#make their own decisions and if you try to force their hand they will resist you even harder

[eupheme]

— show me the worst

bucky barnes x f!reader

rated m - 3.4k

tags: spoilers for the thunderbolts*, brief canon-divergence, bucky pov, angst, past reader death, revenge, grief and mourning, Bucky’s Trip Through The Void, allusions to smut, j gets loose on the lore (maybe bob could do this, we dunno), fix-it fic, happy ending

a/n: because I can’t resist a 100+ old man named james

He’s got more rooms to go. Close to ninety years worth of regrets, mistakes, and poor decisions. Knocking through each one in a way only the Winter Solider could.

But he can’t make it through this one.

Not without you.

It takes everything to keep up.

Not to get sucked into each room that’s plucked from his darkest nightmares. To resist the urge to give in to everything he’s worked so hard to move past.

Too-bright, under the false sun. Each detail thrown into sharp relief, as every moment that’s haunted him is replayed. Leaving his heart racing, a tight fist around his heart and lungs, as he crashed through to the next.

The next, the next, the next.

Moments he’s tried to atone for. Memories that aren’t his, not fully. Fragmented flashes from when his mind was not his own.

Bleeding out against the snow, the pain unbearable.

Those words, repeating - and for a moment, he fears they might still have a hold over him.

Longing, Rusted, Furnace, Daybreak-

But instead, he only watches another version of himself get lost. Eyes dimming, his mind locked away screaming. Pain blooming, where metal meet flesh.

His teeth grit, glass shattering as he barrels through the sterile walls of the examination room. Leaving his old self behind, tumbling head-long into another hell.

A smashed car against a tree.

A metal hand grasped around a throat.

The force of a shield as he catches it, thrown by a face he’ll never see again.

Wars he doesn’t quite remember. His bullets piercing flesh. Moments wiped away again and again, and only linger in fractions of seconds. Throwing him in the middle of each one, making him watch as each second is played out.

His eyes close, trying to keep his mind focused. Trusting what they had decided on. Ava’s idea - that maybe there was more. That they could find Yelena, that she must have had a reason for doing what she did.

It enough to keep him going. But only barely.

Each room forward means there’s one less in front of him. Working his way through a mansion of sprawling spaces, telling himself “one more” each time. Muttered out, as he draws upon all the good things he can remember.

Wakanda. Getting himself back. Steve. The team.

You.

And there’s a long moment as he falls into this one, where he thinks just maybe - he’s made it out.

The streets are familiar. His city - even if they’re so different now than when he was just a boy in Brooklyn.

There’s something wrong with it, though. As silent as ghosts, and nearly as still.

A sinking feeling as he realizes he’s not out.

As he realizes exactly where he was.

Caught on the rain that seeps into the sidewalk, darkening the concrete. An afternoon from years ago, the date forever stamped inside his mind.

There’d always been pieces of the Void inside , threatening to suffocate him. But this - this grief had nearly consumed him.

You had found him, soon after he had shed the skin of the Winter Solider. In that pocket of time between losing his best friend, and the road to making amends.

No more than a blink, in his long life. But you had lingered, your presence winding around something vital inside him. An ache that hasn’t eased in the three years that have passed.

The chance meeting at a coffee shop. The flick of your eyes - your smile - and he’d been smitten.

Enduring the ribbing from Sam, the days that followed wrapped in ‘what-if’s’. He’d drunk more coffee that week than he had in a long time.

Wishing, hoping, to cross paths again.

When you did, when you remembered - an afternoon together bleeding into dinner, dinner into later, the later dawning on a new morning - something had bloomed.

And when you started to fall, he fell harder.

Silently and thoroughly. Completely.

Unable to get enough of the peace you brought him. Seeing life through your eyes, though you never shied away from his nightmares. Leaning into them instead, a comforting presence in the darkness. Helping him endure the moments that lingered in his mind, ones he’s careened through today.

Evenings spent in. Lazy mornings, memorizing the brush of his fingers against your skin - the press of flesh and metal. The tug of your own, wound into shorn-short hair, in his starting over.

The feel of you beneath him, around him. Getting lost in you, with the snap of his hips - ragged, shared breath. His name, again and again.

He didn’t mind it so much, when you said it. Like it was something special. Strung out on a soft cry, and it felt like a song.

One that was cut short, far too soon.

He’d lost you on these very streets.

It should have been him.

That he knows.

It plays out before him, and he can’t look away. How they linger, at the edge of the crosswalk.

The way you spun to face him as you waited. Fingers still curled around his wrist - tucked with intent in the space between glove and jacket, warming metal. Head tipped up towards the rain that had just began to fall. Letting it patter against the flowers you insisted on carrying home.

“They’ll love this.” You had smiled.

He loved you.

Your expression morphed, as you jolted. A crack through the air he knew far too well. Red bloomed across the back of your sweater. Fingers slipping through his - but he had gotten lost.

Instincts kicking in. Everything narrowing down to the man running away. His legs moving on their own, chasing him down.

The crunch of his metal fist against flesh. A wail cut short - it had taken three men to pull Bucky off him. Leaving a mess, and a barely-there pulse.

Later, he found out it was the brother of a man he killed, when his mind was not his own. Someone he would have tried to make amends with.

The scene starts over.

The street empty, except for the pieces in play. Nothing to distract him - forcing him to watch every second of his shame.

He watches himself run.

Once, twice, three times.

You’ve always existed there, in his own Void. Frozen in time, caught in these last few minutes. The ones before, both fighting for their space inside his mind.

The heat of your blood on his palms when he found you after and the slip of tears disguised as rain, on nights that drag him into darkness.

Tripping back to the weeks and months before, on those days when he was trying to claw his way out.

Mornings spent in that little apartment, sunlight streaking in through the window.

Trying to remember how you felt in his arms.

But - he could now, couldn’t he?

Try to make things right, even in the smallest of ways.

He does something different then, than in all the rooms before.

Stopping. Watching. Reliving.

Touching.

Knees hitting the sidewalk, rain seeping into his jeans. Cradling you in his arms like he should have, back then.

A hand pressed against your back, trying to staunch the blood. The other gripped in yours, a tightness in his throat as the words rip free.

“I’m here. I’m here, I’m sorry-“

Knowing there’s nothing he can do, as the light in your eyes fade. As strung-tight muscles go limp, the hand half-way lifted to his face sagging down against his chest.

His apology drips onto your cheek, melding with the rain.

A heartbeat passes, before your crumpled body lifts - as the other Him returns. The light across the road turning green again.

You turn again and you smile, and it all but breaks his heart.

And this time - Bucky puts himself between you and the bullet.

Eyes closing, just as the gun fires.

A bullet rips through his skin, as the other Him pushes past - trapped in his rampage.

He expects to fade, like you had.

For his heartbeat to stop, but the pain only endures. Burning up inside him, until suddenly there’s hands against his chest.

Eyes opening to find yours. Clear and worried and confused, slipping up to his shoulders.

To his neck. A palm reaching to cradle his cheek.

He can’t help but lean into your touch. The cycle halted for a heartbeat, as you murmur his name in confusion.

Until the Him from then turns, ready to return to your side once more. Making a decision, in that split second before it all begins again.

“We have to get out of here, sweetheart.”

You come with him when he pulls you to your feet, and his breath catches. Alive. That loop now broken, as his arm winds protectively around you, herding you towards the line of brick buildings. The glass door that gives him a peek into the next.

The woman, and the chair.

You fingers lace through his, as he shoulders through the front door. The world tilts on its axis, as they’re thrown into the next.

And another thought hits him, as you cling on.

Pressed against his back, as he guides you through the dark room, the gritty aftermath. The edges of the rooms darkened with dregs of the shadow that washed over the city, threatening to drown them. Breaking down in front of Raynor, the repeated admissions of guilt - stuck in a loop.

That you might not want him, after this.

It staggers him, a boot sliding over tile, fingers clinging on tighter.

A moment passes before he decides - he could live with that.

As long as you made it out. As long as he could know you were out there, somewhere.

It would be enough.

The room loops once - his old voice hollow. Despondent, and even now he can remember how empty he had felt inside, once the red-hot anger had faded.

How a part of it still lingered.

“What‘s happening?” It’s breathed out, in this moment of respite. Caught in the scene before you.

Unable to help looking back through the doorway. The glass pane that’s frosted from this side, but he can still pick the spot out where you had laid against the sidewalk.

It takes him a moment to answer. Still unsure what he means to do, other than knowing he needed to get you out of there.

“They’re my memories.” He tells you, “We’re reliving them. But I don’t-”

A breath, as he adds, “I don’t know if this is real.”

Are you real? Will you leave him again, at the end of the line?

Your hand rises. Fingers tracing his cheek, pressing into the bristle of his jaw. A thumb smoothing across his lips.

“It feels real.”

The cracks inside him deepen. A ragged, exhaled breath, as you try to think back.

“I remember last night.” There’s a ghost of a smile - the night spent together flicking across his mind as well, “This morning, too, I think. We went to a farmers market.”

“We bought flowers.”

Tulips, to fill the window box in his apartment. Roses, just because. Their petals red - spilling across the sidewalk.

You nod at his addition, “Yeah. And we were walking home, when-”

A hand presses against your ribs. The phantom pain you’ve lived and relived a million times in his memories.

Something flickers across your expression.

“I don’t remember, after that.”

”You died.”

It comes out hollow. Broken, even to his own ears.

“I let you die, doll.”

Unable to meet your eyes, the soft name feeling like ash in his mouth. Wanting to shrug away from the palm that curls against his shoulder, but he’s spent so long without your touch.

“A bullet hit you. It was meant for me, and-”

And. And he finally took it. He was finally there when he should have been. By your side until your last breath.

He’s still desperately trying to change what happened. Please give me this, if nothing else.

“If I had known…” The words peter off into silence. A breath, as your eyes lift to his. Holding his gaze, so sure.

“I wouldn’t have changed anything. I would’ve wanted-”

“Stop.” His teeth grit, as he finally manages to yank away from your touch. Head twisting, so he doesn’t have to face you.

“I would’ve.” You insist, following. Circling around, like you had before.

“Why?” It’s hissed out. Anger bubbles again, guilt like acid in his chest.

Why would you want that? Why would anyone?

And you soften, at that. A small, sad smile.

“Don’t you know?”

It feels like he’s been struck again.

He does know.

It scares him, in a way nothing else quite has. Knowing where loving you could, would, did, go. How it would ruin him. How it did.

Undeserving, if nothing else.

Your expression falters with his silence. He catches your hand - warm in his, alive - as you start to step away.

“I know.” It comes out rough.

Another breath - a nod towards the door, as he adds, “It’s not gonna be pretty.”

There’s the flash of teeth, a real smile as the corners of your eyes crinkle, and for a moment - it’s like nothing has changed.

“Well, come on, then.” Your head tips towards the door.

“Show me your worst.”

And, with you by his side - he does.

Room, after room, after room again.

He does his best, to fill you in. The pieces you’ve missed over the years. How he ended up here, with you.

You watch now, as a past version tells Nakajima that it was him. His own eyes trained on the man that sits in the chair, explaining how he had no choice. Remembering how it felt, how that had stayed with him so long as well.

And he knows you get it now. That each room are his failures, spilled out. Another piece that darkens inside him. Visuals to the small moments he’s let slip in the night.

None of them doing justice to as it happens in real time. Played, and replayed.

“Let’s go.” Your voice slices through this memory of his, “We gotta meet your friends, right?”

He hesitates, for just a moment. Blue eyes searching, but you only tug harder on his arm.

“We can do this.”

And with you, he can.

More determined now than he was before. Leading you through them, eyes unseeing as they flick across the scenes in front of him. Searching for the hint of the next.

Breaking through glass, climbing through windows.

Getting turned around, as they start to shuffle. Backtracking. He almost loses you, once - feet stuttering to a stop as you watch his fist crush into Steve’s cheek, the shield long left on the floor. Torn - almost as if wanting to go to him - and it’s a feeling he understands too well.

“Come on, doll.”

A tug, and you’re following again. There’s tears against your cheeks, glinting off the grey-blue lighting of another HYDRA facility. Screams echoing off the walls as his mind is wrenched from him again.

Frozen in time. Lost. Awoken, and then erased once more.

Through the icy bite of Siberia, and then, finally - suddenly - into an attic.

Escaping his own void, thrown into another. Bucky can find his head here, as he takes his first full breath in a long time. Finding faces he knows, and that tight knot in his chest eases.

Others follow, spilling out of other doors. Quiet questions, acute observations.

“Can we leave?”

“What’s happening?

“This place is a mess.”

“Are you okay?”

“Who is that?”

The last two are directed at him. He answers with sarcasm, though there’s no bite. An arm curling back around, where you hover.

It’s enough that they pick up on it. Slowly piecing things together, as he waits. Jaw gritted, not about to lose you again. The words defensive, as he inches further in front of you.

“She’s mine.”

John’s eyes narrow first, a finger pointed in his direction.

“Why do you get to make things right?” It’s a thrown jab.

Yelena’s eyebrow arches, with her own pointed reply, “Some of us can still fix things.”

Before her eyes are turning his way. Searching, and he knows the question before she asks.

Another weight he’s carried as well.

“My sister?”

Bucky’s head shakes, “I didn’t see her. I wasn’t with her, when-”

Yelena nods. She hadn’t been, either. He wonders if those weeks - months - after, were ones she had revisited.

There’s a loud sigh then, as the last figure pushes into the room.

“And that is why Alexei has to do everything himself.”

He’s not alone, though. There’s a woman thrown over his shoulder, glossy red hair cut short. Dazed, eyes squinting as she takes in the room.

“What is this?”

The rasped-out words are barely out of her mouth, before arms are wrapping around. Forcibly tugging her from Alexei’s hold - a choked sound as Yelena embraces her sister, only staying upright on drilled-in instinct and an outreached arm from Ava.

“This is Shane's elite electronic Thunderbolts.” It’s answered proudly.

And then - there’s a second set around her. Something quiet slipping out, just for them.

“There’s countless days I regret. But nothing as much as when I lost you both.”

Eyes avert, giving them space. Your chest presses into his back - an arm snaking around, a hand flattened against his heart.

“Just-, how?” Yelena’s eyes are red-rimmed when she pulls back, against the swipe of blue. Her head turning, “Do you think you can pull them through?”

“I, I dunno-” Bob manages. A nervous, half-smile - glancing between you and Natalia, “I can-, I can try. I don’t even know if-“

It doesn’t matter how it works. Magic, cosmic forces - he’s seen more than he could ever explain.

Maybe he’s carried a piece of your soul inside his, all this time. Whatever it is, it’s hopefully enough.

Another question is offered, then. Finishing his sentence.

“How do we get out of here?”

Bob’s head shakes, “As far as I know, it's just infinite rooms.”

A moment passes, as they all think.

“Wait. You said this was the nicest room you found, and the others were much worse.” Yelena asks, “Right?”

A nod, “Yes.”

“Okay.” She smiles - a plan forming.

Bucky knows where this is going. You do, too. It’s close to how you both got out.

And your fingers lace through his once more, as you break through the next door together.

They find the worst room together. It mirrors ones in his memories. The sharp smell of cleaning agents and antiseptic. The too-white walls, and the hospital bed.

But these aren’t his.

Meeting instead The Void from the city. Pin-prick eyes that shoot their way. A raised hand before they can react - pinning them to cabinets, walls. The room whipping around them.

Bob left, to face the darkness alone.

Stuck hearing every fear thrown back at him.

That they don’t care. That he’s nothing.

Winding him tighter and tighter, until he finally snaps. Embracing what The Void wants, as a blow lands.

And then another. Another, another.

Ruthless, and not like the Bob they’ve come to know at all.

Bucky’s eyes are on you, his shoulders straining against the metal.

Yours are on Bob. Then, on his.

He can read your expression. The shake of your head, the pain in your eyes. The words slip from him - knowing, even more than you do.

“This isn’t right.”

It hits them all at the same time. Yelena and Alexei are already moving. Fighting - pushing the metal just enough so she can slip free, as the others follow.

Yelena’s arms wrap around Bob, trying to hold him back.

Then John. Ava. You. Bucky. Alexei. Nat.

It takes all of them to stop him.

Clinging on until his grief and anger fades. Assurances muttered in the quiet - that they’re there for him. Pulling back until they’re a pile on the floor, forming one unit in the tangle of limbs.

The darkness sinks back, slowly dissolving. As Bucky crushes you against his chest, fingers digging into Bob’s shirt.

They all know. Know what it’s like. That it doesn’t always have to be this way.

That he’s not alone.

That he never has to be, again.

Holding on until Bob understands.

And then, finally-

The darkness fades fully.

He’s holding you against the sidewalk once more.

So different than before - the sky above closing up. The void seeping back, until light pours over the city once again.

The destruction is still scattered from before, but the feel of you in his arms blots everything else out. This shared space, your heart thrumming beneath his palm.

Those words - the feelings you wrapped away from him, never getting the chance to utter - pour from you in a gasp, before becoming more sure.

Bucky’s head ducking, grown-long hair falling in a curtain around you as his mouth presses hungrily to yours. Silencing your love for the briefest of moments.

And then, under the sun - murmured against your lips-

He repeats them back.

thank you so much for reading and I hope you liked this! I loved this movie, and had so many thoughts and ideas about it (speaking of - how do we feel about maybe a little smutty reunion part 2? 👀)