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vyxcondessa · 2 months ago

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── Coming In Hot; 3/9

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ03. DON'T LET GO NOW

PAIRING: Bucky Barnes x F!Reader

WORD COUNT: 7.9k

SUMMARY: "You're early," says Bucky, stopping his work to give you a small smile.

"The crew was ready when I got there," you shrug, doing a weird little dance blow with your legs when he smiles back pleased at you.

Bucky laughs at you, entirely delighted. It makes you blush, but he's become quite good at that, even if he doesn't know it.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎✎﹏﹏﹏﹏

It takes you a few more days to organize everything you want, but once everything is set and ready, the photos you take for your page that week can be easily classified as some of the best work you’ve done so far.

Thanks to tricks taught to you by a photographer friend and the few videos you gathered the patience to watch on Youtube years ago, transforming any space — small or big — in a good scenario for pictures came easy to you, and that definitely helped you build up such a clean, “professional” image.

Artistic bullshit aside, the shots were stunning.

You spend a good hour hyping yourself up to the fact that these are the same shots as before, but it’s evident in the lighting, the posing, the sheer sensuality that each of them owns.

You were inspired.

It was impossible to deny when the evidence was frozen in time.

Pictures of your foggy breath against the bathroom mirror, bathtub pictures with water dripping on your skin, and a few props around the house and you had enough to content to last you at least two months.

Between one scenario and another, you catch yourself thinking about a stain of grease running down your back.

Maybe on your cheekbones, matching the black lace covering your body.

Fuck.

That was a dangerous road and quickly, you shook yourself out of those thoughts.

Bucky has nothing to do with this is clearly the first bullshit you try convincing yourself of, but as soon as you do, you flop back onto your mattress with a defeated sigh.

The fact that you wanted to take that excuse in said it all.

At least whatever flame Bucky lit up under your skin resulted in all those nice shots.

You may not have a model’s body, but your page, as well as many others that you followed which did the same work as you, did wonders for body acceptance and positivity, unlike what many people would expect.

The point was that the more you felt sexy in your own skin, the more others tended to do so, too.

You meant what you’d said to Sarah when the two of you met—employing other people with the job of liking or finding beauty in you never existed in your dictionary.

Your life’s biggest blessing was, perhaps, that you enjoyed your own company.

After you finish editing, saving in their respective folders, and creating a schedule for posting them, you sit on your kitchen counter still in panties, bralette and a robe, a sandwich in one hand, and a lecture being played on your ear pods.

The heavy textbook on your hand is a good reminder of why making an extra few hundred bucks (nearing a thousand, depending on the month and your inspirations) every month meant everything.

You had a long way to go, and unfortunately living on this earth costs a lot, all the time.

Until the end of the week, you’d have another large bill to pay and you’d rather be able to do it without having to live off of noodles for the foreseeable future.

(Buying a new gloss since yours had ended before you saw Bucky again didn’t sound half bad, either.)

◦➳◦

i have something extremely important to ask u

that sounds ominous and v serious. is it srs

bc i’m under a car rn and i dont fancy hitting my head

are u abt to hit me with existential crack again

i havent had coffee yte hold on

lmfao theres no need for coffee

i was about to ask who on earth typed

those first messages of yours to me. ‘cause it sure

has hell wasn’t you. proper punctuation, capital letters and all…

do u use siri sometimes or what

i’m curious

…

i’m sorry that’s so funny to me somehow???

how tf do u notice these little things is beyond me lol

it was peter. i was under a tight spot in a car and

asked him to type the messages for you

ah! makes sense.

speaking of the young padawan: has he

solved my riddle yet?

no and i am loving every sec of this lol

he went from ‘riddles are just LoGiC , BuCKy’ to

‘why is lady bullet allowed to write things on the

office board through you, anyway???? no one else

is allowed to do that’ and today morning he was screaming inside my office ’

THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE I REFUSE

TO BELIEVE THERE’S AN ANSWER’ so yeah

thanks for the entertainment

you all figured it out, right? :D

yup. gabe was the last one. now he passes peter and

laughs under his breath like an asshole

it’s awesome

i think the kid might have a heart attack soon if we dont tell him the answer

let him marinate for a little longer!

as paramore once beautifully put

‘that’s what you get’ <3

you know, when i asked u for a tip on how to punish

him for calling my favorite book dumb i didnt think you’d

actually find something but i am glad you did

it’s hard to find someone as smart as peter

me n all the boys all thank u v v much.

he needs an ego trim every now n then

happy to help, sarge :D

◦➳◦

Some people thought what you might hate the most in the subway was the crowd and the dirtiness — everywhere you looked, it seemed like a health hazard — but instead, it was the fact that you were under the ground.

Small or confined (or heaven forbid, both) spaces were not your thing.

“Thanks for coming with me, S.”

Sarah adjusts her coat on the seat by your side and gives you an easy smile. “Duh.”

Standing in front of you, AJ turns his GameBoy screen to you.

“Like this?” He asks.

You analyze the game screen and note with excitement that he followed your instructions and got himself in the hidden spot you were so familiar with. “That’s it!” You lifted your hand for a high-five, which he gave with a smirk. “Nice job, kiddo.”

“Thanks, TT.”

“Can we go for ice cream before you two drop us off at uncle Sam’s?” Cass asks, bumping his sneakers into your boots.

“Your ma and I told you we’re taking you both for burgers and milkshake before we go to work, mister,” you smack your teeth at Cass, and squeeze his cute little chin for good measure. “This is what you get for walking around with those damn pods all day and not listening to us.”

“Hear hear.” Sarah eyes Cass with ’I told you eyes’. “He knows very well what’s gonna happen if those things seem permanently stapled to his ear very soon.”

“I’m sorry, I was watching the new One Piece episode,” Cass shrugs apologetically, and you and Sarah exchange looks at his sheepish and adorable face trying to gain sympathy with pleading eyes.

“Am I a bad TT for buying him those instead of that book I know he was gonna like?” You ask Sarah with a pout.

“Nah, he just needs to learn how to use his present without excluding himself from the world, which we’ve talked about for the last time last night, right?” Sarah asks Cass.

Cass nods dutifully, and AJ shares a look with you above the exchange, then goes right back to his game.

Those small little looks are one of the things that make you feel the most at home in the city that feels too big for you sometimes. Truly being Sarah’s friend meant being close to her kids, too, and being her best friend came with the benefit of being seen as an “auntie” for the cutest kids you had ever met.

“I can listen to music on the way there, right?” Cass asks, buttering up a sweet smile.

Sarah rolls her eyes. “Duh.” Cass puts the ear pods back on and Sarah looks at you, sensing that their attention is fully on their little world now and she can go back to the conversation. “So—what was the reason again? The excuse you were giving me about why you can’t invite him to your celebration day?”

You sigh deeply, feeling that anxious flutter inside your chest at the coded hidden question about Bucky.

“S. He’s a life-saver and we’re definitely… acquaintances, but that doesn’t mean he’s gonna want to come next month to a barbeque to celebrate ‘little old me’.” The last bit is a jab at Bucky’s constant reminders of how much older he is than you, but Sarah doesn’t know that.

“Why not? He’s super close with my brother, you two now know each other,” she prompts with an indulgent tone.

“Would you invite Amree for your birthday?” You ask her in return, changing your tactics.

Sarah was about to talk but stops with her mouth half-open at the mention of the handymen from her building.

You’d seen him the last time he was there, exchanging googley and dopey eyes at her.

The way she stuttered in the kitchen looking for the ingredients despite claiming she “doesn’t need help to bake some cookies, babe, please”.

“That. Is a completely fair point.” She shuts her mouth and looks ahead of the subway.

A little part of you feels bad for being so surgical to get your point across, but Sarah was the only person in your life currently able to see right through you.

The only reason she still threatened waters around you to ask about Bucky, despite having seen on your face the clear signs of a crush, was because you were logical and as far she knew, you and he were mere acquaintances.

For some reason, how much you two have been talking is something you keep to yourself.

You nudge your arm against hers. “He’ll just forget about me and my pretty car as soon as we’re outta there today, S.” You make an effort to sound playful, and not downright disappointed at that fact. “I don’t wanna invite him for something he’ll feel outta place in weeks. You told me he likes company that he knows, right?”

Sarah nods, a small pout on her face. “Yeah.” She pulls AJ out of the way of a musician walking with an instrument and almost knocking it on the boy’s head without meaning to.

Supermom.

“I’ve only seen him around the unit.” Sarah looks at you. “He always comes to stuff Sam asks, but that’s probably ‘cause he’s best friends with Steve and Sam and Steve are… well. You’ll see.”

You recognize in her scoff and tone that this is something you must see or speak of when not in the presence of already sentient and smart younger ears.

“But even then I’ve heard him say he’s not big on parties.” Sarah sighs. “Guess you’re right, then.”

An announcement for a cool super-hero movie pops up in one of the screens close to you both, and the rest of the way is a pleasant and fun conversation about movies that at some point, AJ and later Cass end up joining.

That’s how you four arrive at Barnes Auto—nerding out, bundled up in cozy jackets for the chilly October air and with flushed cheeks from laughing.

The first one to see you guys is Peter who, this time, is standing at his working place.

“Sergeant! Incoming for you.” He yells loud and clear, smiling at all of you. “Steve, get here,” he adds in a voice a little lower, but loud enough to be heard through the noises of the mechanic shop.

“Hi Peter!” you say, echoed by the same greetings from Sarah and the boys.

He’s coming around from behind the receptionist counter to say hello to the boys when you finally get to properly meet the infamous Stevie.

Out of the room behind the reception comes a blond man as tall and built as Bucky, with a thick beard and beautiful sand-blond hair.

His smile is contagious, and he waves excitedly at Sarah and the boys before pinning his piercing blue eyes on you.

After cleaning his hand on the rug on his shoulder, he extends it. “You must be Y/N. Nice to meet ya, I’m Steve.”

“Neet to meet you, Steve.” You shake his head, ignoring the hollering and laughter coming from behind you from Peter and the kids. “Last time I dropped by you were stuck under a beautiful 60s Camaro with a painting gun on your hand, so I didn’t wanna bother.”

“And also Buck told you to ignore the idiots in his shop, so,” he points at himself with a doofus-grin.

Before you can find a way to reply to his teasing, the boys come to wrap around Steve’s legs.

“Hi uncle Steve!” says Cass.

“Uncle Steve, Y/n taught me how to pass that phase I told you about, d’you wanna see?” AJ asks excitedly.

“Of course I do, little guy!” Steve gives you a nod with raised eyebrows that kind of says ’nice one, Y/n’ and then he’s guiding both of the boys back inside the reception room, keeping up with both of them speaking at the same time.

When you look at where Sarah and Peter are still standing, both of them stop their conversation to look at you.

“Oh! Sergeant’s waiting for you, Y/n.” Peter smiles at you. “You remember where it is, right?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“I’m gonna catch up with Peter, you go ahead,” Sarah tells you when you direct your gaze to her.

With a nod to the both of them, you turn around and walk further inside to the back patio you’re growing used to.

Madeleine Peyroux is the first thing you listen to as you get close to the place where you know Bullet is parked.

That’s from your pen-drive, and you know it.

When you finally cross the arch separating the shop from the open back, you can see Bullet shining on the left side, and Bucky sitting behind the open door of an old Volkswagen beetle.

His eyes widen at the sight of you, and you smile up at him.

You’d texted earlier ‘it’ll be at least a couple of hrs till i’m there. gonna stop by n get S and the kids!’ But once you got to Sarah’s house, everybody was dressed and ready to go, already, which meant you were at least an hour earlier than he expected.

“You’re early,” says Bucky, stopping the work he’s doing to give you a small smile.

“The crew was ready when I got there,” you shrug, doing a weird little dance bowin with your legs when he smiles back pleased at you.

Bucky laughs at you, entirely delighted.

It makes you blush, but that’s something he’s become quite good at even if he doesn’t know it.

You turn around to Bullet, thankful he probably can’t see it from this far. “I see you’re still enjoying my sound system,” you gesture towards your car blasting Etta James now at full volume.

Bucky’s garage is well-built enough that the rooms feel like separate atmospheres.

On the reception and the first two areas of the shop all you heard was modern rock’n’roll that you, unfortunately, failed to recognize, but here at the back, Etta singing “Stormy Weather” was all that could be heard.

“You have a really good taste in music,” Bucky nods and kind of bows to you with his upper body. The approval over your music makes you giggle.

“I can’t lie, that’s a pretty straight-up fact,” you nod back at him.

Bucky laughs again, his eyes crinkling at the corner. You start moving closer to Bullet, wanting to take a better look at her.

It’s clear the boys had washed and pampered her up.

“I had a pretty good crash course with her, I think.” Even without seeing him, you can feel Bucky getting up from behind the car he’s working and start moving to where you are as well. “I saved all the new artists I heard on her on my playlists.”

Tracing your fingertips over Bullet’s hood, you look back up at him.

“Many new choices?” You smile.

“Many,” he stops right in front of you, and opens that side-smile that makes your heart a little weak. “I listened to pretty much the same stuff since I was kid before I went overseas, then I spent a good few years without listening to the top 40s if you know what I mean, so I was really out of the loop.”

For someone who, according to others, loves being in silence or keeps as short as possible, Bucky sure seems willing to offer you a lot of information, willingly.

“Not anymore.” You knew from all the back and forth you two have had the past week that Bucky absolutely adores Paramore, Hozier, Frank Ocean, among many other artists.

Bucky nods along to you, a smile intact on his face until he seems to remember something and exclaims. “Oh! Steve’s not trapped under a car today. He said something about talking to you about your good car choices, so don’t leave before I’ve gotten a chance to introduce you two.”

“He was at the reception room, I just did,” you chuckle. “AJ and Cass have stolen him, unfortunately.”

“Ah.” Bucky smacks his teeth. “Their Uncle Stevie has to give them attention before he’s allowed to spend time with the adults.”

“They seem to really like him.”

“They do. Steve won them over before they learned how to talk,” Bucky scoffs, looking fondly in the direction where they all are. “I still remember the first time they called him uncle Steve,” he adds with a far-away tone, smiling turning softer. “That man was so happy.” Bucky scoffs again, chuckling to himself. “Punk.”

Sam and Steve are… well. You’ll see.

Ah.

“Oh!” you exclaim out loud, a pin suddenly dropping in your brain, connecting one snarky comment to another.

The memory of Sarah on the first year you two met each other, sitting on a balcony staircase during a party and telling you all about her stupid brother and how he and his stupid best friends were stupidly in love with each other, but blind as a bat to that fact.

Bucky snaps his head to you.

“It’s him!” You stage-whisper, leaning closer to Bullet and to where Bucky is. “When I met Sarah at Nila’s party she was talking about her brother’s best friend, who he served with after Riley decided to drop out of the course, and who—” you stop talking, altogether, shutting your lips tightly together. “I’m not going crazy, right? It’s Steve?” You whisper to Bucky.

Bucky’s looking at you with a funny expression, and when he answers, it’s in a whispering tone, too. “His best friend who…”

“C’mon, you know,” you giggle.

Bucky licks his lips, and looks away from you with a chuckle. “Everyone who knows those two knows, yes.” When Bucky looks back, it’s with a know-it-all smirk. “One day they’ll figure it out.” He shrugs his shoulders. “And I’m Stevie’s best friend.”

You roll your eyes at him. “God, I can hear the fights you and Sam have had about this,” you chuckle.

“Only a couple. Until one of them decides to leave the idiot zone and smack the other in the face with a kiss, he’s gotta be content with being best friend number two,” Bucky widens his smile at you. “I met him first.”

“Called dibs on him, did you?” You tease.

“Sure did, darlin’.” Oh, lord. There it is again. Darling. “Plus—one day Sam will be ‘husband’ and I’ll be the one having to deal with his smug ass and his husband dibs, so I’m getting my fill while I can,” Bucky adds with a snicker.

“How long have you and Steve known each other?” You ask.

Bucky hums and leans with his back against Bullet.

“I… have lost count.” He chuckles, quickly locking eyes with you. “We met when we were kids, then I moved with my dad for a while, but I went back to my ma’s and since then Stevie and I have had each other’s six.”

Even if you wanted, you couldn’t help but melt a little at the sweet and hidden smile in Bucky’s eyes from talking about his best friend.

They sound like the kind of friendship anyone would dream of having in a lifetime.

“Adorable,” you say.

Bucky laughs under his breath, and turns around to your car, clasping his hands together. “Alright. Lemme tell you everything that she’s been through.” He places his hands on the hood, and your throat dries a little watching the shine of his metallic left hand against the black shining painting. “Then we can go to the office, ‘cause I gotta show you something,” he adds in a serious tone.

When you look up at him curiously, you see the same glint in his eyes from when he recorded himself listening to Paramore for the first time.

There’s a playful mirth hidden in Bucky’s looks — and comments — that you noticed.

“Go head, Sarge.”

Bucky explains to you calmly and very thoroughly about the three main repairs he had done on Bullet, and where the problem had originated from.

He also says, “Ah, and I changed your battery ‘cause it was shitty, and I did spend the whole week listening to music on Bullet while I worked, so it was only my duty.” He throws you a half-smile over his shoulder. “I’m letting you know ‘cause you might notice if you open the hood, but you won’t see it on the bill ‘cause I am not charging. I ran it to the ground, I changed it, you’re welcome.”

The tone he uses and the pointed look state to anyone willing to listen that this topic is not open for discussion, so you lift your hands up in surrender.

Seeing your compliance, he gives a tiny satisfied nod. Then, he points to the inside of the shop.

“Shall we?” He chuckles. “You’re gonna like what you see.”

Bucky leads you through the shop and right to the main office, then closes the door behind you two.

This time, your eyes roam around the place a little bit.

You can see pictures of what you identify from afar are a bunch of soldiers, there are spaceship prototypes, and a bunch of books you hadn’t seen before spread everywhere.

It turns out, the thing Bucky is so secretly giddy to show you is the answer to the riddle you had texted him days ago and he’d written on the board:

You know my thunder comes before the lightning. My lightning comes before the clouds. My rain dries all the land it touches. I’m…

Right under the riddle, there was the answer.

You point at it, smiling with your jaw fallen. “Is that Peter’s?” you ask.

A burst of laughter comes out from Bucky.

“You bet.” He comes around the table and sits on his chair. “Took him a while, but he got it.”

You burst out laughing, too, thinking of scrawny and tall Peter furiously writing the answer on the green board in big, block letters.

The board is quite a masterpiece, you notice.

When you look at Bucky, you allow curiosity to peek its head out again. “Can I?” you point at it.

Bucky lifts one eyebrow, just like Sarah does. “Of course,” he smiles at you, and gestures for you to go forward.

When you step closer to inspect, you see that the big — wide and a little tall — green board contains all sorts of messages.

Right on the center, there’s a neat and talented spreadsheet with all of this month’s dates and important car deliveries.

“Who’s the bookworm of the shop?” you ask and start roaming your eyes around the rest surrounding the center spreadsheet.

There’s the Santa Claus dick you recognize from Bucky’s picture, a bunch of things in german and spanish thrown sporadically, and what you notice are book quotes.

Or maybe poems.

“Me.” You spin around at the answer, and Bucky points at all the books. “These are mine.”

There are so many books, and you look at all of them with growing satisfaction.

There was a time when you used to eat books like meals.

Reading pleased you immensely, but you rarely had time for it anymore.

Bucky watches your expression go from excited to melancholic, and his calm look turns into a frown at the same moment.

“What?” He asks softly.

“Sorry,” you laugh, a little caught by the emotions. “I was thinking about how much I used to read. I love books. It’s just… I stopped a little before I got into school and once I did—” you scoff.

It’s not like you had much time to look up recommendations now.

Bucky watches you for a few more heartbeats, then points at the board again.

“What’s your favorite quote from there?” He asks.

You’re pulled out from your blues with the question, and turn around to read all of them again.

Then, your eyes read on a small footnote on the right side.

The handwriting is elegant, yet messy.

It reads:

could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.

Your heart seems to forget how it is that it beats, and you feel your jaw dropping one more time.

Your body turns around slowly towards Bucky, eyes almost glued to the quote, not wanting to let go. “Where is that from?”

Bucky looks in the direction you’re pointing, and his eyes widen. “Oh.” He looks up at you with the saddest smile you’ve ever seen on his beautiful face. “That’s the best and the saddest book I’ve ever read in my life,” he tells you in a low voice, emotion dripping from every word, as if he’s feeling the power of the story webbed into his heart strike him right there. “I can lend it to you, but it’d break your heart.”

It seems like the world stops for a second for you.

Bucky’s sitting there in the morning light streaming from the glass walls, looking at you expectantly and all you can think about is whether this man was carved from gold or your dreams.

Was he real?

“I haven’t read a book in ages but, yeah—I’d love to,” you laugh, surprised at his offer and how happy the simple question makes you.

Happy and seen, somehow.

Bucky Barnes has known you not even for a full month and yet, here he was, making your inner child feel giddy and more pleased than in a long time.

“Hold on,” he gets up with a smile and goes shuffling around his books, then walks to you with a small and well-cared-for example of a book called The Song of Achilles.

You read the summary at the back with hungry eyes, and when you’re done you look up at Bucky. “Oh my god.”

He laughs again. “I know.”

“This is your favorite book?” You confirm with a smile, twisting the book around like you’re touching something precious.

“Yup.” He goes back to his chair and turns on his computer. “What’s yours?”

“Love Is A Dog From Hell,” you answer with a square smile. “I was really into Bukowski when I was a teeanger, but that one really stuck.”

Bucky’s jaw drops a little, too. “You like that book?”

“Uhm, yeah?”

Bucky smiles. “There is a loneliness in this world so great that you can see it in the slow movement of the hands of a clock…” his voice drifts off, and then he shakes his head. “That one fucked me up for a long time.”

Recognizing one of the poems from the book, you take a seat in the chair in front of his desk.

“Isn’t he a bastard?” You ask with passion.

One question is all that’s needed for you two to start a conversation about the numerous reasons why Bukowski can make you drunk on feelings you’ve never felt.

In only a few minutes you realize Bucky’s just like the friends you used to have back in high school, the ones who shared a cigarette with you under the bleachers and talking about things most teachers were too old to even consider.

It’s so nice to speak with someone who listens intently to your point before sharing theirs, and you noticed while talking to him that apart from Sarah, no one else in your life now has a talk this nice with you, this easy.

He laughs numerous times at your smartass comments and adds plenty of his own.

When you ask him, “Oh—you know I won’t be able to finish this soon, no matter how much I want to, right?” sheepishly shrinking your shoulders. “I really lost my touch and my focus is piss poor lately. That on top of the fact that I fall asleep on top of books now like I went to school for that, and—”

“Y/n,” he interrupts you for the first time. “You’re a busy woman. It’s fine.”

The ‘woman’ and the certain look he gives you makes something inside of you quiver.

“Okay.” You pocket the book, then ask him to continue his point with a hand gesture. “Go on. The similitudes between Madeline’s depictions and Iliad…”

With a quick scratch to his nape, Bucky goes right back to talking.

Time slips by through your lines about your favorite stories and his points on the poetry that never left his mind.

Steve is the one to burst your bubble.

Bucky notices him first through the glass window, and when he enters after a couple of light knocks, he stops under the threshold with a surprised expression.

“Sarah said something about you two getting early dinner before work?” Steve asks you with curiosity.

Why is he mentioning early dinner?

You take your phone out of your pocket and when the time stares back at you, space and time disappear from under your feet for a second.

“We just spent an hour talking,” Bucky echoes your thoughts behind you.

With a glance, you see he’s checking his computer’s clock, too. “Shit.” He looks at Steve. “Is Marcos here already?”

“Not yet, but he will be soon,” answers Steve.

“Alright, I’m—we’re wrapping up here.” He gives Steve a nod. “Tell Sarah and the kids I’m coming to say hi in a couple of minutes?”

“Sure.” Steve looks from Bucky to you. “Is it true you’re into Harleys?”

Well, it seems Bucky’s been sharing your conversations with his best friend, or least some of it.

“Yeah,” you answer.

He enters the office and through the glass window, points at his station that’s a few meters away across from it.

Your eyes follow the direction his finger points and finds it—a Harley Easy Rider painted almost entirely in baby, soft pink.

“Oh my god.” Who the fuck would do that to a Harley? “Are you responsible for this sacrilege?”

That seems to be the appropriate answer, because Steve throws his hands up in the air and almost yells. “Thank you!” He turns around to point at Bucky. “I told you this goes beyond taste. No one should be allowed by law to do this,” he whines a little.

Bucky laughs at you two. “Well, she paid you good—no, she paid you a great amount of money for this to be done, pal.” Bucky leans back against the chair. “You better get started on that coat of gloss paint and make that Barbie ride real smooth and shiny. Pink, glossy, shiny.”

“God, I hate rich people,” Steve sighs. With a final look at you, he opens a sad smile. “Good to have someone else around with common sense on their shoulders, ma’am.” He turns around to leave and right before closing the door, adds in a sing-song voice. “Don’t take too long!”

You and Bucky share a look. We really got lost in our own world, huh?

After the smile returns to your faces, he opens the door he had initially gone through when he first got here.

“Shall we?” he pulls up a book and you sit down, ready to start paying him for his hard work.

He shows you the paperwork, runs you through all the needed things briefly one last time and you pay just like you two discussed, one-third of the money now, and the other two-thirds to be paid in debit in a fortnight, then another fortnight after that.

Bucky asks no questions about where you get all your money from or makes any jokes and you appreciate it—your anxiety whenever paying for things can eat you up enough without someone prodding into your windows.

When you two leave his office, you’re clutching your backpack closer to you, thinking about the new addition in it.

Bucky said you could return it until one of the last payments, so at least two more times you were ought to see each other, even if for a brief payment transition.

Sarah and the kids all gush and hug Bucky when they see him, and you stand at the side watching the interaction with a smile on your face.

Bucky has to bid you all goodbye sooner than later because another client of his arrives.

The look he gives you and that shy, slow-wave right before you leave the shop’s sight stays burned behind your eyelids all weekend as you work.

◦➳◦

had your coffee yet?

not yet hold on

okay. go

“you would not be displeased, i think. with how you look now.”

my face grew warm. but we spoke no more of it.

bucky!!!!!!!!!!

BUCKY!!!!

yeah i know lol

this whole scene is beautiful

the love?!?!? and the soft tenderness?!?!?!??!?!?

can you IMAGINE greece’s biggest hero and warrior

BLUSHING at the soft touches. i am SPEECHLESS

i ?!?!?!??!?

y/n

yes?????

how much coffee have you had

did you get any sleep??

wow would u look at the time ! i must be on my way ! have a brand new car to drive to school!

y/n. get back here

oh my god if you faint from the caffeine and the alck of sleep im gonna feel sofucking bad

please eat something

awn.

filed attached:

ah. you’re eating

good.. that’s good

i’m glad you’re liking the book, darlin

please get some sleep today tho

pretty sure i won’t have a say in it

praying i dont fall asleep while walking

say amen, buck

amen

say u wont drink any more coffee today pls

im genuinely worried for ur heart

no more caffeine today

pinky promise, sergeant!

cool

thanks, lady bullet

now

have you ever heard of anne sexton

◦➳◦

What you imagined was:

Bucky would deliver you the car, answer your final texts and after that, communication with him would slowly come to an end. The messages would get further and further in between (as it had happened with many acquaintances, potential friends and not) and that would be it.

Only polite nods and professional talks when you eventually did see each other.

What happens is:

The topic of literature steals at least two hours of sleep for the next two days, and when that changes to the current industry of entertainment, you find yourself texting even during lectures sometimes (only in the subjects where you’d covered the reading beforehand, naturally).

October ends with you getting to know Bucky and one single thought growing in your head: you had told Sarah inviting him for your birthday made no sense given how you two didn’t talk, and now all you did was that. Talk to him.

By the time the second week of November rolls around, you can’t imagine not inviting him for your day. You want him there.

You two didn’t spend the whole day talking, you were both busy adults and thankfully, Bucky wasn’t the type of person to be bothered by hours of silence and sudden subject changes. Still. You didn’t talk all day long, but you were talking almost daily.

You had to tell Sarah.

The opportunity presents itself through a picture and one of his texts.

why do we like the wilsons again?

god the dramatics

file attached: a picture of Steve leaning against the reception counter with a happy grin on his face, Sam leaning from the other side with the same expression on his face.

i wonder why 🙄 sam keeps thst old bike 🙄

sure it was a great gift from steve but 🙄

whY kEEp It 🙄

You snorted looking at the screen.

Sarah lifts her eyes from the notebook, then glances back down with the hint of a smirk on her face.

“S?” you call, typing away an answer.

“Hm?”

“Remember how I said Bucky would probably stop talking to me?” You send the answer (cause they’re nice n funny, and they’re great cooks) then look up at her. Sarah’s typing away, only the glint of curiosity on her face giving away the fact that she’s listening.

“I do, yes.”

“We’ve been talking.” When she looks up at you, you’re biting the side of your nails, smiling sheepishly behind your hand. “Friendly talking, you know. And now I wanna invite him for my birthday. It’s not too late, is it? Is it weird? I mean. He’s friends with your brother, and your brother’s kinda my friend already which is why he insists on taking over a grill for my day even though I didn’t ask, and—I could ask him, right?”

Sarah’s smile on the corner of her lips turns it into a full smirk.

“Just ask him, babe.” She looks back down at the computer, typing away again. “He’ll say yes.”

“Really?” you forcefully put both your palms on top of the books to stop taking your anxiety out on your poor fingers. “Cause you said he’s not big on parties.”

“He isn’t, yes. But mostly cause of their crowds.” Sarah shrugs. “Your party will be at Sam’s place and that’s basically one of his homes. There won’t be many people.” She looks up at you kindly. “He seems to enjoy your company if he’s still talking to you—he’ll say yes.” Her next chuckle is accompanied by a teasing smile. “Maybe I’ll even get to see some of that funny Sergeant you and Sam got to meet but I rarely ever see.”

You look down at your phone.

true but your wilson is scary in the kitchen

bucky

that’s me

are you intimidated by sarah 😏

…. maybe

she threatened to cut my balls off once

it was a misunderstanding but still

she wasn’t jk

i know she wasn’t

You have to stifle your laughter behind your hand.

“He’s intimidated by you, S.”

Sarah stops typing again. “Ah.” Her smile grows again. “Still?” She goes back to her essay with a giggle. “I’ll make sure to smile at him next time.”

“Which will be on my birthday,” you announce, deciding right there that you will muster up the courage.

Sarah looks up from her notebook and smiles at you. “Yup.” Her eyes glance towards the piece of paper that’s lying between the pages of my book. “Ugh. You already finished yours, didn’t you?” Rolling her eyes, she answers to herself before you even open your mouth. “Of course you did.”

You throw her a cheeky wink and let her go back to her own essay, keeping your phone inside your purse for the rest of your studying time.

Once Sarah finishes her own paper, you two close all your textbooks and spend the last hour of the day before Sarah picks up her kids from the other Sarah’s house — Steve’s mother — talking in hushed whispers about all the latest gossips and random things that pop up in your phones and in your heads.

Although you sounded very sure when stating to Sarah that you would invite Bucky, as soon as you’re away from her bright persona and brave, encouraging smile, the usual nasty little thoughts start creeping their heads in.

What if he doesn’t like you that much? What if he doesn’t wanna hang around your friends? Bucky can find you a weirdo for inviting him to a party after knowing him personally for so little.

You clutch the steering wheel of Bullet, trying to shame those insecurities back into a drawer, back them into a corner of your brain.

Salvation comes in the form of Hozier.

Lost in your own negative thoughts, you’d missed the beginning of the song, but the moment you notice, it’s like a surge of braveness.

You know better, babe, you know better babe than to smile at me like that…

His coy smile, barely lifting the corners of his mouth, but still managing to call the crinkles on the corner of his eyes pops up in your mind.

Before you realize what you’re doing, you’re pulling up on the side of the road and taking your phone out of your pocket.

The twilight of this particular Tuesday paints the sky in the prettiest colors. You notice that while biting the corner of your nails, listening intently to the ringing of the phone.

You lower the sound system, as Hozier continues.

I warn you, baby, each night, as sure as you’re born… You’ll hear me… howling outside of your door…

You hear the click of the sound coming through and you feel your palms start sweating a bit.

“Well, this is new.” Bucky greets you. “Hello, darlin’.”

Shit.

“Are you busy? Is this a horrible time?” There’s only so much of your anxiety you can rail in at a time. “I’m sorry I didn’t text before I called, I know you’re busy with—”

“Y/n,” he interrupts you. Bucky’s been getting better at noticing your rambles of anxiety and cutting them short, much to your pleasure (and less embarrassment). “I’m not busy, no. I mean. I’m still at the shop, but it’s just me and Steve finishing up a few things. We kinda like it here.”

There’s that breathy chuckle on the other side of the line you love so much, and you take a deep breath with the ease and calm tone of Bucky’s voice.

“So you can talk,” he concludes his thoughts. You think you can hear the sound of the wheels of Bucky’s mechanic creeper, but you could be wrong. “What’s up?”

“Well. Hozier started singing your favorite song and I ended up pulling up at the side of the road as an impulse.”

One of the tools you learned in therapy was to channel your anxiety and let your words flow—the unsaid bothered you plenty, and what if scenarios could drive you insane if you bottled things up too much.

Bucky didn’t seem to mind. Most of his chuckles and head shakes came from the things you blurt out, just like now.

“It Will Come Back is a good reason to watch the sunset.” The sound of the shop fades and changes, and you imagine Bucky walking towards the back patio for some reason. “When it isn’t cloudy I can always notice this time of the day ‘cause the whole light of the shop changes.”

“That must be pretty,” you muse.

“It is,” he answers lightly. “I don’t think you called me to watch the sunset together, though. And it definitely ain’t for that beauty you’re driving ‘cause I know I did a good job. Unless—is it her?” He adds with a worried tone right after.

It’s your time to chuckle.

The sky’s turning the loveliest shades of blue, dark orange and pink.

“Nah, Bullet’s good.”

“Oh—okay. Thank god,” he chuckles.

“Yeah.” You take a deep breath. “I did have a question.”

Bucky hums on the other side of the line. “Never heard you worried before askin’ something before.”

“Well—” you clear your throat. “It’s an invite, but I don’t want you to feel pressured or anything ‘cause from what I’ve heard, you’re not the biggest on… celebrations.”

Bucky’s silent for a second, and his next hum sounds a little confused. “Uhm… isn’t it a bit early for Christmas parties?” He tries, and his tone says he was going for a joke.

It makes you laugh. “It is, silly. But my birthday’s in a couple of weeks, so…” you trail off, then smack your teeth. “I’d like you to be there. Dunno if you heard it through the grapevine yet or not, but Sam apparently likes me enough to wanna host a barbeque for me. It’ll be me, a couple of friends from university, my younger sisters and actually a couple of teachers of mine I’m really close to, but that’s it.” You breathe again before continuing. “You could invite Steve, too, and the other boys if they’d like to come. Y’all know Sam so it could be fun for you all, too. I’d love to get a chance to talk to them. No need for presents or anything—maybe some beer? But yeah. You guys would be very much welcome.”

Very much welcome. God, why does She let you ramble?

“You’re very cute when you’re nervous, you know.” The way he states it makes it seem like not a question, and before you can pick up your heart from Bullet’s floor, he adds with a happy voice. “‘Course we’ll come. Sam had mentioned something about being busy in a couple of weeks but hadn’t said why. I just imagined he was gonna cook Steve another delicious and ridiculously nice dinner or somethin’ like that.”

“Oh.” You open the eyes you hadn’t noticed you closed. He’s coming “Yay! That makes me happy,” you giggle, holding your desire to clap at how delighted you are that Bucky not only agreed, but did so that fast.

Bucky laughs a little on the other side. “Good. I don’t mind parties where I’m wanted that much,” he jokes.

“Good. Just don’t forget some alcohol and you’ll definitely be wanted there,” you tease back.

It works—the heartwarming laugh you love so much comes through the line.

“Duly noted: I’m only wanted if I bring offerings.”

“Indeed, Sergeant.”

“Well—I’ll be there. I’ll extend the invitations, too, and I’ll text you if any of them confirms it, kay?” Bucky tells you, sounding almost as bright as you felt right now.

“Sounds wonderful.”

The sunset sky had been prettier, but for the first time, you enjoyed a conversation more than you did watching your favorite time of the day.

“See you then, darling,” he adds in a lower voice.

“See you, Sarge.”

When you two hang up, you have to sit there another moment now assimilating the fact.

Bucky will be at your party.

Oh.

Well… fuck.

ㅤㅤㅤ. series masterlist ;

ㅤㅤ. next chapter (July 11th);

ㅤ. tip me ☕

35 notes · View notes

vyxcondessa · 2 months ago

Text

── Coming In Hot; 2/9

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ02. READ MY MIND, OPEN UP

PAIRING: Bucky Barnes x F!Reader

WORD COUNT: 7.2k

SUMMARY: Her description of Bucky almost sounds like another person altogether.

Bucky smiled at you.

He said more than a word, too, that’s for sure. His constant amusement over your antics and your teasing came out in his low and breathy chuckles, and ‘intimidating’ is a word you’d scratch off the vocabulary when describing him. The soft strand of hair that had escaped from his bun and framed his face made him look so… soft. Reserved and shy—those were words that you’d place under his image.

A/n: any typos in the phone conversations are Bucky’s, okay? they’re meant to be there klahsakjs. his hands are dirty w/ grease leave him alone <3

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎✎﹏﹏﹏﹏

During the first 48h, you pretend that each glance to your phone is just the regular technology-based obsession, and not you waiting for a very specific text message.

Sarah brings your sandwiches, you have to wake up a couple of hours earlier to navigate the city without your baby and things go smoothly.

You’re cool. Bucky could take the time he needed; he was clearly a busy man—you’d seen the number of cars in his shop and he saw you as an emergency, after waiting for you to drop by for days, may it be added.

The only person anxious was Sarah.

“I never thought you’d be this good at keeping your mouth shut.” She’s sitting in front of you, both of you lying on her apartment’s living room floor after a busy night of papers and eating crappy food. “I’m almost impressed.”

“I told you before: there’s nothing else to tell.”

The lie hangs between you two like a clown mask. Sarah does that trick where she lifts only one eyebrow, and you hear the ‘bitch, please’ loud and clear through it.

"Sweetie. I’ve known you for three years, and during this time I’ve heard you speak about men exactly two times: the first one when you told me ‘I don’t date. Men ain’t shit, and I like my company way too much to indulge in meaningless relationships with people who aren’t worth my time’, which until today feels like— respect, you know” Sarah lifts her glass of orange juice to you, and you giggle behind the cushion. “And the second time was three days ago, when you texted me ‘he’s so hot S, what the fuck’ as if that’s something that happens often. It isn’t. You’re one of the few friends I’ve got who gimme the peace of not talking about relationships all the fucking time, so please, pretty please, spill, bitch.”

By the time she’s done talking, your laughter is being stifled behind the cushion, but your whole body is shaking with it.

If you wake up AJ or Cass, Sarah was ready to make your murder look like an accident.

She laughs too at your delight, and when you finally catch a breath, all you want to do is bury your head in her couch and never come out.

What could you say?

“Oh, c’mon!” Sarah whines, grabbing you by the ankle and then shaking your leg, making you giggle even more. “I’ve met the man only a handful of times but like, I need to understand what’s going on here. ‘Cause the Bucky I know is scary, okay? Frowny face like the Grumpy Cat, metal arm that’s hella intimidating and barely says a word. That’s your type? Broody and silent? ‘Cause you could’ve told me, girl.”

Her description of Bucky almost sounds like another person altogether.

Bucky smiled at you.

The soft strand of hair which had escaped from his bun and framed his face made him look so… soft.

Reserved and shy—those were words that you’d place under his image.

But god; so pretty. The visit to Barnes Auto seems painted in ocean blue and hearty laughs.

“Oh my god.” Sarah widens her eyes in front of you, and that’s when you realize how hard you zoned out for a second. “You’ve got dreamy eyes— tell me before I sit on top of you and pull it out of you!”

Laughing again, you put your hands up in surrender.

“Okay, okay— speak lower, my god, you’re gonna wake up your kids.” Sarah flips you off at that, and sits with a straight back as if to say ‘I’m listening’. You straighten up too, sitting with your back to the sofa. “This might disappoint you, but here it is: there’s nothing else to say, S. The man is hot as an August afternoon, I wanna take a lap in the blue of his eyes or some other poetic shit and…” in your head, Bucky laughs. On Sarah’s floor, you sigh deeply. “He’s got the prettiest laugh I’ve ever heard.”

She squeals. “You made him laugh?”

“Yeah.” You kick her lightly on her thigh. “Shut up, you know I’m funny.”

She scoffs at you. “Sure—you’re funny. But making a Wilson laugh is at least ten times easier than making that man laugh.”

“Is he really that broody?” You can’t help but ask.

Sarah gives you a pointed look. “The first time I met him it was at a barbeque for Sam’s birthday. He was real nice, charmed all the elderly women into liking him, even made AJ and Cass laugh, but he spent the whole night talking to the old guy running the grill or the other army buddies that Sam invited.”

“I can see that. He came off as private and a little bit shy at the first moment.”

“‘Shy’, god, I gotta tell Sam this shit, hold on,” Sarah whips her phone out of her pocket and you know better than to try and stop her.

“I meant reserved, okay? You got what I mean.” You give another light kick to her thighs, whining to yourself more than anything.

Sarah continues typing and only gratifies you with a snort as an answer.

When she deems herself satisfied with exchanging the latest gossip with her brother — you can only imagine how silly he must think you are, getting a crush on a man more than a decade older than you who most likely doesn’t even glance at young women like yourself — and when she notices that’s truly all there is to your side, you both return to your papers before the night turns into day.

Convincing yourself that Bucky was nice and friendly because you’re such a lost cause is easy.

The man described by Sarah is someone who’s clearly lived a life and as a result, keeps it to himself.

The man you met saw a woman with a car who has a name, and silly jokes like ‘do you know how to change tires, Mr. Mechanic’ so of course he was amused.

You sleep without checking your phone repeatedly and by the time you wake up and have breakfast, classifying the silly crush you’ve developed as hopeless and equally as amusing as Bucky found is simpler.

It’s not as if it could go anywhere.

What are the chances that a man like that goes for someone like you?

Not to sell yourself short or anything—you were quite the catch.

Being a catch, unfortunately, didn’t mean you fell under the radar of a Bucky.

He was thirty nine, you reminded yourself.

He was a veteran, a broad, tall and stupidly beautiful man who probably went out with gorgeous and magazine-like women, or perhaps he was more of a Letty Ortiz type—well-versed in cars just like him, intimidating and badass like him too.

And apparently, Bucky was also an early riser.

When you finally do check your phone, you have your first mini heart-attack of the day and you’re only on your second cup of caffeine.

Your screen reads:

Bucky Barnes

7 notifications

If anyone were around to see how fast you swipe open your phone, you’d find it in yourself to be embarrassed.

When you read the messages, you start laughing behind your hand.

Hey, good morning Lady Bullet.

So. First things first: I was gonnna check your car last night but the electrical malfunction didn’t let me, so I left it for this morning

Now… the first time it happened I thought ‘cool, I’m gonna have to open her entire door’, but now I’m just thinking your car’s tryna tell me somethin

Maybe ‘he’s old and behind on good music’ or something like that? It keeps playing good shit I never heard in my entire life every time I turn it on

So before I continue: who’s the dude with the cool voice singing about howling and coming back to me? I must know

Second: you still want those updates? I fixed the wires issue (it was minor, don’t worry about it) and now I’m gonna analyse the rest

Shit. Sorry abt all these messages… I hope you don’t mind

If Bucky has any issues with voicing his thoughts in person, the problem never transferred to technological communication.

After reading the messages at least three times and losing all trail of everything you had cemented on your head since coming back from Sarah’s house the previous night, you type away your answers:

Good morning, Bucky! :D

I don’t mind at all. I’m usually the one row-texting my friends about every cute animal I see roaming around the city, so. No place to judge here lol

And yes! Gimme ALL the updates, pretty please. Tell Bullet I miss her :(

The subway is disgusting, people are awful and rude and I miss her sweet smell almost as much as I miss not fearing running into rats every morning </3

Tell her that. She’ll appreciate it

The artist: Hozier. The song you heard is called ‘It Will Come Back’ and that’s my songgggggg. I’m glad you liked it!

You have to physically stop yourself from texting even more.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, getting through the day after hearing from Bucky is twice as hard.

For some reason, you keep his incoming messages to yourself.

Not even when you receive the updates on Bullet which he told you he’d send, you say a word to anyone.

It feels good to keep your conversation private.

Even if for the first day, all the conversation entails is teasing around your car.

Bucky’s reply to your row of messages has you doing your best to hide laughter during class.

I’m not talking to the car.

(She says she misses you too.)

Thanks for the name. I’ll make Peter play some of his music.

You had me fooled for a second!

I thought you were those people who hate the ones (me) who talk to inanimate objects :(

I’ve been talking to myself and everything around me since I’m 6.

Don’t worry, no judgement here.

Whew.

Usually, Sarah or your sister are the first people you go to whenever you want to share something exciting, but Bucky and his updates are something you cling onto very closely.

During the first day, he sends you a few other messages with pictures of Bullet’s insides and follows up with short and objective explanations of what he’s doing, all followed by texts that continue the conversation he started with the morning messages.

It makes you giddy.

Sure, you had spent an entire night convincing yourself to dim down the ridiculous crush you have on a man that’s very far off your league, but the description Sarah gave plays on a loop in your mind and you think well, maybe he’s seen a friend in me.

Bucky is a quiet soul, and someone who mostly falls on the total opposite side of that spectrum, befriending someone like him feels special.

That’s why I’m so excited to talk to him. He feels like a special friend .

Convincing yourself of that lasts only twenty-four hours.

With the next couple of days come more text messages about Bullet’s state, but more than that, conversation continues to flow like a river.

Talking to Bucky is so easy that you often find yourself forcibly tearing your gaze from the stupid screen.

On Friday, you discover that Bucky teaches auto shop mechanical engineering classes on Saturdays.

He texts you a picture of three man standing in front of Bullet with puppy, heart eyes, and the caption “she’s got admirers.”

Is that Peter? The one in the red hoodie?

How on earth did you guess that.

Bucky. You told me he’s got the ‘forever a teenager’face. That’s the only one from the group that could POSSIBLYbe him.

Fair point

Question

Why do you punctuate your sentences so perfectly

…

Maybe so people know when I’m askinga question…you know… instead of saying ‘question’

I see you’re trying to make fun of meBut it ain’t workingproper grammar can’t have me i’m a rebel

wow… this is the man ppl try to convince meis so ‘intimidating’.people are ridiculous.anyway. tell Peter to get away from my girlshe doesn’t fuck with boys who don’t know how to change tiresi mean, honestly. has he done it already?say he has.

Bucky takes a while to answer that one and when he finally does, it’s with a picture.

On the screen, Peter’s clothes and face are stained in grease, but the grin on his face and the thumbs up are what make you laugh.

He’s just changed a tire.

There’s also the hand (and thumbs up) of Bucky himself on the right corner of the image, and you keep that one on your phone instead of deleting it.

Seeing Bucky again feels both like a distant thought and the sun creeping into the horizon.

For two days, you two share messages that go from what is wrong inside of Bullet (one problem leading to another, and your chest tightens at the imaginary bill growing with each update from Bucky) to things like: music, Bucky’s classes, what led you to medical school, how you and Sarah met.

You and Bucky slip between the formal client-employer conversation to other subjects like you two have been friends (or, at the least acquaintances) for a while now.

When you’re at work on the weekend, Sarah corners you at your booth with a smile on her face.

“So, any updates from Barnes?”

You’ve known Sarah long enough to recognize her ‘game’ face and you know she’s asking it with that cool tone to hide something else she knows.

What that is, you can’t know. What you do know is you’re not ready to expose just how talkative Bucky is with you yet.

“Yeah, he texted me some stuff about the state of Bullet.” It’s the truth, even if not the complete version. You put on your work-place smile for a patron that passes behind her, then sigh deeply when they’re out of sight. “It’s not gonna be cheap, but at least he’s telling me I can do some stuff separately.”

Sarah hums at that, and looks around the restaurant with the same work-place smile intact on her face.

“That’s it?” She prods, lifting an eyebrow.

You give her a pointed look, and smile back. “And he’s really nice,” you finish. It’s all the information you’re willing to give right now, and it seems to satisfy her for the time being.

Sarah nods, pouting a little bit with a smile.

“Okay.” She starts moving back to her area. “Lemme know if you need anything, babe.”

You think about how nice her offer is, but in the end, it’s not Sarah who comes around with a saving grace to you.

It’s the universe.

On Monday when you’re preparing to leave home for school, you get a text message from the board notifying the students that all morning lectures had been canceled due to a hazard during a presentation, and since both of your teachers were unavailable and you had no classes that afternoon, you were free.

That would’ve been nice, but only a bridge between you and more schoolwork hadn’t it been for the message you also receive from Bucky first thing in the morning.

I’ve heard the album and you were right: can’t pick a favorite

Her voice is heavenly

“Hurts Like Hell” might be my favorite, tho

Anyway, good morning. Since you gave me the green lightI’m gonna start working on the main problems of Bullet today soyou’re one day closer to having her back

If she spills any oil on me again I’m holding her hostagefor another day or two just bc I can :)

The messages stare at you and you glance towards the clock—it’s almost 7am, only thirty minutes since Bucky’s sent the message.

He’s probably only started, and even if he had, he’d told you that Bullet would take days of meticulous work.

Everything inside you is vibrating to ask him the question.

The mere idea of watching Bucky work — on your baby , nonetheless — for hours instead of only a few minutes makes you float around your tiny living room.

Would that be inappropriate?

Entirely. Bucky’s job is his job and why would he want a client watching over his back while he does it? You know damn well how much you loathe people walking around you as you try to concentrate on something important.

But at the same time...

God, you’d sell both your kidneys for a lazy Monday morning watching that man work in a car.

It’s cliche, you fucking know it is, but it became crystal clear to you the second you saw his grease-stained hands why that cliche existed in the first place.

Before you can second-guess yourself too much, you type out the only thing you’re brave of:

A hook.

A simple little bait— that’s a job you’re intimately familiar with.

good morning to the both of us!!!

guess who doesn’t have Behavioral Science at 8am on a monday morning?!?!?

(tip: she’s a disaster but with great musical taste.

she owns an old-ass car too, but it’s a sick ride

she misses that ride… sighs..)

It takes Bucky less than a minute to answer you.

!!!!

cant imagine a happier monday

why on earth did u submit yourself to 8am lecutres

do u hate yourself

The message made you laugh out loud, and you leaned against your kitchen windowsill thinking about how many people knew that Bucky Barnes was a sharp-tongued, witty fucker.

wow that’s so many punctuation coming from u! thank u thank u

and get this: after BS (yes thats how we call it, ask S) i’d have Immunopathology ‘till lunch!

(after that it used to be clinical trials all afternoon but those are still on hold bc of, you know, the whole world being as it is)

The tiny gray that Bucky’s typing pops up a couple of times quickly, then slowly they disappear and take a while longer to come back.

It’s weird to see someone’s uncertainty even through text, but it helps you to see him sitting somewhere in his shop, his (unfairly) gorgeous hair tied and his left hand scratching at his nape.

After a couple of minutes, Bucky’s reply comes in and your heart takes a leap.

You almost fly off running towards the bathroom.

do u miss her like ‘i cant wait to see her again’or like ‘this is me cutely does it bother you if i watchmr barnes’.cue old me feeling old for being called like my dadbut yeh you can if you wanna

You barely catch his last incoming messages before you hop inside the shower to get ready.

Before you get in, you send him. tell my baby i am coming!!!!!!!!!! :D

It takes you a little more than ten minutes to shower, lotion up and put something cozy to sit in uncomfortable places all day, surrounded by grease and dust and grit. Another person might think it’s stupid to get ready to get dirty, but you love it.

Even if you weren’t going to see Bucky, your day only starts after you’ve taken good care of yourself, put on an outfit you liked and ate something good.

If today you put in a little more effort with your hair or picking a cool pair of shoes, no one else needed to know.

On the subway, you saw the last messages Bucky sent you.

cool cool

peter’ll be at the reception he’ll show u to where iam

morita n steve will be here too somewhere pretend u dont see the idiots its ok

By this time, you already knew most of his colleagues by name at least.

Peter — the young one who was taking classes to join the team — worked at the reception and took care of accounting, Steve and Morita were the other mechanics and a man named Gabe working with sales and imports of the pieces needed.

Out of all of them, Peter and Steve were the ones that slipped by the most in Bucky’s daily commentary about life at the shop.

The numerous ‘hold on steve’s an idiot ill brbb’ that you got were only matched by the other random pictures you had of small “accidents” (cookie theft) and messages written on the board of the main office.

On your first visit there, you’d missed the green board on the wall behind Bucky’s desk, but he’s sent a few pictures now of the chalk-written messages on it.

(The last one had been anticipated by: miss lady bullet how ok are u men being… men?

if there is a dick drawn on that board i want you to know i will rate the drawing from a 0 to 10 idc whose feelings i will hurt

excellent. rate this

Followed by a picture of the board with

‘horny n sad . experience: life 5/10 recommend’

and a drawing of a dick with a santa hat on it. an arrow pointed to the santa hat also said: ‘how far away is xmas i need to feel alive’.

You had laughed for three minutes straight at that thing.

that is the most relatable shit i have read in AGES

who did that : genius . brilliant. stupendous. never done before !

Bucky didn’t answer you for hours after that.)

You had packed into your small backpack a couple of your best sandwiches (AJ & Cass approved), your water bottle, among other things. Your phone was fully charged and you had even brought a textbook — there was no way you could spend hours without doing at least some of your reading — and perhaps, by the end of the day, you’d have met some of Bucky’s idiot and spent a good time doing something you missed without even having to leave.

You’d feel a little more embarrassed about how thoroughly you thought this through, but organization was a big part of your life.

Anyone close to you knew that about you and if Bucky were to be one of those people — as friend, or just as your trusted mechanic — then he’d eventually get to realize that, too.

You could be a mess; he witnessed that first things first, but most of the time, you held it together.

The blue and black auto shop sign makes imaginary vines grow from your core all around your stomach, but you breathe through them and go inside.

Whirring of machines and metal, loud and old rock’n’roll music and a tv somewhere you still can’t pinpoint invade your senses, but the reception which you skimmed past it the first time you drove in here is empty.

Bucky had said something about Peter being there, but the balcony is empty and the door that leads to the room behind it is ajar.

You stand there for a moment with your fingers hooked on the straps of your bag, not wanting to step further inside just yet, and while you look around the noise of the door pulls your gaze back to the balcony.

“You’re not Peter,” you say with the hint of a smile.

The man that you think is Morita pauses at the sight of you, then chuckles, shaking his head. “‘m most definitely not, no. Are you his girl or do you have a car here?” He asks naturally, and the assumption makes you feel that familiar warmth on your cheeks.

You shake it away with laughter. “No, I’m not his girl. My baby’s here—the 1967 Impala.” You clear your throat. “You’re Morita, right?”

His eyes widen comically, and the mustache above his lips twitch as his smile widens.

“She’s yours?” He nearly yells. “Oh, shit. And, yeah, that’s me.” Morita comes out from behind the balcony and extends his hands to you. “Nice to meet ya. He told me you were coming.”

You shake his hand with a smile reflecting his.

He’s even bubblier than you’d expected. All that you’d gotten from Bucky’s messages about Morita was that he loved singing his tunes as loud as possible everywhere, and he was responsible for most of the defamation on Bucky’s board, apparently.

You followed him inside the shop and saw a man with a mask working under a white BMW, and right at the back in the same place you’d left her, was Bullet.

Bullet and Bucky.

He was in combat boots, clear blue jeans that had minor rips at the thigh — they looked to be there from use and not fashion, and that seemed to make it even cooler — and a black, loosely fitted t-shirt. His black and golden prosthetic looked even prettier under the daylight, and just as you imagined on your way here, the hair was tied at the back.

You saw him before he saw you.

“Sarge! Lady Bullet’s here.”

Damn, you quite liked that.

“Is that nickname gonna stick?” You asked, looking away from Bucky to where Morita stood a little behind you. “‘Cause I dig it. I sound like a comic book villain.”

When you looked back to Bucky, he was leaning with both arms still on Bullet’s hood, but his head was leaning to the side now to watch you.

He was staring with parted lips and his eyes seemed the bluest when he was looking at you, directly.

There was already a stain of grease precisely along the right side of his jaw.

As soon as you saw it, you knew it was gonna drive you insane for the right of your damned day—that subtle, almost charcoal like stain that made him seem like a Michalangelo ready to be painted.

Bucky opened a small smile in your direction, then nodded towards the back where he was.

“You don’t look like one, though. Sorry to break it to you.” He said it with softness, like it was a compliment.

You still pouted a little. “I’d love to be a villain. Cool powers, usually very sound and wise.”

“No Immunopathology classes,” Bucky adds with a very serious face.

“Precisely. Only a slave crow that’s also kind of your errand boy and cool black clothes with capes.”

Bucky finally cracks with his serious face, and chuckles looking down at the car. “Ever since you told me Bullet was almost named Tessaiga, I can’t erase the fact from my mind that you’re a nerd. Now you talk about wanting to be a fairy witch.” He looks up at you again with a side smile. “You and Peter are gonna get along well.”

“You don’t get to make fun of me for quoting Maleficent if you know which movie I’m talking about, Bucky,” you scoff at him, and when you look up at Morita to try to pull a sympathetic ‘am I right’ laugh out of him, you feel a little bit caught.

Morita’s eyes are glancing between you and Bucky with a lot of amusement, a smirk planted on his face.

“She’s right.” Morita announces happily, and laughing, he turns away. “I am leaving,” he sing-songs. “Goodbye.”

You watch as he walks away, then turn around back to Bucky again.

There’s an exchange of glances that share the same thought: delightful.

You walk all the way back to the open part where Bucky is working, and when you’re at the front of Bullet and you can see the hood open and Bucky from up closer, you offer him a smile.

“She gave you any more trouble?” You ask with a grin.

He narrows his eyes at you.

You’re referring, of course, to Bullet spraying oil all over Bucky a day ago.

“You and her think you’re very funny,” he says with a serious face, but somehow you can see much better now the mirth and the smile hiding underneath it.

“It’s ‘cause we are,” you chuckle. “But really— you don’t mind me hovering in your shop for today?”

Bucky’s resolve fails again and his play serious face is replaced with that same chuckle and smile you were first greeted with.

“I told ya it’s fine.” He points with his rag to Bullet’s engine. “I’m gonna be here all day, to be honest. And it’s not like I’ve never had someone watching me—Peter should be back soon, I thought he’d make it back before you did, but he went to get Gabe and that disaster he insists on driving.”

“Alright.”

The bench you said no to the first time is closer to where Bucky is working this time, and part of you wants to ask him if he moved it closer for you, but the other part that’s too shy to even assume he would do something exclusively for you keeps you quiet and leads you to it in silence.

For the first hour of the morning, you watch as Bucky moves, adjusts and analyzes pieces like it’s all part of a math equation and it’s all part of working it.

He also doesn’t seem too worried about being watched—he is a teacher, after all, and a lot of transmitting knowledge came from the demonstrations and observation.

The student in you wondered how easy it was to learn from Bucky.

When he starts pulling apart a piece of the engine, you do some of your reading and note-taking.

Bucky eventually pulls conversation out of you with a: “You still remember which tools are which?”

You lift your eyes from the book, trying to contain a smile. “Sure.” Then you wiggle your phone at him. “I also have Google.”

With a quick search, you open an image with a spread of all the tools and their names while Bucky laughs in the background, and you leave the textbook aside to pull the chair close to him and hold his tool box for a helping hand.

“To think the most helpful tool we’ve ever created is this little algorithm that just— it finds anything and everything you need. Fucking crazy.” Bucky gets on top of the roller and slides under the car. “Pick-up tool ‘67, please.”

“You use ‘please’. Nice.” You snort a laughter, remembering how your dad would just say ‘you’re welcome’ if you tried prying a please out of him.

“My ma raised me, y'know,” he replies sassly, getting the tool you pass him without looking.

“I can see she did.” You lean against the car, getting comfortable in the chair and with the tools. “Do you think we could still create something more useful than google?”

There's a moment of silence under the car, and you’re thinking that maybe Bucky doesn’t enjoy being questioned random, weird questions while he works, but when he replies you just notice he was thinking.

“Humans are quite handy when we want to be. Most of the things we created came out of necessity, though, and we’ve stopped having the need for things a long time ago if we stop to look at it. Getting comfortable was kinda shitty for us, in general, don’tcha think?”

With Bucky under the hood, it is so much easier to live through conversations with him.

You realize that coming here while he worked might’ve been the best decision you ever made—getting used to that man’s mind, his hidden dry humor and curious wit was hard enough without him looking at you.

“A lot of things have been shitty for us,” is what you finally reply. “I think a lot from a health point of view, because, duh—of course I do, but I keep seeing the exhaustion of just… everyone, you know? Mental and physical. We’ve been buried in a lot of things that are shitty for us, I guess.

“You’re gonna have to get me a cup of coffee if you’re gonna dive with me in my existencial and sociological crack at barely nine am,”

Bucky’s laughter makes you smile, and you tell him to wait while you go seek Morita for a direction to the coffee machine.

When both of you have your cups of coffee by Bullet’s side, conversation flows for yet another hour easily.

Without the obstacle of keyboards, you and Bucky can develop in depth a little bit of all the topics you’d approached in the last five days.

Inside the quiet and witty Sargeant, there was a deep, lively soul.

The way Bucky took a few moments sometimes to answer a question or to ask another one of his gave you time to see the little islands of topics you two navigated through, and when you ask him if he’s hungry about another hour later and if he’d like a lunch, Bucky slides out from underneath the car in a comic speed.

“You brought food?” He asks with raised eyebrows.

You nod. “Whenever Sarah, the boys and I go somewhere, I’m in charge of the bags. I kinda grew used to taking food to places,” you tell him.

“And—” he scratches the stubble on his throat and ah—That’s how he got himself dirty. “There’s one for me, too?”

“‘Course there’s one for you, Bucky.” You resist the urge to roll your eyes at him because he looks so earnestly surprised at it that all you can do is look at him like obviously. You can’t be too sassy with a man who looks that much like a happy puppy. “AJ & Cass love my meatballs sub, but I’m always open to notes. I kinda remember how people like theirs—consider it one of my villain superpowers.”

Bucky accepts the one you offer him with a smile, still shaking his head at you and muttering about ‘villain and Bullet, does she really think..’ under his breath.

It’s finishing your sandwiches and nodding to each other like two food appreciators that Peter finds you both.

“Hey!” comes a voice from the threshold between inside and the outside patio.

You both look up to find a slender, tall boy with sand hair and a sweet smile waving at you two. He’s wearing a black hoodie that’s red on the inside — fucking sick, you think — and he glances between you and Bucky.

“I know you.” He says your name. "Right?"

“That’s me.” You wave back. “Hi, Peter!”

“It’s nice to meet you.” He leans against the arch’s bricks. “I know how to change a tire, now,” he announces proudly.

That makes you laugh with your head thrown back, and you cover your giggles with the back of your hand.

“Congrats.” You lift the last bite of your sub to him like a toast. “Long overdue, my guy.”

He cackles at your response, and Bucky chokes a little bit on his sandwich at your side.

“I can’t even argue.” Peter lifts his hands in fake surrender, then points with finger guns to the balcony. “I’m heading to my place. Just scream if you need me.” He looks in Bucky’s direction with a lot of amusement written on his face. “Good to see you laughing so early in the day, Sarge. The three pick ups arrive in two hours and Gabe is already setting things up to finalize Morseu’s cars.”

“Thanks, kid.” You see Bucky give him a thumbs up, and Peter is gone.

“You’re a busy man, Sargeant,” the nickname slips by before you catch yourself, and you turn to him with wide, apologetic eyes and a ‘sorrow’ at the tip of your tongue, but it dies there when you see the crinkles forming in the corner of his eyes at it.

He chuckles, stealing a glance of you from under his long eyelashes.

“You know what they say about empty shops,” he points with two fingers to his own temple.

“That I do.” The devil’s personal workshop is what people said about it.

You imagined that to be even more true to someone who’s seen enough things to steal the peace of your mind than the usual.

“He seems like a nice kid,” you comment with a head tilt to the direction Peter just left in.

Bucky picks the little ball of foil wrapper from your hand and after mixing with his, shots directly into the trash several feet from you two.

“He is.” He looks back at you when the trash is discarded. “But you callin’ him kid is funny; you two are the same age, darlin’,” he says with a chuckle. The darlin wrenches all the screws loose inside your chest, but Bucky continues, totally oblivious to the mess he leaves behind. “He was the youngest one in the unit.”

Wait—Peter served?

“He was there with you guys?”

Bucky looks back at you with a somber face, and nods more curtly. “His one and final tour, that’s for sure.”

There’s a thick and heavy heartbeat, and you know that whatever is occupying Bucky’s mind at this moment are the fathoms and jaded pieces of a past that is far from pleasant to remember.

You take a deep breath, and lean in closer. “Was it there you guys started flocking around him like mother hens?” You ask with a serious, low and theatrical whisper. “‘Cause it’s adorable and in every picture of you guys, I don’t know if you noticed.”

Bucky seems to blink slowly away from the place his mind took him, but when yours words register, he start laughing at you.

“Mother hens?” He asks with a smile.

“Yeah. I mean, yesterday morning you sent me a picture of Steve putting a blanket over him with earmuffs on. That’s the most instinctive and adorable part of hens.”

Bucky shakes his head at you, and the conversation seems to drip back into the water of the river.

You knew when you came that you wouldn’t be able to stay all day—both you and him have busy lives and Bucky would soon be too busy to pay attention to you, and his shop would be bustling with even more life.

When you try to insinuate you should leave before he gets buys, Bucky says,

“I mean, you can wait for the pick-ups to get here.” He says with eyes on the pieces of Bullet he has on his palm. “I wanna bum a smoke before I get started on them anyway, I can walk you out and tell you a bit about the prices in more detail so you can decide the payment way. If you wanna stick around for a little longer, of course—we could go into the office right now and I’ll explain stuff to you if you prefer going before it gets crazy in here.”

There’s no doubt about the answer.

“I’ll wait.” You lean against the backrest of your chair. “So—if I wanna paint Bullet a cherry red, not that I ever would, Steve’s the man for the job?”

Bucky smiles broadly at your question and picks at his hair, letting it loose and putting it back on a small bun as he answers you.

For a little above an hour, you and Bucky continue talking as he works and you help him out, watching when the silence stretches and he concentrates on something for a few minutes.

It’s so nice that you almost whine when Peter’s voice comes yelling from the front.

As promised, Bucky brings from the office a piece of paper with all the calculation properly done — Peter’s good at his job, and you send him a nice spreadsheet, over Bucky’s shoulder — and he explains to you the only parts that are necessary to get done this time if you want the car working without dangers for a little while.

You nod through it all, still stunned at how everything was properly listed, from the value of the manual labor, to the pieces being touched, removed, cleaned, replaced— Bucky and his boys were thorough, and you even with all that hard and good work, the final value didn’t come close to what most previous mechanics had asked for doing a much shittier and more superficial job. You feel like hugging him.

You’re bouncing a little on your step with excitement as it all sinks in and you notice you won’t be swimming in debt.

Just in gratitude for a really handsome man.

Oh, what a tough life.

“I think by Friday I should have her. I think. If not Friday, then by Sunday she’ll definitely be ready.”

You bounce on your heels a little more, pinning your arms tighter to your sides to avoid wrapping them around Bucky’s shoulder.

“If I thank you one more time you’re gonna run me over with one of the pickups that just arrived, right?” You ask with a sheepish smile.

Morita passes behind Bucky and claps him on the shoulder, and Steve rushes toward the men arriving inside the cars to greet them.

“I will, yeah.” He laughs at you, and waves in the direction of the man. “Let me know when you get home?”

“Yes, Sarge,” you reply readily, the rank escaping your lips again.

Bucky smiles with the same crinkle on his eyes and tucks the loose lock behind his ear.

“I’ll introduce you to Stevie and the others next time,” he promises.

It makes you feel hotter on the inside — and at the tip of your ears, too — that he’s still here patiently bidding you goodbye even though other clients have arrived and conversation is bubbling behind you two.

Steve is second in command as far as you know and he seemed to be handling it just fine, so you allowed yourself to steal the last seconds.

“Take care of my lady,” you tell him with a stern tone. “Bye, Bucky.”

“Bye, darlin’.”

There it is again.

Darling.

He says it much like you say his rank— like it slipped out of his lips; like honey spills, leaving a trail behind and a sweet taste on the mouth.

On his cheeks, there’s a faint hue of pink that wasn’t there before.

Your heart starts beating faster, and this right here should be enough evidence that daydreaming and crushing on a man who could engulf your entire existence with his arms and still have you feeling more flustered and suffocated under his gaze was definitely out of your handling league.

This man is too much.

With a final smile, you turn around to leave, waving goodbye to the boys who look back at you.

It was better like this, you convinced yourself— homeopathic dosage.

Too much of Bucky Barnes and one might as well overdose in all of… him.

ㅤㅤㅤ. masterlist ;

ㅤㅤ. next chapter (July 9th);

ㅤ. tip me ☕

#uservyxcondessa #bucky barnes fanfiction #marvel #marvel fluff #marvel self insert #marvel fanfic #sebastian stan #bucky barnes fic #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes smut #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes series #bucky barnes slow burn #bucky barnes self insert

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vyxcondessa · 2 months ago

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girll do u listen to sleep token i feel like you’ll love them

is this one of my besties ... why are u hiding behind anon ... why

#this is so funny #one of my closest friends irl introduced me to them yeah #this year #they're fucking amazing #nyx mail

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vyxcondessa · 2 months ago

Text

── Coming In Hot; 1/9

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ01. NO SLOWIN' DOWN

PAIRING: Bucky Barnes x F!Reader

WC: 6.2k

Tags: AU; Mechanic!Bucky, slow burn, slow build, age gap.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎✎﹏﹏﹏﹏

As proof that he once existed in more than just your memory, your dad left behind his 1967 Chevrolet Impala just for you.

It was his “I’m sorry for leaving with another woman and starting another family in a different state, but truly, I loved you, babygirl”.

His words, not yours.

Well—those weren’t his technical words, but it was what you heard nonetheless. You’d been old enough to not entirely resent him for it, and that was about it. You were old enough to see all the fights and the distance between your parents grow for a long time, and separation was something you had seen on the horizon and accepted long before they sat you down and confirmed your suspicions.

The reason was what fucked you up. Them. The things he’d kept hidden from you and your mother.

Regardless—the car was the proof of the good old days when you were younger and your father spent hours in the garage fixing up and cleaning his cars while you talked and helped him whenever he let you.

That Impala was your baby.

Being your baby, you cared for it more than most possessions in your life—you always kept it clean, engine running with the same stuff, oil checked, water filled, tires always on point.

So when that precious, well-cared-for baby starts acting up, it’s like your heart is about to start acting up with it.

You’re fucked.

“You’re not fucked.” Sarah pulls your hoodie from the top of your head, chuckling lightly at your “dramatics”, as she called it.

Blinking at the sudden light, you groan against the library table, still keeping your head between your arms.

“Didn’t you say you used to take it to a mechanic? I remember you telling me about it last year—just take it there,” says Sarah.

“I can’t.” Another sigh leaves your body. After another fight with Mr. Emmon, you had promised you’d find another mechanic—he was too close to your dad and although you liked him, it wasn’t enough to handle all his ‘lectures’ every time you went there. “Mr. Emmon pissed me off for the last time and I told myself ‘oh, it’s okay darling, you’ll find another good mechanic around this town that doesn’t charge the eyes outta your face for fix-ups in an old, 1967 Impala, everything’ll be okay’.”

Sarah lifts one of her eyebrows at you, trying to stifle another laughter.

“And… lemme guess: you never found him?” she asks, faking seriousness.

“Stop laughing at me!” You pick up one of your pens and throw it in her direction, making her resolve fall and laughter come out of her.

A few feet away from you, Miss Penny shushes you both loudly.

Some pairs of eyes snap in your direction with a look that says yeah, shut up and both you and Sarah wince in apology towards them.

Having a meltdown in the university library is only acceptable if you do it quietly, so you sigh with your face hidden behind your hands.

“I didn’t,” you answer her, dropping your hands. “They’re all so expensive it makes me wanna cry, S.”

“Baby, I don’t know what you expected.” A miracle, you think. “This is New York, and we both know that what we get from our side jobs is only enough to make it by.” She shakes her head, and you nod in agreement.

Going to medical school is a dream both of you can only achieve due to the help of family members—in her case, a brother who loves her a lot and in yours, a dad with enough guilt to fill up a really big lake.

“Is there anyone you trust, at least?” She leans in closer against the table to take a good look at you, probably trying to see how much of the drama is actual worry and how much of it is you being extra. “I could help you with the bill if it’s too much and you’ll pay me back when you have time to do extra shots for your other job. You paid me back really soon when I lent you the money for the computer, I trust you.”

That brought a fond smile to your face.

Grad school might’ve given you new headaches and too many bills to keep up with on top of all the school work and mountains of things you have to assimilate daily, but the gods granted you with a bigger gift to handle it all.

Sarah Wilson.

Knowing she had few girl friends since having two kids made no sense in your mind—how could people have a friend like her by their side and let it slip through their fingers was beyond you, but at least you ended up here, at the same time as her.

“Thanks, babe.” You reached over the table to squeeze her hand. “There’s no need for that, though—it’s not even about the price at this point, it’s just the quality of the work I’ve seen.”

It was true; the only two options you’d found available (with prices salty enough to give you kidney stones) inspired little to no confidence at all to you.

Lazy, overpriced work.

Apparently, mechanics who worked with old cars and knew the inner-work of engines that didn’t fall under these new modal types were rare to come by now.

Sarah straightens her posture suddenly, then lifts a finger in your direction. “Wait—I just remembered I can actually help you,” she grins as she takes her phone out of her pocket.

You wait patiently behind her lifted finger. Sarah texts someone and her grin widens when her phone pings with a reply, and after she exchanges a couple more texts, she looks up at you with the satisfaction you usually see on her face after she aces a paper she worked really hard on.

“Who’s the Superwoman of your life?” The question is rhetorical and judging by the grin on her face, she’s aware of it.

“You are.” You extend both hands towards her. “Please tell me you know someone who knows a good mechanic. I don’t even care if I’m gonna drown in debt next month, I’ll post double and pay it when I can, just—do you have it?”

Sarah wiggles her phone in the air. “You owe me a sandwich from Alex & MD.”

“S, I’ll bring you sandwiches for the next three weeks. Text me the number, c’mon,” you giggle at her.

Sarah throws her hair over her shoulder, pleased with the negotiation, and you feel your phone vibrating with her incoming message.

“This is the address to my brother’s friend’s place.” Sarah opens her textbook again, and starts separating her highlighters. “He’s an army-vet too, they served together on Sam’s last tour and when he came back, he opened the shop with the money he had saved. I’ve seen him only a few times, so I forgot about it—he’s pretty nice, I don’t think he’s the type to overcharge for honest work, or at least he didn’t seem like it when I met him.”

“Hon, if Sam vouches for him, I’ll sell my kidney on the black market, no problemo. Who needs kidneys anyway?” You scoff. “Not me. What do they even do?”

Immediately, Sarah answers.

“They control acid-base, water and electrolyte balance, remove toxins and waste products from the body, and— uhm…” she trails off, pursing her lips together in an effort to remember.

You pick it up from where she left off. “Control blood pressure, produce erythropoietin and—”

“Activate vitamin D,” she finishes with you.

You two smile at each other.

“And they said studying together doesn’t work.” She scoffs, and pushes the open textbook towards you. “Your turn. Gimme that Anatomy beast.”

You slide the Anatomy textbook to Sarah, picking up the one she gives you in return and placing it in front of you.

Then you open her text message, forwarded from Sam’s conversation:

sure I do! Bucky’s one of the best mechanics I’ve ever met. tell her to let him know she’s a friend of mine and he’ll look a little less intimidating ;) he’ll take good care of her ride.

Attached to the message was an address and phone number.

Quickly, you throw the address on Google and you see it on street view in the location Sam sent.

It’s a garage named Barnes Auto in big, bold blue letters. The sign is simple, black and blue, and the garage looks bigger than most you see on the main streets of NY, as well as more illuminated.

From the get go, it inspires a little more trust than the last places you’ve checked.

Plus—it was recommended by Sam.

Even if it’s a steeper price than what you can afford, your car is worth it. It’s your only possession so far in life, its seats and engine are filled with memories and even if it sometimes saddens you to remember why you have it in the first place, it’s still valuable and loved.

It’s where you and Sarah had your first heart-to-heart, it’s where you discovered you got in Medical School, and it’s where you want to have many more memories.

What if you have to spend the next few weekends doing some… extra work?

〰��➖〰️➖〰️➖〰️➖〰️➖〰️➖〰️

The promise you’d made to yourself that you’d take Bullet to the garage as soon as possible is left behind for almost a week in a haze of lectures, notes, essays due to the next day and, as always, trying not to lose your mind.

Work is helpful when it comes to paying you— both you and Sarah work as hostess in a very fancy restaurant up in the Upper East Side, which is wonderful for tips (old men slipping hundred dollar bills when they think you’re giving them special treatment is the highlight of your weekends) and even better to keep you afloat.

Still, working there doesn’t pay all the bills.

Sarah sells homemade cakes that she puts in cute little cups during break times in Uni, and you… well.

You sell pictures online.

Sarah’s the only person in your life who you’ve ever told about it, and knowing of your online “persona” and not judging you was the reason you two became so close.

“Honey, if people are paying money to see you pose in lingerie, you’re a damn genius in my book and nothing else.”

It had started when you turned seventeen and your mother opened up about the financial situation on your house, and why it had changed so much since your dad left— he was the biggest income of the house and she felt bad — your heart broke to this day to remember it — over not being able to give you as much as he did.

Granted, your father paid for your medical school, relieving you of a lot of debt, but—that was it.

If you called to ask him how he’s doing, chances of getting an answer were slim to none.

He thought the money made up for everything else.

So, you’d decided to make extra cash in a way no one would find out, but you knew it paid off if done right—you started selling sexy pictures.

You’d never sold a fully nude, most of your pictures were viewed as “teasing” or “erotica”, and the spicier ones included new lingerie sets you only managed to afford because of the pictures you started selling, but overtime, the persona you created and the teasing Q&As served for good savings.

The point was: you were never swimming in money.

If something could be pushed off ‘till the next check, it was.

Unfortunately, Bullet — because yes, your car has a name — decides that working properly isn’t something it feels like doing anymore and on a Sunday of all godforsaken days, it starts doing the same noise it did before.

While you’re going back home. Tired from work, at nine pm, Bullet starts making weird groaning sounds through its engine and you turn it off, pulling it to the first open side of the road you find.

“Oh god, please be open, pretty please, please.”

The number Sam had offered you rings three times while you shiver in the chilly October air, and before you can lose hope, the call goes through.

“Barnes Auto, this is Bucky speaking.”

“Oh, thank god,” you cry. “I thought you’d be closed by now, oh my god I’m so lucky and so, so stupid. I should’ve taken the car there days ago but I forgot, and now I’m rambling in your ear—I’m sorry.” You take a deep, shaky breath, then try again. You say your name. “That’s me. Hi again. My precious, precious baby is about to die. I can’t let that happen. Sam Wilson told me you could help? You’re Bucky Barnes, right?”

After your embarrassing introduction, you’re expecting a gruff and exasperated tone answering you.

Instead, a low chuckle comes through the line.

“Only Bucky around.” And oh—that’s a nice voice. Smooth, melodic in a way. ��I’m assuming you’re Sarah’s girl.”

You wince with your whole upper body— Sam had even warned his friend that you’d drop by. God, you’re a lost cause.

“That’s me.” There’s sheepishness in your voice, the guilty and unsaid ‘sorry I haven’t dropped by yet’, and Bucky must hear it, because he chuckles at you again. “Is this like—a horrible time? Are you closing? I could just tow the car to your place and be there first thing in the morning. I can do a few days without it—I live a bit far from the school, but I’ll get around. I just—I know there’s a problem somewhere and it isn’t with the basic stuff ‘cause I’m always checking those and… And I’m rambling again. God, I’m so sorry,” you shiver again.

“Are you on the road side?” Is all Bucky asks. If he’s bothered by any of your nervous rambling, it doesn’t come out in his voice.

“Uhm—yeah?”

“It’s cold. Call the tow truck and get here; I can squeeze you as the last job of the day.” The way he says it leaves no room for argument, but after a relieved sigh, you still feel the need to thank him.

“Okay, yeah— I’ll call them now.” You take another deep breath, feeling most of the nervousness leave your body with Bucky’s certain and steady tone. “Thank you so much, Bucky. Really—thank you.”

With his next chuckle, you realize just how nice he sounds laughing, even if it is at you.

“Don’t thank me yet, I haven’t even touched your baby.”

“I’ll make sure to thank you when you do, then.” Usually, smiles this honest are hard to be invoked in you, but Bucky seems to do it easily with his teasing.

“Sure thing.” There are a few noises on his side of the line, and then he exhales. “I’ll be waiting.”

“Kay.”

He hangs up and you stare at your phone for a second, a little lost on why this small exchange relieved you so much.

Oh, well.

The tow truck is called and soon, you’re inside your car on your way to Barnes Auto, praying to anything that’s hearing that his bill won’t look like the dinner bills at the place you work at.

The driver leaves you at the street and you drive Bullet inside of the auto shop with your radio blasting your playlists at an ungodly volume, as per usual.

With snaps and rumbles that sound as horrible as they probably are, you park in the open garage and the only life you see inside of it comes from the few dim lights that are still on.

Then, the noise of the garage door being pulled down behind you points to the life your eyes have been searching for—through the rear mirror you see there’s a figure in dungarees closing the shop, and you exhale happily that you made in before ten pm, because Bucky Barnes is already at angel in your eyes to be working until this hour on a Sunday.

You try turning off your sound system, but it only lowers and raises the volume—great, now the problem’s infiltrated the electrical part of the car.

“Are you kidding me?” You mutter to yourself. “Bullet, this is not the time.”

In the rear mirror, the figure approaches your car.

Through your speakers, Hozier is still singing.

With the war of the fire, my heart moves to its feet. Like the ashes of ash, I saw eyes in the heat, feel it—

The tall and broad figure of Bucky stops outside your driver’s door just as you finally manage to turn the sound off.

When he leans down to peek his head inside, the both of you stare at each other for a heartbeat that stills everything in your mind.

The man standing outside of your car is nothing of what you’d expect.

Matter-of-factly, you realize looking into deep blue eyes that you hadn’t spared a second to what Bucky must look like. The only information you had was offered by Sarah—“Barnes has a prosthetic metal arm, and he usually answers questions about it depending on how they’re asked, but my brother’s told me before he doesn’t really like talking about it”.

Nothing in the report included Maldives-Ocean blue eyes, chiseled jawline, and pretty, pink lips. There was not a single footnote about the smooth, long hair which he kept in a low bun at the back of his neck, or the strand of hair that escaped and framed his sharp cheekbones.

Not that Sarah had the duty of warning you of a beautiful man.

Even if she had, you think, it wouldn’t have prepared you for that face mere inches away from yours.

“It has a name?” Is the first thing Bucky says to you in person.

Completely lost in the shade of his eyes, your eloquent answer is: “Huh?”

God, you must look like a fool. Bucky scratches the back of his neck with his left hand and you catch a metallic glimpse with the motion.

“Your car? It has a name,” he repeats, still sounding a little like a question.

“Oh!” He heard you complaining. You feel the heat rushing to your cheeks, burning them entirely. “Yeah—this is Bullet.” You run your hands through the steering wheel and turn your eyes away from that face before your heart leaps out of your chest.

Holy fucking god.

Bucky Barnes has got to be one of the prettiest men you’ve ever seen.

Fuck—you curse mentally how flustered you feel to be under his observing gaze, your heart beating way too fast for your liking.

“Nice name.” Nice voice, you answer mentally. “Can I have the keys? I wanna move it to the back. It’s where I work.”

Right! You ignore the Grinch-like voice screeching around your brain about this man’s godly beauty, and then remove the keys from the ignition to place them on Bucky’s waiting palm.

You slide to the passenger seat. When he’s fully seated inside, you focus your attention on the panel to talk again, since looking at Bucky’s face seems to do things to your insides. “Now that you’ve touched it, thanks.”

It’s only Destiny’s irony that Sam’s apparent best friend and now your savior would be the first man to actually spike your interest in, well—forever.

And of course you’d be trapped in work clothes with him inside your nearly broken baby.

Bucky chuckles at your side and starts the engine. “How d’you know I’ll know what’s wrong with it?”

At least that’s an easier question. “Sam vouches for you.” From the handful of times you’ve met the paramedic, you know Sam’s one the most trustworthy people ever. “And you didn’t make the face when seeing that it’s a 60s car.”

“What face?”

“The ‘ugh, this isn’t an automatic BMW or Hyundai, why is she driving this piece of shit?’ face.” You’ve seen it enough times by now. You shrug your shoulders, still not meeting his eyes again. “Most mechanics nowadays seem to be allergic to them.”

“Any mechanic worth his money should smile seeing an old beauty like this.”

“Not a lot of them running around lately.” Bucky opens the next garage door with his remote control, then leads the noisy Bullet towards the open and large garage at the back. “Trust me, I’ve looked.”

“How long have you been looking?” He asks you.

Humming, you think about how long it’s been since you stopped going to Mr. Emmon.

“A year, I think?” Feeling a little bolder now that Bucky’s opening your door and exiting the car, you steal another glance at him. “Haven’t found anyone that seems to truly know what the fuck they’re doing and when I did, they either seemed to think I’m an Upper East Side girl with money to blow—which I’d love to be, but am not, or a stupid and naive little girl that they can rip off to their liking, which I also am not, so.” You sigh and exit the car too. “That took around a year.”

Bucky’s leaning with his hips on the hood of Bullet and listening to you with the hint of a smile on his face.

’He doesn’t talk much, but Sam was right—just say you’re our friend and he should seem a little less intimidating. He’s not too keen on new people, that’s all.’

Sarah’s words make a lot more sense, now.

“You do have some of the Upper East glamour,” says Bucky.

Thankful that the high glass ceiling and the low lighting of the back of the auto shop aren’t enough to illuminate the flush that’s back on your cheeks, you roll your eyes at him with a smile on your face.

“Thanks, it’s all the hours spent watching actual Upper Easters eating their thousand dollar dinners and guiding them to the bar for the hundred dollar drinks.”

It’s said with sass, but you actually enjoy your job.

Bucky laughs under his breath. “Fair enough.” He points to the hood of the car. “May I?”

“Oh my god, yeah—it’s all yours.”

He gives you half a smile again and goes to the front to open the hood.

You exhale slowly when he’s out of your sight.

You can see now why Sarah warned you before coming here.

Bucky’s reserved, quiet and pulling as much as a smile out of him seems to be harder than with most people.

You’re not the friendliest person — an eternal case of Resting Bitch Face tends to keep most unwanted interactions away from you — but when you try, people flock to you easily.

Making others smile and laugh with their whole chest is far from a task to you.

People are your thing. Helping them when it hurts—that’s a talent you were born with.

Even still—Bucky seems to be different.

You swallow thickly, a knot forming on your throat at the racing thoughts on your mind.

Why should you want to see him smile? Bucky seems happy underneath the seriousness, he is far from being your patient (as far as you are from being a doctor) and you’ve literally just met.

Logically, you’re aware of all that.

Still, for some reason, you want to hear him laugh.

“Bullet’s well-cared for.” His voice snaps you out of your thoughts, and you see him leaning to the side of the hood to look at you. “You take good care of him,” he praises.

It goes straight to your head, and the blushing only gets worse.

“Oh—thanks.” Tentatively, you take a couple of steps closer. Leaning against the side of the hood, you can see Bucky looking at the engine with hands that are already black from a whole day of work. “I don’t get the engine parts and the inner works, but I can get by with the basics.”

He looks up at you with raised eyebrows. “What’s the basics?”

Unlike all the other mechanics you’ve met, his question feels laced with genuine curiosity other than entitlement.

Like he wants to know how much you do for the car, instead of “testing” your knowledge.

You clear your throat. “Well, I always keep the oil in check and change it before it starts to get darker—I know with newer cars you can wait ‘till it’s at the point of changing, but with older ones, it’s better to keep it fresh to help keep the engine clean.” Your dad made sure you remembered that before he left. “Water’s always filled up, brake pads were checked last year, and I always keep an eye on the tires.”

When you’re done listing all the things you’re familiar with, Bucky’s hidden smile becomes an actual smirk.

“D’you know how to change tires?” He asks, curiosity lacing every word.

You shrug. “Yeah, of course.”

“‘Of course’, she says.” He gives a breathy chuckle, looking down at your car’s engine again. “I had mechanic students enrolling last year who didn’t. Well—he claimed he knew it ‘in theory’, but never changed a tire before in his life.” Bucky sounded very amused for someone who was rolling his eyes. When he opens your water reserve tank, he looks up at you. “Have you changed one before?”

Now he’s teasing you.

“Yes, Mr. Barnes. I’ve changed tires before in my life,” you answer with enough sass to rev a Porsche engine. “Every friend I have that learns I can change a tire calls me when they have a flat one.”

He nods at that, smiling a bit more. “Good, good.”

“Do you know how to change a tire?” The silly and teasing question is out of your lips before you can stop yourself.

You freeze on the spot, but Bucky looks up at you surprised, and then, he bursts out laughing.

Oh, what a lovely song.

“Yes, ma’am. I do.”

He’s still chuckling when he looks down at Bullet’s engine again, shaking his head at himself.

“D’you wanna take a seat? This is gonna take a few minutes.” He points to the bench that’s in the middle of all the cars parked in this area, but there isn’t an inch of you that wants to move.

“Actually… does it bother you if I watch?” You ask in a smaller voice. Something about the calm and calculative way Bucky roams the pieces of Bullet makes you feel good. “You can totally say no—I know lots of people hate being watched working. I’m just—I like watching. I used to sit in the garage with my dad as he re-did some stuff on his cars and pass him the tools, you know? It soothes me.”

You have no idea what on earth brings you to offer the last bits of information to him—it’s not as if Bucky cares why the hell a strange woman wants to watch him work, but talking with him is so easy that it just… slips by.

When he looks up at you, he watches your face for a few moments before shrugging his shoulders.

“Feel free.” He points to a chair that’s close to the garage door. “You can grab that.”

For the next twenty or thirty minutes, you sit in silence a few feet away from Bucky as he analyzes superficially what can be wrong with Bullet.

In every other auto shop visit, you spent the entire time thinking about cash and your father.

In here, all you can think about is how beautiful Bucky’s metallic arm looks under the moon and the LED lights.

How calm he looks while picking apart a machine that you can only begin to understand.

You watch Bucky work with a tilted head, only glancing at your phone vibrating like crazy to see how much time has passed.

Looking and reading the messages you received is unnecessary now: Sarah’s gonna have to wait.

(You had sat down and texted her only two things: YOU owe me Alex & MD sandwiches for a week. A warning would’ve been nice.

He’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen, S. Wtf?)

When Bucky’s done with his superficial diagnosis, he sighs deeply.

Immediately, you groan out loud and drop your face behind your hands.

“No, no—hey, it’s not that bad.” There’s the sound of Bucky steps coming near you, but you’re too scared to look up. “The time away from a mechanic’s probably why one problem led to another, but from what I’ve seen, it shouldn’t be too hard to fix.”

You open your fingers just enough to peek your eyes at him.

“Promise?” You ask.

Bucky smiles at you fully for the first time.

“Yes. Leave Bullet to me, I’ll run a complete diagnosis and by the end of the week, I’ll tell you how much it’d cost to fix it all.” He starts cleaning his fingers with the rug that was on his shoulders. “If it’s too much to doall at once, we can see what needs to be fixed to get it running again—once you give me the green light, I’ll start working on him.”

Whether it’s his reassuring smile or the fact that he calls your car by its name, you feel like you’d leave anything on this man’s hands.

“Yeah. Sure.” Your smile grows wider when he nods in satisfaction. “I hope Bullet behaves with you—she acts up whenever other people try driving her and stuff.” You get up from the chair with a low chuckle. “I’m kinda sad I’ll miss all the good bits.”

Bucky starts walking back inside in the direction of what looks like the shop’s office, and you follow him closely.

“You really like knowing all the nitty-gritty details?” He asks.

The look he sends back at you is the same as when he asked what was the ‘basics’ you knew—curiosity.

“I really do.” The reason was sappy and something he’d hardly find interesting, so you try to keep it short. “I understand very little of what’s going on, but I still think it’s a really cool process. Operating machines is not up my alley.”

Bucky laughs at you again. “Aren’t you studying to operate the most complicated machine ever?”

Huh. He has a point.

“Good point.” Bucky opens the office door and gestures for you to get inside, and as you enter you curse the better lighting inside it because in here your blush can’t be missed, even on your tanned skin. “I guess it depends on the machine, then.”

“The ones with oil and water are much easier than the ones with blood and… other fluids.” Bucky gets behind his desk and starts looking through the papers.

“Are you trying to get me to change careers, Mr. Barnes?”

Bucky doesn’t seem much older than you—you’re in your mid-twenties and he must be ten years older than that, tops.

His lips curl in a funny manner at the ‘Mister’. “That sounds like you’re talking to my pops—just Bucky ’s fine.” He finds what he’s looking for, and you can read from where you stand ‘client file’. “And don’t worry, Mrs. Y/L/N, I wouldn’t dream of tryin’ to change your ways.”

You scrunch your nose, much like he had a second ago.

“Okay, I see it now; just Y/n is fine too.” He chuckles at you, then pushes the paper towards you. “I think it’d be a bit late for me, anyway.”

“Never too late to learn something you like.” He seems to be quoting it from memory, and you look up from the paper to him. “’s what my dad used to say. Maybe a little harder, but never impossible.”

The sad smile Bucky gives you wrenches your heart impossibly tight.

“Mr. Barnes sounded very wise.”

With your comment, his sad smile turns a little bit brighter.

You two sit in a comfortable silence as you fill in the form and Bucky explains the shop’s working hours; apparently, this Sunday he’d been here doing paperwork that was overdue and you had caught him by luck.

You must thank him at least four more times before everything’s written down and he closes the office behind you two.

“Uhm—I’d offer you a ride, but I came on my bike and I don’t have a spare helmet, so—” he starts, but you interrupt him shaking your head profusely.

“Bucky, you’ve done plenty for me tonight, trust me.” He laughs a little at your eagerness and scratches the back of his neck with his metal hand. You’ve noticed it seems to be a nervous habit of his. “I’m just gonna call an Uber and head home. Don’t worry about lil’ old me.”

“Don’t call yourself old in my presence, for the love of god,” he groans.

Without looking up from your phone, you snort. “If you try to tell me you’re one day older than thirty-five, I won’t believe you, so I don’t know what you’re on about.”

His silence makes you look up, and finding Bucky looking at you with his head tilted to the side and an inquisitive expression on his face is the last thing you needed at the end of the week.

He looks so curious. So soft.

“Thanks.” He’s trying to hold his smile back again, and for some reason, it makes you blush again. “But I’m thirty-nine.”

Oh. “Liar.”

He laughs at you, the same bright chest laughter as before when you asked if he could change a tire.

“Alright,” says Bucky.

He starts shifting his weight from one foot to another, and you notice that he hasn’t moved from your side because he’s about to wait for you to get inside the Uber before he leaves.

Just what you needed on top of everything else—the man is a gentleman.

Do they even make men like this anymore? You’d been thoroughly convinced that the mold which made a kind, beautiful, and funny gentleman had been broken a long time ago.

“You didn’t have to wait with me,” you tell him in a whisper.

Bucky looks to you again with a frown on his face. “‘Course I did.”

Simple as that; ‘of course’ he did.

“D’you uhm… d’you want to have follow-ups for what I do to Bullet?” He asks, scratching his nape once more.

Not following, you tilt your head. “What do you mean?”

Bucky shifts his glance from you to where his bike is, then licks his lips.

“I don’t usually offer this to clients ‘cause most of them don’t give a damn about what’s done as long as it’s done well, but you said you liked knowing, so—you don’t have to, of course. You might like just watching, but if you wanna know, I could text you the updates.”

The rushed, matter-of-factly and false careless way with which Bucky offers you that are the reasons why you’re unable to lie to yourself: He’s nervous.

Nervous to offer you this, as if you’d be crazy enough to say no.

“Of course!” His eyes widen a little at your enthusiasm, and this time you could care less about the heat on the top of your cheeks. “I mean—that’s really nice of you to offer. If it’s not gonna bother you or your work, I’d love some updates. I’m gonna miss her.”

Bucky exhales clearly, then laughs lightheartedly.

“Why’s it her?”

Your Uber notification tells you they’re one minute away, so you use the gateway braveness to tell him.

“All my dad’s rides were a ‘her’.” Even the one he hid for years and left you for. “He was a man of many hers, it turns out,” you bitterly add.

Bucky catches on to the hidden words quickly, and his expression turns very somber.

“Many men are.” His voice sounds lower when he’s being serious, but still as melodic as ever. “It just means they aren’t enough by themselves. So they need ‘hers’ and the highs to fill up imaginary holes, I’ve learned.”

If this man impressed you anymore during one night, you’d end up leaving your heart in his shop’s office drawer.

Thankfully, your ride pulls up just in time.

“Seems like the wisdom of Barnes passed on to the next generation.” You extend your cellphone towards him. “Number. I’ll text you something so you can update me on Bullet.”

Bucky smiles down at your phone as he types his number, then offers it back to you with a tight-lipped, shy smile.

“I’ll see you, Y/n.” He looks at the Uber with calculating eyes. “Take care, yeah? Text me when you get home.”

“Yeah, okay.”

All the home, your thoughts linger on the way he stood in front of his shop watching your car leave.

When you get home, you text him: Lady Bullet’s owner here. I’m home :)

And as a reply, you get: Happy you’re home safe. Good night, Lady Bullet.

ㅤㅤㅤ. masterlist ;

ㅤㅤ. next chapter ➻

ㅤ. tip me ☕

#uservyxcondessa #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes fic #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x reader #bucky x you #bucky fanfic #bucky barnes series #bucky barnes slow burn #bucky barnes self insert #marvel fanfic #marvel self insert #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes comfort #bucky barnes imagine #sebastian stan #marvel #marvel fic

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vyxcondessa · 2 months ago

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👋 hi there how are you?

hey there! i'm doing good, how about you?

#hello anon #nyx mail

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vyxcondessa · 2 months ago

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thank you for gracing tumblr with your presence again gorgeous <3 and if anyone does even the simplest, smallest thing that annoys you send them my way xx

i'd never send anything annoying in your direction, ever, baby. mwah <3

#siren baby #nyx mail

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vyxcondessa · 2 months ago

Text

── COMING IN HOT

PAIRING: Bucky Barnes x F!Reader

SUMMARY: When your best friend Sarah recommends a mechanic of her brother’s trust, all you can think about and pray is that he doesn’t rip you off. Your car is your prized possession, and amidst all the worry and concern of your medical studies, drowning in even more debt sounds as suffocating as it would be.

Of course, you never thought of the possibility of the mechanic being the problem. A hot, polite, gentle, and silent type of problem.

Drowning in debt would be easier to navigate than the blue of Bucky Barnes’s eyes.

WORD COUNT: 70k; Completed.

A/N & WARNINGS: As I write the sequel to one of my favorite stories, I'm editing and sharing again the first part here. This is an Alternate Universe. Earth -1999. Mature content ahead, so minors DNI.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤMASTERLISTㅤㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎✎﹏﹏﹏﹏

‎‎ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤCHAPTERS . ONE ; . TWO ; . THREE ; . FOUR ; July 11th . FIVE ; July 13th . SIX ; July 15th . SEVEN ; July 16th . EIGHT ; July 18th . NINE, July 20th.

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vyxcondessa · 2 months ago

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(𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝟏/𝟒: 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐑𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐄𝐑)

──𝐈 𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐍𝐀 𝐑𝐎𝐂𝐊 (𝐑𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐍𝐎𝐖);

(drummer!sevika x reader): your friend invites you to see a band you have no interest in. that is, until you see the sexy drummer.

wc: 8.9k | cw: drummer!sevika, new fan!reader, dom top!sevika, bottom!reader, oral sex (r! & s!receiving), biting, scratching, hair-pulling, mating press, doggy style, a little spanking, strap-on usage, pet names: doll & baby, blink & you'll miss it dry humping, MINORS DNI.

note: this is part one of four in a mini-series i'm going to put out! the others will be vi, caitlyn & jinx aka the rest of the band. hope you enjoy this first installment!

It's pure chance that you end up standing outside in line to see a band you know next to nothing about. Your friend, Raven, just so happens to work at a pretty popular music venue, and she takes turns offering your whole friend group free tickets. Usually, you only cash in for bands you already like. No need to spend a whole night primping and standing in a sea of sweaty strangers just to be underwhelmed.

But this time, Raven insists. Says you'll want to go. If not for the music, then for the spectacular eye candy.

You ask her for the band’s info, figuring a quick scroll through their Instagram will be enough to decide whether it’s worth the effort.

Hotwired.

Cool name, at least. You pull up their page and immediately wonder how you’ve made it this far in life without even hearing about them. Every single member? A complete knockout. It's almost suspicious.

You don’t even mean to, but soon you’re moving over to Google. Once you manage to collect yourself and pick your jaw up off the floor, that is. It’s immediately clear they’ve got a loyal (and horny as hell) fanbase, made up mostly of women who are deep in the trenches.

Jinx does lead vocals. She looks like an edgy punk fantasy brought to life, all smeared eyeliner and that permanent shit-eating grin. Her scandal list reads like a greatest hits album: breaking paparazzi cameras, getting banned from festivals, allegedly attending an orgy or two. That last one may or may not have been debunked, but nobody really cares.

Then there's Vi, the guitarist, and easily the one with the sluttiest internet presence. Just from surface-level scrolling, you can tell the girl’s allergic to shirts and addicted to sticking her tongue out in literally every picture. You kind of get it. If you had a tongue piercing, you’d show it off too.

C.K.’s their bassist and easily the most mysterious. She’s always wearing a mask in every photo, and there are entire threads dedicated to speculating who she really is or why she never shows her face. She's got basically zero solo content. No interviews, no side accounts. The only time you ever see her is through blurry crowd pics or carefully curated shots on the band’s main page.

But the one who really stops you in your tracks is the drummer. Sevika. She’s clearly the oldest in the group and by enough that it’s become part of her brand. If you had a dollar for every time someone called her “mommy,” you could quit your job and live off the passive income.

It doesn't take long before you’re deep in her personal pages, scrolling through photo after photo, each one somehow hotter than the last. If you had to pick favorites, you’d be stuck between a pic of her holding some grinning girl in a headlock (because you wish that was you) or a candid shot of her half-sprawled on the tour bus couch, shirt rucked up just enough to show a hint of stomach and whatever tattoo’s inked there. It causes a delusional fantasy of seeing the tattoo in full, up close and personal.

If you weren’t sold before, you definitely are now. It’s only after you’ve been scrolling for the better part of an hour that it occurs to you: maybe you should actually listen to some of their music. Just to be sure. After all, no amount of raw sexual magnetism is worth two hours of garbage sound at floor-shaking volume.

Hotwired sounds exactly how you expected them to sound: fast, loud, and chock-full of debauchery. Beautiful.

Just like that, you’re hooked. Fully on board. You start counting down the days like it’s Christmas, and somehow, each one drags slower than the last, like time itself is conspiring against you. You keep yourself sane by cycling through outfit options and FaceTiming Raven late at night to workshop looks and lock in the plan. She promises she’ll make sure you get the real experience, not just general admission hell.

Eventually, Saturday rolls around.

You show up to the venue with your makeup sharp and your outfit toeing the line of try-hard, feet already bouncing from nerves and excitement. The line out front snakes down the block, full of people in ripped fishnets and smeared eyeliner, all buzzing with the kind of feral energy that comes from knowing you might lock eyes with your parasocial crush for two seconds if you stand in the right spot.

Right on cue, the Hotwired tour bus rolls past, slow enough to make you wonder if the band's inside looking back at all of you, too. It's blacked out with a massive decal stretching across one side: a grimy chrome version of their logo with electric blue slashes through it, like claw marks.

The second it passes, the crowd screams like it’s the second coming of Christ. You can't lie—you want to scream a little, too.

Then the front doors crack open and Raven steps out, scanning the crowd. She spots you almost instantly, waving you over. You push through the line, ignoring the side-eyes and muttered complaints, until you’re at the front. The bouncer squints down at you, arms folded like he’s about to be a problem, but Raven just gives him a pointed look and a playful nudge.

“Come on, Jakey,” she says, all syrupy. “You know she’s with me.”

He rolls his eyes, but the corner of his mouth twitches. “One of these days, Rae…”

“And it still won’t be today,” she cuts in, already grabbing your wrist and pulling you past him. He lets you both through without another word.

Inside, the venue is way cooler than you expected. It’s grungy in that on purpose way, walls covered in layered gig posters, old stickers, and marker-scrawled graffiti.

The stage is low and intimate, set against a wall of distorted LED panels, and the ceiling is just high enough to make you feel like the place might implode if the mosh gets too wild. The lighting is red-tinted and low, and the air already smells like cheap beer and heat.

You both make a beeline for the bar, down a quick drink that tastes like battery acid and sugar, and then squeeze your way up through the crowd until you’re right at the barricade. Prime real estate. Raven beams at you, smug as hell.

“God, I cannot wait,” you say, adjusting your top and already scanning the stage for signs of movement. “I'm probably going to come as soon as the first shirt comes off.”

"I wouldn't be too worried," Raven answers, grinning. "The same thing will probably happen to fifty other girls. Me included."

"I seriously can't believe you've been gatekeeping them from me. Bad friend." You shake your head in mock disappointment.

Raven nudges your shoulder with her own. "Don't be like that," she says, "you're the one who refuses to listen to anything new. It's like pulling teeth with you."

"Fair."

"But, let's not ignore the fact that I've got us in the splash zone," she says, jerking her head up towards the stage. "There's no better spot to get the band's sweat flung on you. Plus, you're much more likely to get shit thrown to you."

You throw your arm around her shoulder and grin. "You are the best."

Soon enough, the lights dip a little lower and a trio of guys jog out onstage. The crowd cheers, not as loud, but still excited. The opener's called Time Killers—some high-energy, slightly chaotic boy band with a surprisingly tight sound.

They don’t waste too much time introducing themselves, just launch into a fast-paced set full of pounding drums and catchy guitar riffs. They’re not the main event, but they do a damn good job of loosening up the crowd, bouncing around the stage, shouting into the mic between songs, cracking jokes about Hotwired being backstage drinking half the rider.

By the time their set wraps up, everyone’s a little sweaty, hyped, and more than ready for the main act.

The moment the lights dim again, the energy in the room spikes. There’s a shift in the crowd, a low wave of buzzing conversation, giggling, camera flashes, the rustle of people scrambling to get their phones out. You can hear the name Hotwired murmured like a prayer, over and over.

They don’t make a big entrance. No theatrical intro or pyrotechnics. The girls just start filtering onto the stage like they own it, which, based on the screams that immediately follow, they absolutely do.

You spot Jinx first, bouncing out like she’s been shot out of a cannon, grinning wide and immediately flipping off the crowd. Then Vi, strutting in all pink hair and tank top and shoulder muscles, throwing up a peace sign and mouthing something probably filthy to someone in the second row. Caitlyn walks on like a ghost, calm and unreadable behind that signature mask, bass slung across her back.

And then there’s Sevika.

She stalks. Head down, focused, with a thick cable slung over one shoulder and a case of hardware in her grip like it weighs nothing. She moves through the dim lighting like she’s been doing this forever, every motion efficient, practiced, precise. There’s something about the way she pauses to check the rigging on her kit, nodding once to herself before moving on to the next thing, that makes your stomach swoop. You can tell she’s the kind of person who doesn’t leave anything half done.

And then there’s the outfit.

She’s wearing a cropped black vest that clings to her chest and cuts off just under her ribs, exposing toned abs and a stretch of skin that shows more of that dark ink winding up her side. Tight black jeans hug her hips and thighs in a way that should be illegal, chains swaying at her sides with every step.

Her arms are bare, heavy with muscle and shining a little under the stage lights from sweat or moisture. Silver rings gleam on her fingers, and there’s a low-hanging necklace tucked just under her collarbone. Her drumsticks are shoved into her back pocket, and when she turns—Jesus fucking Christ—you catch a full view of her ass and have to actively fight the urge to grab the barricade for support.

"Pretty sure I just came,” you murmur, staring like you’ve forgotten how to blink.

Raven snorts beside you. “Close your mouth. You're drooling.”

You try to. You really do. But it’s hard when Sevika finally finishes setting up, drops into her stool with her legs spread, and starts rolling one stick across her knuckles while the other taps absently against her thigh. She glances out at the crowd, expression unreadable, but something about the way she scans the front row makes you feel like she sees you.

A ridiculous thought that is very fun to entertain.

The moment the final mic is tested and the lights slam to full brightness, Jinx charges to the front of the stage and throws her arms out wide like she’s about to dive into the crowd. The audience erupts—screaming, whistling, people on shoulders, someone in the back launching a glitter cannon that immediately gets sucked into the venue’s weak-ass ventilation system.

“HELL-O, MOTHERFUCKERS!” Jinx shrieks into the mic, voice cracking in a way that somehow makes her even hotter. “Hope you’re ready to get wrecked, because we came here to ruin your night in the best possible way!”

The crowd loses it again, people chanting her name, some already trying to crowd surf. Security looks exhausted and the first song hasn’t even started.

Jinx paces the front edge of the stage like a manic preacher, motioning behind her as she speaks. “You know us already, but we're gonna do introductions anyway because holy shit do we deserve to be screamed at tonight. On lead guitar, is my lovely sister, Vi!”

Vi throws up the horns and leans into her amp, strumming a heavy chord just to flex. The crowd answers with a shriek that nearly drowns out the feedback.

“We've got the ice queen herself on bass...the one and only C.K.!”

Caitlyn lifts her bass one-handed like it weighs nothing, offering the crowd a slow, deliberate bow. Someone near you yells, “Show us your face!” and immediately gets booed into silence.

“And in the back, banging the drums, which I know some of you wish you could be, it’s Sevikaaaaaa!”

You don’t know how Sevika can roll her eyes while still looking like she’s enjoying herself, but she manages. She twirls a stick between her fingers, then throws her arms up once and brings them down hard for a crack of the snare that shudders through your chest.

"And, of course, around here we save the best for last," she says, hopping off the stage and approaching...you. She holds out her hand as if for a handshake and you oblige as quickly as your brain allows you to catch up.

"I'm Jinx! Nice to fucking meet ya!"

Jinx grins and jumps back on the stage, spinning back toward the mic, breathless and grinning. “We’re Hotwired, you’re ours now, and this one’s called ‘Burn the Breaklights.’ Let’s see what you’re made of!”

The guitar tears in first, loud and dirty, then Caitlyn’s bass hits low and deep, and finally Sevika drops into the rhythm like she was built for it. The whole room moves. It's one of the songs you listened to on repeat earlier in the week, so you already know a good bit of the lyrics, already know the moment the beat’s gonna break, already feel your body falling into sync with it.

You and Raven lose yourselves in the moment, dancing like you’ve got something to prove, like the music's a possession. Her hair’s sticking to her face already and you're probably flashing everyone behind you every time you jump, but none of it matters.

Not when Sevika is on stage, muscles flexing with every strike, jaw tight, eyes laser-focused on the set. She looks absolutely lethal. Every time you try to look away, your gaze snaps right back to her. It’s like she’s holding the tempo of your heart along with the song. Every beat, every drop, every filthy crash of the cymbals—it’s her.

And yeah, you're watching the whole band. But you're watching her the most.

The rest of the show barrels forward like a freight train, no breaks, no mercy. Hotwired barely pauses between songs, each one bleeding into the next with sharp edges and screaming vocals, the crowd more than happy to go feral with them. You lose track of the setlist and, honestly, your sense of time somewhere between song four and five, when Raven boosts you up and the crowd takes you.

You float above the chaos for what feels like forever, arms raised, cheeks aching from how hard you're grinning. Hands guide you forward, and for once you don’t care about the potential for bruises or that someone definitely copped a feel on the way down. You land near the barricade again, wild-eyed and breathless, just as Jinx reappears center stage holding a massive water bottle.

She grins like a devil. “Y’all look thirsty,” she purrs, then proceeds to douse the first three rows, including you and Raven. It’s a full-body splash, soaking your shirt and leaving your hair damp.

Raven bursts into laughter, slapping your shoulder and yelling, “Told you the splash zone was real!” while you push wet strands out of your face and try not to melt on the spot.

Things only get weirder from there. Midway through the set, a man in a giant inflatable t-rex costume lumbers out from side stage like it's the most normal thing in the world.

Jinx doesn’t miss a beat—she grabs a mic stand like a weapon and launches into a full-on choreographed battle with him. The t-rex flails, Jinx spins around dramatically, and the crowd eats it up. It ends with her knocking him down (gently), then dropping to one knee and serenading him with what turns out to be a surprisingly heartfelt punk ballad about falling in love during a Godzilla rampage. You laugh so hard your stomach cramps.

Later, they open up the floor for an all-girl pit. Jinx leans into the mic, hair stuck to her face, absolutely unhinged as she screams, “If you see a man in this pit, fuck his shit up!” and the crowd loses it.

You hesitate for half a second before Raven shoves you in with a wicked grin. It’s wild and a little terrifying but weirdly exhilarating. Everyone’s laughing and pushing and grabbing each other’s arms to stay upright, and when someone does spot a guy creeping in from the side, three girls immediately bodycheck him out like it’s a sport.

By the end of the set, your voice is half gone, your limbs feel like rubber, and you know you’ll be sore as hell tomorrow—but you’re still not ready for it to be over.

The lights flare brighter, the stage bathed in reds and purples, and Jinx struts to the edge of the platform with a wicked grin like she’s about to start a riot. Her hair’s stuck to her face, eyeliner smeared to hell, shirt clinging to her body like a second skin. She’s practically glowing with sweat and adrenaline and the kind of manic joy that only comes from setting a crowd on fire for an hour straight.

“This our last one of the night,” she says, breathless and grinning. “But I’m gonna need a few pretty girls up here to help us close it out.”

That’s all it takes. The front row surges forward like a wave, everyone screaming and reaching, girls practically climbing over the barricade in the hopes of being noticed. Jinx motions to the band behind her. “Vi, Sevika. Make sure they're cuties!”

Vi gives a mock salute and hops off the stage, already laughing. Sevika follows, more reserved but clearly amused as her eyes start sweeping through the front row.

They make a whole damn show of it, taking their time, dragging it out, pointing at random girls then shaking their heads like they’re not quite right, just to drive the crowd insane.

You’re crammed up against the barricade, half-smashed by girls on either side trying to crawl over you. One of them elbows you in the ribs and you wince, gripping the rail to stay upright.

Then Sevika’s in front of you.

She’s massive up close, towering and flushed from the heat, vest clinging to her body and dark ink gleaming under the lights. She looks right at you, eyes dragging down once—deliberate, slow—then reaches out and grabs you by the waist like it’s nothing. You barely get a word out before she hauls you up, slinging you over one shoulder like you weigh nothing at all.

The crowd screams.

You catch a brief flash of another girl being thrown over Sevika’s other shoulder, but you can’t see who it is—just that you’re both being carried through a sea of flashing lights and flailing hands. You’re deposited back on stage with all the grace of a sack of laundry, but when you right yourself, blinking against the brightness, you realize the other girl Sevika grabbed is Raven. She’s laughing, eyes wide, clearly having the time of her life.

Vi drops two more girls off, and Jinx bounces over, practically vibrating with excitement. “Alright, you guys,” she says into the mic, pointing with a flourish. “I want you to dance for your fucking lives. This one goes out to every pretty, punk girl in this crowd tonight!”

The band slams into the final song like they’re possessed. It’s dirty and fast and fun as hell, the kind of track you can’t help but move to, and that’s exactly what you do. You let it take you, let your body roll with the beat and the bass and the screams of the crowd. Jinx loops an arm around your waist at one point, dragging you into a messy, chaotic spin before grinding against you in rhythm with the chorus.

Vi makes a little show of guiding one of the girls down on her knees; she stands with her legs spread on either side of the girl's lap and starts in on her solo. She makes those string sing and the girl under her seems to be having the time of her life. The crowd fucking explodes.

You don’t even care how sweaty you are or what you look like. You just dance, laugh-singing the lyrics you half-remember, head tipping back as the lights pulse and the drums pound. When the final chord hits, the sound crashes down like a wave, and the entire venue moves as one—cheering, screaming, lights flickering wild and strobing.

Sevika stands as the last echoes of the drums fade. She pulls one of her sticks from the kit, the end cracked and splintered and walks it over to you. She presses the worn, warm stick into your palm and winks.

You don’t even try to act cool about it. You just stare down at it, dazed, while security helps you and the others off the stage and back over the barricade.

"Goodnight, you heathens! You've be a wonderful crowd!"

You and Raven slip out through the side exit marked Employees Only, the one she mentioned earlier, where the bands usually dip out to avoid the chaos at the front. The alley behind the venue is dimly lit and smells like smoke and spilled beer, but it’s quiet, tucked away from the thrum of the still-buzzing crowd. You’re both flushed and half-drenched in sweat, breathless in that post-show haze, riding the high and crash all at once.

Raven fishes a crushed cigarette pack from her purse and slides one between her lips. “Got a light?”

You open your mouth to answer, to say no, but let me check, but a voice cuts through the quiet, low and unmistakably rough.

“Here.”

You both turn.

Sevika’s standing a few feet away, cigarette tucked into the corner of her mouth, shoulders slouched like she’s been here the whole time.

Her leather jacket’s heavy with patches and pins, sleeves rolled to the elbow, and the silver zippo she’s holding out gleams in the streetlight, engraved with something you can’t quite make out. Her gaze flicks between the two of you, but then it lands on you and sticks.

Your breath catches. There’s no stage lights now, no distance, no wall of noise. It’s just her. Big as hell, close enough to smell the smoke, and somehow even hotter like this—casual, confident, not sweating a damn thing.

“You looked real good on stage,” she says, eyes narrowing just slightly, like she’s still sizing you up.

It's entirely possible that you might just float away. “Oh. Uh, thanks. You—you too. Sounded. You sounded good. The whole time.”

Raven coughs into her fist, poorly masking a laugh.

Sevika smirks, nods once like that’s all she needed to hear. Then she jerks her chin toward the drumstick you’re still clutching for dear life. “Want me to sign that?”

You don’t even hesitate. “Yes. Yes, please.”

She pulls a sharpie from her back pocket and scrawls something across the wood—longer than just a name. She caps the marker with a flick, hands the stick back, and says, “Keep it to yourself.”

You nod. Maybe too fast. Words are hard when she’s looking at you like that, relaxed and a little amused, cigarette smoke curling between you.

“Y’all have a good night,” Sevika says, slipping the lighter back into her jacket. She gives Raven a quick nod and you one last glance before turning and heading off down the alley, boots heavy on the pavement.

It takes you a second to remember how to breathe. Then you look down at the stick.

Sevika’s number is written right there in blocky print.

“Oh my god,” Raven hisses, grabbing your arm. “She gave you her number. You're so fucking in there, dude!”

“I—what do I do? Should I text her? What if she invites me to her hotel room? What if she actually wants to hook up?”

Raven looks at you like you’ve lost your mind. “First of all, we’ve got our protocols. You text me your location, share your location, take the selfie timestamp, we do the whole checklist. Second—babe, you only get one life. And that woman just handed you a golden opportunity.”

You nod slowly, dazed. “I need a shower first.”

“Yeah, no shit. We’re going to my place. It’s closer.”

You pocket the drumstick like it’s breakable and follow her out of the alley, heart pounding harder than it did in the pit.

You’re sitting cross-legged on Raven’s bed, freshly showered, skin still warm from the water and nerves buzzing under the surface. Your hair’s damp, your hands are clammy, and your thumb is hovering over the glowing green call button on your screen. Sevika’s number is typed in. Still feels unreal. Raven’s already changed into her sleep shorts and an oversized tee, lounging beside you like this is all very normal and not a life-altering decision in the making.

“Just do it,” she says, biting into a granola bar like this is nothing. “She gave you her number. She signed it on a fucking drumstick. She wants you to call.”

You take a steadying breath, nod once, then hit the button before you can talk yourself out of it. It rings once. Twice. Three times.

Four.

“Yeah?” Sevika answers, her voice low, a little gravelly, definitely tired but not annoyed. It curls in your ear like smoke. “Who is this?”

You clear your throat. “Uh. It’s me. From the alley. With the drumstick.”

There’s a beat of silence. Then:

“Oh.” Her tone shifts, interest sharpening like the flick of a lighter. “I was wondering when you’d call. Wasn’t sure if you would.”

You smile, cheeks heating even though she can’t see you. “Why’d you give me your number?”

“Thought you were cute.” She says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Felt like it was mutual.”

Your heart skips. “It was. Definitely was.”

Another pause, this one slower, more thoughtful. “You cool if I come pick you up?”

Your breath catches. You glance over at Raven, who’s staring at you with huge eyes and mouthing holy shit. “Are we...are we gonna hook up?”

Sevika laughs—a real one, low and genuine. “Only if you want to, doll.”

Your stomach flips and your voice comes out quieter than you mean it to. “Yeah. I do.”

Raven silently screams, her hands waving in the air before she plants both fists into the comforter like she’s watching a playoff game.

“Send me the address,” Sevika says. “I’ll swing by soon as I can.”

You nod, then catch yourself. “Okay. Yeah. I’ll send it.”

“See you in a bit,” she says, then hangs up.

You lower the phone slowly. Raven grabs both your shoulders like you just won a gold medal. “SEVIKA is on her way to pick you up. What the fuck. You’re gonna have to tell your future kids about this one.”

“I’m not gonna have kids,” you mutter, dazed.

“You might after tonight!”

You groan and flop back onto the bed, phone clutched to your chest like some cheesy teen rom-com. Raven throws you a pair of lip glosses and demands outfit approval.

"What happens in that hotel room will be concerning to the general public," you say, grinning.

Raven squeals. "And I can't wait for you to get back here so you can give me every juicy, disgusting detail!"

The distant rumble of a motorcycle reaches you before the headlight cuts through the quiet of Raven’s street. You step outside just in time to see Sevika roll up—heavy boots planted as she kills the engine, the machine still humming under her. She’s wearing the same leather jacket from earlier, helmet tucked under one arm, and she looks unfairly good with her hair pulled back, a fresh cigarette behind one ear.

“Hey,” she says, voice low and unreadable.

You manage a breathless, “Hi.”

She holds out a matte black helmet. "Want help?"

You nod, and she steps in close, fitting it over your head and buckling it gently beneath your chin. Her fingers brush your jaw—intentional or not, it still makes your heart skip. She checks the strap, gives it a little tug, then nods in approval.

“Put your arms around me,” she says, already mounting the bike again. “Hold on tight.”

You slide onto the seat behind her, hands fumbling slightly before you wrap your arms snugly around her waist. Her torso is solid under the leather, the bike humming beneath you, and you can smell her cologne.

Then you’re off.

The city streaks past in a blur of streetlights and neon signs, wind rushing past your body, your heart pounding louder than the engine. You don’t know how long the ride lasts—fifteen, maybe twenty minutes—but when Sevika slows and pulls into a quiet hotel parking lot, you’re not ready for it to end.

She kills the engine and dismounts first, then helps you off like she’s done it a thousand times before. She pulls a cap from her jacket pocket and a pair of sunglasses from the other, handing them to you with a small smirk.

“Just in case there’s anyone waiting around,” she says. “You wouldn’t believe the kind of creeps who’ll sell a blurry photo for a couple hundred bucks.”

You nod and slip both on, grateful for the moment to compose yourself. Sevika reaches for your hand—no hesitation—and laces your fingers with hers like it’s no big deal. She leads you inside, her grip firm but steady, only releasing your hand once you reach the elevator.

She steps in first and turns you around so that your back is facing the small overhead camera in the corner. The doors slide closed with a soft ding, and you can feel her eyes on you as you pull the cap off, then the glasses.

“C’mere,” she murmurs.

You face her, and she lifts her hands to your hair, smoothing the parts that got windswept on the ride. There's a stubborn bit that refuses to lay right and she tucks it behind your ear, her knuckles dragging slow along your cheek.

The moment lingers.

Then Sevika leans in and kisses you—soft at first, her lips warm and unhurried, but the second you respond, it tilts hotter. Her hand slides to the back of your neck, the other gripping your waist, and you melt into it, helpless against the way she feels. You lose track of time in the haze of it until—

Ding.

The doors slide open and Sevika breaks the kiss with a breath, but not a word. She takes your hand again, tighter this time, and leads you down the hall with singular focus. You pass a door that swings open just as you’re walking by.

Jinx steps out, half-dressed in a tank and cutoffs, hair a chaotic mess. “Yo, Sev, do we have any more—?”

“Fuck off,” Sevika says without slowing, without looking back.

Jinx laughs. “Rude.”

Sevika stops just long enough to unlock her door and yank it open, ushering you inside before pulling it closed behind you with a satisfying click. The lock turns, the sound final.

Sevika’s on you with a purpose, crowding you back against the door with the full heat of her body, her mouth claiming yours in a kiss that’s immediately filthy.

Hot and open-mouthed, all tongue and teeth, the kind of kiss that leaves your head spinning and your knees already getting soft.

You gasp into her, but she doesn't give you a chance to speak, her hands already gripping your hips like she owns them. You feel her smile, dark and dangerous, against your lips as you let your fingers explore—first the firm planes of her stomach, defined and solid under the hem of her shirt, then lower, to her ass, where your hands squeeze without hesitation.

That earns you a reaction.

Sevika groans into the kiss, deep in her chest, and grinds her hips against you, slow and deliberate. You feel everything: how solid she is against you, how good she knows it feels to make you feel this. Her mouth moves to your jaw, to your neck, biting and kissing like she wants to leave evidence.

“I see you're done with the shy shit,” she mutters, before grabbing you by the back of your thighs and lifting you clean off the floor.

Your breath catches with a startled sound that turns into a moan as your legs instinctively wrap around her waist. She holds you up with just one arm, effortless like it’s nothing. Her other hand slips up the front of your shirt, rough fingers dragging over your stomach and up to your chest.

She doesn’t even bother with the bra—her hand finds your tit and gropes, slow and possessive, her thumb circling your nipple until you’re arching into the touch.

She pulls back just enough to look at you. Really look. You’re panting, lips kiss-swollen and eyes already half-lidded, your makeup smudged from the ride and the kiss and her mouth all over your throat.

“Goddamn,” Sevika says, quiet, almost reverent. “You really are a pretty little thing.”

You smile, dazed, about to say something—

“Shame, really.”

You blink. “What is?”

She grins, teeth flashing as her eyes drag across your face. “That I’m gonna have to ruin all that pretty makeup.”

"Oh my god, please." It comes out a little more desperate than you intend for it to, but Sevika seems deeply pleased by the turn of events.

She slips her hand from under your shirt and steadies you against her hips before walking the both of you toward the bed. The way she moves is careful, but the heat in her eyes never dims. When she lays you down, it’s with a gentleness that throws you off after the rough edges of the last few minutes. Her hand lingers on your thigh as she still stands above you.

“You still want this?” she asks, voice quieter now, more grounded. It’s the most serious she’s sounded all night. “No hard feelings if you don’t.”

You shake your head so fast it’s almost pathetic. “I do. I—like, really do.”

Sevika’s expression softens, just slightly. “Then get undressed.”

You scramble to obey, stripping off your shirt first, then your shorts, both discarded over the edge of the bed without much ceremony. Her eyes never leave you. She watches the way you move, takes in every inch of exposed skin like she’s memorizing it, and the intensity makes heat rise in your chest. You fight the stupid reflex to cover yourself.

“I like the matching set,” she murmurs, stepping closer, the fronts of her thighs pressing into the mattress as she leans forward. She hooks a finger under your waistband and snaps it lightly against your skin. “Put this on for me?”

You nod, breath caught in your throat. “Yeah.”

“I appreciate the effort, doll,” she says, and leans down to kiss you again, mouth hot and teasing. She nips your bottom lip, not hard enough to hurt but enough to pull a gasp from you. “Think you’ve earned a little treat, hmm?”

“Please,” you say, dazed and already too far gone to pretend otherwise. She could ask for anything right now and you'd probably give it to her.

True to her word, she climbs onto the bed, settling between your legs with all the casual confidence in the world. The sight of her down there—strong shoulders framed by all that jewelry, hair messy from your fingers, her mouth so fucking close—is enough to knock the air out of your lungs.

Your hands slide into her hair without you realizing it, fingers curling, needing something to hold on to. She grins up at you, a slow, wicked thing that curls at the edges of her lips.

“You can pull,” she tells you, voice low and sure. “Bite me, scratch me, scream my name. I like it all.”

The mental image—her skin marked up by you, bruises blooming across her chest, fingernail lines trailing her back—makes your head spin. But then Sevika drags you out of that thought with the swipe of her tongue, slow and deliberate, straight through your soaked folds.

Your mouth falls open.

She doesn’t ease into it. Her whole mouth is on you, her tongue pressing in deep before she pulls back to suck your clit into her mouth, hard and focused. Loud, wet sounds fill the room, and every moan that spills from her makes your body twitch. She likes it, you can tell. Likes how wet you are, likes the way your hips buck despite yourself.

Then she’s burying her tongue inside you, her nose pressed tight against your clit, and it’s too much, not enough, perfect. You can’t help the way you grind down against her, chasing every ounce of pressure. Your grip in her hair tightens, probably bordering on painful.

But Sevika just groans, the sound rumbling straight into your core, and slides a hand up to your stomach to pin you in place.

“Just stay still,” she mutters, mouth brushing wet heat against you, “and take it for me.”

You try to stay still like she asked. You really do. But it’s impossible with the way her mouth is working you over, like she’s got something to prove.

She’s relentless—no breaks, no mercy—tongue curling and flicking in a rhythm that feels obscene in the best way. The hand pressed to your stomach keeps you from squirming too much, but your legs are shaking and your fingers are locked in her hair now, tugging with each desperate half-aborted roll of your hips.

Your vision blurs at the edges. Your head falls back against the bed with a ragged sound that might be her name. And when the heat finally crests and crests and then snaps, it hits like a punch in the gut. Your whole body tenses, thighs locking around her head as you cry out, louder than you mean to, legs trembling with the force of it.

Sevika moans into it, like she's savoring every second, riding it out with slow, indulgent licks that make your stomach twitch.

You try to catch your breath, chest rising and falling fast, but Sevika doesn’t move away. She kisses your inner thigh once. Then again. Her hands stroke over your legs, gentle now, grounding. She lets you breathe. Just for a moment.

Then she’s back, mouth brushing against your still-sensitive clit with a teasing hum.

“Think you’ve got another in you, doll?” she murmurs, already kissing her way up your inner thigh again. Her voice is warm now, low and coaxing, like she already knows the answer.

You whimper, your hips giving a weak twitch toward her mouth even as your legs tremble with aftershocks. "Y-yeah."

“That’s what I thought,” she says, smug and soft all at once.

She takes her time now. Her mouth moves slow and deliberate, licking through your folds with featherlight passes and pressing gentle, wet kisses to your clit. The overstimulation hits sharp at first, your thighs jolting under her hands, but she soothes you through it.

“So fuckin' pretty,” she murmurs, breath hot against your skin. “Even when you’re falling apart.”

Her hands stroke up and down your thighs, lazy and tender. She palms the meat of them, lets her thumbs trace soft circles until you’re relaxing under her again, the sharp edge of sensation melting into something sweeter.

“You’re doing so good for me,” she adds, voice low and full of heat. “Just let go. I got you.”

You bite your lip, overwhelmed and wrecked and somehow still burning for more. Your hips start moving on their own, rocking up into her mouth, and Sevika hums her approval. Her tongue moves with slow purpose, dragging you up and up again until your fingers are tangled tight in the sheets and you’re begging without even realizing it.

The second orgasm is softer. Like your body is unraveling instead of bursting. You moan her name as your thighs clench, your back arches, and your entire body goes loose under her hands.

Sevika kisses your pussy one last time—slow and warm—before finally pulling away, her face slick, her grin downright criminal.

“Fuck,” she mutters, dragging the back of her hand across her mouth. “You taste even better than I imagined.”

You can’t speak. You don’t even try. All you can do is lay there, dazed and ruined, as Sevika presses one last kiss to your thigh before finally crawling off the bed. You hear her crack her back and exhale like a boxer between rounds.

“You still got more for me, or do you think you’re about done?” she asks over her shoulder, heading for the mini fridge tucked into the corner of the room.

You’re half melted into the mattress, still catching your breath, but you sit up enough to catch the water bottle she tosses your way. It’s one of those tiny ones that might as well be a sip, and you kill it in seconds. Sevika watches with a smirk, arms crossed over her bare chest.

After a beat, you mutter, “Give me, like, twenty minutes.”

She laughs, low and warm and amused by your commitment. “You sure? Not every day you get to wear out a groupie.”

You roll your eyes, but your grin gives you away. “It’s not every day you get to fuck a rockstar, either. I’m making it count.”

“Yeah, you are,” she says, grabbing the remote and flopping down on the bed beside you. She sheds her jeans and shirt in one smooth motion, leaving her in nothing but a sports bra and a pair of boxers that sit a little crooked on her hips. She doesn’t seem to care.

The TV comes on to some late-night rerun, but you’re not really watching it. You’re more focused on how Sevika leans back against the headboard and opens her arms like she’s inviting you in.

You take the invitation.

Your head ends up in her lap, and her hand finds your hair almost instantly. She scratches gently at your scalp, twirling strands around her finger, trailing soft touches down the side of your face. It’s lazy and warm and kind of unfair how good it feels. You could fall asleep like this, safe between her thighs with the dull buzz of the TV in the background.

But after maybe ten, fifteen minutes, your fingers start to drift.

You let your nails rake lightly along her thigh, aimless at first, but then you start tracing slow lines higher and higher. Sevika hums, a lazy warning you don’t heed.

“What are you up to?” she asks, voice low, indulgent.

You glance up at her from her lap and smile. “Can I eat you out?”

Sevika raises an eyebrow, clearly pleased by the request. “Fuck, yeah,” she says, already shifting her hips. She lifts up so you can tug her boxers down her legs and toss them somewhere across the room.

You get a little rush from the sight of her: already wet, glistening, the proof of her arousal slick on her thighs. Just knowing that she got like this from going down on you is enough to make your head spin all over again.

So you start slow, just for a second, before you sink your teeth into the soft flesh of her inner thigh and bite. Hard.

Sevika lets out a sharp breath and flexes beneath you. Her hand tightens in the sheets beside her, but she doesn't stop you. Doesn’t want to. You sink another bite a little higher, then lick over the mark you just made, feeling her muscles jump beneath your tongue.

Your hands grip her thighs tight, nails digging in, not gentle at all now. You want her to feel you.

“Fuck, that mouth,” she groans, hips twitching toward you.

You get to work for real, licking a stripe up the center of her, then circling her clit with your tongue just enough to tease.

“Don’t hold back, doll,” she tells you, voice ragged but sure. “C’mon. Show me how bad you wanna impress me.”

You do. You really do.

She groans your name, threading her fingers tighter in your hair as your mouth drags wet and firm over her clit. Her thighs bracket your face and you feel her start to grind into it, chasing the pressure, not shy about what she needs.

“You’re so good at this,” she murmurs, voice dipping into that same low register that makes your spine light up. “So fuckin’ eager. Knew you’d be like this.”

Your hips press into the bed without thinking. She keeps going.

“Keep that tongue right there. Just like that, yeah. That’s it, baby. You’re making me proud.”

You moan against her, desperate now, and she laughs, wrecked and fond.

“God, you like hearing me talk, don’t you?”

You nod, mouth still busy, and Sevika rewards you with a groan so filthy it vibrates straight through you.

“Then earn more of it,” she growls. “Don’t stop now.”

Sevika’s breathing gets heavier. The muscles in her thighs are twitching under your grip, her hand tight in your hair now as she guides you exactly where she wants you.

“Fuck, baby! just like that,” she growls, low and rough. “Don’t stop. Don’t even think about it.”

You keep going, your mouth locked on her clit, tongue moving in tight circles, your grip firm as you hold her in place. Her hips are starting to roll, slow and unrestrained, chasing the rhythm. Her growls turn to moans, strained and filthy, falling from her lips like she’s already on the edge.

“Gonna come all over that sweet mouth,” she grits out. “You gonna take it for me? Be good and take it?”

You answer with a desperate noise, nodding against her just enough to make her groan again. She plants both hands on your head and presses you harder between her thighs, grinding against your mouth.

“Ohh, fuck—fuck, fuck—”

Her voice cracks as she comes, body tensing hard around you. Her thighs clamp tight on either side of your face, and you can hear the breath rip from her lungs in a guttural sound that’s half curse, half praise. She holds you there, trembling through the high, hips stuttering against your mouth until the worst of it passes.

When she finally lets up, her hand slides gently to your cheek, her thumb rubbing over the damp skin. She strokes along the curve of your jaw, then drags that thumb over your bottom lip.

“Open,” she murmurs, watching you with heat still burning behind her eyes. You do. She presses her thumb inside, slow and deliberate, and grins when you suck it instinctively.

“Good girl,” she says, and you’re already shivering again.

Sevika pulls you up her body in one smooth tug, hands warm and sure as they slide up your sides. When your lips meet, it’s messy, open-mouthed, all tongue and teeth and hunger. Her hands trail down to your ass, gripping it in both palms, like she’s trying to ground herself with the feel of you.

She feels you humping against her thigh, subtle but obvious, your body already begging for more. She breaks the kiss with a crooked smirk. “Oh? You ready for me to fuck you now?”

You nod, breathless, flushed, still clinging to her.

“I figured,” she murmurs, voice dipping into something darker. “Get on all fours for me, doll. Be good.”

You do exactly as you’re told.

Hands pressed into the sheets, knees spread, chest lowered like submission comes naturally. The room is quiet for a beat, save for the rustle of fabric, the dull zip of a bag opening behind you. You hear the soft thud of something heavy being set down, followed by the low click of buckles, the faint stretch of elastic, and the subtle shift of weight as Sevika moves behind you.

You don’t have to look to know what’s coming.

Then you feel it. The press of something thick against the swell of your ass. It drags slow and deliberate along your soaked folds, the pressure of it undeniable.

“Feel that?” Sevika murmurs, one hand sliding across your hip. “You’re about to take every inch of it.”

Your breath catches as the tip nudges your entrance, slick already clinging to your thighs. She doesn’t give you time to overthink it—just starts pushing in, slow but steady, giving you the stretch inch by inch. You gasp, biting into the pillow, your body gripping around her as she fills you completely.

And then she starts to move.

Sevika fucks like a force of nature, brutal and relentless. Her grip on your hips is bruising, nails digging into your flesh with each thrust. The sound of skin slapping skin echoes through the room, matched only by the ragged moans pouring from your mouth.

“Look at you,” she growls, voice close to your ear now. “Taking it like you were made for it.”

A hard spank lands across your ass, sharp and stinging, and you cry out, the pain shooting straight through your core.

“So fuckin’ wet for me,” she spits. “Dripping down your thighs. Bet I could slide another toy in and you’d still beg for more.”

“Sevika,” you moan, wrecked and breathless, clinging to the sheets. “Please—more, fuck, don’t stop—”

“Oh, I’m not stoppin’,” she promises, slamming into you harder, the snap of her hips making your arms buckle. “Not until we've ruined these fucking sheets. Not until you scream for me.”

Your moans pitch higher, blurring into sobs of pleasure as the coil in your belly pulls tight. You feel your climax crash through you—sudden, all-consuming—and Sevika doesn’t let up. Not for a second.

She presses one hand flat to your lower back, holding you down, keeping your chest against the mattress while she fucks you through it. Every thrust punches the air from your lungs, your legs shaking beneath her, your orgasm stretching into something messy and endless.

Sevika doesn’t waste time after that.

She flips you with ease, palms steady on your hips, and settles between your legs again, the strap dragging hot and slick along your sensitive folds. Your body jolts with the contact, overstimulated and twitching, but she doesn’t push in just yet. She leans down, eyes locked to yours, breath brushing your lips.

“You still with me?” she asks, voice husky.

You nod, a little shaky. “I—yeah. I just don’t know if I can come again.”

Sevika smiles, slow and devastating, and kisses your cheek. “Don’t need you to come, baby. Just need you to feel good. Can you do that for me?”

"Yes. Fuck, yes, Sev," you answer as she drags the toy through the slick mess you've made between your legs.

Then she lifts your legs, hooking them high over her shoulders. “Hold these up for me,” she says, guiding your hands to the back of your thighs.

You do, for a little while.

She presses into you again, deep and steady, sinking all the way in until her hips meet yours. You both groan in tandem, your bodies clenching around each other. The position drives the strap deep, dragging against that spot inside you just right. It’s too much, but somehow not enough.

Sevika’s pace starts slow, calculated. She's watching you the entire time, studying your face, your mouth, the way your chest rises and falls.

Her own pleasure is mounting fast: her breath growing heavier, her face flushed, brow furrowed in focus as she grinds into you with a rhythm that has you seeing stars.

You're whining now, panting, squirming under the weight of sensation. “Fuck, I can’t—can’t hold them anymore—”

Sevika shushes you, not slowing down. “It’s okay, baby. I got you.”

She takes your legs in her arms, folding you tighter, pressing you into a deep, delicious arch as her hips grind harder into yours. You're pliant under her, fingers gripping at her back now, clawing down her sides, holding on like your life depends on it. She fucks you slow and deep, chasing something now—her own release evident in the way her rhythm starts to falter.

You bite your bottom lip hard enough to taste blood, eyes fluttering open just enough to watch Sevika. God, she’s a sight—head thrown back, jaw clenched, her abs flexing with each motion, a quiet string of curses falling from her mouth as she works her hips into yours like she’s trying to fuck you into the mattress.

And when she starts to fall apart, it’s all the more beautiful for how she keeps holding you through it. Still kissing you. Still murmuring filth in your ear. Still grinding into you with the kind of focus that says she’s not done giving you everything she has.

The sun's just starting to creep over the skyline when Sevika pulls up to Raven’s place, the low rumble of her motorcycle cutting through the early quiet of the neighborhood. The sky is still a little pink around the edges, and the world hasn’t quite shaken off the night yet. You’re tucked behind her on the bike, arms snug around her waist, chin resting on her shoulder as the engine dies.

Sevika pulls off her helmet and looks at you, a slow grin tugging at her lips. She reaches over and helps you undo yours, fingers lingering a little longer than necessary beneath your chin.

“You good?” she asks, her voice still that gravelly, just-woke-up tone that makes your stomach flip.

“Yeah,” you say, smiling. “Kinda feels like I dreamed all of that, though.”

She chuckles and leans in to press a kiss to your cheek. It’s surprisingly soft for someone who handled you like that only hours ago. “Nah,” she says. “I’m real. And so was all of that.”

Your fingers fidget in your lap. “So…is this like, a one-time thing? Or...? I gotta be honest with you, Sevika, I've never hooked up with anybody like you before.”

“Doll,” she says, cutting you off with a look that’s half fond, half amused. “You think I give my number out to just anyone?”

You try not to smile too hard. Fail.

Sevika taps the side of your thigh with two fingers, a wordless cue that it’s time to hop off. You do, handing her the helmet back and smoothing your hair down as best you can.

“I’ll call you,” she says, sliding her helmet back on. “Promise. This isn’t the last time you’ll see me.”

And with that, the engine revs back to life, and she peels off down the street, her silhouette disappearing into the city just as the sun fully crests the buildings.

You’re left standing barefoot on the curb, last night’s clothes still smelling like her skin and cigarette smoke, Sevika’s phone number burned into your contacts and her touch in your memory.

Raven opens the door for you, coffee in hand. “So,” she says. “You gonna tell me everything, or do I have to drag it out of you?”

You just smile and walk inside, cheeks still warm, heart still hammering

#i feel like i just dreamt all of this?#fuck this was BEAUTIFUL #and DELICIOUS #i can’t wait for the follow ups #series: hotwired #sevika

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