#my nose is blocked too����🏼

[intrepidacious]

time after time [9]

series summary: After what starts out as a fairly normal mission, you find yourself stuck in a time loop. Which would already be bad enough in itself if it didn’t also mean having to watch Bucky die over and over again.

pairing: bucky barnes x f!reader

word count: 12.9k

chapter warnings: suicidal ideation in a time loop context; general angst; in many ways, this is a callback chapter but also a step forward; is exposition a warning? please note that my blog is rated 18+. minors dni. ageless/empty blogs will be blocked without warning.

a/n: i wasn't sure i was gonna post tonight until like an hour ago but hey, it's friday 13th and i'm feeling lucky 🫶🏼 we're in the home stretch now folks

series masterlist | main masterlist | read on ao3

nine: out of the past

Home smelled like dish soap and warm cookies.

From your childhood, you remembered that sweet scent wafting from the kitchen to every adjourning room until it knocked on the front door from the inside, welcoming you in its embrace. You never appreciated it as much as you should have, then; maybe children never did. But when the bad days found you, later, you recalled that smell, and it offered a bit of comfort to you, no matter how dismal your surroundings actually were.

At the Compound, smells didn’t linger. No matter how many trays were left out to cool, the air purifier kicked in way too soon and got rid of all sugary traces that tried to stick. It did break your heart a little, but you didn’t know enough about vents to try to mess with them.

The Tower was different, though; a lot of its functions hadn’t been overhauled since 2016, and because all FRIDAY systems were still getting regular service updates, it was simple enough to make minor adjustments to the rest of the set-up. Not that you were baking a lot these days. It was nice to think about it, though. To return from a grueling closing shift and let your nose guide your way home.

Today, it guided your way towards disaster, instead.

"Why are you trying to burn down my kitchen?"

"I got bored," Bucky said, reaching into the oven with his bare hand. You flung up your arms automatically before you realized it was the left one.

You quickly crossed them in front of your chest instead, squinting at the smoking tray. "What are you doing?"

"Making an offering," he muttered distractedly, slapping the crisp pastries with your only good dish towel. "What’s it look like."

You were going to kill him.

"Did your landlord take away your oven for safety reasons or why exactly aren’t these charcoals Made in Brooklyn?" You still hadn't changed the door codes, so you couldn't exactly accuse him of breaking in. It was deeply annoying. "Do you know what time it is?" you said instead.

"Twenty-two forty-five," he said, completely ignoring your first question and not really answering the second. "So you don’t want rugelach?"

"Love rugelach. Prefer them edible."

Maybe you could salvage this. It’d been a long day already, but you’d had quite a lot of coffee and a few minutes should suffice to stop most of the smoke, right?

Otherwise, it’d just linger.

You let out a sigh. "Gimme a sec."

"Could you not—"

With one swift, practiced move, you reached behind and pulled on the thread, teasing time backwards little by little. You watched Bucky return the cursed tray to the oven, his motions jerking, like an old tape that’d been rewound too many times. You found yourself moving into the hallway again, backwards, your shoes returning to your feet, your bag—

Your grip slipped, and you tumbled straight into the coatrack, pulling several hangers noisily down with you. Your ankle twisted with a cracking noise that made tears well up in your eyes.

Great. Just great. Exactly how you’d wanted your evening to go.

"What the hell are you doing?"

Grimacing, you glanced at the time on your phone. You’d barely made it back four minutes. You’d been aiming for six.

"Just take your damn rugelach out of the oven, idiot," you called out sharply.

They still smelled kind of burnt, but not as bad as before. Wincing, you threw your sneaker at the wall to gently roll your foot. It had already started swelling, but at least it didn’t seem broken.

With a relieved sigh, you wiped your cheeks and leaned against the wall to catch your breath. When you opened your eyes again, you flinched backwards, bumping your head.

Today was a dumpster fire.

"What?" you said through gritted teeth when Bucky kept staring at you with raised eyebrows. "This was your fault."

"I magically pushed you into the wall?"

"You just demonstrated your impeccable baking skills. Ow, fuck." Maybe you should just spend the night on the floor. It seemed like the best idea right now. "Why are you bored?"

You didn’t really expect him to answer, but it was the most interesting tidbit of your reset conversation, and you’d promised to share those things.

"Did I say that?" he asked, squatting in front of you. He looked tired as well. There was a long tear through his shirt that you hadn’t noticed earlier. "Why’d you keep your fall?"

"I didn’t keep it," you said disdainfully. "That was a one-time occasion. I overestimated how much energy I had left for my reset."

His frown deepened. "Does that happen a lot?"

"Sometimes," you shrugged. "It’s not like I have a floating health bar I can check every time, you know."

"Sounds impractical."

You huffed. "For once, I agree with you."

He had a pensive look on his face, and you didn’t know what to make of it. Finally, he blinked back into the present and held out his hand. "Come on, Twelve. You should go to bed."

You were too exhausted and aching to question any of it, then. The fact that in all this time since you were introduced, he’d never offered to help you before; or that this was the first time he’d given you that nickname. You didn’t want to ask when you did notice, afterwards, and you couldn’t come up with an explanation on your own until you got a little more used to his military speak, and you remembered what he’d said to Sam.

I’m keeping an eye on her.

You were the danger that was standing right in front of him, and he knew it. He made sure to keep reminding you of the fact that you weren’t to be trusted; that he was watching you.

Then, you remembered telling him about your longest jump backwards being eleven minutes, and you started resenting the nickname a little more. Because no matter which reason was the right one, deep down, you couldn’t fault him for thinking that you weren’t, could never, be good enough.

That was later, though. Right then, you just took his hand.

* * * * *

It doesn’t make any sense.

His hands are still wrapped around your wrists, a light pressure on your pulse. His touch is the only thing tethering you here, cold and warm fingers, and that look of his that you can’t even begin to describe.

I never hit the ground.

"What do you mean," you say quietly, barely a question. "I saw you fall. The loop reset."

That’s how it goes, no matter what else happens. No matter what you do.

"But it reset before I hit the ground," he interrupts your looping thoughts, and there it is again. That awful, useless hope in his eyes. "I don’t remember dying. It didn’t hurt."

You freeze, unable to look away from it. From him. "So, this past week, you always …"

Up until this moment, it hadn’t truly sunk in that Bucky becoming aware of the loops would also mean he’d recall dying; every aspect of it. The pain, the frenzy, the desperation.

Your unwillingness to witness his last moments any longer.

"Doesn’t matter now," you hear him say through a layer of fog and nausea, and how the fuck does he keep doing this? You crave getting that glimmer of optimism back, the sense that there’s another option to explore, a new angle to twist things around in your favor. "We found our loophole."

You blink several times. "What do you mean?"

"Think about it." His thumb swipes across your wrist, gently, and the band tingles. "No more pointless missions that put you and Sam in danger. No more wasting time on trying to save me when it never works out. I can reset us on my own terms."

It’s like something cracks inside you, releasing a cold rush of dread into your bloodstream. "No," you say, "no, that could’ve just been a glitch, we don’t know what’s going on. We have no control over any of this."

Bucky’s face hardens, the triumph that split his mouth into a grin only moments ago a distant memory. "You mean, you don’t."

"Didn’t you just tell me that suicidal behavior can’t be our solution?" you say, unable to hide the bitter edge in your voice.

"That’s different." He drops your hands, finally, as if he’s just noticing he’s been holding onto them this whole time. "You know it’s different."

You can recognize the self-loathing radiating off him all too easily. Useless.

"Forget it," you say, shaking your head. "I won’t let you."

"You won’t let me?" Somehow, he still sounds vaguely amused, and it’s making your blood boil. "Then what’s the alternative, we keep meandering around while I continue to get myself shot every day?"

"I don’t know! Let’s think about this for, like, five seconds."

"I’ve thought about it. And if my options both lead to the same result, anyways, I’d rather choose the one where I at least get somewhat of a say."

Your nails dig into your palms, a sharp, familiar pain. "So you want to, what, pick a time of day where you’re just calling it quits and you plummet to your death?"

"And why not?"

You let out a shrill sort of laugh. "What if it doesn’t work more than once?"

"And what if it does?"

Again, again, he looks at you and something in his gaze shatters. You hate this, and you hate yourself, but you’ve been here before. Hope is the thing that kills him.

"Right," he continues. "You’d rather we keep pretending that nothing’s wrong, like we don’t already know how this day is going to end."

"That’s not fair."

"Nothing about this is fair."

You notice it, then: the fury quietly burning behind his eyes; not with you, necessarily, though you wouldn’t blame him for that, either. No, this is a different kind of rage, one that simmers in the background and hides in the darkest corners, constantly rattling to be let out of its cage. His hands are balled into tight fists now, a single concession to this emotion. It doesn’t seem enough.

Now that you think about it, you wonder if you’ve ever actually seen Bucky Barnes angry.

Annoyed, yes. Frustrated. Pissed off. But those are surface feelings, bubbling up quickly, comparatively easy to live with; nothing like the raw anger that you’ve just caught a glimpse of.

That’s the kind of feeling that, when continually swallowed down, eats you up alive.

So you raise your chin, and you say, "Fight me."

He reflexively moves backwards. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me." You get up slowly, wiping some more blood from your nose. The band around your wrist is still tingling. "Or are you scared?"

In all those months you’ve known him, Bucky’s refused to spar with either of you, even though you know for a fact that Sam’s asked several times. He’s not even bothered to come up with a flimsy excuse, just stared blankly and said, "Nope."

"He knows I’d wipe the floor with him again," Sam’s told you in a whisper loud enough to be heard across the living room. If you recall correctly, that was the same night he found white cat hairs all over his bed and had to do laundry at midnight.

Now, Bucky watches you stretch, his gaze intense, calculating. "I don’t want to fight you," he says, but there’s some leftover edge to his voice; more than that, there’s curiosity.

"Bullshit," you reply lowly, tilting your head.

He unlaces his shoes and you smirk.

"Fine." He climbs into the ring, rolling his neck. "What do I get when I win?"

You circle each other on the mat, eyes never leaving each other’s faces. Bucky’s eyebrow is still raised in amusement, a silent challenge for you to make the first move.

"In your dreams, Barnes," you say, and then you do.

He sidesteps your first kicks as easily as a gust of wind, a grin twitching in the corner of his mouth when you follow them with a punch that’s aimed at his stomach but lands on his right arm without much force. The next one doesn’t even graze him, his movements too quick for you to do any damage.

Despite that, he lets you herd him to the other side of the ring, even though you feel it’s more him leading you. Like he’s waiting to see what you’re going to do and is left continually unsurprised. No matter the swirl of confused feelings in your gut, you want to wipe the increasingly smug look off his face.

"Come on, wolf boy," you huff as your foot hits empty space once more. "You’re not gonna hurt me."

His stance changes in a split second, and you barely manage to duck away from his first swing. He’s still holding himself back, you can tell, but the way he holds himself changes from casual defense to downright predatory. You swallow heavily.

"I wouldn’t be so sure about that," he says.

In one quick move he slaps your fist to the side again before his vibranium fingers curl around your neck. He doesn’t put any pressure on it, but your spine still goes rigid as he holds you there for a moment, his gaze slowly dropping down every inch of your body in a way that feels familiar. His thumb twitches with a flutter of your pulse.

He leans in until he hovers right next to your ear and your breath hitches. "And it’s White Wolf."

With a twist, you move out of his hold and aim another kick behind you. It’s not hard enough to hurt—honestly, you’re a little too distracted to put much force into it right now—but he does let go of you with a low chuckle.

Even after that, it’s useless. Every single move you try, Bucky seems to anticipate. It’s like he’s able to tell where you’re about to try to hit him before you even know it yourself.

"Your posture’s terrible," he remarks, blocking your foot again. It sends a jolt of a memory through you.

With the right training, you can use your own weight to your advantage in a fight.

You don’t think you’ve had the right training, exactly, but you’ve certainly never been in better physical shape in your life.

"Thanks," you say, and you think, what the hell.

You feign a punch down, and when he lowers his torso to follow your movement, you turn it into a wonky handstand, yelping as your momentum sends your legs flying forward quicker than anticipated. You feel one of them collide with Bucky’s back, and he huffs in surprise as he staggers, his arms wrapping around you like he’s not sure whether to stop your fall or get you off him. Either way, you both plummet over and into the mat.

There’s a groan from underneath you. "Y’alright, doll?"

"Great," you pant, untangling your legs from his neck but not moving off him quite yet. Instead, you lean forward and press his shoulders to the ground. "One—two—three, yay, I win!"

He gives a short, disbelieving snort of a laugh, and something hot rushes through you again.

The next moment, he flips you both over, catching one of your hands and pinning it to the mat while the other is pressed down by his elbow. Your head is spinning, Bucky’s grin wicked and so close to your face you can feel his breaths fan over your mouth.

"You were saying?"

Your brain short-circuits.

He seems to recognize something is off, because the naked glee in his eyes is slowly, gradually replaced with something else, something you can’t quite name because there’s not a single coherent thought left in your head. You’re acutely aware of the dried blood under your nose. Of a freckle next to his upper lip.

Inhale. Exhale.

And then—

"Am I interrupting something?"

Another rush of heat washes down your body as Bucky takes another couple of seconds to look at you, frowning, like he’s just remembering that you were fighting before all this. Then, he rolls off to the side.

"Go shower, Twelve."

And just like that, the moment has passed.

You push up to your elbows and watch as he ducks out of the ring without so much as another glance at you, an avalanche of your thoughts returning all at once. When you turn to look at Sam, his arms are crossed and his expression seems way too stern and cap-like for this time of day.

"A word?" he says when Bucky shoulders past him, and for some reason you feel like you’re in trouble.

* * *

You stay in the shower until the mirrors fog up and your fingers turn wrinkly, trying and failing to scrub away whatever just happened. It’s like you can still feel him only inches away from your face, hovering, searching. Almost as if he’s waiting for something.

I’m guessing you’ve tried the Groundhog Day option?

Fucking hell, you need to get a hold of yourself right now.

This … training session was a mistake, a miscalculation on your part. Maybe you’ve started losing your mind a little bit after the first couple dozen loops. Lesson learned: find another way to get Bucky to let out his well-earned ire.

One that doesn’t involve him on top of you.

Think you could handle my charm, Y/L/N?

You let the water hit that tense knot at the back of your neck and let out a long sigh. This iteration of today has barely even started and you’re ready to delete it from existence.

Of course, you realize, then, that won’t be quite so easy this time around.

There’s a certain numbness that, according to the heaps of time loop media you’ve consumed early on during all this, seems inevitable when you’re always, always the only person in the world to continually remember the things that happen. Maybe it’s even worse for you, since there once was a time where reversing uncomfortable situations was something you did on the regular. Looking back, those little corrections seem like a preamble for what you’re going through now. Today is a video tape that keeps skipping on the rewind, reliable only in its endless monotony.

It makes you stop considering the long-term consequences of your actions, since there never are any; everything is bound to repeat, with no regard to what you may have done or said that one time during loop number eighty-whatever. Who would remember, except you?

Or so you’ve thought.

The green band around your wrist catches the light and you stare at it for a long time. It shimmers in the steam of the shower, an almost beautiful sort of gleam to it, like it’s gleeful in reminding you of your latest disastrous mistake.

I’m getting Bucky out of this.

As usual, you didn’t do your job as well as you should’ve, and now you’re having to face the consequences of that.

Real stubborn fucking consequences with distractingly blue eyes, that are apparently intent on driving you batshit—

"What was that?"

"Nothing," you mumble, crossing your arms in front of your chest, tapping your fingers one by one. Bucky rolls his eyes for the twenty-eighth time in as many minutes.

Which you know for a fact, since you’ve not let him out of your sight once. Not as he’s rummaged through the fridge with his usual scowl, not as he’s channel-hopped through a couple of lackluster morning shows, not as he’s spent a couple of minutes playing with Alpine before she hopped off his lap to go do whatever cats do. You don’t particularly care today.

If he's so keen on dying, fine, that's his prerogative; but not yet. Not on your watch.

You just need to come up with another solution before he can do anything stupid.

"Are you gonna spend your whole day like this?" he asks, irritated. Good. He doesn’t have a monopoly on staring.

"Depends," you reply. "Got any plans this morning?"

Twenty-nine. That has to be some sort of record.

"Not if I'm gonna be trailed by an overeager barn owl."

"How dare you. And that's Miss Barn Owl to you." You're aiming for lucky number thirty, but no luck. Instead, he lets out a huff.

"I'm not gonna change my mind just because you're annoying, you know."

"When have you ever," you mumble. If only your useless mind could draw anything but a blank.

Endless loop. Saving each other. Threaten Loki. Blow yourselves up. Upon the wielder’s death, the timeline will—

"Twelve …"

You shake your head, your nails biting into your skin, and Bucky cuts himself off, a muscle in his jaw feathering.

Your gaze wanders. He's all sharp angles this morning in his gloves and the leather jacket, like he’s dressed in black armor concealing all the parts that should be gone, bruised, bloodied, broken. A mundane shield anyone else wouldn't even take conscious notice of, because this is just what he does.

Not lately, though. Not at home, not on Friday.

So how many weapons is he hiding right now?

"Okay, we are getting into Annabelle territory."

Out of the corner of your eye, it looks like Sam’s lost some of the ramrod Captain America energy he was radiating earlier. Bucky’s not told you what kind of words were exchanged, so you’re left to chalk it up to another TAG.

That doesn’t calm you even a little bit.

"How's your nose?" Sam asks, leaning against the back of Bucky’s couch.

"Mostly in shape, I think." You dab at your nostrils and it still hurts a little, but there’s no more blood. "How’s your speech?"

"Mostly in shape, I think," he echoes with a lopsided grin that unexpectedly stings.

Again, you can’t help but yearn for a timeline more permanent than this one. Every day Sam writes that speech, and every day he frets about the details for hours and you can’t tell him that he’s always going to end up smashing it. That’s not how this is supposed to go.

"Have I told you lately that I really appreciate you?" you tell him instead.

His eyebrows raise in mild amusement. "Did you take the good painkillers?"

"I’m serious," you protest, even though you may have. "You’re a good friend and a good cap, and you should be told more often."

Sam blinks, glancing at Bucky as if he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"Don’t look at me, bud," he replies. "She’s right."

There’s a couple of moments before Sam shakes his head. "Y’all are Looney Tunes today and I think it’s some sorta ploy, so I’m gonna finish this speech and you’re gonna leave."

"Are you kicking us out?" you ask.

"Yup."

"It’s our apartment," Bucky says.

"I don’t care. Shoo. Come back when you’re normal."

Bucky doesn’t move an inch, even as he has to hide a grin when Sam keeps shoving his shoulder, mumbling to himself about needing room to think, and you have an idea. A bad one, perhaps, but it might just work for your purposes.

"I know what we’re gonna do," you tell Bucky and get up from your couch, grabbing your bag.

"That so?"

You hum, pressing the button for the elevator. "But first, we’ll have to steal a car."

* * *

It’s odd to be back.

Everything about it feels wrong.

You used to know this place like the back of your hand and now it’s like you’re looking at it through fun mirrors, making the image all twisted. The Compound is both bigger and smaller than you remember, and the reality of it makes your heart twinge.

Rubble lines the driveway. You’re both silent as the borrowed car shakily bumps around the curve leading up to where the main building used to be. Your fingers drum a nervous rhythm against the dashboard as you look outside. The branches that used to hang low and cast a soft shade over your head now litter the ground.

New ones are already sprouting, though.

Time hasn’t stopped, not even for this battlefield, and that fact makes you feel better and worse at the same time.

Through the open window, the air smells like hot grass and cement. No one’s working today, of course, but the repair work’s been going slow, anyway. There are no new Avengers to house, and Pepper Potts has had more pressing things to do. You wonder if Morgan’s old enough to be in kindergarten yet.

The car slows until Bucky turns the engine off, parked next to a particularly large piece of debris. You take a deep breath before you trust your legs not to buckle underneath you when you climb outside.

The one and only other time you were here after it all happened, you were still amped up on morphine and grief and you barely felt anything at all at the sight of your home of almost five years lying in ruins. Now, you have to grind your teeth, hugging your arms around yourself in a sorry attempt at comfort.

You used to spend hours reading underneath that tree that’s been cleaved in half. If you squint, you could still point your gaze to where your windows would have been.

Yours.

"This feels strange."

You turn to look at Bucky and find him staring at a spot near the tree line, looking out at the lake.

"Yeah," you say, clearing your throat. "Me too."

The look that passes his face is one you haven’t seen in a while, oddly similar to the one you recall him giving you on your bathroom floor. It’s gone within seconds, but it leaves its trace.

The big hall that had housed the time machine is still mostly rubble, and you’re glad for it. You don’t know how Bruce ever managed to get the pieces out and make them work again; you don’t like thinking about it and you would bet Bucky doesn’t either.

You inhale your grief once more and let it out in one long, shaky exhale. Then, you roll your aching shoulders. "Alright," you tell yourself, lifting your chin up to blink against the bright July sun.

It should be autumn by now.

Every step towards the Campus ruins makes something coil inside your chest, something painful and hot and angry. Good, you think. That’s why you’ve come, after all.

"Remember that game Sam used to play?" you ask and your voice comes out both sharper and softer than you expect. "If you could go any place, any time?"

Bucky doesn’t answer immediately, and for one shocking moment you wonder whether you’d jumped away all of Sam’s terrible attempts of camaraderie.

"My ma used to say that home’s not really a place."

It’s a peace offering, you think, or maybe just his way of showing that he understands what you’re trying to say. Of course he does.

You bite the inside of your cheek harder. "Smart woman."

The site in the center of the former entry hall seems as good as any. No reinstalled roof that could cave your heads in, no loose cables lying around to fry certain jinxed super-soldiers to death.

"She was." Bucky stops a couple of steps behind you as you scan your surroundings for what you’re going to need. Luckily, whoever’s responsible for this part of the site isn’t as cleanly as the ULTIMATUM lab guys; everything’s been left right where someone was using it on Thursday. "So, what are we doing here, exactly?"

You blow the cement dust off a pair of slightly singed safety glasses and hand them to him. "Fuck shit up."

He stares at you. "Sorry?"

"Nope." You continue rummaging through the work tools that are lying about. "No more apologizing. That’s the point. We’re stuck in a damn time loop and absolutely nothing we do matters, so we’re going to fuck some shit up."

"Is this you telling me you’ve finally lost your marbles?"

You pull out a crowbar. "I’m telling you I’m furious and I need to break something, and I think you do, too."

He crosses his arms in front of his chest. "Yeah, I don’t think so."

"Come on, Barnes. You must’ve had the urge to just destroy something before." You swing your lever around for emphasis. "What’s the worst that could happen?"

You wince right after you say it, recalling the last time someone’s said that to the both of you. Bucky’s face stays blank, unreadable.

"Someone gets hurt," he says quietly, making it sound like a prediction. Haunted.

"No one’s gonna get hurt," you say, putting on a second pair of glasses. "Look around! No one here except us. And you know what—helmet." You adjust your hair and plop it onto your head. "See?"

"You look ridiculous," he says dryly.

"Thank you." Perhaps your appeal would be more effective if you weren’t already struggling to close the damn latch of your helmet. Unfortunately, your safety glasses are making everything fit a little funky, and you can’t seem to find the right—

"Geez, let me—just hold still for a sec."

You swallow and tilt your head up, trying not to look at his face when Bucky takes a step closer. His fingers brush the tips of your ears as he readjusts the damn goggles, trailing down to your chin. You suppress the urge to shiver when you realize he’s finally taken his gloves off again.

His touch is rough and light and way too close to your pulse point.

The helmet clicks into place and you shake yourself out of your stupor. You hold up your crowbar like a challenge.

"How about we make a game out of it?"

He deliberates, his mouth set in a thin line, slightly blurred by the polycarbonate. "What do you have in mind?"

"Pry of truth," you say. "You name the thing that gets your hackles up, you get to smash something. And you’re not allowed to say me."

"I don’t like that rule."

"That’s a shame. I’ll go first, then."

You narrow your eyes at an old glass bottle sitting on a bench next to the site. "I’ll never be able to listen to any song by the fucking All-American Rejects ever again."

The bottle smashes beautifully and a rush of adrenaline charges through your veins.

"Your turn, Buck."

You look over your shoulder and freeze for a moment, because he’s shrugged off his jacket, putting it on a work table nearby. Smart, you belatedly think, giving himself a bigger range of movement and you the opportunity to ignore his bare arms.

Get a damn grip.

You hold out the crowbar. "Time to get angry."

"You won’t like me angry." He takes it anyway, and you huff.

"Whether I like you or not has never stopped you before."

His jaw twitches. He mutters something to himself before the pry lightly hits the bench and the whole thing flies away. A startled laugh escapes you.

"Out loud, next time."

"My bad," Bucky says, throwing you the crowbar.

"You’re a cheat," you shake your head, pulling back for another swing. "I’m fucking sick of this weather."

More glass shatters when a bunch of tools and containers go flying off the work table with a couple of strikes.

"I already knew that."

"My bad."

There’s a moment where Bucky flashes a quick grin at you, but you recognize something ignite in him. He slams his vibranium fist into some of the brick stones piled up nearby and they fly into little pieces.

He flexes his fingers slowly, a lost look on his face. "Sometimes I can almost forget that this isn’t …"

You swallow, gripping your crowbar more tightly. "I want nothing more than to stop this loop for good, but it also terrifies me."

Crash. Tools and parts and leftover items smash on the rubble ground as you strike them over and over again, splinters flying off in all directions. You ignore the pain when they hit you, and the sounds of more things breaking behind your back, focused only on the next thing in front of you. Each small destruction that’s under your control.

When you’re done, your breaths come out fast and shallow, your anger at yourself, at your situation, escaping you in desperate pants. Because this is your worst secret yet, isn’t it? More terrible than any growing feelings and long-forgotten truths, this nagging fear of what’s next.

As terrible as the loop has been, it’s at least predictable. Who’s to say that what’s after isn’t worse than this one day? What of every other way the future could break your heart, kill those you care about, burn this world to the ground? If nothing else, Friday is the devil you know.

But you can’t stay; and you wouldn’t want to, anyway. That’s the contradiction you’re stuck in.

Your fingers are wrapped around the pry so tightly it hurts, and you force yourself to take a deep, shuddering breath. Then, you turn around, and your eyes widen.

Bucky’s moved farther away from you, as if to make sure not to put you in his path of destruction. In it, no stone’s been left unturned. Work tables are flipped, machines dented and cracked; the newly put-up drywall a couple of yards ahead has several cracks and holes running through it.

He’s a swirling storm of piled up fury and anguish, and you’re the sole witness to his wreckage. It’s quiet, in a way, with a finality to the brunt of each throw, each hit. Like he’s been waiting for this implicit permission to let go a very long time.

Slowly, the dust settles, leaving him alone at the center of it all, the only thing still standing among broken pieces.

"I keep—" he starts, his head still lowered, shaking. "I keep telling myself that I’m no longer the Winter Soldier, but I don’t think it’s true."

You don’t respond immediately; you’re not sure he’d want you to. Taking off your protective gear is a lot easier than putting it on, and you blink against the sun behind him. It leaves his face in shadows.

"What do you mean?"

"Look at me," he spits, every syllable ringing with despair.

"I am," you say quietly, and you are, you are, you are.

And right then, you feel yourself slip, because the truth is that seeing him like this doesn’t make you like him any less than you do seeing him with relaxed shoulders and sun spots across his chest. It’s just a moment or two before you catch yourself, but you’re sure that if he’d looked at you right then, he’d know.

He hesitates, his jaw tight. "I still hear his voice. I keep thinking like him, wanting to act like he would. What if I do? What if one day, I can’t control it?"

You clear your throat. "Can I say something?"

He nods.

"Of course you still have parts of him in you. It’s your past. You can’t get rid of that. That’s, unfortunately, not how it works." You take a couple of steps closer, your shoes dragging on the rubble. "But it doesn’t make you a bad person, either. It wasn’t your fault."

"I’m supposed to stay in control."

"Aren’t you?" you ask. "I mean, you hear the voice, but do you ever act on it?"

He meets your eyes, then, vehemently. "I would never do that."

You nod, not surprised in the slightest. "What does your therapist think?"

He scoffs. "Not much. He called it intrusive thoughts."

"Hm. That’s really concerning," you say, tilting your head. "You’re being a normal human."

Bucky frowns when you come to a stop in front of him, his eyes swimming with confusion.

"Everyone has those thoughts sometimes," you continue, holding up the crowbar again. "Like, I could hit myself with this. Or you. That doesn’t mean I’m gonna do it. Your thoughts just happen to have a particular flavor to them."

He grinds his teeth. "What if I like being him? When I have these thoughts, my mind is clear. Quiet. Focused. That’s why—"

"What?"

He shakes his head, looking behind you at the rubble surrounding you both. His shoulders deflate at the wasteland before him, and you desperately want to reach for him.

"You’re one of the good ones, Buck," you say, not moving an inch. "Despite your past. Because of your past. It doesn’t make you any less …" Loveable. "You know that, right?"

A beat passes.

"Keep remindin’ me and I might." He clears his throat. "Your turn, Twelve."

It still stings, unexpectedly so. You half-heartedly throw the pry at a couple of bricks, missing by a mile and not caring one bit. You’re out of anger for now.

"I really hate it when you call me that," you admit.

"Why?" he asks, the surprise in his voice genuine.

"Because it makes me … you know how I feel about my powers. It’s like you’re reminding me how I’m not good enough, every time you say that."

Bucky’s gaze on you burns in your neck. "That’s what you think?"

"What else am I supposed to think?" you ask, rolling your eyes. "You said you wanted to keep an eye on me, back when—”

"I think you’re better than you’re telling yourself."

You twist your rings around your fingers, one by one. The space on your pinkie is still empty. "No, I’m not."

"Yes. You are." His boots crunch as he takes a step closer. "You told me eleven minutes on your best days? That’s bullshit."

"It’s not," you huff.

"Remember Marylebone? How much did you jump then?"

London seems like years ago, with July getting stuck. It was another extraction mission, and it went well enough—if you ignored Redwing getting shot to bits, that is. Which you usually did.

"Maybe three minutes," you mumble. Not exactly a span of time to write home about.

"But how many times did you do that?" Bucky insists. "How many times did you hold time still during that?"

Your skin prickles. "That’s different—”

"Not really. Not according to your rings, it’s not. They’re just different aspects of your powers. Also, you made a fucking time loop out of nothing."

"One that I have no control over, remember?"

"Not yet."

You shake your head, pulling your arms around yourself. "How did this turn into you giving me a pep talk?"

"You’re …" He sighs and drags a hand through his hair. Little pieces of dust get stuck in it, and you find yourself wanting to brush them out.

"Likewise." How could he be so positive about all the things you disliked about yourself most while not doing the same for himself?

Bucky picks up another brick from the pile next to you, weighing it in his hand, and something about the movement catches your eye, the sunlight just so that …

"Wait!" you say.

He freezes.

You drop to your knees and start digging through the rubble, pushing the bricks aside and ignoring the cuts you get on your hands until—

"Holy shit," you whisper.

"What’s that?"

It’s stuck underneath a pile of debris, the accumulation of nearly two years of being stuck and forgotten, but somehow, it’s still here. Covered in dirt and a little tattered at the edges when you finally manage to pull it out, but still.

"That’s my invisibility cape."

"You have an invisibility cape?"

"Had," you correct, inspecting it more closely. "I didn’t know it survived."

"For the love of—d’you think you might’ve mentioned this before?"

"I didn’t think it was important."

"Twe—" He pinches his nose with two fingers and lets out a long, slow breath. "Does it still work?"

"I don’t know."

"Well, go on then."

You flap it a few times to get the worst of the dust off, then pull it over your head and watch your body disappear. It’s as much of a journey to the past as you’ve managed throughout this loop, and an incredulous giggle escapes you.

Bucky has a peculiar look on his face as he looks just to the right of where you are.

"You trust me, right?" he says pensively.

It occurs to you that he’s never asked you that before, and so you nod even though he can’t see. "I trust you."

"I have an idea."

* * *

"For the record, I hate your ideas."

"Noted," Bucky replies out of the corner of his mouth, tucking his cap deeper into his face.

You nervously tap your foot, peering at the building on the other side of the street. Bleecker Street isn’t all that busy at this time of day, and even though you're fully hidden by your cape, you can’t help but wish for more of a crowd to hide in. You reach for the amulet around your neck.

"What if something goes wrong?" you murmur.

"It won’t," he says calmly. "You said Sam’s already tried and no one’s there today. Plus, we have more or less infinite tries for this, remember?"

You do, unfortunately. Even though you’d really prefer a better, more elaborate plan to break into the New York Sanctum in much the same way as you did the public library, you don’t think they have a Supreme burglar alarm or anything of the sort. Picking the front door lock, it is.

Annoyingly, Bucky even knows you well enough to understand you don’t want to be seen within a hundred yards of any time wizard territory; hence, the game-changing cape.

You wish you’d kept the damn thing in the dirt.

"You don’t know what they’re capable of," you say quietly.

"True, I don’t. But you do." He waits for a couple of people to pass by before risking a glance in your general direction. "Come on. I would never let anything happen to you in there."

You hate these sunglasses. They make it impossible to tell how he means that.

Before you can voice another reason why you should better head back and go get ice cream somewhere, Bucky’s already moving across the street. Cursing under your breath, you rush to follow him, bumping against his arm to make your presence known.

The tiniest grin flickers in the corner of his mouth, and for a moment you enjoy getting to stare at it without him noticing. Then, you take another step and the air around you changes.

If there was any kind of active warning system, you can pinpoint the exact moment it would have alerted. It’s like you’re entering an invisible bubble that surrounds the building, the air growing just a fraction colder. It’s not the temperature that makes you shiver, though.

Magic hums within the very walls of the house. This energy is different to what you remember, but still similar enough you have to bite your cheek hard to keep concentrating on the task at hand.

You swallow down the bile in your mouth and turn your back on the heavy oak door to make sure no one notices that Bucky isn’t, in fact, struggling with a key but instead breaking and entering in broad daylight.

I knew you’d be back, a voice just behind your shoulder seems to whisper, and you flinch. All those years, and still …

Finally, you hear a quiet click and the door creaks open.

"You with me?" Bucky mutters.

Your nails dig into the palms of your hands. "Let’s do this."

177A Bleecker Street is quite a lot bigger on the inside. In many ways, it looks just as you expected, solemn and intricate, all wooden paneling and marble floors that block the sounds from the street outside. Heavy couches sit along the far walls, framed by doorways. A gigantic staircase leads to the upper floors, spreading out into a gallery.

However, something about it feels … unexpected. The energy you’ve already noticed outside is sparkling like electricity, like a fuse ready to be lit, like fireworks waiting to explode, unprecedented and ever changing. Alive.

For some reason, it’s not all that scary.

Pure magic fills your lungs with every breath, and yet it’s just a house. Dust particles are dancing in the blurry light. Your shoes squeak a little on the stone floors.

Bucky takes off his sunglasses, blinking to readjust to the dim light in here. He takes stock of his surroundings much more quickly than you do, zeroing in on the upper levels.

You hold your hood with one hand as you crane your neck. From your position hovering just behind him in the entrance, you can make out the shapes of a few large shelves.

Bingo.

You’ve agreed that despite Strange’s flakiness, he’s already shown you the books most relevant to your situation that the Sanctum library has to offer. Therefore, if not a reading room, you’re looking for any other magical items that might give you a helping hand, maybe some sort of power boost.

To be honest, you’re hoping for a portal to simply step through and finally leave this day behind for good, but you’d settle for a clue.

Bucky’s fingers twitch ever so slightly by his side. Without thinking, you reach out and wrap your pinkie around his. He doesn’t look at you, but he gently squeezes your finger before pulling away, putting his hands back into his jacket pockets.

He left his gloves in the stolen car.

The stairs creak when you sneak up behind him, but the house remains silent. There’s only the omnipresent hum of electric magic, which gets even stronger when you get closer to the shelves you’ve spotted. It’s calling out to you, but not in the way it did outside; this is a softer whisper, more alluring, more curious. Could it be? it says. I’ve waited so long.

You find yourself trailing off, moving a few paces towards the far wall, your heart pounding a wild rhythm. The shelves are made of glass-paneled dark wood, arranged in a spiral pattern. Their contents look rather unassuming in the pale sunlight falling in from the large circular window, museum-like if not for the absence of proper labeling: a couple of old daggers and wands, dull gemstones, shards of pottery, all carefully bedded on crimson velvet and then left for dust.

None of it screams Gateway Out of Here.

Maybe, you think, you could try to hold a few of these gems in your hand and see what happens, do a couple of gestures to coax your powers back. If only there was one of those rings that—

Behind you, shots are fired, and then something heavy crashes to the floor with a resounding shatter. The thrall breaks.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, to think you’d be safe just because you couldn’t be seen. To think that Bucky would be fine waltzing into a place like this without any real protection, just because you’ve been led to assume it’d be abandoned. You’ve stepped right into the trap, and it’s snapped shut immediately.

You spin around, your hands flying up automatically as if there’s a damn thing you can do.

Time doesn’t freeze, but you wish it would.

Bucky’s tangled in a web of rust-colored twines that curl around his arms, his torso, his neck, cutting off his air flow. His gaze is wild, flitting around the room, searching for you even in your invisibility, a silent command in his eyes: Run.

His gun’s dropped to the floor at his feet, right underneath the tendrils winding their way up his struggling legs. You fall towards it, reaching out right as you’re yanked backwards and the eldritch magic catches hold of you, too. Their otherworldly glow makes shadows dance across the dark shelves, ghostly and distorted.

"I suggest you show your face now," a voice says right behind you.

You can tell the hood is ripped off your head because Bucky throws himself against his bindings again. They tighten even more around him, and he chokes, his eyes still glued to you.

He does it again.

"Please don’t," you cry, "not like this, please stop it!" You’re not even sure who you’re pleading to, your fingers twitching, but there’s nothing you can reach out to, the magic in this place forsaking you again.

"You," the voice behind you says sharply.

Any moment, you should wake up. Wake up. Wake up.

You’re slung backwards and you scream because you can’t see Bucky anymore, can’t do anything except hang there, helpless, eye to eye with the Sorcerer Supreme.

"Zealot," he says, venom in every syllable. "I thought you’d died."

"I’m not," you gasp, the very word stinging. "Please, you need to let go of him."

"I don’t think so. I ought to banish you to the Dark Dimension like the rest of you."

The magic around you starts spinning, surrounding you in a dizzying blur of orange and gold. Your blood rushes in your ears as you feel something pull at your very consciousness, harsh and terrifying, and you’re not waking up, you have to wake up, you—

"We’re facing an Incursion!" you shout, hoping anyone can hear you over the mad cacophony of energy. "Please, there’s no time, call Stephen Strange!"

And then, with a final sputter of color, everything goes black.

* * *

The last time you woke with the smell of Sanctum magic in your lungs was the day Thanos snapped.

Wait. Rewind for context.

Your mother used to call it a gift, but for most of your life, your powers had felt more like a curse.

Sure, they had their uses, sometimes, but at what cost? Most of the time, you couldn’t control them, so when you got older, you tried to hide them instead, as best as you could, to pretend they weren’t there at all. You just wanted to be normal.

But your powers didn’t like that.

Ignorance was a vicious circle: The more you tried to suppress the magic coursing through your blood, the more unpredictable it became, flinging you through the timeline without any regard to your sanity. It was a struggle to control even a fraction of what was happening to you.

You knew you needed help.

The London Sanctum was the only one you were aware of, then, the one safe haven for people who were struggling with things beyond their control. Your mother had told you about it many times.

One can never be too wary of their promises, though, honey, she’d close the story every time. They like to forget them when it’s more convenient.

You never asked how she knew so much about the Sanctum and its inhabitants. Mothers just know things when you’re a child.

Maybe you should’ve listened to her warning more closely, but you were young and overwhelmed and out of options, and so you left familiar faces behind and traded them for a silver lining. For the hope of finally controlling this power that was set on destroying your life.

Time itself.

That first day, you were sitting in the Sanctum's courtyard, looking at the other recruits with wide eyes, to the glimmering portals that, they told you, could bring you to the other side of the world in a single step. For the first time in your life, you were surrounded by magic; it wasn't just your secret burden to bear, it was all around you.

Like an offering, they brought the stone to you that day, suspicion clear in their eyes, and you trembled in your bones knowing that everything would finally be fixed, now. Surely, everything would be fixed. You could feel the energies pulsating from that unassuming little gem, mixing with your own powers, sending apprehensive shivers down your spine.

Yes, you thought, stepping closer to it with your hand outstretched. You can fix this.

It was the one and only time you could recall not remembering anything at all.

You'd lost a few seconds at most, but when you blinked back into consciousness, your head was pounding and the time stone had been snatched away from you once again, safe in its golden cage. You'd never see it again.

How peculiar, you caught a whisper, then another, like voices born out of every nightmare you'd ever had, and you tried jumping back to find out what you'd missed, but your powers didn't obey you.

You let yourself get soothed by the empty promises you'd been warned of, but magic would never seem that light or gentle to you again as it did during that first afternoon.

For a while, things got better anyway.

You studied with the Masters of the Mystic Arts while they studied you. They provided you with all sorts of amulets and cuffs that kept the random jumps under control, but they either couldn’t figure out how your powers came to possess you, of all people, or they just didn’t want to tell you.

Time is sacred, they used to teach, and your very existence went against that premise. You were unpredictable, a variable that could never fit into their precious calculations and theories of the grand, sacred timeline, no matter how hard they tried. You found yourself using your powers even less than before, just to stop them from talking over you.

Impossible girl, the Ancient One used to call you, and you hated it.

Of course, she wasn’t making a reference. She just thought you impossible, along with everyone else.

You went along with it for a couple of months or so before you got tired of trying to do something, anything, and you wanted to go home. That was when things shifted.

You’re not a prisoner, they kept telling you, and it was true, in a way. The doors were always open, and your cuffs weren’t shackles. There were just certain rules to learning, particularly in these important early stages of the process. Rules to who goes where, and what to do, and what to wear at every hour of every day, and also the food all tasted the same, like sad mash of whatever vegetables they were able to find that week, but no. You weren’t a prisoner.

That was just life, here, and everyone else seemed fine with it, so what was your problem, exactly?

You were tired and terrified, and everyone told you that there was something about you that just didn’t make sense, which you could’ve told them from the start if only someone listened to you. Everything seemed pointless.

It was no wonder, then, that when Kaecilius and his band of lunatics offered to take you under their wing, to give you a cause and a reason to use your powers, you thought your luck might finally turn.

You’re such a special girl, they’d tell you. Such a special, clever girl. This is a great thing, you know. It’s your talent to make things right, make them the way they should be. You, my dear, are invaluable.

If it sounded too good to be true, that’s because it was.

Kaecililus’ definition of help, it turned out, meant subjugation; or at least the attempt of it. Do as I tell you. For once, your strangling limits turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

What a disappointment you are.

There were no grand speeches. No fanfare, no declaring you a nuisance; you felt the sentiment, anyway. The special, clever girl was a useless waste of time, after all, and was left behind as such. Never good enough. Not deserving of everlasting life.

Not that you wanted any part of that.

You faded back into oblivion again, unable to leave and unable to stay, stuck somewhere in between in the background where you were met with endless whispers and suspicion, doing your part and eating your mush without complaint. What else were you to do? People didn’t leave this place, after all, not before they understood what they came here to find.

Unless they suddenly started applying to your situation, you were fantastically uninterested in any more lectures.

It took a very long time for you to figure out that you could limit the random time jumps by using your powers as much as you could, small skips and halts to the point of exhaustion. If there was nothing left to use, you reasoned, your body couldn’t act without permission. Slowly, you were able to return their trinkets one by one until the only piece you had left was the one you’d brought from home; silver and black tourmaline. Putting it on again was a small relief.

You were still in London when the world was decimated.

The air was heavy and burnt with dust. It was all that was left of so many. The cries of those left behind dried up quickly, leaving a deafening silence in their wake. That was the part you most remembered in years to come: the smell, and the silence.

You were ready to disappear, too, and when whatever fate there was decided to spare you, you took matters into your own hands. The confusion and panic had raised your adrenaline, and the world stopped easily at your command.

It didn’t take you long to grab the few belongings you had left, to shove them into the wooden box every room was outfitted with, and to turn your back on your prison. You found the portal that would take you closest to home, and you stepped through.

You’d never been lucky for long, though. When you arrived, the front door was locked from the inside, and the television was still running, day and night, with no one left to turn it off. You shouted and knocked and rang the doorbell anyway, until your knuckles hurt and your voice got hoarse, and then you noticed that the name above the door was wrong. Time had once again passed unexpectedly, and this place you'd once called home did not belong to you anymore.

You were a nobody now, just like you’d wanted.

Right?

Right.

…

Anyway.

The first time you met Natasha Romanoff in person, a few weeks after the Snap, she only had to look at you for a couple of seconds to be able to read you like a book.

* * *

When you’re finally done, your voice is hoarse and your palms are bloody. You can tell both Wong and Strange are staring at you, but the only person you look at is Bucky.

He’s leaning against the invisible wall of his cell in the Sanctum’s undercroft, meeting your gaze in grim, unreadable silence. He hasn’t looked away from you once during your whole monologue.

You feel drained, turned completely inside out, presenting your most vulnerable parts for everyone to see; and yet, you keep looking at the one person in this room who’s going to remember any of it, calmly and unwaveringly. It makes your head swim, but you can’t keep looking away.

That me then, you think, your hands tapping a quiet rhythm on the cool stone floor. Disappointed?

A pity, you suppose, that you never did get an answer to that particular question.

To your surprise, Strange is the first to break the silence. "Well, then. You think that’s enough to let them out of there?"

Wong mutters a response you don’t understand, but something flickers in front of you for just a moment, and one blink later, Bucky’s in front of you. He wordlessly holds out his hand.

You don’t hesitate before you take it.

Time slows in a way that’s entirely imaginary as he pulls you back to your feet. Every inch of your skin that’s touching him turns hot and cold at the same time.

If it had been his right hand, you wouldn’t have dared to gently squeeze it before finally letting go.

Bucky looks like he wants to say something, but before he gets a chance to even open his mouth, Strange clears his throat. Not for the first time, you want to set his cloak on fire.

"It’s a good thing you came here."

"Oh, yes," you say. "Thanks again for the warm welcome. What fun we’ve had."

"You did break in," Wong says. "Over the past couple of months, we’ve had to be particularly careful when it comes to unexpected visitors. For what it’s worth, though," he adds, "I am sorry."

There’s an honesty to his voice that you appreciate, though not as much as Bucky staying a half-step in front of you during this whole conversation.

Strange claps his hands. Out of the corner of your eye, you see a tea set appear on the sad old desk that’s been pushed against one of the dungeon walls. "Best not to dwell on it," he says, his cloak gently flapping at you. "May we take a look at your necklace?"

You hesitate. You’ve not taken it off in years, not even to sleep or train. It’s been what’s successfully hidden you away from anyone trying to find you or your powers.

Now that you’ve revealed all of yourself, though, you suppose there’s no point in denying him.

You place the necklace in his palm and he murmurs something. It starts glowing in gentle amber colors.

"It should do," he says to Wong. "Do you want the honors?"

"Here’s what I don’t understand," Wong says, ignoring him. "All of this could’ve been avoided with a few controlled time slips."

"A few what now?" you say.

"It’s the act of reversing time not for the whole universe, but for one small part of it. Even he could do it after just a few months," he says, nodding his head at Strange, who lifts an eyebrow.

"Look at you condoning going against the laws of nature."

"Shut up and do your job. Away from my carpets, this time."

"Your carpets, is it?" Strange says, his cloak flapping impatiently. His gray eyes bore into you one final time, assessing you, you think, or maybe silently telling you something you don’t understand. Then he turns and starts ascending the stairs again.

You wrap your arms around yourself. "I’ve not had months of training," you remind Wong.

"Not that first time," he replies. "From what you’ve told us, though, your training in the astral plane has progressed immensely. You should have much more control over your powers than you ever have before."

"So you’re saying I could do it now?"

"I’m saying there’s at least a chance. May I?"

You fiercely ignore Bucky glancing at you, holding out your arm. The symbols around your wrist buzz and glimmer when Wong murmurs something, his hands hovering over your skin. The smell of magic grows more potent as gentle wisps of light travel along your arm, poking at the loop.

Warm fingers wrap around your other hand this time, and you realize you’ve been shaking.

"With the time anomaly persisting, it will continue getting stronger with every repeat of this day," Wong continues out loud as he’s working. "It will eat away at the fabric between realities until things start to slip through, and then it’s only a matter of time until this one collapses entirely."

You swallow. "What things?"

"People. Places. Memories meant for other timelines. Playing with the fabric of everything is a dangerous pastime."

"It’s not like we’re doing it on purpose," Bucky speaks up for the first time. Your hold on his hand tightens.

Wong glances up at him. "Unfortunately, Sergeant Barnes, there are some rules that don’t care about intent."

"So what if it does?" you say. "Collapse, I mean. You know about me now, can you not portal or time slip us to another reality, let this one disintegrate? It’s cursed, anyway."

"Apart from the fact that that’s not how portals work," Wong says dryly, "that’s a reckless idea. All realities are connected in one way or another. One imploding like this might have disastrous consequences on the entire multiverse."

"This is about the whole sacred timeline thing again, isn’t it?" You roll your eyes. "Who came up with that, anyway? What makes our existence so damn special? I mean, there are endless possibilities out there, aren’t there? An infinite number of realities. Who’s to say we’re more real than the rest of them?"

"Magic, as a whole, is always a balancing act." The symbols return to their place just above your skin, tingling. Wong rubs his hands, looking at you. "Ask your actual question."

"I’m not supposed to exist here, am I?" You’re grateful for the fact that Bucky is still holding your hand, even though you don’t know why he would. It anchors you. "I switch between realities every time I jump back in time, right? So this one isn’t actually mine at all."

"Has anyone ever taught you about the Infinity Stones?"

Had they? You’d learned more about the stones at Campus than you ever had during your time at the Sanctum, but even then—knowing how to find a thing and understanding it aren’t the same thing.

You shake your head.

"The powers held by the stones are interconnected. You don’t just control time, your powers have an influence on space and reality by their very nature as well. You can’t just separate one from the other. Tea?"

You stay silent as he pours it into several mugs and offers you one. It’s steaming hot, and it smells almost exactly like the one you were offered in the astral plane; only with a dash of cinnamon.

"The thing is," Wong continues, blowing on his tea, "in a way, we all hold the same kind of power. These other worlds, they exist alongside this one, all the time, and each time we make a decision, our consciousness merely slips between them. That doesn’t make the ones we left behind more or less ours."

"But the stones got destroyed in our reality," Bucky says.

"There’s that thing called the first law of thermodynamics."

Bucky’s thumb traces an absentminded line along the back of your hand, and you have to hide a shiver. "Energy can’t be created or destroyed, it can only change its form."

"That’s exactly right. So you see, even though the stones may be turned to dust, they’re not gone. Otherwise, our reality—or any like it, in fact—wouldn’t continue to exist."

"That wasn’t my question, though," you argue. "The power of the stones still exists, whatever that means. That’s great. What does that have to do with me? Or with this loop, for that matter."

"You draw from the time stone’s energy more than the other’s," Wong replies. "Since the stones don’t exist in their physical form anymore in our reality, you are pulling the necessary energy from others in which they are still intact, at the moment of using your powers. You’ve been able to jump greater temporal distances more easily before, am I right? Before the stone was crushed into pieces?"

You’re about to deny it, but then he adds, gently, "When you were a child, maybe?"

Memories of repeated accidental time jumps rush through your mind. Memories of getting stuck in the same couple of minutes for hours on end, finally getting out of it after what had felt like years and yet not feeling any different at all.

It’d never made you feel so exhausted, then.

You’d never put it together consciously because the first time you tried using your powers after the Snap, you you’d already been exhausted for so long. You’d blame a lack of practice, of proper technique or attention or adequateness; a lack of freedom to use them however you wanted without feeling prying eyes watch your every move.

Later, you’d mostly blame yourself.

Bucky’s hand slips out of yours and you are brought back to the present again. The tea has gone tepid in your cup when you take a sip; it makes your eyes water with its bitter sting.

"What I’m trying to say is this," Wong continues. "There’s no right or wrong answer to whether you actually belong in this reality, because we all shift between related realities constantly. What you’re doing is unusual, yes, but not unheard of. And it certainly doesn’t mean you shouldn’t exist. Quite the contrary. I’ve found that everything and everyone of us has a purpose here."

You nod, your throat still clogged up.

"The loop," Bucky says. "How do we go about undoing it?"

We.

"It comes back to how it was created in the first place. With internalized magic like yours, the kind used on yourself instead of externally, it comes back to the emotions we feel when we reach out to the stones. They’re essential in what they help create."

Your mind replays the first time you’ve watched Bucky die in front of you. To that desperation, the guilt, the shame. And hidden underneath, still unnoticed, still pushed down, perhaps …

"Here you go," Strange says, returning your necklace. The tourmaline is warm to the touch, humming with newly imbued magic. "Whenever you’re ready, this should do the trick. You might get a bit light-headed."

You both stare at him. "This gets us out?" you ask, your voice cracking.

Strange frowns. "What? No."

"I told you," Wong says with an edge of impatience, "that’s not how portals work."

"Technically not a portal," you mumble, putting the pendant on again, feeling it pulsate warmly against your chest.

True to Strange’s words, you immediately feel a little dizzy with a rush of concentrated magic that has nowhere to go. Even though you’re seated, you have to grasp for Bucky’s arm to keep your balance.

"I’ve imbued the necklace with some of my own powers and linked it more closely to your person," Strange continues, and you dig the nails of your unoccupied hand into your palm to pay attention. "It should help you focus your powers more directly once you’re back in the astral plane and allow you to break the loop in time. Mind you, it’s merely an amplifier, not a quick fix. It might still take a while."

"How much time do we still have before the loop starts to disintegrate?" Bucky asks. Smart question. He’s so smart.

"You’re already past that point, Sergeant Barnes," Wong says, and it sends a chill through you. "But we’ll do our best to help as much as we can. I will set up some wards that should bypass my own consciousness and buy you some more time."

"Thank you," you say quietly, blinking quite a lot. "For all of this."

He nods, slowly, measuring you up, but not in the way you’re used to; for once, you appear to meet expectations. "Good luck, Miss Y/L/N. Let us know how these matters resolve."

"You doing okay, doll?" Bucky chuckles on your way up the stairs. It’s the first time he’s smiled even a little bit all afternoon. He should do it more. Why doesn’t he do it more?

It takes you a bit to notice you’re still holding onto his sleeve. "I’m great," you say. "Superb, really. Did the floor sway like that earlier? Seems like a safety issue. What time is it? I hope Sam’s alright."

"Maybe you should take that thing off again, hm?"

"No no no," you say quickly, immediately tripping over your own feet. Before you plant on your face in the middle of the entrance hall, Bucky manages to hold out his other arm to catch you. "Whoops."

"Very convincing," he says dryly, but there’s something akin to fondness in his eyes when he looks at you.

"You have the prettiest eyes," you tell him with a sigh, "did you know?"

"And you are quite literally drunk on power." A fascinating shadow falls over his face as he steadies you; it mostly reaches his cheeks. "Let’s hope that’ll fade once you get back to the astral plane or else you might just as well kill me yourself."

"I never want to do that. I don’t want that. Do you think I want to kill you?"

"If you did, now’s your chance." He huffs. "Wouldn’t blame ya."

You stare at him, at his oddly bright blue eyes and his self-deprecating scowl and at the way he’s still holding you upright, and then your lightheadedness makes you do something very, incredibly, outrageously stupid.

You kiss him.

It barely takes a moment to make you realize, like a shock of cold water, what it is you’re doing. Bucky freezes when your lips brush against his. They’re so soft.

You immediately jolt your head back, your heartbeat loud enough to reverberate in your ears, "Fuck!"

His eyes are so wide and so blue and he’s still holding your elbow, and so you yank your arms away and tumble backwards just as he says, "You’re not—"

But you’re still falling.

And then, with a start, you wake up.

* * * * *

"You have a lot of empty rooms," Sam said when he found you on one of the couches in the living room area, curled up to watch some Netflix.

You shrugged. "Guess Stark anticipated more people’d be left to use them after … everything."

"And it’s just you?"

You let the question sit for a moment, for some reason looking at your dish towel. "Yup," you replied finally. "Just me."

Sam nodded, apparently lost in thought.

"So yeah," you continued for some reason, "if you’re in the city and need a place, feel free, I guess."

You didn’t expect much to come of it. After all, Sam had his own apartment all the way over in D.C., and you honestly didn’t expect to see him much once this mission was over.

You told yourself that for the first five missions before you accepted that maybe he’d continue asking you to tag along.

In the end, it hadn’t been him who needed a place, anyway. It was Bucky.

He didn’t tell you the particulars about why he had to leave his Brooklyn apartment; you assumed he’d had to leave, because there was truly no other explanation why he’d choose to move in with you, of all people.

Then again, you hardly ever saw him, and if you hadn’t seen him bring an overnight bag and a withering houseplant on the weekend he’d settled in one of the upstairs bedrooms, you wouldn’t have known another person was living in the Tower at all.

Well, that and the food mysteriously disappearing from your fridge now.

Sam was the one most weirded out by your living situation, even though you were absolutely positive it’d been his idea in the first place.

"What did you expect?" you asked, handing him his usual coffee cup. "That we’d immediately become besties just because we share a kitchen?"

"It’s unnatural," he shook his head. "Do you communicate with each other at all?"

"Sure. Sometimes I leave post-its on the fridge and when I come back, they’re in the trash."

"One day, one of you is gonna outweird the other. I just hope I’m out of town." He bit into a rugelach and started coughing. "Jesus, what did you put in these?"

"Ask Bucky. He’s doing a whole midnight baking thing at the moment. I think he’s trying to take the Tower for himself by smoking me out."

Sam decidedly pushes the cookie tin farther away from him. "You’ve not asked him, then?"

"Again, he doesn’t respond to my post-its."

Truthfully, you were still mad at him. How were you supposed to wallow in peace if someone was constantly ignoring your personal space? There were only so many times you could flee into the blissful loneliness of the void.

In other words, you didn’t notice for a very long time that you didn’t seek out the quiet nearly as much anymore these days.

"Hey, Ratatouille," Sam said. "I was gonna tell you both, actually."

It was good progress that made you not flinch quite as much anymore when a cupboard opened just behind you. In fact, you didn’t even move a muscle.

On your second try.

"I was gonna tell you both, actually," Sam said again, taking a sip of coffee. "CIA wants us to quit the ULTIMATUM case."

"What?" you both said at the same time.

"Why?" Bucky asked irritably. "Sharon already sick of your face again?"

Sam threw a piece of rugelach at him. "I don’t think it was her call. But it means I gotta head to Virginia for a while and give them a full debrief so they can do their own 'internal investigation', whatever that’s supposed to mean. After that, we’re on our own."

"I don’t like this," Bucky said.

"Neither do I," Sam replied. "But I’m hoping to get some information out of them while I’m down there."

"So that’s just it?" you said. "They tell us to stop and we just have to drop everything?"

"Officially, yes."

Bucky crossed his arms. "When you say 'we’re on our own' …"

"I don’t trust these people," Sam said. "I want to know what they’re trying to keep hush. But you," he nods at Bucky, "have been pardoned for less than a year, and you," he nods at you, "don’t officially exist. I can’t guarantee either of these things will stay that way if we go against official government orders. So if you want an out, this is it."

You looked at Bucky, and for the first time, you didn’t find any challenge in his eyes. He simply looked at you, letting you make the call first.

Maybe it was a dare in and of itself, but you couldn’t help yourself. Your curiosity had been sparked.

"If you’re waiting for me to chicken out …"

For a fraction of a second, something like a smile made his mouth twitch. "Wouldn’t dream of it."

chapter ten

thank you for reading!! you can follow my library blog @intrepidacious-fics for update notifications 💚 also please consider leaving a comment, it literally helps my motivation so much to hear from you!!

[nightxcreature]

NyQuil

Summary: Reader has the flu, Dean is trying to make them feel better.

Pairing: Dean x Reader

Warnings: flu, medicine, talk of being roofied, reader is a whiney baby (reader is 100% based on me 🤣), plotting the death of a MC, no use of Y/N

Don’t copy my work and post it as your own or I’ll probably cry. A reblog, comment, or like is real cool though. 🤙🏼 As always, grammar and all that may not be correct. Sorry, I do this for fun, not cause I’m grammatically correct. Though I do try my best.

🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼

Chills cover my body even as I lay wrapped like a little burrito on the bed; My head’s pounding from the pressure in my sinus cavities, and I can’t blow my nose or inhale enough ibuprofen to alleviate the pain, yet still my mouth remains a tight line as the tall man beside me shoves a spoonful of yellow liquid in my face.

An exasperated sigh leaves his lips, annoyance crossing his face as he holds the utensil out, “Sweetheart, please, just take the meds. You’ll feel better.”

I rapidly shake my head, pulling the blanket over my mouth to block the path to my lips. He glares down at the barrier and pulls it back with his free hand, “Why are you like this?” He mumbles as he stares blankly down at me, “It’s just flu meds.”

“I asked for the pills.” I grumble, pulling the blanket back up over my mouth before he can shove the spoon at me again, “You didn’t listen to me.”

He rolls his eyes, the spoon still carefully hanging from his fingers, “It does the same thing, and this stuff works faster! Just take it and we can take a nap.”

I shake my head again, narrowing my eyes at him, “You didn’t even bring me a drink to wash it down with.” My voice is muffled from behind the comforter, but I know he can hear me just fine. My sore throat aches as I speak, yet still I carry on complaining, “I need a chaser, Dean! I can’t do it without one.”

His eyes roll for the thousandth time today as he drops the plastic container holding the bane of my existence onto my nightstand and balances the spoon on top of the lid. His hand slips behind him into his back pocket and he pulls out a bottle of ginger ale, raising a brow as I scrunch up my nose at that, too. “What? This not good enough for you either, Sneezy?” He grumbles, snatching the spoon from beside us and taking seat next to me. He slowly pulls the blanket from my face once more, spoon brushing my bottom lip as he offers it again, “It’s just like a shot. Down the hatch and it’s over.”

My brows furrow as I glare up at him, “No! The after tas—.” I’m cut off by the spoon ramming into my open mouth and the mix of mint and honey rolling across my tongue. I suck in a sharp breath through my stuffy nose before I swallow. An audible gag leaves me at the feeling of it burning down my throat. He shoves the bottle of ginger ale in my face, using his other hand to wipe the tears rolling from my watery eyes. “All done!” He cheers, grinning wickedly down at me, “Was that so bad?”

My nostrils flare as I take a big drink from the bottle, the terrible after taste still lingering on my tongue even after trying to chase it away. “I hate you.”

He chuckles softly, taking the bottle from my hands to set it down on the night stand, “You do not.” Sliding into the bed beside me, he pulls me to his side, “What movie do you want to watch?”

“I don’t want to watch anything with you, Asshole. You roofied me.” I say, pushing against his chest to roll away, “You’re a NyQuil roofier and I hate you.”

His arms tighten around me, securing me to his side as he scrolls through the movies on the tv, “That’s not the worst thing I’ve been called. I think you’ll survive the cold and flu medicine, though. Hell, you may even thank me in a few minutes.”

It’s my turn to roll my eyes, “I won’t.” I mumble as he finally selects ‘Tombstone’ and we dive into comfortable silence. His fingers trace small circles across my spine as I drift off plotting his demise.

*******************************************************

A/N: hellooooo, friends! I’m so sorry for my lengthy hiatus. Obviously with everything going on in my life currently, I haven’t had time to put anything out. I hope this little one-shot (Drabble?) is good enough for now, as it’s all I’ve got at the moment. I’m still attempting to work on a few other things as I have time, and hopefully since things are settling down, I’ll have more time to get things out to you guys! Thank you for being patient with me. I looooove you! 🫶🏼

Taglist: @lmhf1 @whimsyfinny @k-slla @enigmalynne @envysarchive

@daisydark @foxyjwls007 @roseblue373 @manicjk @aylacavebear

@suckitands33 @oceean @mxtansy @justwhisperingfantasies @mgchaser

@xinsonyax

[adoremattsturns]

How did nerd!matt and brat!reader meet?

matt thought it was strange to see a new girl like you randomly appear on campus in the middle of the semester.

he saw you first when you you were walking with one of your friends. he thought you were very pretty but he also knew you were out of his league.

as it so happened to be, you needed a french tutor since it was one of your minor classes for the year. matt didn’t know french but he could learn it, easy.

the library was quiet and you had no idea where matt was sitting. the sound of small chatter, turning pages, and clicking keys filling your mind when trying to find him.

after looking around you finally found him sitting in a secluded area of the library, writing in his notebook while reading a textbook at the same time. he was an actual nerd and it really showed.

“hi uhm, can we make this quick please? i have to get ready for stuff and what not.” you said not wanting to waste any time.

“oh yeah- uhm okay. we can start with pronunciation… if you’d like?” he stumbled, fiddling with the sleeves of his navy long sleeve.

he began teaching you simple words like hello, yes, no, etc. you were growing very bored since you never paid attention in high school. you only got into college because your parents paid good money and knew people.

you began to stare at matt, you found him cute in a funny way. the way his glasses would slide off his nose when he looked down, or when he clicked his mechanical pencil while speaking to you.

the next few days you both had study sessions in the library. he became more and more open with you each day, his shyness subsiding.

“so uh… whatcha doin’ later today?” he awkwardly asked “nothing really, tuesdays are my free days” “oh. cool.” you knew matt was itching to ask something, which made you chuckle.

“would you maybe want to… come with me to a party this friday?” she chuckled “you askin’ me out?” matts cheeks burned a shade of pink.

"yes matt, i would like to come with you to that party on friday."

friday finally arrived as matt was waiting outside your door, rocking subconsciously on the heels of his shoe. he expected you to open the door, not your father. “who are you?” your father asked matt.

“uhm- hello sir im-” he was cut off, “matt!” you shouted from the top of the stairs, only to see your father giving you a displeased look. “matt. short for anything?” your father asked.

“m-mathew, sir..” he said lowly, avoiding eye contact. “mathew what?” your father asked, you budded in, “dad stop-” “no no. if hes so good you want to go out with him i must get to know him right?” matt blushed.

“sturniolo.” he said a little louder. “dad thats the family that lives a block away, y’know his father too!” you said, trying to remind your father of jimmy, matts dad.

after what felt like forever you were finally able to leave. you never understood why you still had to ask for permission to leave even if you were an adult. m

at the party you drank, matt wasn’t interested in that stuff. you both danced and laughed, matt opening up more about himself and his own life. you drunkenly babbled about yourself and your family, matt could tell you enjoyed complaining.

you and matt had the best night together, walking towards his car as you held onto him so you wouldn’t fall. you kissed his cheek, “thank you for taking me out tonight matt. you’re the best!” you smiled. “i uhh- y-yeah no problem! anything foe you y’know?”

the cheek kiss was the *last* thing he expected from you but he so desperately craved more. did you really like him or were you just drunk?

authors note: hiii! im sososo sorry for being inactive lately but im trying to find the motivation to write again! this has been in my drafts since JANUARY and i just didn’t have time to finish. anyways i hope you like it more coming from me soon!! 🫶🏼

taglist!: @lezleeferguson-120 @sheluvsthesturniolos @courta13

[dearharriet]

By Any Other Name; Sirius Black ☕️

“D’you have a name, love?” He was spitting mischief into every word. “Or should I just call you angel face?”

By God, he was not pulling any punches. His voice being as silky as your knickers didn’t help, nor did his wicked teeth or his lithe hands. It was a feat of its own to close your mouth, and another altogether to speak.

Your name spilled off his lips with an exhaled drag, hot and smoking and swept away by the wind.

“Pleasure to meet you, angel face,” he said cheekily. “You can call me Sirius.”

summary: by the will of mother nature, you meet your charming downstairs neighbor—who has been dying to meet you just as much.

word count: 3K

warnings: fem!r, sexually implicit comments, lots of mentions of underwear and lingerie

authors note: me 🤝🏼 making sirius act like my other favorite scorpio (ryan gosling)

1978. London, England.

+

More than anything in the world, you wished you had a tumble-dryer. The London winds turned brutal in autumn, and you’d lost nearly ten items of clothing before the season was done.

A pretty sundress, a flannel you’d nicked from your father’s dresser. A skimpy little black nighty, the top only lace and the bottom sheer satin.

That one had been the most recent, only the day before. You blamed yourself, really; You thought you’d be coy and hang it outside for the boy downstairs to see, and the wind tore it off the line and blew it to who knows where. Now some creep probably had it in his sock drawer.

Despite all of this, you still did not have a blessed tumble-dryer. Which meant even at present, in wind that might’ve blown your makeup off, you were outside clipping your soggy knickers to the line. Three clips each, thank you very much.

You can’t say it was all that embarrassing. London wasn’t particularly a town of modesty or shame, especially in more recent times. All the ladies along your alley hung their undies out, and no one seemed to mind. Maybe you just lived on an especially progressive block of the city. Whatever it was, you liked it.

You hummed a soft tune as you hung the last piece of clothing on the line, feeling chilly yet accomplished.

The wind had died down just slightly, leaving the clothes swinging on the line—suspended between your building and the one neighboring it. You peeked across to ensure that everything seemed secure, just in time to watch a pair of silky pink undies slip from their clips and fall a story down into the alley.

You clicked your tongue, promptly making your way down the fire escape to retrieve them.

As you rounded the landing to descend the second half of stairs, you were aghast to see the boy from downstairs—the one you so desperately wanted to see your cheeky nightgown—leant against your flat building. He was smoking a cigarette languidly and intently watching your sad knickers which landed before him.

You stammered at first, unsure what to say. The remaining shreds of daylight were reflecting quite stunningly off of his pitch black hair, in a way that was all too distracting. Eventually, you settled for something apologetic.

“God, I’m sorry.” You inched forward until you could bend down and rescue the pink knickers from the filthy ground. You frowned at the specks of dirt on them. You’d have to wash them all over again. Or maybe you should just toss them.

Or cast them into the sea. Perhaps donate them to a bluebird to use for nesting. God, you were embarrassed.

For a split second you became mortified with a scenario where you kept the dirty undies and this handsome-boy-downstairs wanted to shag you, only to find you’re wearing the disgusting alley knickers. Your cheeks grew hot.

You pushed the underwear behind your back then, hoping he didn’t see them in full. When you looked up, he blew a cloud of smoke from his nose and smiled devilishly.

“Not to worry, darling. I’m quite accustomed to women dropping their knickers in front of me.”

Your mouth popped open in shock. A boyish but refined laugh bubbled out of him as you failed to respond.

“D’you have a name, love?” He was spitting mischief into every word. “Or should I just call you angel face?”

By God, he was not pulling any punches. His voice being as silky as your knickers didn’t help, nor did his wicked teeth or his lithe hands. It was a feat of its own to close your mouth, and another altogether to speak.

Your name spilled off his lips with an exhaled drag, hot and smoking and swept away by the wind.

“Pleasure to meet you, angel face,” he said cheekily. “You can call me Sirius.”

“I can’t call you handsome?” You blurted, and Sirius’ smile got so much worse, which is to say humbler and far more genuine.

“If the shoe fits,” he mumbled.

A gust of wind blew and his hair billowed with it, just as he took a final drag of his cigarette. The embers lit his face warmly.

It fit. It definitely fit.

Sirius stomped his smoke out on the cobblestone and brushed his hands off on his slacks.

“I actually have something I want to give you.” Sirius inched toward his flat window, ignoring your pinched brows. “Wait right there.”

Contorting his long limbs, he slipped inside and disappeared.

Within seconds he returned, holding what you instantly recognized as your black nighty. He walked it to you, growing taller with every step.

“Think this belongs to you,” he prodded. You took the garment from him, smiling coyly.

“Do you happen to have any of the other clothes I’m missing?” You accused, and he ducked his head sheepishly.

“Just this one,” he promised, “it fell last Sunday, just here, like your knickers.”

You flushed. “Sorry.”

Sirius’ expression turned boyish. “You should be. I’d have preferred that you came with it.”

The wind picked up again and wafted his cologne with it, something citrusy and clean. A pit stirred in your stomach.

“Maybe next time,” you murmured, and slipped up the fire escape before he could respond.

+

You sincerely didn’t expect to see Sirius after that. Not because you didn’t want to, but because it felt too simple. Too convenient.

Stunning, charming boy downstairs, holding onto your nightclothes to give back to you…

He had to be a creep. There was no other explanation. Or worse—he was only trying to be nice to save you from embarrassment.

You kept running through your conversation with him, adding new motivations and hidden meanings. Each one was like a warning siren, and it kept you from seeking him out.

Sirius, however, was not dissuaded at all.

A week later and it was the turn of November. The winds were cruel and rain barely ever let up, and any sunny day became laundry day.

One fateful, blessed dry Friday, you popped out to hang your loathsome clothes. If being clean was this much trouble, you weren’t sure it was worth it anymore. You were halfway through the soggy hamper when someone downstairs began to whistle.

“Darling, do you do anything but laundry?” A familiar voice called, posh and smug and handsome.

You peeked over the railing, and Sirius was in the alley with an amused grin on his face.

“Do you do anything but watch me do laundry,” you shot back, which made him laugh.

Sirius was making a paper boy cap look very stylish, holding the lip of it to aid his theatrics. There was something quite old fashioned about him, even in his boyish demeanor.

“I like to hear you sing,” he defended. “You have a pretty voice.”

You weren’t sure how to respond to that. You didn’t entirely realize you sang at all. Sirius shoved his hands into his pockets and looked around.

“Does this seem a bit cliché?”

You looked around, too, at your balcony and the shaded alley; At Sirius, who was the shining image of a hopeless romantic, ready to profess his undying love.

“I suppose,” you agree. “Wherefore art thou? No—a minute is not enough.“

Sirius pushed his tongue into his cheek, grinning.

“I was imagining something else,” he said. “Let down your hair…Or—your clothesline?”

You snorted.

“Luckily, this damsel has stairs.”

Smile widening, Sirius raised his eyebrows, wondering if you’d meant to invite him up. You nodded, and he took the steps two at a time.

It was charming. While you were still reserved, you couldn’t help but admire his complexities. He’d seemed so subdued upon first meeting him, but now he was almost howling with excitement.

He was completely out of place on your terrace. A sharp and shining bachelor lording over your half-dead plants and damp t-shirts. He looked like he had a tumble dryer, and an iron, too. Or a maid. Definitely a maid. It was a mystery why someone so put together was living on the floor beneath you.

“What,” Sirius asked, looking dubious.

“What?” Your cheeks warmed. You’d been spacing out.

“You’re looking at me weird,” he accused, but he kept a lightness in his voice. “You don’t still think I stole all your clothes, do you?”

“No,” you denied. Then, feeling cheeky, you added, “just the nighty, right?”

He blinked, looking shy again. “Well. It—it fell.”

“Oh, right, my mistake. It fell,” you nodded, and watched his mouth open and close.

“Y’know, most neighbors bake something if they want to make friends,” you continued, enjoying his squirming, his brown pearly loafers scuffing on the grated platform.

You thought he was handsome when you met, with his cavalier confidence and dangerous smile, but seeing him so embarrassed was just as enthralling; His fair skin flushed pink, his broad shoulders hunched…his voice turned raspy and unsure.

“I was never good in the kitchen.” He said it like it was a fatal flaw, unfixable.

“No, of course not,” you said with unwavering mirth. “You’d hire someone to do that, wouldn’t you?”

Sirius’ head snapped up, shocked, confirming your suspicions.

“What are you robbing my clothesline for, rich boy,” you teased, wrinkling your nose at him.

Scratching his jaw, he blew out a bewildered laugh.

“What gave it away?”

You snickered, making a sweeping gesture over him. “What didn’t?”

Sirius looked down at his pressed white dress shirt and well-fitted vest. He then ripped his hat off, deflating.

“Thought I was doing a good job of fitting in,” he muttered.

“Sorry,” you cooed, though you weren’t sure why. It should’ve been insulting, that this upper-class idiot was so upset at seeming as well-off as he was, but he kept striking you with an odd sincerity. He didn’t seem ignorant, he just seemed lost, and you felt sorry for him.

“If it’s any consolation, you look quite handsome.”

Sirius looked up at you through his lashes and shyly smiled.

“Do I?” He needled. You hummed affirmatively.

“If a bit chilly. Who’s been making your cuppas?”

Grabbing your basket, you backed away towards your window and slipped inside. You waited for Sirius to follow, hoping your invitation wasn’t too indirect. Thankfully, he crawled in after you, loitering by the window awkwardly.

“Well, don’t let all the heat out,” you called over your shoulder, dropping the basket onto your couch and bee-lining for the kitchen. Sirius closed the window and meandered further into your space.

“You’re not going to poison me, are you,” he asked from your kitchen threshold, watching you put the kettle on.

“I’m not sure you should be as paranoid as me,” you said, leaning against the counter. “But I’m fresh out, so not this time.”

Sirius laughed. “Oh, good.”

“So,” you started, crossing your arms to mirror him, “who are these girls dropping their undies for you? I’m painfully curious.”

Sirius sucked his teeth, hiding a grin.

“I’m not sure you have enough tea,” he sighed solemnly. “We’d be here all night.”

Eyes tracing over the long hands splayed over his biceps, you bit your lip.

“I can imagine,” you humored. “A pretty boy like you…you never catch a break, do you?”

Sirius looked constantly unprepared for complements like this, and you couldn’t get enough. He was pink and silent and restless, faltering for something witty to reply with.

In the end, he just shook his head.

When the water was hot, you made up Sirius’ tea, and he thanked you shyly as his hand brushed yours. He put far too much sugar in it, and not a spot of milk, but you found that just as charming as the rest of him. You sat at your kitchen table, smiling over your cups.

“I haven’t had a good cuppa in months,” Sirius sighed, spinning his mug in absentminded circles.

“Thought you had a maid,” you prodded, and Sirius’ responding smile was bittersweet.

“Not anymore,” he said quietly, “not for a while.”

You took a slow sip of your tea, watching him carefully. As you set your cup down, you licked your lips, and Sirius instinctively copied you.

“So…no maid.” You leaned back, lifting a brow. “Who presses your clothes, then?”

Sirius frowned. “I do.”

“Oh.” You frowned, too. “But you can’t make a cuppa?”

“I—“ Sirius chuckled. “I can make a cuppa. It just tastes better when someone else makes it.”

“Ah.” Picking up your cup again, you smiled at him. “Well, I’m happy to help.”

Sirius pulled his lip between his teeth as you drank, rubbing his hands on his slacks.

“Well I—“ he cleared his throat, “—I should go.”

Confused, you watched him as he pushed his chair back and stood, ducking to you gratefully.

“So soon,” you complained. It was odd. You’d been avoiding him all week, but once he was around you didn’t want him to go.

“Yes, well. I wouldn’t want to intrude.” Sirius smiled kindly, if a little distant.

“Well, I invited you, handsome. That’s hardly intruding.” Your words were intentionally soft and sticky, cloying, to change his mind.

Sirius’s eyes swept over your face for a moment, his mouth chewing on words that never came out. Eventually, he left a thankful caress on your hand, where it laid dormant on the table.

“Thank you for the tea,” he expressed, and then he was gone.

You sat at the table long after he left, until your tea was cold and his empty cup was dry.

+

The whole week after that, you turned your conversation with Sirius over in your mind again and again, looking for what you’d done wrong.

He’d never seemed angry, even as he left. He was almost sullen.

In the days following, it was like he’d never existed. The alley had a Sirius-shaped hole in it every time you hung your clothes, and—as if it was missing him, too—the wind had stopped blowing.

Singing softly, you hung your final garments, enjoying the still evening while you could. When you sucked in a new breath, it was thick with the scent of burning tobacco. You looked down through the slats, and as you expected, Sirius was leaning where he was when you’d first met him.

Sucking your bottom lip, you looked at the cloth in your hands, and then back at Sirius. At the sudden absence of your voice, he’d looked up, and your gaze met his. He stilled, the ash growing perilous on his smoke, and watched as you held your dark nightgown over the railing. You let it go, and watched Sirius sigh, tracking its feathery fall to the ground.

When he looked back up, you were already halfway down the rickety stairs.

“Darling, don’t—“

“You know, it’s rotten manners to leave a girl wondering what she’s done wrong,” you scolded, plucking the gown off of the cobblestones. “Especially after being so charming all the time.”

Sirius winced. “I’m sorry.”

He looked frustratingly good, more casual than you’d ever seen him. His hair was messy and his collar unbuttoned, sleeves rolled to the elbow. It only made you bolder.

“Well,” you prodded, “won’t you at least tell me?”

He furrowed his brows, his cigarette long forgotten between his fingers.

“Tell you what?”

“What I did,” you huffed, exasperated.

His face crumpled.

“Darling,” Sirius stressed, “nothing. You’re the loveliest neighbor I’ve ever had.”

The compliment felt like an insult, calculatedly detached, and you wondered if you’d invented the whole thing in your head.

“Why’d you leave, then?”

Sirius shifted, his expensive shoes crunching on the ground.

“I didn’t want to impose.”

Unbelieving, you shook your head in disappointment. It must’ve been something awfully offensive if he still wouldn’t tell you.

“I can’t afford the expensive teas, so if it tasted odd—“

“—Love, it wasn’t the tea, it’s—“ Sirius licked his lips, hesitating. “I shouldn’t have taken it.”

Lost, the corners of your mouth pulled down. Sirius sighed.

“The gown, I—“ He gestured to the satin in your hands. “It was inappropriate. I’m sorry.”

Avoiding your eyes, he finally ashed his cigarette, but left it abandoned in his hand. Stepping closer, you batted your lashes at his shameful face.

“Sirius, if it worried me, I wouldn’t have invited you inside.”

“It should worry you!” His face contorted. “It was manipulative and debauched—“

“Debauched!” You grinned, eyes bright. “What exactly did you do to my nightgown, hm?”

Sirius’ mouth pursed disapprovingly. “Love, please.”

You stepped closer, pouting.

“You didn’t imagine me in it?” Sirius shook his head passionately, but his cheeks warmed. “Shame. I hung it for you, you know.”

Sucking in a breath, his cigarette met the ground as you waded closer. You reached out, tugging on the top button of his vest.

“Will it take a cyclone for you to ask me out?”

Sirius let out a heavy breath and shook his head. When he said no more, you tilted your head and pulled him into you.

“Well then?”

His eyes searched yours.

“Go on,” you said. “I’m not sure someone who likes his tea with seven sugars could be very scary.”

Brightening, Sirius took your hand where it fiddled with his vest. You watched with heat in your chest as he brought it to his face and pressed his mouth to it. He then turned it over and did the same to your open palm.

“Could I please take you out, angel face?” His breath was hot on the inside of your hand, sending chills up your neck. “To repay you for the stunning cuppa?”

Chuckling, you traced a feather-light finger over his jaw.

“Certainly.” You licked over your teeth. “I’ll wear my driest knickers.”

His smile slipped into wicked territory.

“Don’t sweat it, love.” A big hand smoothed over your shoulder, and you melted. “You’ll only be wasting your time.”

+

thank you for reading! 🦢

masterlist

[heavenbarnes]

Gaaaaahhh I wish I had a cutesy little porch to sleep on this summer (I’m in Australia so this summer will be fucked) but I’ll have to settle for a window open but please tell me why it could be 40 degrees and I can’t get to sleep bc I’m so hot so I sleep with the window open and then wake up with a blocked nostril?!! So I might not even be able to do that! Why is my body the way it is?!! I just want to feel a nice summer breeze while I sleep, is that too much to ask for?!

honestly? it could be pollen! if you’re in a windy area pollen could be stirring up which is what is blocking your nose - chat your GP about maybe getting antihistamines for the summer 🫶🏼

where we are in NZ gets so hot over the summer that my bf and i literally have a bed we bring out on the deck that stays there til like mid-february

[ahundredtimesover]

Missing our plm couple extra today. Wonder what they’re doing 🫶🏼

I’ve had this on my drafts for a while and decided to finish it with the image of long-haired and glasses JK in mind. It sort of sets up the stage for the The Fight as well. I hope you enjoy 🥰

Title: Please Love Me Bonus 06 - I tell you everything.

WC: 4,421

Tags/Warnings: suggestive

Series Masterlist

Five minutes. Jungkook’s phone pings.

No 10.

Or maybe 15 sorry hun I’m still packing up but also it’s the last day of class so everyone’s chatting it up oh you can come in if you want! Another ping. 

Jungkook laughs at your run-on sentences and knows you’ll be cringing at them later. But he’s also imagining you looking a little stressed, trying to multitask between fixing your tools and saying your goodbyes to your classmates. 

He turns off the engine and exits the car. It’s when he gets another message - Kook, can you come? I need help with my things 🥺 - that he jogs the block to the art studio and makes a left to the hallway where your class is. 

He looks around, in awe of how the decor at the west wing quickly changes. In the half year that you’ve been enrolled in your drawing class, he’s visited you a few times and each time, the art pieces hanging on the wall have been different. He’d spied a few of yours, too, and he’d spent too much time just admiring your work and imagining what inspired you or what you were thinking, something he always asked you about later on. 

But one other thing he likes to do when he picks you up is peek through the half-wall window and not-so-creepily watch you work on your piece - focused eyes surrounded by your soft features, with only a look of determination mixed with pure passion for the craft. You did say you’ve come to love drawing after all. 

It’s through his visits that your classmates have come to know him, too - that first time, one asked if he was the nude art model and another yelled they wished he was. Jungkook didn’t miss your slightly embarrassed and flushed face when you finally claimed him as your husband. The room melted into a puddle, with oohs and ahhs reverberating through the walls when he greeted you with a forehead kiss and picked up your things as he often does. 

Jungkook does all those again today. He sees one of your pieces and imagines what you were thinking of as you painted the sky green, then he turns to the room where the sound of applause catches his attention. But then his smile - the one he’s been sporting since this afternoon when he got to free up his evening so he could attend your event with you tonight - fades, his eyebrows furrowing and a pout forming on his face. 

He’s familiarized himself with all your classmates and colleagues, and that half-naked man with firm pectorals and large biceps and chiseled jaw and sharp nose is definitely not one of them. 

Back inside, you’re busy putting away all your pencils giggling at the light banter between your classmates. You’d asked Jungkook to help you with some of your things and you know he’s probably waiting outside.  

Before your gaze wanders outside, you look around the room and meet deep-set, hazelnut eyes - intense and paralyzing as they bore into you. You’re quite surprised, and as you zip up your bag, you accidentally hit your easel. You shut your eyes as reflex, ready for it to make that sound as it hits the floor. 

But it doesn’t.

“You nervous or something?” 

The man’s voice is deep. It’s familiar, and as you look up, you know why it is. 

He’s putting in place the easel that you almost knocked over. He’s got a smirk on, and you wonder if your flushed form has anything to do with it. You didn’t really expect that the man whose backside you were drawing just minutes ago would be speaking to you. The models for your nude drawing class don’t exactly interact with the artists - it’s kind of weird to do that when strangers have basically seen every part of you. 

But he’s here in front of you with a twinkle in his eyes that have now softened, and you’re only able to shake your head. Sure, he's handsome, but he’s also still half-naked - you’re not exactly sure how to process that outside of your drawing bubble.

“You’re rushing, then?” He asks.

“Uh, sort of?” You chuckle, relaxing a little as you try to focus on just his face.

“That’s a shame. I heard that Mrs. Yang’s treating your class to dinner and she invited me. I was really hoping I’d see you there,” he replies.

“Oh? I’ve got an event tonight. Is there something you wanted to tell me?”

“Sort of,” he chuckles now. “I’ve modeled for some of her other classes and no one draws me quite like you do. They seem so real and so intimate. Mrs. Yang said I could personally ask you if I could bring home your drawings of me. I like how you’re able to capture the—”

He’s cut off by the sound of a throat clearing and Jungkook turning you towards him with a deep kiss on your lips, his hand gripping your waist tightly as he lingers on your skin.

“Hey, babe,” he says.

“Kook,” you blink up at him, surprised again by the desperation in his actions. “Hi,” you recover, smiling at his presence despite the scowl on his face. 

“You ready to go?” He sounds in a hurry, uninterested.

“Yeah, I was just talking to Samuel. He was asking for my drawings of him.”

“Is he now?” Jungkook arches an eyebrow and crosses his arms. He looks up and down the man in question who still has a smirk on his face.

“I am,” Samuel replies, assessing your husband from head to toe just the same. “___ draws me so beautifully. Her pieces make the hours-long process of posing nude all worth it. She’s got an amazing eye, among other things.” 

If you didn’t really care much for him earlier, now, you don’t care much for him at all. You want to tell him off for how shameless he’s being, but the selfish and silly part of you wants to know how your husband would react and well, follow up that sudden kiss he gave you to get your attention.

“She does,” Jungkook replies. “She’s obviously talented but she’s also had some practice. I mean, I’m her muse when it comes to this… nude drawing thing and yeah, I know all about posing for so long being worth it.”

Jungkook gives you a naughty smile and you know exactly what he’s thinking about. “It’s quite the gift when you’re married to an artist, you know?”

“Ah, you’re married, I see,” Samuel hums, glancing at your left hand that’s now sporting the ring that you remove every time you draw or paint.  “That’s good. For both of you. Not for me but yeah, I shouldn’t be surprised,” he turns to you, chuckling now, realizing at how stupid he seemed. “But can I still keep the artwork, if that’s okay and not weird for your husband?”

“Her work, her choice,” Jungkook responds. 

“Sure, if it’s as nice as you say it,” you shrug, not minding much. It’s always a compliment when your model reacts that way to your final output. “You can just ask Mrs. Yang for them.”

“It is, I truly mean it,” Samuel smiles more genuinely this time. “And yes, I’ll choose the best one, although that might be difficult. They’re all great.”

“Thank you, Samuel,” you grin, not interested to keep this on. “I’ll get going now. It was a pleasure.”

“It was. I hope to see you around,” he smirks again, and you don’t miss the scowl that graces your husband’s face once more.

You wave goodbye to your classmates and tell them you’ll catch up with them another time. It’s when you exit the building that you turn to Jungkook, his frowned expression turning into a pout. 

“What was that, Mr. Jeon?” You giggle. 

“What?” He’s defensive, even as he takes your hand and leads you down the street. 

“Don’t think I didn’t know what you were doing with that kiss and head-to-toe look and hidden meanings in your words, hmm? Are you threatened?”

You’re teasing, a rarity for you because Jungkook does get quite jealous and you’ve never wanted to push him, but something about him in his work attire, rolled up sleeves with tattoos exposed and all that makes you want to just try. He looks tough like this, especially with his hair that he’s growing out, but the glasses he’s been wearing more frequently just makes him adorable. It’s a kind of sexy that you’ve been enjoying lately. 

“Just never seen him before,” he shrugs. “And he was obviously flirting with you. Like, ‘you’ve got a great eye among other things’? What the fuck does that mean?!”

“Yeah, I thought he was just being friendly until that,” you laugh. “He’s modeled just 3 times including today. He’s apparently an artist, too, so he knows a lot about forms and stuff. So that’s kind of nice, being complimented like that.”

“Hmm, probably. You also couldn’t stop looking at him.”

“Hey!” You nudge Jungkook. “It’s only because his body is so overwhelming, you know?”

“And what about mine?” He frowns.

“Perfect - just the way I like it,” you turn towards him, stopping him in his tracks so he could look at you and see the love in your eyes. “You, my dear husband, are the most handsome and sexiest being in this world, with or without clothes, and I absolutely adore every inch of you, every ridge and every dip and every beauty mark and every scar.”

You cup his cheeks and feel them rise to his eyes as he can’t help but smile at your words. 

“No need to worry, okay?” You assure. “Classes are over and I’m satisfied with my nude drawing abilities already, especially with the muse I’ve got.” You wink, liking how he blushes. He takes your hand and lovingly kisses it before kissing your forehead. 

“Hmm, might want to draw me again soon so that this is the only nude body you’ll remember,” he winks. 

“Oh trust me, this is the only nude body I remember,” you respond, resting your palms on his chest.

He takes the opportunity to pull you closer, his warm breath tingling your skin. “Good. I’ll keep reminding you though, maybe tonight? Or right when we get home?” He hums in satisfaction and kisses your lips.

You giggle in his hold. “Kook, we’re in public,” you remind him, as an old woman chuckles as she passes by you both. 

“I don’t care,” he huffs.

“I do,” you answer, though your words don’t have a bite in them.

“You didn’t answer my question,” he arches a brow.

“Do I need to?” You tease, tracing his defined pecs underneath his silk polo as you bite your lip.

“Fuck, let’s go.”

You arrive at the grand estate of Mr. Lee that’s right at the edge of the city. It took a while to get here, as you and Jungkook took too much time feeling each other up before you actually got dressed, but it was something you didn’t mind. He gets riled up when he gets jealous, and you’d shyly told him it was quite a turn on. You would’ve passed up on this event if it wasn’t so important to you, and he understood. He promised to continue what you’d both started after, though, and that really got you smiling. 

The mansion is buzzing. Clanking sounds of champagne flutes, soft munching of canapés, and laughter and conversations fill the grand room and the hallways nearby. There are many familiar people - and not because you know them from the art world, you know them because of your family and Jungkook’s. Those present in the viewing of Mr. Lee’s private art collection are big names in the business and entertainment industry, after all. But they’re here by personal invitation and their appreciation of art, including you.

It’s a twice a year event, and you’re lucky that one of Mr. Lee’s granddaughters is currently your student in the weekly art class for children that you’ve been teaching for the past few months. Her mother befriended you and was kind enough to invite you tonight, and you couldn’t be happier, especially when Jungkook messaged you earlier that he was able to free up his evening to accompany you here. You’ve been busy with various projects on top of the classes you take and conduct, and you wanted to spend time with your husband, even if half the time you’d be gushing about the pieces anyway, something he said he wouldn’t mind at all.

You find your way to look at a contemporary piece, telling Jungkook about the artist, when someone calls your name. You turn to the side and see a familiar face. 

“Chi-won,” you smile. “It’s good to see you here.”

You return the hug that the man gives you and introduce your husband.

“You, too, although I figured you’d be here,” he grins. “You’re why I got invited in the first place. I heard you recommended the tattoo shop to Mr. Lee’s daughter. She came a few weeks ago and found out I collect art, too, and she invited me tonight. So thank you.”

“Ah, that’s wonderful,” you chirp. “She said her friends aren’t into the arts so she gives the invitations to even acquaintances whom she thinks would appreciate it. I’m glad you get to witness this, too. It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

Jungkook zones out a little once you and your friend start talking about the artists whose works are displayed in the estate. Somehow, art talk is only interesting to him when it’s you who’s talking, so he lets his mind wander a bit until he hears the words that sort of knock him out.

“Loving the tattoo, by the way. It looks really great now that it’s healed,” the man says. 

Saying it’s great means he’s looking at it, and looking at it means he’s got his eyes on the colored ink painted on the valley between your breasts. Much as Jungkook adores the low-cut neckline of your wine-colored satin dress, that obviously also means that other people get a peek at it, too. The tattoo is beautiful - it’s his birth flower, after all, and he feels blessed everyday that you got it because of him, and that he gets to marvel at it every single day. He just doesn’t like the thought of others having that opportunity, too.

“Thank you,” you gush. “You’ve got amazing people at the shop, and that’s because of you. I really love it, and so does my husband. Right, Kook?”

You turn to him and Jungkook manages a curt nod and an almost-whisper of “of course.” Is… is he the man who put this on you?

You and Chi-won say your goodbyes as he heads to the other wing, and you turn to Jungkook with his curious look mixed with a tinge of nervousness.

“He’s a tattoo artist at the shop where I got the flower done,” you say, realizing what your statement could imply once Jungkook’s eyes widen.

“Oh! He didn’t tattoo me, Kook. He just owns the shop,” you explain, not wanting your husband to worry that another man got to see your bare chest. Jungkook’s face relaxes and you hear his sigh of relief. “I told you I’d get a woman to do it even if you didn’t ask for it. I don’t exactly want to expose my body to another man, you know?”

“Just me, huh?” Jungkook shyly smiles now. 

“Of course, honey. No one else.” You kiss his nose and like how his eyes close and how his features soften at the act.

You both continue the tour around the mansion. There’s an entire area dedicated to all the pieces - paintings, sculptures, mixed media art - and you gush at each one. Somehow Jungkook feels like it’s just you and him in your own little bubble. Even with the people you greet every once in a while, you choose to experience the collection with just him, even if you know he doesn’t understand half of the things you’re explaining - he’s said he likes just hearing the tone of your voice and the way your eyes crinkle when you talk about the things that make you happy.

Unfortunately, he has to burst that, as he takes an important work call and excuses himself. It takes 15 minutes but when he returns, there you are with yet another man gushing over you, it seems like, as the tall man with incredibly strong features and perfect hair shows you photos from his phone and laughs along with you.

Jungkook stands there, not wanting to burst the bubble you have with another person who gets you, in that sense - someone who gets your art, your world, your passion, and who gets to respond to you with more than just “ah, that’s cool,” the way he does. So he lets you have your moment, your space. He’ll step in in a while, he tells himself.

“Why is it that every time I see you in one of these things, you’ve always got that look on your face as you watch your wife socialize with another man from afar?”

Jungkook knows the voice before he even turns to the side and finds Kim Namjoon, your brother’s close friend and a staple in these events as an art collector himself. He’s become familiar to Jungkook, too, finding him during the times when he’s stuck on his spot as he chooses to observe you from afar. Because the man’s right - this happens more frequently than Jungkook likes to admit.

“It comes with marrying a talented and beautiful woman, I guess,” Jungkook chuckles. “I’m used to it.”

“Well, it’s her world and she stands out,” Namjoon responds.

“She stands out anywhere, actually, with anyone,” Jungkook responds, letting the thought settle in before he continues. “The man’s this big shot executive and a single dad. His 5-year old is in her art class and the kid adores her so I don’t blame the guy for admiring my wife. She’s great with kids.”

“Is it really admiration, though? Looks like he’s just showing off his son to her,” Namjoon observes, as the man holds up his phone to show you various photos to both of your delight. You’re laughing along with the man, smiling as he shows more.

“Yeah? I mean, look at the way he looks at her,” Jungkook responds.

He should be used to it by now. You have a comforting charm about you, and if he wasn’t a stuck up teenager, he would’ve realized that very early on. But no; he’d shut you out and only got to see just how good it is to be around you once he’d married you.

Your students in art class are a testament to that - it’s no wonder you were asked to add another schedule because the kids enjoy your sessions that much. Their parents are a testament to that as well. Even strangers are. But it hits differently, as he sees how the man softly watches you laugh and coo at his own son. There’s a certain glow on your face when it comes to children - Jungkook won’t blame anyone for finding that beautiful. 

“Hmm, it’s nothing compared to the way she looks at you, though,” Namjoon says. “You’d be laughing or something, or socializing when you’re in your world, and she’d be looking at you with the brightest stars in her eyes.”

Jungkook looks at the older man with questioning eyes. 

“I’ve been to some of your family’s galas, Jungkook. She hangs with me sometimes when you’re off to do your duties, and it always made me smile how adoringly she looked at you, whether up close or from afar.”

“That’s, uh… that’s nice to know,” Jungkook hums, feeling his heartbeat quicken. 

“And it shouldn’t be news to you anymore. She may be catching a lot of people’s attention but at the end of day, all she wants is you.”

And right on cue, you look around and find him, your soft eyes asking if he’s okay. Jungkook nods - to you and to Namjoon’s suggestion of going over to you. 

“Hey, hun,” you take his hand as he gets closer. “This is Woobin, Sunoo’s dad. He was just showing me photos of them painting the new playroom.” You turn to the other man. “This is Jungkook, my husband.”

“Hi,” Jungkook shakes Woobin’s hand. “So you’re the father of the famous Sunoo. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Ah, so she’s talked about him,” Woobin chuckles. “And yes, I am. My son adores your wife, as many of the kids and their parents surely do.”

“___ talks about the kids at her class all the time,” Jungkook smiles, realizing it now. “They just make her so happy.”

Despite your busy schedule full of your own classes and the ones you run, on top of your actual job at the art firm and being an artist yourself, you’re devoid of any stress once you start talking about your students. You know what they like to paint or draw, know how to help them improve, and have so many ideas to make them appreciate art even more. It’s no wonder they love you as much as they do.

“Ah, that’s no surprise. I’m just glad my son got to enroll in her class. I heard it’s tough to get into it now since she’s in demand,” Woobin states. “But it was nice to meet you, Jungkook, and nice to see you again, ___. Sunoo will be happy to know I saw you tonight.”

You and Jungkook bid him goodbye and you turn to your husband, smiling sweetly at him. 

“I’ve seen everything tonight,” you inform him. “Another round of desserts and then we can go?”

“Sure, but I’m suddenly craving for churros and ice cream,” he responds.

“Hmm, let’s go to McDonald’s, then.”

“Alright, but uh, are you cold? Do you want to put this on?”

Jungkook removes his coat and offers it to you, and though you know the breeze outside is manageable, you take it, somehow wanting him much closer tonight. You also know that perhaps it’s your low neckline that he’s a bit wary of. 

“Sure, Kook. Thank you.”

You lean on Jungkook’s shoulder and hum in satisfaction over the strawberry-flavored sundae. “Hmm, this is almost just as good as the desserts at the event.”

“Babe, McDonald’s is always just as good or better than anything,” Jungkook says with a half-full mouth. “It’s truly amazing.”

“It is. Somehow it cleanses our palette of rich-people stuff, doesn’t it?” You laugh and he joins you. It’s something that sparked your bond in the beginning, after all, and that hasn’t changed. 

“Yeah, but it’s also just my happy food, you know? Grease, sweets, unhealthy stuff… delicious.”

“Happy food, huh? Did something upset you tonight? Or maybe someone?” You ask, wanting to know if him stepping away while you spoke with Woobin has something to do with it. 

“Not really. Woobin didn’t cross a line,” Jungkook says, an admission that he knows what you’re talking about. “I mean, he was looking at you like a man with a crush, though, and I can’t blame him but he knew his boundaries. Good for him.”

“Of course he does, Kook. He knows I have a husband.”

“Yes, after you told him you couldn’t have coffee with him when he asked you out, which means that he was interested and he probably still is, like that nude model who was definitely into you.”

You turn to look at him who’s busy with his sundae but clearly bothered, but not enough to be angry. You’ve always been honest with him, the way he’d always been honest about the women at the Clubhouse who’d thrown themselves at him after one of his soccer games. You’ve always trusted each other, and you’re just glad that that’s always been enough to not have any miscommunication or arguments because of it.

“Ah, Samuel. Yeah, that was new.”

“Oh? He’s never hinted on a crush? Dude was looking at you like you were all he could see,” Jungkook shakes his head. 

“Yeah, then you came in with a kiss and swept me off my feet,” you teasingly roll your eyes. “How romantic.”

“Sorry, it was just reflex,” he explains. 

“I know, but you have nothing to worry about, okay? I tell you everything. Maybe not the mundane interactions or insignificant things that I easily forget but the important ones.”

“I know,” he says, smiling at you. “And you know I tell you everything, too.”

“You do,” you smile back. “But thank you for making it tonight. You’ve been so busy and I’m just glad I got to be with you.”

“Anything for you, babe. You’ve been so busy, too, and honestly, I didn’t mind moving the meeting with my father since I wasn’t really ready. Plus, all I had to say was that I was accompanying you to an art event and he let me go. You’re a spoiled daughter-in-law, you know that?”

You laugh at his teasing and the fact that your husband had the gall to ask his own father and boss to move a meeting for you. 

“I am, actually. And now it benefits you, too!”

“It benefits both of us,” he corrects. “But tonight was good. I mean, I kinda had to ward off certain men but I didn’t mind. It was still a fun one.”

“It was,” you hum, basking in his boyish smile and the twinkle in his eyes. Something comes alive inside you when he looks at you this way, and amidst the midnight buzzing of a McDonald’s in the city, you move closer and kiss his lips, gentle but wanting, and you feel him smile even wider against you.

“Babe, we’re in public,” he teases, and much as he likes to do that, he also enjoys it when you get a little flustered even when you mouth that you ‘don’t care.’

You peck his cheek and pull him, and as you walk to the car with his coat over your shoulder, as you talk about the art collection all the way home, and as you share a bath and then lie bare underneath the covers with your tangled limbs, Jungkook only knows this - this is your world, and in the one you both share, you’re the only two people who matter.

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[baekhvuns]

Was The Crown good? I'm so behind I didn't realise it came out, pretty sure I haven't finished the previous season 😬

Maybe it's good I don't live in LA, because I would go bankrupt with all the gigs and prices..

I'll start calling you Baeksussy from now on, because you're always up to no good 👀

Literally, because I see people celebrating Taemin's return this month and I'm like "besties, I have some bad news..." unless they surprise us and he comes back early. You know what, I actually don't know who Taemin is???

Me going to see Seonghwa at the night club I came here to drop some money, dropping all my money

Oh yes big accounts are guilty of taking jokes too far and being annoying in general, that's why I have 50% of Atinys blocked akdhiagshahahaa can't stand their asses.

Not stalkers at it again... On a lighter note, Wooyoung paid for Atinys meal, me when. Pay my rent!

You know who should invite Key? Drag Race South Korea, it's apparently happening sooooo

Seonghwa, Ddeonghwa, Hwaseong, Mars, Hwa, Seong so many different personalities. (I set the wallpaper 😭). Truly Seonghwa is genuinely so sweet, nerdy, wholesome, sensitive, smart and sexy too?! He needs to calm down

It's good your friend is using kaddy, it should be much easier! Wish her good luck, may the force be with her. :3

Platinum CEO Hwa in theatres near me? Can he come to my house?

The lacey blouse he's wearing for Paradigm :o we're in danger!!!

Not Seonghwa trying to rename Shinestars again?! What does he have against that name it's so fucking perfect. No Ddeongwives, no Ddeongps.... S H I N E S T A R S

Yes, I'm very into Seonghwa's shoulders and arms era 🥴 and clearly I'm not the only one

Twins AU? But how do you choose :///

Hwa's shoulders are already nice and wide, he wants to commit to the Dorito shape even more 😭 I didn't mind gym lessons, because it meant I could do the bare minimum, but the only thing I do at the gym is exercise my legs (track, bike) lmao. Omfg those exercising games can be fun, but not when the whole school is watching and waiting for you to embarrass yourself 💔

I wonder what's gonna happen in PD3, hope D*sn*t doesn't fuck it up completely

I know a few people who would love to be pulled over by Wonho. Yes, he is!

Uh I think BTS showed up in my dream recently, but only for a second, I was also crying lol

That fucking nose on Hehetmon, Yunho why 😬

"See you later" just like "European dates will be announced soon" right 🤡

Please

Aaaaand we got Sanhwa patisserie!!!

Hongjoong looks cute, but Seonghwa... between him looking like an adorable grandpa, SPREADING, big ass shoes and a tin of crisps I don't know where to look

Me at Seonghwa Kino wife material, lol

I got "full moon lighting up my lovers face"

Bestie, Seonghwa's vlog, so far I saw arms and him flexing his Black Opium perfume.... - DV 💖

hi hello!!

Was The Crown good? I'm so behind I didn't realise it came out, pretty sure I haven't finished the previous season 😬

im at the last ep, and tbh i haven’t moved on them the last season characters esp the queen! but the diana this season is just sOOO 🤌🏼🤌🏼🤌🏼 its crazy how their facial features rly match! truly the best diana ever. literally.

diana and her pakistani men <33 mr mohammed al-fayed and his friendship with diana >>> and mr dodi is very 🧍🏻‍♀️ ive been quoting this for the past few days and i cannot stop this is an addiction with the fact that i have a sudden urge to speak in their posh accent

Maybe it's good I don't live in LA, because I would go bankrupt with all the gigs and prices..

no seriously 😭😭 every god damn thing just happens there and for it to be so expensive but not even clean is 🔫🔫 its so romanticized too! i feel like one can sign bankruptcy the second they look at a door to a house, bc YOU KNOW THE DOOR BE MAD EXPENSIVE TOO

I'll start calling you Baeksussy from now on, because you're always up to no good 👀

BAEKSUSSY JEGDKWHDKSHKCUKC 😭😭😭 IM SCREAMING

Literally, because I see people celebrating Taemin's return this month and I'm like "besties, I have some bad news..." unless they surprise us and he comes back early. You know what, I actually don't know who Taemin is???

saw a panchoa article saying “idols who’ll return from the military next year” and it said baekhyun and on this date then taemin it said n/a and i lost it,,, i need this man to drop a date we are thirsty. hungry. not breathing.

NO BC ONE OF THOSE WHO BE CELEBRATING IS ME IN MY DELULU 😭😭😭 ur right, who’s taemin? taeyeon’s cousin? taeyong’s brother? no idea.

Me going to see Seonghwa at the night club I came here to drop some money, dropping all my money

LMFAOOOO id waste all my money on him tbh,, as long as the stripper in him continues take my money 🤲🏼

Oh yes big accounts are guilty of taking jokes too far and being annoying in general, that's why I have 50% of Atinys blocked akdhiagshahahaa can't stand their asses.

YEAAHHH its the way ppl dickride them without pointing out where they’re wrong is very 🔫🔫 ur so right on that, blocking and moving on lowkey was glad that twt was gonna seize to exist 😭😭

Not stalkers at it again... On a lighter note, Wooyoung paid for Atinys meal, me when. Pay my rent!

LMFAOOOO FBQKDJWLDKW PAY MT RENT 😭😭 PAY MY TUITION WOOYOUNG JUST GIMME UR ROLEX I WONT ASK FOR ANYTHING ELSE

You know who should invite Key? Drag Race South Korea, it's apparently happening sooooo

STOP. STOP STOP HE’D BE PERFECT STOPPP ID WATCH IT JUST FOR HIM, he’d judge so hard too and without any bias 🤚🏼 if sm sends boa again 😭😭

Seonghwa, Ddeonghwa, Hwaseong, Mars, Hwa, Seong so many different personalities. (I set the wallpaper 😭). Truly Seonghwa is genuinely so sweet, nerdy, wholesome, sensitive, smart and sexy too?! He needs to calm down

he’S SO AGGRAVATINGLY HANDSOME, WHOLESOME no how can someone be a wholesome sexy? how. who tHE FUCK CAN EVEN DO THAT (im so glad u did bc it reminds is of our roots) BESIDE HIM??? WHAT WONDER DID HE DO LAST LIFE TO GET THIS IMMENSE EVERYTHING ???? god’s favourite truly, when is it my turn to BE UR FAVOURITE

It's good your friend is using kaddy, it should be much easier! Wish her good luck, may the force be with her. :3 /// Platinum CEO Hwa in theatres near me? Can he come to my house? The lacey blouse he's wearing for Paradigm :o we're in danger!!!

its really going good for her! thank you for your expertise!! she’s currently stuck trying to get good thank your cards <3 will be making a batch 😭😭 WDYM IN UR HOUSE BESTIE HES THE MAN UR ARRANGED TOO, HES IN UR HOUSE FOREVER <33 WE’RE IN DEEP DANGER. HAHA. he looks like he’s about to star in the house of dragons with that on

Not Seonghwa trying to rename Shinestars again?! What does he have against that name it's so fucking perfect. No Ddeongwives, no Ddeongps.... S H I N E S T A R S

he’s what

Yes, I'm very into Seonghwa's shoulders and arms era 🥴 and clearly I'm not the only one /// Twins AU? But how do you choose :///

if he drops one more photo like that, im quitting kpop 🔫

hear me out, one’s the nerd. the other’s the resident fuckboy or whatever. yn likes the nerd twin (let’s name him hwaseong) and seonghwa (the fuckboy) finds that out and decides to make his mission to tease yn about it bUT they come on an agreement where yn begs seonghwa to help her in getting hwaseong and her together which obviously he’s gonna say no too, but then eventually comes around! and so then it starts,,, he’ll tell her what he likes and just watch yn fuck up dbwmdhsk all while he enjoys <33 tho it’ll def be confusing with using the names 😭😭

Hwa's shoulders are already nice and wide, he wants to commit to the Dorito shape even more 😭 I didn't mind gym lessons, because it meant I could do the bare minimum, but the only thing I do at the gym is exercise my legs (track, bike) lmao. Omfg those exercising games can be fun, but not when the whole school is watching and waiting for you to embarrass yourself 💔

he knows exactly what gets everyone triggered, the dorito bod, the looking so fine in suits, and what’s next. he drives with one hand, does the reverse with one hand? 😀 OH UR LEGS MUST BE TONED AS HELL !!!!! tripped and hurt my knee during one of those <333 felt amazing bc i got to sit out dhsmhdjs

I wonder what's gonna happen in PD3, hope D*sn*t doesn't fuck it up completely

UR RIGHT I HOPE THE STORYLINE STAYS ON POINT AND DOESNT INCLUDE THOSE STUPID JOKES AND REFERENCES FROM SOCIAL MEDIA OR SOMETHING

I know a few people who would love to be pulled over by Wonho. Yes, he is! /// Uh I think BTS showed up in my dream recently, but only for a second, I was also crying lol

i didn’t when read the first part, tell me everything about the last part. ppt format.

That fucking nose on Hehetmon, Yunho why 😬 /// “See you later" just like "European dates will be announced soon" right 🤡

yumho surprises me everyday, i don’t even know how to say this but he’s a true man. a man. men.

Please

id literally die if he gets the mc job, everyday he’s gonna look all pretty and dress up all while im eating glass

Aaaaand we got Sanhwa patisserie!!! /// Hongjoong looks cute, but Seonghwa... between him looking like an adorable grandpa, SPREADING, big ass shoes and a tin of crisps I don't know where to look

seonghwa. FJAKJDKS ADORABLE GRANDPA LMFAOOOO 😭😭😭 u think his grandkids would ask him to dance and its him doing bulnoriya while his knees crack but he’s so determined to show them his glory days and the fact that he’s still young. grandpa hwa <3

Me at Seonghwa Kino wife material, lol

male wife ☺️☺️

I got "full moon lighting up my lovers face"

😮😮 a hopeless romantic i see,,, i got sneaking downstairs to get more cake but it turned out to be a very wholesome au that I will write ONE DAY

“you're not even in your double digits, and your best friend who you have a secret crush on came over for your birthday party. it's after midnight, and you decide to sneak downstairs to eat more cake. you're both as silent as you could possibly be, careful not to wake anyone. you scoot a stool over to the counter and crawl up ungracefully, snatching two small pieces of cake and sitting on the floor to eat. you both whisper about what you'd gotten as gifts, and they tell you they have something else that they wanted to give you in private. when you get back to your room, they pull out a small box. you open it to see an action figure, one that looks like you. they tell you they were at toys r us the other day and noticed it was basically a little you, and begged their dad for it. he agreed, and they went home and wrapped it themselves, poorly but effectively.”

Bestie, Seonghwa's vlog, so far I saw arms and him flexing his Black Opium perfume.... - DV 💖

black opium. ysl. model seonghwa. just happens to be the one the yn and hwa endorse! just so happens! haha!

ok but this is so 😭😭😭 they should’ve let him go 😭😭😭 man missing a sibling’s wedding, damn, must be heartbreaking

🙂🙂

me when.

u know if boxer seonghwa was alive, this.

😭😭😭

[dearharriet]

hi lovely ! it's milunalupin :)

could i please request remus + "i waited for you" ? 🫶🏼✨

hello my friend, ty for the request!! im working on my big boy fic for james rn but i wanted a little bit of remus as a break <3 (wc: 691)

“You smell good.”

Remus looks at the man taking a seat across from him, appalled by such a comment. Sirius looks equally stunned saying it, wrinkled nose a mirror of Remus’.

“Thank you?”

Sirius shakes his head like this is the wrong response.

“Why do you smell good?”

Remus rolls his eyes, keeping his posture aloof. “Took my annual bath last night.”

Sirius scoffs. “‘Bout time. Your stench was getting harsh on my delicate canine senses.”

That pulls a laugh from Remus, however small.

By the door, he sees you squeezing into the packed pub, side-stepping between rowdy groups of people and looking around. You’re wearing a mid-length skirt, and when you spot the two boys in their booth it swishes around each hasty step.

“Hi,” you breathe, “I’m sorry. They made me start inventory and then I just had to shower and—” Remus stands to offer you some seclusion via the walled side of the bench seat. You wave your rambling apologies away, winded from running around all day. “Nevermind. I need a drink, Remus. Come with?”

“Sit,” he demands softly, “I’ll fetch it.”

You do as you’re told, hanging onto Remus’ words like a takeout fortune, foolishly hopeful that they mean something. If Sirius didn’t demand so much attention, you’d probably turn them over in your head a lot longer, but he really, really does.

“Think you can show us lads up, eh missy?”

Smothering a smile, you stare Sirius down with false bluntness.

“Yep. You’re lucky I even came at all, honestly.”

Sirius laughs, spinning his glass, half empty and through sweating. You realize his drink is the only one on the table.

“I’m surprised you did. You’re so popular, but you stay humble for us.”

“I have to,” you agree, “I could’ve been with people a lot cooler than you guys, but I just felt so bad. You and Remus don’t have anyone else to hang out with now that James is married.”

“Moony, we’re being bullied,” says Sirius, raising his voice a touch to reach the boy in question. Remus places two new drinks on the maple tabletop, sliding in close to you.

“I’m sure we deserve it,” he says, passing one of the fresh glasses off to you. “We’re turning into losers.”

You bring the cool glass to your lips, relaxing further into the familiar booth cushion and eyeing Remus’ new drink.

“Is that your second?”

Remus shakes his head. “My first.”

He tracks your brows as they pull together. They’d been here almost a half hour already.

“I waited for you,” he explains, smiling gently. Your stomach leaps.

“You didn’t have to do that.”

Sirius jumps in, stepping on Remus’ toes.

“That’s what I told him,” he says, “I said you’re too sweet to mind.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Remus says, following up Sirius’ heel. His voice is still wearing the crooning silk he tends to direct towards you. “It’s the polite thing to do. Sirius just has poor manners.”

Across the way, the man in question sputters objections while you try not to laugh.

“I—I’m impolite? I’m impolite! Please. She’s the only one at this table who was late to a hangout one block away from her apartment. I had every right to drink my sorrows away.”

Remus ducks his head and shoots you a cat-like grin, but Sirius isn’t done.

“And it’s not being polite if you’re motivated by a massive crush, Moony, by the way. D’you know he’s wearing cologne?”

You stare at Sirius, because the alternative of looking at Remus (who is flushed beyond measure) is akin to a death sentence.

“Yes,” you admit. You’d smelled it on him when he stood up earlier, a fresh earthy scent that was too sharp to be soap. Sirius points at your face like he’s caught you.

“See? The only people who notice a guy wearing cologne are his miserable best mates, and girls who want to be waited on.” Remus shoots him a glare and he throws his hands up as if to say, sue me. “I’m just helping.”

Remus curses through an exhale and drops his head into his hands.

+

thank you for reading! xx

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