracked pavement. He hadn’t looked up once.

Walker turned to Bucky. “And you, what the hell were you thinking bringing her here? She could’ve killed you in your sleep. You know what she’s capable of.”

“She already did worse,” Ava said. “She got inside your head.”

“I asked you to trust me,” Bucky replied finally, voice tight but controlled. “That’s all. Just shut up and trust me.”

Walker threw his arms wide. “Trust? Barnes, are you serious? You went dark for five days and came back with her. That’s not trust. That’s a red flag waving on top of a nuclear warhead, dude!”

You didn’t flinch through any of it. You’d heard worse. You’d been called worse, but as the accusations flew, you could feel the thread starting to stretch thinner, snapping close to the edge.

Bucky’s jaw clenched as he looked back at them. “You think I’d bring her here if I didn’t believe there was something worth hearing?”

Yelena didn’t even blink. “Yes. Because you’re Bucky Barnes, and you think you can save everybody. Even the ones who broke everything first.”

Still, Bob said nothing. Not even a breath louder than the wind. And for the moment, it was clear. They didn’t believe you. The moment your mouth opened again, the tension in the air thickened like a thunderclap was waiting to drop.

“You know,” you started slowly, voice low and calm but lined with something that didn’t sit right, “it’s really funny that the team of former assassins and government toys are the ones talking about morality like you ever had it.”

Instant. Like flipping a switch. Every hand twitched toward a weapon. Yelena took half a step forward, hand hovering near the hilt of her knife. Ava’s body glitched for a second, already preparing to phase. Walker’s shield lifted automatically, his stance shifting wide like he had trained for this moment, hellbent on making it count. Even Alexei was ready, shoulders squared, eyes locked.

Bucky didn’t wait. His voice cracked through the rising noise, sharp and steady. “Back off. All of you.”

They paused. Just for a second. Then Walker said, “You hearing yourself right now?”

“I said back off,” Bucky repeated, stepping forward this time, placing himself between you and the rest. “No one moves. Not unless they want this to end the wrong way.”

Yelena narrowed her eyes. “You sound like him,” she said quietly. “Like Steve.” That landed hard. And she knew it would.

“You’re not Steve, Bucky,” she added, sharper now. “You’re not the guy with the speeches, and the trust-in-people bullshit. Just because she reminds you of what they did to you doesn’t mean she gets a pass.”

“You think this is about a pass?” he snapped, louder now. “You think I’m doing this because I feel sorry for her?”

He looked at all of them, really looked, and it was the first time they noticed how tired he was. Not physically. Something deeper. Like his patience had been peeled down to the bone.

“We’ve been chasing her like a ghost. Mission after mission, report after report, acting like this is some black-and-white crusade when none of us even know what the hell we’re fighting anymore.” He glanced at Bob, still silent in the background. “She broke Bob because the truth hurts. And none of us wanted to hear it. We’re not heroes, for God’s sake. We’re a patch job stitched together by people who don’t care if we live or die.”

Ava tensed, and Bucky held her stare. “I’m not saying she’s innocent. I’m saying you don’t get to decide what justice looks like when all you’ve ever done is follow orders like good little soldiers.”

“And what are you, then?” Walker shot back. “You’re defending her. That makes you part of the problem.”

“No,” Bucky said, calm now, too calm. “It means I’ve seen enough of the problem to know when it’s staring back at me.”

There was a beat of silence. Then, Yelena asked, her voice tight, “What are you saying, Bucky?”

He looked at each of them again. And this time, the line was clear.

“I’m saying leave. Walk away, because if you come for her again,” he said, voice like steel pulled tight, “you’re not just fighting her anymore.”

He stepped back, just enough to stand beside you.

“You’re fighting me.”

“You’ve lost your damn mind,” Walker said again, louder this time, his voice echoing off the exposed metal beams of the old power station. Dust drifted down from the ceiling, stirred by the vibration in his chest. “You think this is noble? This isn’t Rogers standing against the odds. This is you choosing her over the mission. Over us.”

Across the ruined floor, Ghost flickered like static, half-visible and humming with restrained energy. “She didn’t even deny it,” Ava said tightly, arms locked at her sides. “She ripped into us. She played with us like we were toys. You want to talk peace now?”

Alexei stood firm near the rear of the group, arms crossed and face shadowed in the flickering orange light cast by their headlights. “Barnes, you are making mistake,” Alexei muttered, low and sharp. “This woman? She is fire with no hearth. She will burn what is closest first.”

Bucky didn’t blink. He just stood there in front of you, unmoving, the cold breeze from the broken walls brushing at his back. His fists were loose at his sides, but his whole body was tight; shoulders squared, jaw set, like someone preparing to walk into a war they knew they’d lose.

Meanwhile, Yelena turned toward him slowly. She hadn’t moved since she’d arrived, but the tension in her neck said she was two breaths from lashing out. Her eyes were narrowed, not just with suspicion, but hurt. Like something in her trusted him once, and now it was being dragged across concrete.

“You’re not Steve,” she said finally. Her voice didn’t shake, but it cracked in all the wrong places. “I know you miss him, but don’t pretend like he’s here in this decision. Don’t act like she’s some lost soul you can pull from the fire. You don’t even know who she is.”

And all of them, in different stances, different expressions, worn-down, confused, furious, turned toward you.

The temperature in the room dipped. Your powers shimmered faintly at your fingertips again, dark red and whispering low like a song you didn’t remember writing. You tilted your head. Just a little. Just enough to test them.

That was all it took. Instinct took over. Uniforms straightened. Boots slid across the floor for better grip. Shields and weapons came up. All eyes locked on you.

You could’ve smirked. Could’ve flinched. But you didn’t. You stood like the still point in a turning world.

Then, Bob spoke. “I saw her.”

The tension in the air snapped, but no one moved.

Bob took a step forward. His face was unreadable, eyes dim but focused, the way only someone who’d spent time inside the minds of the broken could look. He didn’t raise his voice, didn’t posture like the rest.

“I was in her head,” he said. “That day. You think she scrambled my brain? Twisted me up? No. That’s not what happened.”

Ava shifted beside him, her eyes flicking between you both. “What do you mean, you were in her head?”

“She let me,” Bob said simply. “She didn’t force her way into mine. Not like that. It was more like… like she opened a door and left it there. On purpose.”

Walker scoffed under his breath. “And you think that’s a sign of innocence?”

“I think it’s a sign she wanted someone to see,” Bob replied, sharper now. “Not the power. Not the mask. Her.”

You swallowed, but didn’t speak.

“I saw what she remembers,” Bob continued, eyes on the ground for a moment. “The Void. That place where time doesn’t mean anything. Where your thoughts eat each other. She was stuck there. And the worst part?” He glanced up. “She chose it. To keep something worse inside. She locked herself in.”

“I saw the men she killed,” Bob went on. “The ones who built her like a machine. Who tore pieces from her mind so she’d forget who she was. I saw their faces. The ones who called it control. The ones who gave her orders.”

He looked at you again, and you looked right back. “She remembers them every night,” Bob said. “Not because she wants to. Because she has to. It’s all still there. What they did. Who they made her become.”

His voice dropped, and somehow, it hit harder than any scream. “She killed monsters,” he said. “Not innocents. She was one, and then she stopped. And the world punished her for it.”

The silence that followed wasn’t heavy. It was hollow. Like something sacred had been dropped.

Bob took another step back, folding his hands in front of him, head lowered slightly like he wasn’t asking for forgiveness, just patience. “She’s not evil,” he said again. “She’s just haunted.”

The words hung there, unmoving. You didn’t break the quiet. You let them feel it. Let them sit with it. And none of them could look you in the eye.

“No,” Walker said again, quieter now, but still defiant. “You don’t just get to say oops and move on. Not after what she did to us.”

“She didn’t say oops,” Bob replied, eyes steady. “She hasn’t said anything to make you forgive her. She doesn’t expect you to. But this?” He motioned to the team—all of them ready, armor scuffed, weapons charged, hearts pulled taut like bowstrings. “This isn’t justice. This is just chasing pain because we don’t know what else to do with it.”

Ava blinked hard, jaw flexing. Yelena looked down for a second, chewing on the inside of her cheek. Alexei exhaled loudly through his nose but said nothing. No one moved. Not yet.

Bob turned his gaze back to Bucky then, like he was done trying to argue with the rest. “Tell them, man. You brought us here. What do you want?”

Bucky hadn’t taken his eyes off the ground. His fists had unclenched. The anger had drained from his posture, but it hadn’t left him. It never really did. He finally looked up and stepped forward once.

“I want out,” he said simply. His voice didn’t tremble, but it was stripped bare. “I want out of this cycle where we call every threat a monster and never stop to ask who made them that way.”

He turned slowly to face the others. “You think I’m blind? That I don’t see what this is?” He pointed at you, then back at himself. “She’s me. Ten years ago. Broken and dangerous and already on the run from everything she could be. The only difference is someone gave me a second chance, and no one ever even gave her a breath.”

Walker scoffed, but Bucky cut him off with a look. “No, I’m done playing this game. If the cost of being on this team is hunting down people like her without asking and knowing why they’re running, then maybe I shouldn’t be on this team at all.”

Yelena shook her head, voice softer this time. “So that’s it? You just walk?”

“I didn’t say I’d walk,” Bucky said. “But I will leave if it means keeping her safe.” His voice turned steel again. “I’m not handing her over. I’m not letting anyone put her in a cage.”

A pause. Then, quieter: “Not when I know what it’s like.”

The words rang out and hit hard. Bob nodded once, then looked at the rest of the team. “It ends here,” he said, calm and certain. “We’re not dragging her back like a trophy. We’re not feeding another haunted weapon into another war.”

Yelena stared at you for a long, unreadable beat. Then, without a word, she stepped back. Ava followed slowly, her mouth drawn tight, eyes flicking toward Bucky, then toward you, before she finally sheathed her knives. Even Alexei muttered something under his breath in Russian and turned away.

Only Walker stayed planted. “Seriously?” he asked, voice rising. “You all just gonna—”

“Enough, Walke,r” Bob said, and this time the weight in his voice was enough to hush even Walker’s righteous fury.

Another beat passed. One more long moment of not-quite-trust, not-quite-peace. Then, Bucky turned to you, chest still rising and falling hard. “Let’s go,” he said. Not a question. A promise.

You didn’t say anything. You just nodded once and stepped to his side, your powers quiet now, breath steady. Together, you walked into the shadows.

- Seven Months Later - 

The morning was quiet in the way only the countryside could be, with wind weaving through the tall grass like it had nowhere else to be. Sunlight poured soft through the trees, pooling across the porch and bleeding into the open kitchen window, casting honeyed streaks across the hardwood floor. Birds were chirping lazily overhead, like even they weren’t in a rush.

Bucky stood barefoot by the sink, mug in one hand, the steam curling under his nose as he stared out through the window. You were outside already, barefoot in the grass, laughing softly as a few scrappy chickens danced around your feet. You were wearing one of his old shirts again, sleeves rolled halfway up your forearms, and pants too big for you, cinched at the waist with a worn belt that used to belong to someone he couldn’t remember anymore. 

You looked like you’d always belonged there. Like you’d been plucked out of some life that was never allowed to happen and dropped right here, in the one you made for yourselves.

He didn’t speak, and didn’t call your name. He just watched, because this, this quiet, simple morning, was the kind of moment Bucky Barnes thought he’d never live to see.

He used to think if he ever got a second chance, he’d waste it. That he wouldn’t know how to be a person again. Not after everything Hydra had carved out of him, but there you were, in the middle of a sun-washed field, feeding half-tamed chickens like you hadn’t nearly destroyed the world a year ago. Like you hadn’t walked into his life soaked in chaos and fire and made him look you in the eye and feel something again.

You turned your head toward the window then, maybe sensing the weight of his stare, and smiled like it didn’t scare you. Like you hadn’t seen the worst of him. You raised a hand and waved, still holding a scoop of feed, and Bucky’s chest tightened so sharply he had to exhale slowly just to let the air back in.

This life wasn’t perfect. The nightmares still came. The guilt still lingered. He still didn’t sleep some nights. But there was something about you, about your stubborn need to rebuild from ashes, that made him believe there might be a version of the future where he didn’t have to run anymore. Where healing didn’t mean pretending it never happened, but letting it matter and living anyway.

Maybe this wasn’t the life he was supposed to have, but damn it, it was the one he had now. And you were in it.

So he set his mug down and stepped outside, the porch groaning under his weight. The grass was cool beneath his feet as he crossed the yard toward you. You were crouched beside the fence, trying to coax a particularly moody hen into eating from your hand. You didn’t hear him approach until he was only a few steps away.

“You’re not supposed to be up this early,” he said quietly, hands in his pockets.

You looked up, eyes catching the morning light, and grinned. “You always say that, and yet, somehow, I keep waking up before you. Maybe it’s the farm air, or maybe our bed just really sucks.”

His lips twitched, just slightly. “It’s our bed,” he said. “Of course it sucks.”

You stood, brushing your hands on your thighs. “Well, tell that to Alpine. She’s claimed it as her personal throne.”

He took a step closer, then another.

And then he was right in front of you, the scent of sun-warmed grass and coffee still clinging to his skin. He reached up without thinking, brushing a smudge of feed from your cheek with his thumb. But his hand didn’t move away. Not yet. His fingers lingered there, tracing the softness of your jaw, the line of your face he’d only seen half-hidden for so long.

“You’ve got something here,” he said, voice low.

You blinked, confused. “What?”

He didn’t answer. He just leaned in and kissed you.

It wasn’t rushed. It wasn’t hungry. It was slow, and deep, and full of everything he didn’t know how to say. The kind of kiss that didn’t ask for anything but gave all of itself anyway. His hand cupped the side of your face like he was trying to memorize the shape of it, like maybe if he held on tight enough, the rest of the world would stay away.

You kissed him back with that same softness. That same quiet hope.

When you finally pulled back, his eyes stayed closed for a beat longer. Then he opened them and looked at you like he was still trying to believe you were real.

“I used to wonder what kind of life I would’ve had,” he murmured, almost to himself. “Back before everything. Before Hydra. Before the ice. I thought I’d lost any shot at something like this.”

You tilted your head, voice soft. “And now?”

He looked at you. At the field, at the morning sun, and at the ridiculous chickens still clucking around your feet.

“Now I think maybe I had to go through all of that,” he said quietly. “Just to find my way to you.”

[agoraphobialt]

Bist immer nur du.

John Price x Reader. c: a bit of angst, doubts/questions. Just a little something inspired of a song, hope yall like this tiny piece of my mind.

If someone ever had asked John about the happiest moment in his life he wouldn’t had answered the day he entered the military, not even his first day as a lieutenant and definitely not the day they told him he was now a Captain but when he met you.

You two are high school sweethearts, the kind people would think only exists in movies and in fairy tales but for him it was real, since the first day he saw you when your brother invited him over to his house to do a project.  Sweet thing a year and some months younger, with pretty eyes in which he swore he could see his future on.

You asked him what were the things that haunted him in the nights, the things that broke him down, but he didn’t want you to know. Maybe because he was scared or maybe because you were too good for him to drag you into the abysm in his mind.

He used to help with your homework, and you helped him become a better person even if you never noticed.

He stills remember when you moved in with him before he decided to join the military, he remembers too how you cried the night he told you he wasn’t going to college but that you should do it, and it still breaks his heart the way your eyes looked at him when you asked if he would come back to you.

He did, he always came back home to you.

You never told him that you were home alone all the time wondering what did you still meant for him? And he never told you that he always knew the kind of life he was signing for, that he knew there would be times when you two wouldn’t talk for weeks or months. How could he? There was still selfishness inside of him and you ended up paying for his sins.

But you have always been his home no matter the distance or the permanent silence on the other side of the bed.

When he is home, you can’t sleep as you usually do when he isn’t, but you never told him it was because you wanted to be there to wake him up from whatever nightmare he was having this time. You think he never knew but he often thinks about it.

He would make out most of the time the two of you have together, he likes to travel with you, showing you the other side of the world he knows, the places where death isn’t around the corner or waiting for you back in the hotel.

Your favourite city, the country you always wanted to visit, he want’s you to do all the things you told him back in school you feared never being able to do before you die.

You still ask him about what breaks him down, what kind of things haunt his dreams, but he no longer thinks about it. You are still alone at home, missing him and you wonder if you still mean something to him.

He knows it and he would do anything for you to never forget that you’re his home, one of the reasons of why he keeps his hands dirty to keep the world clean.

But there’s anything he can do, not when he already broke his promise of retire before the work can kill him, not when one day he comes home and finds you crying alone in your shared bedroom and not when you tell him you want the divorce.

Not because you don’t love him, you do, he is everything you had ever known but maybe it’s time for him to let go so you can have the family you’d always dreamed of while he can keep saving the world.

But you’re his world, the light of his life, and, if keeping you means doing more paperwork to be home more often, then, he already called Laswell and told her.

You’ll be his home forever.

And now you’re not home alone, you don’t wonder anymore if you still mean something to him and it’s been years since he stopped to think about the things that used to keep him awake at night.

He may not be a good man, but for you he’s always trying to be.

[blue-eye-samurai-analysis]

My thoughts on the (potential) Love Triangle between Taigen, Mizu and Akemi (part 2)

In Part 1 I wrote about how different series approached their Love Triangles and what were the results of those decisions. In this part I will be concentrating on the Blue Eye Samurai and I will try to answer the question: what kind of Love Triangle would make sense?

(Not a Triangle, but a great trio of friends - i like more scenes with this gang)

First, we need to come back to the source. I mean – why do we even NEED a Love Triangle in Blue Eye Samurai?

In my opinion we don’t. If I was responsible for the plot, then I would say we’ve already had a sufficient Love Triangle in season one, when Taigen was attracted to both Akemi and Mizu.

BUT the creators couldn’t contain themselves and in 2023 they admitted two things. Micheal Green suggested there MIGHT be a Mizu x Akemi kiss in season two and he said the phrase “we want a love triangle”.

Now, a lot of people read that and expected a full blown romance between Akemi and Mizu... but I believe they should slow down a bit. Because by “Love Triangle” creators can mean many things, they were never specific about it.

1# It could mean a threesome

To make that happen all three protagonists would have to WANT a threesome and I don’t see it coming. Besides, both in television and real life, threesome usually occurs when we have a fully established couple wanting to add a third person to the party (like the guy who created Wonder Woman and his wife), OR three people who are mature, quite open minded and fully conscious about their own sexuality. That’s not something I would say about ANY of the three main protagonist of Blue Eye Samurai.

My verdict for the threesome: Not very probable

2# It could mean one person liking two other people simultaneously, and having some sort of dilemma while choosing between them

This we’ve already seen in season one. Taigen was Akemi’s fiancé and he was determined to go to Edo to win her back, but at the same time he started to feel attracted to Mizu, but he didn’t really have time to ponder about it (which made perfect sense considering the timing). And while I can envision Taigen still pining over Akemi a little bit at the beginning of season two, I don’t ever see them getting back together. If they did, it would be a stupid decision from the creator’s side.

Akemi and Taigen genuinely liked each other at the beginning of season one, they were sweet with each together like giddy teenagers, but when they consummated their union, it completely disqualified their relationship in my eyes. I mean, what Akemi said during the act WAS pretty erotic, but apart from that there was no chemistry, no emotions afterwards, no kissing, nothing. Not one sign that it meant anything to them. That’s why I don’t see them coming back together, ever (check my post about Mirrors where I write more about it).

My verdict for Akemi and Taigen: Never Again!

So, how about Mizu liking both Taigen and Akemi?

We already know she feels attracted to Taigen to some extent, but for her to like Akemi in romantic sense? I don’t see it. I don’t see any legitimate REASON why Mizu could fall for Akemi. At least to fall deeply. In season one we have only two scenes which suggest that something might develop between the two of them.

First one is when Mizu looks at Akemi, while Akemi passes her in the palanquin.

It is unclear whether the look she gives Akemi means:

“What a beautiful girl, I’ve never seen anyone like her!”

Or…

“What a beautiful girl. Rich, feminine and NOT a half breed. Something I will NEVER be.”

It could be any of these options, depending how you interpret it, but the brothel conversation suggests option number two. Because that’s what Mizu says to Akemi:

“You could have anything you want.”

The trash part is not about Taigen, as many people think. Remember: Mizu ATE TRASH as a kid, so it is a reference to being poor and belonging to the lowest social class. And let’s not forget that Akemi is playing the prostitute in this scene and Mizu’s Mama was a prostitute. Mizu sees all of this, she realizes how DANGEROUS it was  for Akemi to do all of this stuff, and she sighs deeply.

The vibe I get here is the one of a really sad, more experienced woman who is genuinely concerned (and little annoyed) for her younger sister. I also think that’s why she tries to bring Akemi and Taigen back together at the end of the season – because she cares for both of them (though for each of them in a different way) and she believes they will be safer together, away from her and her vengeance quest.

Also, I think Mizu doesn't believe she has ANY real chances to be with Taigen or anyone for the matter, because she is "a demon with no feelings" who doesn't deserve do live (yup, I'm quoting Kpop Demon Hunters here, lol). That's why she looks so grim in this scene:

Mizu's expression be like: "Girl, any POWER I might have or not have over Taigen doesn't matter shit, because I'm a woman turned man, and an onryo, I have zero chance for a happy relationship with ANYONE!"

Second scene which suggests that Akemi and Mizu might be into each other is the moment when Akemi tells Mizu, that her blue eyes are beautiful.

And later she says that Mizu is not that scary, she’s just angry. So… theoretically Mizu could fall a little bit for Akemi, if Akemi looked at her with acceptance and admiration. But, then again, after MIKIO, I seriously don’t see Mizu being attracted to someone who only offered her SOME kindness. So… my opinion on the subject is that if Akemi x Mizu ever happens, then it would be one sided (from Akemi’s side).

My verdict for Mizu falling for Taigen: VERY probable.

My verdict for Mizu falling for Akemi: Perhaps, but I don’t see it happening.

And remember the Window Scene from episode four: Mizu saw a threesome and she only had a flashback of TAIGEN (check my post about Windows, where I get deeper into the subject).I believe that if creators really wanted to foreshadow Mizu’s bisexuality, they would do it in that scene.

Although – in my opinion – Akemi COULD be bisexual (or even lesbian) and I have a pretty good idea WHO could fall for her.

But let’s do this in order…    

3# It could mean TWO people liking ONE person.

Namely, Taigen and Akemi could BOTH fall for Mizu at some point (but Mizu will choose only one of them).

As for Taigen, I think it’s pretty obvious. He had a boner after the sparring session with Mizu, and that was when he still believed Mizu was a man. Now, all that’s left is for him to discover also her femininity and accept it.

I’ve already wrote plenty posts about why I believe Taigen and Mizu are going to be the endgame. Check out my opinion about: Taigen’s mum, Taigen going to London, the Duality of Taigen and Taigen reacting to Mizu’s sex reveal. I also strongly recommend THIS post by hauntingofhouses about Mikio and Taigen being narrative foils.

But, generally speaking, I believe Taigen and Mizu are the only combination which makes sense, because they make each other MORE (Mizu makes Taigen a better person, Taigen encourages Mizu to see beyond her revenge), they have a great chemistry (almost all of their intense scenes have a FIRE in the background – check my post about it) and they can have fun so naturally together, sparring and bickering like children.

Now, don’t get me wrong – I don’t think being Taigen’s traditional wife is going to be Mizu’s endgame. I think her main occupation will be something else (I will write a separate post about it), but she deserves a happy home she could come back to and that home will be Taigen.

As for Akemi…

This is getting pretty long, so I’m going to continue this in PART 3

[anghraine]

ROTJ ruled, as usual— it has more flaws than my beloved ESB for sure, and more than ANH, but the highs are so good and so rewarding in a way that never gets old.

One of my favorite parts this time around comes after Anakin tells Luke it's too late for him to ever go back (a belief explicitly shared by Palpatine, Yoda, and Obi-Wan, but not by Luke until that moment—and only for a little while). Luke withdrawing into "Then my father is truly dead" is always great, especially the shot of him in the lift, surrounded by taller men in Imperial uniforms with his shoulders and back rigidly straight and the warmth in his expression gone. But the thing that really makes it is not ending the scene with Luke disappearing, but letting that rejection linger by shifting to Anakin and just letting seconds tick by as he contemplates what's just happened.

He doesn't actually do much—just walks a few steps and reflects. His body language isn't overwhelmingly despondent or anything. Obviously we can't see his face. And yet we feel how hard that hit and how much he's dwelling on it. He's all but encouraged this response from Luke and yet it feels like it's really, truly sinking that this isn't at all what he wants from Luke.

He doesn't want Luke to call Palpatine (or anyone) master, I don't think; he just considers it inevitable, the only possibility other than Luke's death. And for Anakin, death above all is the thing to prevent.

Everything Anakin says is about things he or they must do, or what cannot be escaped, or destiny, but all of these things he says to Luke are ultimately about Not Getting Yourself Killed. There's no sense of choice beyond submission or destruction.

(Anakin does know he's done terrible things, clearly, but his takeaway from that understanding is that he's gone too far to turn back. That sense of powerlessness, the inability to make a choice that really means anything, pervades his characterization in ROTJ in particular.)

But I feel like, while he still feels powerless after Luke leaves, there's also this sense of a slow, half-buried epiphany. This isn't what he wants.

[imagineagreatadventure]

when i think of corporate greed i remember how the worker comp attorney for the insurance company told my mom's workers comp lawyer (bc they have known each other for years) that they were essentially waiting for her to die and that's why they didnt' pay her for months the amount she was owed

[muttsona]

i hope i die, you broke my heart