They Are Disgusted By My Blood But They Love To Watch Me Bleed

i need a fucking minute

More content of Seb from The Associated Press

Hi ;) I'm sorry it's me again 😅😭I've been having an overabundance of fic ideas lately... So... What about reader doing something super nice and cute for Billy's birthday ? He isn't used to it, his family has never remembered his birth date, let alone celebrated his birthday, so when he sees that reader actually remembers his birthday and does something very meaningful to celebrate it, he just ends up crying because of how beautiful the present it : I don't know what the present could be though, like maybe she sings him a song that she wrote for him ? Which is surprising since she has social anxiety which shows how much effort she put into making this day memorable for him. Really choose whatever you think it's best. Thank you !!!

billy vs. the grinch

billy hargrove x fem!byers!reader

word count: 1,084

warnings: swearing, fluff

a/n: hi, my love! please don’t be sorry! i appreciate you trusting me with your ideas. this is really sweet. i hope that you enjoy what i came up with and that it’s what you wanted. <333

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Billy’s fingers are gripping your belt loops so hard you’re afraid the denim might rip. You push open the front door, the wood cold on your fingertips.

Billy’s been on the verge of tears since seven forty-five this morning, when you hopped down your front step and launched yourself into his arms. “Happy birthday, gorgeous,” you’d said.

He’d only told you his birthday once, right after you met. That you remembered it was making his heart grow, what was it, three sizes? Isn’t that what the Grinch said?

Fuck, it didn’t matter. What did matter was that you were taking him home where he’d get to spend time with the only people he’d felt loved by.

Billy stays behind you after you’re inside like he’s never been here before.

“Is that my birthday boy?” Joyce’s voice carries to the both of you from the kitchen. You keep moving, pulling him along since he refuses to let you go.

Your mother has flour in her hair, and she’s wearing an apron with ladybugs on it. You’re pretty sure Will picked it out for her at some point.

When she sees him, she claps her hands excitedly, smiling brilliantly. She looks so young.

“Hi, Billy! Happy birthday, sweetie.”

She pulls him in for a hug, which he accepts. Joyce Byers has this thing with her hugs. They make everything feel like it’s going to be okay.

“Thank you,” Billy mumbles. You run a hand up the curve of his spine as if to say, It’s okay. You’re not bothering anyone. This is happening because we love you.

When she lets Billy go, Joyce kisses the crown of your head. “Hey, baby. Jonathan picked up pizza. I figured that would be okay?”

You assure her that it is.

Will and Max enter the kitchen from where they’d been in Will’s room. They’d biked home today so that you could spend some time with Billy.

“Happy birthday,” Will says. “You know you can buy lottery tickets now?”

Max snorts. “He wouldn’t have the money for them. He spends it all on cigarettes.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be nice to me today or something?” He asks her.

“I was going to give you a hug,” she tells him. “Unless you’re immune to that sort of thing.”

You take Will’s hand, walking over to look at what your mother has been up to, just long enough to give them a minute. Their relationship has improved exponentially in recent months. It’s nice to see them finally have each other to rely on.

On the counter sits a cake in a glass pan. It’s strawberry flavored, which you can see from the pink tinge it has, and there’s chocolate frosting smeared over the top of it.

Happy Birthday, Billy is written in a sloppy scrawl across the top, two big number candles sitting above his name. 18.

Later, after the six of you have demolished it, Billy tells Joyce that it’s the best damn cake he’s ever had, and that she’s not allowed to fight him on it. She obliges.

Billy told Will and Max to pick out a movie because it would stress him out too much. They did, and you all sit around the living room, devouring that too.

Billy thinks about how he’s never felt safer. He enjoys just sitting in this room with these people who he knows care about him, even if it isn’t exactly the group anyone expected him to end up hanging around.

When the movie’s over, you lead Billy down the hall and into your bedroom. “Sit, pretty please. I have a present for you.”

“I told you not to get me anything,” he says.

You tap his knee. “Since when have I ever listened to what you tell me to do?”

Billy chuckles and it makes you smile. You place a manila envelope in his lap.

“Sorry. Didn’t really have anything to put it in.”

“I don’t give a shit about how you wrapped it, baby.” You feel yourself go warm. It doesn’t matter how many times he calls you that—it always has the same effect.

“Open it.”

You sit down on the floor in front of him, the carpet squishing under your legs. You prop your head up, settling your arms on his knees and under your chin.

You watch as he pulls a sheet of thick paper out of the envelope.

Billy’s eyes widen just slightly and his breath hitches.

“Baby.”

It’s a drawing of the Camaro.

You sit up a little more so you can point the specifics out to him.

“I borrowed Jonathan’s camera to take a picture of it one day a couple weeks ago. And I dug out my best paper too.”

You run a finger along the lingering pencil marks. “I tried my best with the blue. I don’t exactly have the most extensive colored pencil collection in the world, and I’d already gone through mine and Will’s, so it’s not perfect, but. It’s still pretty blue.”

First you sketched the drawing, as best as you could, and then you colored it just the same. You used a thin pen to outline it when you finished. It’s simple, but you’re happy with it.

Billy runs his thumb over where you left your signature by the back tire. When he looks up at you his eyes are glossy.

“You drew this whole thing just for me?”

“‘Course I did, Billy.” You wipe away the tear that’s just managed to slip out. “I love you and stuff.”

He tosses his head back, laughing. You kiss his cheek, over a patch of freckles, and he blushes.

“You like it?” You ask.

He sets it down beside him. “Are you kidding? I fuckin’ love it. Thank you, sweetheart.”

Billy is even more touched when he thinks about how it’s not often that you draw. You love to do it, but it’s not something you think you’re that great at. He disagrees by a long shot. So the fact that you took the time to do this means the world.

When he hugs you, he tries to put all of this feeling into it, and you make sure to rub up and down his back as a reminder that it’s okay for him to be emotional about this. You’re sure he wants to fight it.

“I love you too, by the way,” he says into your hair.

You pull back and kiss him. He tastes like chocolate.

“Happy birthday, pretty boy.”

————

please let me know if you liked this! feedback is always appreciated!! comments and reblogs mean more than you know. <33

III. "Trust Me, He's In Good Hands."

"Trust" Series Masterlist

John "Bucky" Egan x WAC!Female Reader

As the calendar flips to September, so arrives Autumn, the season of change. And change will always come, whether it is welcome or not.

Warnings: Language, Grief, Minor Bucky Injury, Mention of Medical Treatments/Devices, Angst, Inevitable Historical and Military Inaccuracies, Mature/Explicit Themes [fingering, handjob, semi-public play] - 18+ ONLY.

Author’s Note: In case you missed it, there was a head cannon produced as a semi-interlude for just how Bucky 'took care of himself' after their moment on the bench. This is a work of fiction based off the portrayal by the actors in the Apple TV+ series. I hold nothing but respect for the real life individuals referenced within.

Word Count: 6486

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“Think you took a wrong turn back there, Bucky…” You raised an eyebrow, glancing over your shoulder as he continued driving further and further away from your quarters, navigating the jeep, instead, towards the control tower.

After nearly a week of chauffeuring you and your rapidly healing leg around Thorpe Abbotts, you were more than confident that he knew his way from your quarters to the mess to the control tower and back. This was most certainly a detour from the normal route.

When your comment was met with silence, you turned to look at him curiously, only to see the profile of his mischievous grin as he worked a fresh stick of gum between his molars, a pair of aviator sunglasses concealing his eyes even in the rapidly darkening twilight.

A plethora of fresh cuts and abrasions adorned his face from that day’s mission to Stuttgart – nearly 1,300 miles round trip. Flying in the second group of the day, the Luftwaffe and ground forces had been more than ready for them. Resistance had been heavy, though their drop was still considered a success, the first group’s had been a disaster. Bucky had been putting on his usual good humor since his return to the Operations Room, though his kisses in the custodial closet had been a little more frenetic than usual. His hold on you a little tighter than after previous missions.

For your part, you had wound yourself around him as tightly as a vine of ivy, the loss of your brother still terribly fresh and barely scabbed over. A scab that you had to fight the urge to pick at in the darkest hours of the night while your hut mates slept the sleep of the ungrieved. It was easier to set your hurts aside in the daylight, or in Bucky’s presence, as the man himself might as well have been the sun personified. Yet there was something changed about him today.

“Bucky?” You prompted softly as he reached the control tower and hung a right to begin driving out along the runway.

“Wanna show you the stars, doll.” He murmured quietly, sliding his sunglasses to the top of his head, his cap tossed carelessly on the seat between you, as darkness finally conquered the sky.

“Alright.” You whispered, setting your hand on his knee slowly while he drove to the very end of the asphalt before veering off into the tall vegetation that brushed against the sides of the vehicle.

As he cut the engine, the silence of the field settled in around the pair of you, so far removed from the crews diligently working on planes parked on their hardstands – there was another mission tomorrow, they would do their very best to get as many as possible back into service by dawn. But this far out, it felt like it you were perhaps the only two people in the entire world just then. Tilting your head back to look up at the sky, you pulled your cap from your head to watch the stars begin to wink into light against the deep blue velvet night, a smile tugging at your lips.

“They are beautiful.” You breathed reverently, rolling your head to the side to look at him fondly.

“Yeah.” He murmured in agreement, though your heart clenched as you found his eyes focused squarely on you rather than the constellations above.

His hand settled over yours where it still rested on his leg, fingers threading between yours, squeezing tightly, and you leaned in with the intention of pressing your lips to his. Bucky met you halfway, tilting his head to the left to slot his lips against yours firmly. The taste of spearmint flooded your mouth and your tongue darted forward the pilfer the still-supple piece of gum from its hiding place against his cheek, tucking it against your own as his body shook with laughter. Your responding grin made it difficult for either of you to continue the kiss and so Bucky dropped his mouth to your neck, fingers abandoning yours to begin tugging at your necktie and the buttons of your collar to reveal more of your skin to his greedy lips.

“Bucky…” You sighed, sliding your liberated hands into his hair, wantonly holding him to your throat.

Your eyes fell shut as you shivered eagerly, each exhale shaking as it left your mouth in response to the damp, open-mouthed kisses he painted across your skin. The brush of his moustache provided a wicked contrast in sensations. He hummed approvingly against you, arms snaking around your hips as he shuffled the pair of you further onto the passenger’s side of the bench seat, farther away from the interference of the steering wheel.

Bucky’s fingers tugged at the buttons on your uniform jacket, parting the offending fabric so his broad hand could slide beneath to cup one of your breasts, kneading at the tender flesh over the thinner fabric of your shirt. Arching with a needy whimper, you pulled gently on his dark locks until he tipped his head back, lips kiss-stung as he looked up at you, eyes barely focused. Lunging forward, you kissed him thoroughly as he continued his sweet torment, making your hips undulate against the seat needily, desperate for any friction you might find.

You mewled in protest when his hand left your chest, pressing your face against his cheek as he tutted teasingly.

“Easy doll, I won’t leave you hanging.”

His hand slid to your left knee, fingers cupping the back of it as he gently guided your leg to hook over his right, spreading your legs open to the rush of cool night air. Instinctively, you rolled your right leg inward to close the gap, but his hand slid between your inner thighs, keeping them apart.

“Wait.” He whispered, stroking his slightly calloused fingers against the soft skin he had found there, knuckles rasping against the opposite thigh. “Let me make you feel good.”

Sinking your teeth into your lower lip, you shuddered slightly before relaxing your right leg, letting your knee fall against the frame of the jeep as you shuffled your hips forward consentingly.

Sweeping ever higher along your inner thigh in slow, smooth circles, you still jumped slightly as Bucky’s palm came to rest over your underwear, breath hitching in your throat to feel the heat of his skin seeping through the thin material.

“Damn, you’re so warm.” His breath fanned across your cheek as he spoke, heel of his palm applying just the right amount of pressure to the place that had you seeing constellations of your own behind your eyelids.

“Bu…cky…” You keened his name, pronunciation disjointed and clumsy as his fingers worked at tracing your folds across the rapidly dampening fabric.

“I know, I know.” He rasped, sounding almost pained as he shifted his hips.

Forcing your eyes open, you recognized the same need in his movements that had, just moments before, laced your own. You swallowed roughly to gather your courage before allowing your hand to drop to his lap. The gasp that escaped you at the sheer pressure of him against his fly was drowned out by his harsh, half-swallowed moan. Pressed temple-to-temple, you inhaled sharply as his eyes flicked to yours, boring into them at close range as you began to work your palm along the shape of him through his trousers, applying what you could only hope was the right amount of friction.

“Goddamn you’re not going to be satisfied unless I cum, are you?” He huffed and tilted his jaw forward to nip at your lower lip.

Your brow furrowed in thought as the verbiage of that sentence did not quite compute, though it very well could have been as a result of his diligent attentions between your thighs.

As if sensing your confusion, Bucky began throwing out alternative words like a thesaurus while he gradually began to ease your underwear to one side. “Finish, climax, release, orgasm…what you did so prettily all over my thigh and what I’m going to make you do again right–”

“Fuck…” You squeaked as his fingers found the bare skin of your folds, hips jerking both towards his touch and away from the intensity of it all at once.

“Here.” He finished his thought, temple pressing against yours once more, fingertips rapidly growing slick with your desire before they delved to find your sensitive bundle of nerves.

“Jesus Christ, Bucky!” You gasped out, bucking sharply and most definitely toward his hand this time.

“You talk to your Captain with that mouth, doll?” He teased with a broad grin, teeth flashing white in the darkness.

“Mmm fuck…” You whimpered, nearly incoherent as he expertly worked your body like he had known it longer than you.

“Spending far too much time around soldiers, doll.” He continued to tease you, making your nostrils flare stubbornly as you summoned the very last of your wits to attack his fly, wanting him to suffer equally under the exquisite torture of pleasure he was inflicting upon you. “Whoa there what a–” His words died on his lips as your persistent, delving hand worked its way into his trousers and then past the waistband of his boxers to wrap around the steely length of him.

A ragged groan cut through the night air before his mouth crashed into yours, a slight clacking of teeth before he recovered his usual finesse. There was a beguiling slickness gathered at the tip but otherwise the skin covering the swollen hardness of him was the softest you had ever felt. However, now that you had seized your prize, you were not entirely certain what to do with it. Bucky’s large left hand wrapped itself around yours, beginning to guide you through a pumping motion up and down the length of him that filled your mouth with his moans and sped the pace of his right hand against you.

Wrenching your lips back from his to gasp for breath, you pressed your forehead against his once more, your exhales becoming his inhales. Tugging the gusset of your underwear further from your body, he made more space for his hand, settling the heel of his palm against the apex of your pleasure as his index finger began to circle your entrance.

“Fuck you’re so wet…” He huffed, dipping the pad of his finger into your slick.

“Mnnph!” You vocalized nonsensically, swiping your thumb across the source of his own slickness, collecting fresh beads of moisture to ease the motion of your fist around him. “You, too.” You panted.

Hot breath cascading down the gaping collar of your shirt was his only response, and being a quick study, you were certain to repeat that motion at the top of each pull, despite how difficult it was becoming to think straight. Particularly as he sank his index finger into your eager body, the feeling foreign yet not unwelcome, especially when he began to thrust said finger at a pace that matched your own hand around him.

A fleeting concern passed through your mind, of what sort of vulgar display the pair of you were currently presenting to the very heavens that you had driven out here under the pretext to admire, but it could not compete for you attention as Bucky added a second finger to your wet heat. Your hips moved in time with his fingers, of their own volition, and you were so focused on driving the pair of you towards your own heaven that you were barely taking in enough oxygen.

“Doll I’m gonna…fuck…I’m gonna cum…” Bucky growled, though there was the distinct edge of a whine to it.

“Yes.” You exhaled enthusiastically as you fully understood the statement this time. “Yes, Bucky go on I want you to, please.” You babbled, no longer completely in control of your faculties.

His left hand quickly abandoned yours to yank his uniform jacket and shirt higher on his torso as his hips slammed into your fist several times before, with a hoarse shout, a tremendous amount of fluid was released across his lower abdomen, dripping onto your hand. You watched with a slack jaw, very much wishing you could see the intricacies of his pleasure more clearly than the dark of night would allow, but nevertheless mightily pleased to have brought it about.

As his right hand stilled inside your underwear, you mistakenly assumed he was utterly spent, would not have minded at all if that were the case, and began to straighten your uniform.

“Oh, hell no, I’m not finished with you.” His fingers lurched into motion, pace somehow doubled as they scissored and curled inside you.

Left hand, now freed, settled over your right breast as he turned fully to devour the noises his renewed attentions wrung from your trembling body. You could feel your walls beginning to clench around his fingers, your thighs pressing together as the tension within you rose to its crest before shattering in a rush of ecstasy that had you clawing at his uniform jacket as you writhed beneath him.

Pulling back only once you had stopped wailing down his throat, Bucky smirked a little as he licked his lips. “That’s better.” Settling back onto the seat beside you, he carefully pulled his fingers from your still-shaking body to lick them clean, closing his eyes slowly. “Next time, I’m going to eat you alive, doll…”

Slumping against his shoulder all you managed by way of reply was a weak, “Uh huh.”

Bucky pressed a tender kiss to the crown of your head before pulling a utilitarian handkerchief from his pocket, wiping your hand before roughly wiping himself clean. He brusquely restored order to his uniform before very tenderly doing the same with yours.

“Need a few more minutes?”

“Mmm we should get back.” You frowned, leaning in to peck his lips softly. “If my legs still aren’t working, I’ve got the crutches at least.”

A confident grin unfurled across his features as he slid back behind the wheel, arm wrapping around your waist to pull you snug into his side before he began the drive back to your quarters. Absent-mindedly, you retrieved the stolen piece of gum from the corner of your cheek and folded an air bubble into it before cracking it against your teeth, slowly feeling the capacity to control your limbs returning.

Pulling up in front of your hut, he turned to you with a smirk. “You stole my gum.”

You looked to him slowly before shooting him a wink. “Guess you’ll have to steal it back.” You would have kissed him goodnight, given him the chance to do so right then, if not for the crunch of footsteps on the gravel drive behind you. “Goodnight Major Egan.” You said as you straightened quickly, putting a great deal of distance between you as you slid to the other side of the jeep before climbing out.

Fetching your crutches from the back, you were slowly making your way inside when you heard him address the unknown individual.

“Captain Miller.”

“Major Egan, whatever has become of your cap, sir?” Her voice was cold and shrill as usual.

“Got it right here Ma’am.” You heard him reply, though her hum of disapproval, one that was all too familiar to the WACs, did not bode well for the state of it.

“It seems rather worse for wear, sir. Might want to try and remedy that before Colonel Harding gets a look at it. Goodnight.”

Risking a glance back over your shoulder you frowned to see how horribly crumpled the thing had become – surely a victim of your star-gazing trip gone astray. Bucky, for his part, only sent you a broad smile as Captain Miller continued on into the night and you waved to him before ducking inside to face the firing squad of your expectant-faced friends.

The early days of September continued to be busy with crews from the 100th flying the following morning, the 7th, and then receiving a day’s rest. There was no real rest for you on the 8th, however, as the field order for Operation Starkey, set for the 9th, arrived late in the day, sending the Operations Room into a frenzy. Bucky had appeared at the usual time to drive you to the mess for dinner and all you could spare was an apologetic look before he was snagged by Colonel Harding. Set to be the largest operation of the war to date, you were up quite late ensuring everything was in place, unsurprised that Harding had ordered Bucky to bed to rest up – that only meant one thing. He would be flying tomorrow.

The target was an airfield just outside Paris, mercifully not another foray deep into Germany, but the customary knot that settled into your stomach seemed to twist all the more acutely this time. Making your way down the stairs on your crutches, bearing a little more weight on your ankle now, on Doctor McLean’s instructions, you were surprised to find Captain Miller waiting for you at the door.

“Good evening, Lieutenant. I was hoping to catch you alone.”

“Ma’am.” You juggled your crutches awkwardly in order to salute her, doing your best to keep the confusion and concern from your voice.

She began the walk towards the barracks at a slow pace, allowing you make your way alongside her as she spoke. “I’ve received orders this afternoon from Pinetree that effective September 10th you will be transferring there as a member of their Operations staff.”

Your head whirled to look at her angular profile, her hair perfectly smooth beneath her cap, as she delivered this devastating news as though it had as much effect on your life as the fact that it might rain later. The bottom of your left crutch snagged into the gravel and dug awkwardly into your armpit, sending you stumbling forward. Somehow you managed not to fall flat upon your face, but all you could croak in response was a pathetic, “Ma’am?!”

Miller eyed you a moment, presumably ensuring your stability before she resumed both her speech and her progress towards your quarters. “Your work is impeccable, you should not be surprised that you have been given this opportunity, Lieutenant. I suggest you begin packing. I will see you to the station myself morning after next.”

Nodding, speechless, you continued to shuffle after her. Pinetree – code name for the Headquarters of the 8th Air Force, located in some village just north of London. Quite a ways away from Thorpe Abbotts. Away from Vi and Mary and Ruth – your constant companions through your entire time with the WAC. Away from Bucky. Your throat clenched painfully as you desperately tried to swallow, tears pricking at the corners of your eyes.

‘Christ, please not in front of the dragon-lady…hold it together girl.’ You chastised yourself and straightened your back, clenched your jaw, willfully keeping an iron grip on yourself.

By the grace of everything holy she kept silent for the rest of the walk, pausing in front of your hut. “This is a good thing, Lieutenant. Now rest up, big day tomorrow.” Miller nodded firmly and you shared a salute before she continued on her way.

Taking a shaking breath, you crept inside, leg aching from the walk, throat aching from smothered emotion. The rest of the occupants were all sleeping, oblivious to your plight, and you miraculously managed to keep it that way, sliding into your cot at last to allow silent tears to roll down your cheeks. You should have used those four hours to rest before waking early, knowing Bucky would still insist on driving you to the mess and then the Control Tower before his flight, but sleep was about as friendly with you as Captain Miller that night.

As your alarm clock went off, and Vi hurled a pillow at you for the insult of vicariously waking her with it as well, you were quite convinced you had not managed a minute of sleep. Running through your morning routine like some kind of robot, you began to make your way toward the mess, smiling weakly even as your heart wrenched beneath your ribs to hear his jeep pull up beside you.

“Morning, doll.”

“Morning, Bucky.” You sighed, turning to him, afraid to meet his eyes. Afraid he might be able to see right through you, and not wanting to burden him with this impending separation right before he went up. “You go on ahead, I know you’re busy…”

“Doll, please don’t hit me, but what time did you get to bed last night? Get in the jeep.”

Despite yourself, despite the yawning dread in your gut, you still felt a laugh bubble up your throat. Perhaps not to the usual brightness he would have earned, but Bucky was still able to earn it.

“Late.” You sighed, surrendering your crutches to the back of the jeep, sliding in beside him. “But clearly, I need to put on a better face. ‘A WAC should never appear tired or distressed.’” You quoted one of your instructors from Fort Des Moines.

He huffed with a playful roll of his eyes as he put the vehicle into motion. “As far as I’m concerned doll, you’ve more than done your duty for this mission.”

You looked to him curiously, brain sluggish without any food to fuel it yet.

“‘Release a man for combat.’” He glanced at you with a wicked grin as he quoted the former WAC slogan, the one that had been in use before your superiors had truly understood the connotations of such a statement, and your jaw dropped as you felt heat paint its way down your neck.

“John Clarence Egan.” You hissed in half-hearted admonishment, shaking your head as a grin snuck its way onto your features in spite of it all. Sighing deeply as, after mere moments with him, you already found your mood much improved. “I’m gonna m–” Quickly slapping your hand over your mouth lest you admit to more than you were prepared to at this time of day, you feigned a yawn which made him chuckle under his breath as he pulled up in front of the mess.

“Maybe need a nap?” He finished mischievously and you just nodded, leveraging yourself out of the jeep, still feeling sore after your long walk to bed last night. “I’ll see you after briefing.”

“You don’t have to, Bucky I can make it just fine, you’re busy.”

“That wince you just failed to hide says otherwise, doll. I’ll see you in an hour or so.” He eyed you sternly and you gulped painfully, already feeling quite lost at the idea of being separated from him.

“I’m going to start walking if you’re late.” You tried a small smile on for size, preparing yourself to enter the mess with a pleasant look on your face.

“I’ll find you!” He threatened as he pulled away slowly, careful not to kick up any gravel in your direction and all you could do was shake your head fondly.

You were doomed.

Breakfast was a quiet affair, the few already up this early only present for the sake of fuelling their bodies and not really seeking conversation. Burying your nose in a book that you could not even manage to read one sentence of, you lasted all of forty-five minutes before your nerves got the better of you and insisted on action rather than wasting time while you waited for Bucky to be ready. Gritting your teeth against the protest in your joints, you began making your way down the road toward the Control Tower, needing very much to be useful else you might simply drown in the complexity of your emotions.

Regardless, you would need to get used to being independent once more. Pinetree, or High Wycombe as it was properly known on a map, would not have a private chauffer awaiting you. It remained to be seen how much distance you would need to cover in your daily duties and there was no time like the present to start practicing. You were almost halfway there when Bucky pulled up alongside, dressed in his flight suit, eyebrow raised impatiently.

“Someone definitely needs a nap.” He narrowed his eyes, gesturing at the open bench seat beside him.

Sighing deeply, you pulled the crutches from beneath your armpits to slide into the back before climbing into the jeep next to him. “I was falling asleep at the table.” You muttered as he pulled out. “I didn’t mean to insult you…”

His only reply was a gently squeezing of your knee, a quick motion between his steering of the vehicle, but you could tell he was not pleased. Combined with the quiet thoughtfulness that overcame him on his way to a mission, it made for a silent drive to the Control Tower. As he pulled up in front of the building, you turned to press a warm kiss to his cheek, feeling him tense in surprise at your rather visible display of affection.

“See you in a few hours.” You smiled to him tenderly and he offered you a lopsided grin in reply.

“You bet, doll. No sleeping on your desk, now.” He winked as you slid out and you offered him a laugh over your shoulder as you made your way inside.

Organized chaos awaited you in the Operations Room. Now officially billed as a practice run for the invasion of France, the entire base seemed to be alert and involved in this mission, many appearing just as tired as you. Situating yourself at your desk, you dove in headfirst, grateful for the all-consuming work before you. It did not allow for any ponderance of what tomorrow would bring, nor for you to feel the depth of your fatigue. The morning fairly flew by in a flurry of paper and typewriter ribbon, with one of the other women in the office taking over the duties of delivering wireless transmissions and teletype tape to the brass given your still-healing injury.

Upon reports of the safe return of all twenty-one of the planes that the 100th had contributed to the mission, you finally allowed yourself to surface for a break, making a trip to the washroom. On your slow return journey, you were startled when Colonel Harding stepped into your path, sliding his trademark cigar from his lips to speak.

“I’ve just been informed we’re losing you tomorrow, Lieutenant.”

So, it seemed the news was beginning to make its way around the base, then.

“Yes, sir, it is true.” You nodded, trying your best to keep your facial expression neutral.

“If I had known what a pain it would be, I would never have sung your praises so loudly to General Eaker.” He chuckled though you found it very difficult to focus on the words he was speaking as Major Cleven stepped into the Operations Room.

‘Why is Buck here? If all the planes made it back, why is Buck here?’

Your heart began to thrash frantically against the cage of your ribs as though it intended to break free in its panic. If Bucky were to assign anyone with the grim duty of breaking some horrible news to you, it would surely be his best friend. Nodding vaguely in reply to Harding, who was still speaking about something – possible Eaker’s personality, the level of dread within you only increased as Cleven’s eyes sought you out in the crowded room. Your stomach dropped further and further with each step he took in your direction.

Despite Harding’s apparent obliviousness to your terror, Cleven’s sky blue eyes traced over your face as he came to stand just behind the Colonel, casually crossing his arms before giving you a discreet thumbs up and slight nod of reassurance. It was subtle yet incredibly effective, almost instantly restoring your ability to breathe and easing the racing of your heart.

“Well, on to bigger and greater things, right Lieutenant?” Harding grinned at you, and you nodded quickly as the words once again registered in your brain, the dull roar of terror receding to the darker corners of your mind.

“That’s right sir, but I will miss everyone here.”

“But not little East Anglia I bet.” He laughed before sliding his cigar back into his mouth and dismissing you with a nod, making his way over to confer with Major Bowman who had just returned from interrogation.

“My apologies, Lieutenant. I did not mean to frighten you.” Cleven frowned as he stepped closer to address you directly. “Bucky is fine, just getting some stitches in his forearm – bit of flak, nothing to worry about.”

Exhaling slowly, you nodded gratefully. “Thank you very much for delivering the message, Major. I’m sorry I panicked.”

“Don’t worry, I don’t think the Colonel noticed.” A tiny smile tugged at the corner of his lips, and you pressed your own together to prevent yourself from laughing at Harding’s expense. “But, unless I’m mistaken, it sounds like you’re leaving us.” He tilted his head and your mouth immediately pulled down at the corners into a frown before you could stop it.

“I haven’t told anyone yet, I…I just found out last night and…” You tugged at your fingers nervously, a somewhat dramatic wringing of your hands.

“It sounds an awful lot like a promotion.” He prompted in that soft-spoken way of his and you nodded quickly.

“Supposedly a ‘good thing’ but it’s nowhere near here and I’m worried.”

“Worried about the job or…”

You gulped roughly and took a long hard look at Bucky’s best friend, the man he had sent to tell you he was all right, just a bit delayed in the hospital. The man he would have surely entrusted to tell you he was not all right, if it had come to that.

“Leaving Bucky.” You admitted, eyes quickly darting down to your brown, low-heeled dress shoes.

“Don’t you worry about that idiot. Trust me, he’s in good hands.” You could hear the smile in Cleven’s voice as he spoke, and you risked a glance upwards to confirm that he was in fact shooting you a soft smile of reassurance. “I’ve kept him alive this long, haven’t I?”

You scoffed a laugh as it really was hard to tell in moments like these who had the bigger ego, Bucky or Buck. All the same, you deeply appreciated his reassurances.

“Thank you, Major. I will tell him just as soon as I see him.” You assured him in kind, knowing he would be looking out for his friend’s best interests as well.

“Hopefully he doesn’t run into Harding first.” He smirked and shoved his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. “The Colonel is right though, we will miss you.”

“Thank you Major, the feeling is mutual.” You nodded, swallowing thickly as he nodded warmly in reply before turning to make his way out of the rapidly calming room, the level of activity waning now that the mission had been accomplished.

Bucky himself did not make his appearance until the end of your shift as you made your way out of the building, fit to fall asleep on your feet but facing an evening of packing and goodbyes instead. Leaning against the side of his jeep, he grinned to see you appear and you could not help but smile in return, crutching over to him as he met you halfway.

“Your own set of stitches hmmm?” You tilted your head curiously and he huffed.

“It barely needed it, but Buck insisted and then once Doc McLean got his hands on me…” He grumbled, pressing his lips to your temple in greeting. “Buck said he scared the hell out of you, sorry about that. We’ll work out a better signal next time.”

Taking a shaky breath, you turned to look at him, deciding there was no time like the present. “A…about that Bucky.” Despite your intentions, you still struggled to string the words together. “I’m being transferred.”

His steps lurched to a halt and a look of pure bewilderment came over him. “Transferred?”

Nodding slowly, you reached out to cup his cheek, despite the way it made you wildly unstable on your crutches. “Yeah. Promotion it seems. Doing too good of a job…” You felt tears welling in your eyes and blinked rapidly to try and stave them off.

“Hell, are they sending you to Division?” He croaked.

“Bucky, you know I can’t–”

“Headquarters then…damn doll, I’m proud of you.” The smile he bestowed upon you was brilliant, but the effort that it took him to summon was just as evident, and you could only shake your head sadly as those cursed tears slipped out of the corners of your eyes.

Bucky’s broad palms were quickly cupping your cheeks as his thumbs swiped them away as fast as your tear ducts could produce them. “Got my very own dame in Pinetree.” He grinned cockily and pressed his lips between your brows as you sniffled hopelessly. “Well done.”

“Gonna miss you, though.” You insisted weakly.

“Don’t you go getting all General crazy now. Don’t forget about your poor little Major back in little old East Anglia.” His tone was light, playful, though the sentiment did not fully reach his eyes which seemed somewhat hollow, resembling the endless depths of the ocean more than ever just then.

“Never.” You replied vehemently, gasping as his lips were suddenly on yours in broad daylight, surrounded by all manner of humanity, earning a few whistles and catcalls from his fellow airmen.

“Good.” Bucky replied firmly and pulled back slowly. “Suppose we gotta get you packed hmmm?”

“Yeah…” You breathed softly and relished the feeling of his hand on your lower back as you covered the last of the distance to the jeep, sitting as close as possible to him while he drove to your quarters. “I’ll write you.” You promised as he parked, and he grinned.

“I’ll write back.” Bucky tapped your nose fondly and you reached out, gently pushing his sleeve up, frowning as you found no bandage on that arm before grabbing his other hand to repeat the process.

When your eyes fell on the white gauze wrapped around his forearm you bent your head to press a soft kiss there. “Heal quickly.”

“What time do you leave tomorrow?” His question was barely above a whisper.

“0530, to catch the first train.”

“I’ll see you at 0515, then?”

Furrowing your brows, you spoke with the rational side of your brain only. “You should sleep in, there’s no mission tomorrow.”

Bucky snorted and tugged you closer by the hand still holding onto his. “And let you leave without kissing you one last time?” He raised an eyebrow and tilted his head to press his lips to yours as if to prove his point.

Melting against him with a sigh, you were sorely tempted to ask him to drive you to out to the end of the runway to look at the stars once more. To play fast and loose with more than just your need to pack. Unfortunately, Ruth’s warning cut through the swell of recklessness that was building within you.

“Miller alert. She’s less than two minutes out.” She said quickly as she passed by the jeep before darting into your quarters and you pulled back sharply.

“0515, then.” You conceded with a nod and peck his lips once more before sliding from the vehicle and following your friend into your hut to begin the process of breaking the news and filling your suitcases.

By the time you slid into bed, not much earlier than the night previous, you were convinced that the next person who offered you a bravely proud face would be met with your fist in their nose.

‘Why can they not be as devastated as I am?’ You wondered as you lay you head onto your pillow to begin another fruitless wrestling match with the elusive prize of sleep. ‘Or at least admit that they are, instead of putting on that mask of happiness on my behalf. I’m not happy.’

You alarm clock, shrill and earlier than everyone else’s, was not greeted with the usual affronted reactions, but groggy hugs before you forced your companions back into their cots, moving your pair of mismatched suitcases outside the door one-by-one once you were dressed and ready. Bucky was there, waiting against his jeep in the wan grey light, soft smile settling on his features as you appeared.

He rushed forward to grab your luggage, putting it into the back of his jeep automatically, making you laugh softly.

“Captain Miller is picking me up here shortly, we’re just waiting for her.”

He huffed and guided you to sit on the front seat of the jeep as you waited, taking the weight off your leg. “Don’t even get to drive you one last time.”

“Today. One last time, today.” You amended firmly, looking up to him as he leaned over you, braced against the frame of the vehicle.

“You’re right, not forever.”

“No. Just for now.” You swallowed as your throat clenched painfully.

“For now.” He echoed and bent his head to kiss you softly.

The sound of a jeep pulling up behind his, grinding on one of the gears before coming to an abrupt stop, signalled the arrival of Captain Miller.

“She’s early, doll.” Bucky griped against your lips, and you sighed.

“‘A punctual WAC is an effective WAC.’” You whispered and slid to your feet.

Bucky stepped back to grab your luggage, moving it into the rear of Miller’s vehicle as you crutched along behind him. Standing at the passenger’s side, you gave him a watery smile.

“See you soon, Bucky.”

“Take care near that big city, doll.” He rumbled back, hesitating a moment before lunging forward to slide his arms around your waist.

Hauling you close against him, your mouths collided in a thorough kiss as the brim of his cap clipped yours, sending it flying backward into the road.

“Major Egan!” Captain Miller barked shrilly, but neither of you paid her any mind, clinging to one another until only life-giving oxygen necessitated that you part.

“You…take care here Bucky.” Your eyes bore into his firmly and he nodded in understanding.

“Lieutenant, get in this vehicle at once.” Captain Miller barked again, and you tensed under the direct order, wheeling to obey.

Bucky retrieved your cap, dusting it off and exchanging it for your crutches which he stowed in the back beside your suitcases.

Your eyes never left him, even as Captain Miller ground her way through several gears, getting the jeep into motion. Mouthing a silent ‘bye,’ which he mimicked, you turned in your seat to watch him become smaller and smaller behind you until you could no longer distinguish him in the distance.

-------------------------

Read Part Four - "I Trust You Know What You're Doing?"

"Trust" Series Masterlist

Tag list: @gretagerwigsmuse, @precious-little-scoundrel, @rubyfruitjungle, @storysimp, @mads-weasley, @xxanaduwrites, @bcon24, @fxxiva, @slowsweetlove, @hockeyboysarehot

there's just something about 40s bucky man

Come back to you

Bucky x pregnant!reader 

What happens when a time travel mission ends up with a version of Bucky from the 40′s standing on the time travel platform. 

Warnings: FLUFFFFF, sweet charming 40′s Bucky, time travel, teensiest bit of angst. 

-

“Buck, are you sure about this” You shuffled nervously by the platform Bucky was standing on, his latest mission requiring him to travel through a time portal. It wasn’t something he hadn’t done before but time travel was still tricky and the last thing you wanted was something happening to Bucky. 

Especially now. 

“I’ll be fine doll” Bucky assured you, holding onto a device Tony had made to gather information, the time stamp on the portal set to 1943. All he had to do was locate the coordinates he was given, scan a few documents and return to the present. Ever since you found out you were pregnant, Bucky pulled himself out of high risk missions but this seemed easy enough and he was the only one familiar with the location. “Promise I’ll come right back to you in just a few seconds babygirl” 

Keep reading

Baby please...

K.Flay / High Enough

this fic is my roman empire I desperately need more it's just so beautiful and my heart hurts

VI. "Trust Me, Doll..."

"Trust" Series Masterlist

John "Bucky" Egan x WAC!Female Reader

War is hell and every time it seems you and Bucky adapt to your new normal, the game is changed yet again. When at last Victory in Europe is achieved, the pair of you can finally focus on forging the way ahead.

Warnings: Angst, Language, Grief, Mentions of Death, Imprisonment, Pregnancy, Childbirth in Retrospect, Child Rearing, Motherhood, Era-Typical Sexism and Marital Expectations, Inevitable Historical and Military Inaccuracies, Mature/Explicit Themes [Unprotected Vaginal Sex, Sex While Trying Not to Be Overhead] - 18+ ONLY.

Author’s Note(s): This is it! Oh wow, we made it, kids! Thank you to each and every one of you for your incredible engagement with this series it has truly been an inspiration! I love all of you and have more Bucky thoughts brewing!!!

As always, letters/telegrams have image descriptions that can be accessed by clicking the 'ALT' button. Special thanks to Marina @precious-little-scoundrel for helping me untangle numerous plot points in this series. I could not have done this without you, darling! This is a work of fiction based off the portrayal by the actors in the Apple TV+ series. I hold nothing but respect for the real life individuals referenced within.

Word Count: 7444

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Your sudden return home in mid-February had been decidedly awkward. Without time to send a letter of warning, you had spent a lot of coins on a phone call in a telephone booth at the hospital in New Jersey while you awaited the arrival of a WAC commanding officer to process your discharge.

To say your mother had been surprised to hear your voice over the line was an understatement. Mercifully, your father had already left for work that day and you had only had to break the news to her. Given the frosty welcome you had received from him by the time you managed to reach the steps of your childhood home, you hated to think what his reaction would have been if you had informed him that his unwed daughter was kicked out of the Women’s Army Corps for being pregnant without the softening interference of your mother.

It was truly disorienting to be back somewhere so very familiar when you were so utterly different. The war had left its marks here too, though. A gold star banner hung proudly in the front window, in honor of your brother, and your mother’s garden out back had mostly been turned over to the growing of vegetables, with a huge stockpile of jarred preserves now overflowing the pantry. But the two bedrooms at the top of the stairs belonging to you and your brother, separated by a small hallway that was really no more than a glorified landing, were exactly as you had left them in 1942. As if they were frozen in time. Dusted and cared for, but ready and waiting for you to pick up your old lives.

Only your brother was never coming home, and you had returned home but entirely changed. After the relentless pace you had maintained since enlisting, the thought of remaining at home in idle leisure was too off-putting to even contemplate. You allowed yourself a few days of adjusting to the violent change in time – at least when you had traveled to England you had been afford several days at sea to transition. Flight across the Atlantic had been utterly jarring, and it had taken great discipline to turn your nighttime back into day.

But once you had re-acclimated to the North American clock, you had promptly ventured out to find yourself gainful employment at a nearby grocery store. The owner, Nick, was a friend of the family. A kind man who did not seem interested in asking too many questions about why you were back early, was simply eager for the help around his store. It was most definitely not as mentally taxing as the work you had previously undertaken as a WAC, but it was money, and that was sorely needed as babies were expensive.

Your mother seemed fretful about you working in your ‘delicate condition,’ but the demands of the position paled in comparison to the one you had just left, and you rarely worked more than six hours a day. There was still plenty of time to sit with her, improving your knitting skills as you started on a baby blanket. Your mother was duly impressed you had picked up such a feminine skill abroad and seemed more than happy to pass along helpful hints.

In all truth she did appear to be struggling, dwelling frequently on memories and nostalgia for happier times. It was difficult to say how your father was coping in the wake of your brother’s passing. Any hours when he was not at work, he was spending behind the closed door of your dead sibling’s room, all manner of noises and the odd curse word seeping through the cracks, but neither you nor your mother were quite certain what he was up to.

You had sent a letter to Bucky immediately upon your arrival, as promised, still not divulging the full extent of the situation, but it had been stocked with reassurances and re-direction. It appeared he had not yet received it based on his letter that reached you in mid-April.

Damn that man, but you did love him so. Baby animals – had he guessed the true nature of your discharge then? Gnawing ruthlessly on your lower lip, you found yourself pacing around your room, one hand rubbing at your lower back, sore from standing all day with the growing weight of your swollen abdomen.

‘Or is he simply fishing for more information, unconvinced?’ You wondered to yourself, sighing heavily.

He was simply too intelligent for his own good. Another man would simply have taken your words at face value and left it at that. But there was a reason you had not fallen in love with another man. Had not given yourself to another man.

With another deep sigh, you dug out your writing supplies and drafted a reply that acknowledged his statements but neither confirmed nor denied them. There was no desire on your part to entrap or obligate him into anything. That was the last thing you wanted – to pin a man who so cherished his freedom down against his will. Particularly after enduring his current stay in a prison camp.

As the weather grew ever warmer, it became increasingly difficult to conceal your predicament – no matter how baggy or oversized your dresses were. Your engagement ring only went so far in polite society to protect you from judgemental stares and by the end of April you were forced to quit your job and confine yourself almost entirely to the house. May seemed to drag on, though you certainly managed to knit a wide variety of nearly perfect baby clothes for different stages.

Perhaps the brightest spot came one evening when your father emerged from the room opposite yours and left the door open for the first time since you came home, revealing not the preserved bedroom of your brother, but a fully prepared nursery, complete with an assembled crib, rocking chair, dresser, and change table. As you stood in your doorway in shock, eyes brimming with tears, he shoved his hands into his pockets and gruffly muttered, “baby needs somewhere to sleep after all,” before trudging down the stairs to the bedroom he shared with your mother.

June burst onto the scene with the Allied invasion of France and the good news only continued with the signing of the GI Bill on the 22nd. Your years of service and honorable discharge earned you, and your very active and rapidly growing baby, subsidized medical care. It could not have been timelier as appointments became more and more frequent, your due date looming at the end of July.

Much like her father, Clara Mae had a mind of her own when it came to her time of arrival. She was born in the middle of the night on July 22nd at the local veteran’s hospital – one of the first GI Bill babies, the nurses informed you.

The choice of her name had been rather easy, derived from Bucky’s middle name - Clarence. While you could not give her his family name, or even list him as her father on the birth certificate without his signature, you could at least give her this for now. He had already given her his mischievous eyes and unmistakable ears. Time would tell what other of his features she would share. If the grey-blue of her eyes would settle in the color of the stormy sea like his. If the slight dusting of fuzz of her head would grow into luscious, dark curls.

Sitting there in sore, stunned exhaustion as they carted her off to the nursery, you looked up as your mother sidled over, the broad grin of a recent grandparenthood still splitting her face.

“We have to write Major Egan right away and let him know. Oh he’ll be so thrilled, a sweet little girl to come home to now!”

The force with which your face crumpled, physically unable to bear to weight of all your falsehoods and desperate attempts at inner strength one moment longer, sent your tears scattering down the front of your hospital gown. Your mother snapped her mouth shut, completely taken aback by the abrupt shift in your mood, before she collected a wad of scratchy hospital tissues and tenderly wiped at your eyes.

“There now, I know. It’s been a tremendous effort, and things are very difficult.” She soothed and cradled your head to her breast, rubbing your back softly.

Despite becoming a mother yourself not a full hour ago, it seemed you were still very much in need of one yourself.

“What if he doesn’t want me, mama?” You gulped and looked up to her pathetically as you finally gave voice to perhaps the greatest fear that had been stalking you since the realization that you were pregnant had come crashing down upon you. “We’re not even…it’s not even real…” Your eyes dropped to the false engagement ring that mockingly glinted up at you from your left hand.

She sighed deeply before her hands grasped your face and forced your gaze to meet hers. “Well, pumpkin, I’d say that a man who writes to you despite the difficulties is one of the good ones. And usually it’s the good ones that do the right things.”

You frowned and shook your head slightly, as much as her tight grip would allow. “But I don’t want him to do the right thing. I want him to marry me because he wants to…”

There was another maternal sigh before you were gathered close in her arms once more. “Let’s hope for the best then. I’ll get Felix from down the street to bring his camera. We’ll send a photo of sweet Clara Mae and see if she can’t work her magic on him.”

------------

The Allied invasion of Western Europe had felt like a gift from above, flooding Bucky’s life with a new sense of purpose, and shattering the grim monotony that had calcified everything around him. The gnawing hunger, the biting cold, the evasiveness in your letters, the constant worry and uncertainty he felt for both himself and you. There was surely only one explanation, at least only one rational, sane explanation for your early discharge. But he’d had far too much time on his hands to postulate and theorize all manner of possibilities and their catastrophic outcomes.

June 6 had brought an abrupt and decisive end to that, a sharp divide to their life in camp, and a need for preparations now that the Commonwealth forces were closing in from one side and the Russians from the other. It was early September when he received your life changing letter, two small photos tucked securely between your folded, scented pages. One of you, looking so very beautiful it made his heart ache fondly. And the second of a very tiny infant with remarkably familiar ears.

He huffed fondly and turned back to the letter to read it properly as you finally confirmed what he had long suspected.

Shaking the envelope once more produced a square of paper with the stamp of his daughter’s – his daughter’s – footprints on it.

Cradling it in one palm, he could not help but gawk at the small scale of her. She must be truly tiny…only 20 inches.

“Your girl finally explain herself?” Buck leaned over his shoulder, and he nodded, holding up Clara’s photo.

His friend barely contained a snort and Bucky scoffed in return. “I know – poor girl’s got my damn Dumbo ears. Couldn’t even deny she’s mine if I wanted to.”

“She’s beautiful anyway, despite your influence.” Buck smirked and handed the photo back carefully. “Congratulations. What’s her name?”

“Clara Mae.” An involuntary grin of pleasure overtook him as he said it, quite enjoying the way it sounded. You had picked well.

“Your girl did an excellent job. Be sure you tell her so.”

“You know I will.” He replied with a firm nod.

------------

The twelve weeks it took to hear from Bucky were both a blur and an agony. Clara did her utmost to keep the household, and you in particular, thoroughly occupied. You were somewhat relieved that your parents were sleeping on a different floor than her, that it gave you a chance to dart across the hall and mollify her discordant wails with a fresh diaper or a feeding. But on those nights when even you could not seem to sort out what ailed her, your father stepped in and patiently walked her up and down the length of the porch until she melted into the crook of his arm.

Truly, for such a small being, she had the entirety of her grandfather wrapped around her littlest finger. Clara was the first he greeted upon returning home from work and the last he kissed goodnight. None of this would have been possible without his willing arms, nor your mother’s endless wisdom when it came to washing bottles and diapers and Clara’s vast wardrobe of tiny clothing. But in the quiet moments, when she was busily suckling in your arms or just as you were falling asleep, your thoughts would always fly across the Atlantic to barbwire fences and Bucky.

You hoped your letter reached had him. You hoped it had all of its contents still, that none of them had been lost while being reviewed by the censors and whomever else pried into your mail. His reaction? Well you could not even dare to hope what that might be. It would cause your entire body to tense almost painfully and prevent your lungs from filling with air.

Every day you did your best not to look too eagerly as the postman delivered the mail, flipping through the envelopes calmly, hiding your disappointment when his reply was not there. Your agony came to an end, at last, in mid-October. Hearing your soft gasp, your mother offered to take Clara on her morning walk – it was generous to be sure, but you were also more than aware that she enjoyed the attention warranted by pushing the gorgeous girl through the neighborhood in her pram.

Settling down at the kitchen table once they had left, you sliced open the envelope anxiously.

Tears of relief were tracking down your cheeks by the time you reached the end of his letter, making it difficult to read his words clearly. He had replied. He was not angry, nor dismissive. He called himself Clara’s father. And there was an oblique, very Bucky-like proposal in there. Your watery laugh echoed in the empty kitchen before you sniffled in a very unladylike way. God, you missed him so very much. By the time your mother and Clara returned, your tears of relief had been replaced by sobs of longing that had her tiptoeing through the house, deeply concerned his letter had been one of rejection.

Looking up at her apprehensive face as she peered through the doorway, you smiled through your pain and nodded. “It’s good news.”

“Oh, well…good.” She gave you a somewhat bewildered smile and found a handkerchief for you to once more clean yourself up before you gathered Clara close.

“Your daddy says he loves you, peanut. What do you think of that?”

Clara’s face stretched into one of her toothless grins that came just as easy as Bucky’s did, and you fought the urge to cry again. “Yeah…me too.”

Your reply to Bucky’s letter was accompanied by a holiday card fingerpainted by Clara, now that you were confident in the mailing time of roughly six-weeks, as well as another set of dry goods for him to share with his friends. Time continued to march on and in an effort to better document Clara’s rapid growth, you purchased a user-friendly camera, having Felix give you some lessons.

Mid-January, Clara received a gift from her father – a stunning ink drawing of him done by one of his roommates apparently. It had been over a year since you had looked upon his face and the breathtaking detail captured by the man who drew it, A. Jefferson based on the signature, inflicted an intense barrage of memories. You promptly went to a five-and-dime store to purchase a frame for it, setting it on the dresser in Clara’s room next to a model of a B17. You made a point of showing it to her every day, telling her stories about her daddy – only the appropriate ones of course, wanting her to know him.

That it was also self-soothing was simply a bonus.

That letter was the last one you received from him. As Clara’s features sharpened into Bucky’s, and his dark curls framed her face, it was his gaze staring up at you from your arms as the weeks ticked by with no word. When the abnormally harsh winter yielded to spring once more, there was still no reply to your January letter. The war was all but won, the Germans quite literally surrounded, the Russians in Germany and yet there was nothing.

It was mid-April when the dreaded Western Union vehicle pulled up in front of the house, your heart leaping into your throat.

‘Please let him be alright.’

Your mother had been in the kitchen, working on lunch, but silently appeared at your elbow, ghosts of her own heartbreak etching her features.

“Deep breaths. Anybody can send a telegram, not just the War Department.” She murmured and knelt down beside Clara on the rug to play with her as you forced your leaden feet to move towards the door.

Accepting the yellow envelope from the infuriatingly neutral-faced boy, you confirmed that it was indeed addressed to you before impatiently tearing into it.

Exhaling shakily you smiled in relief. Major Cleven must have escaped. That he would have spent the money to send a telegram to update you on Bucky, and to share a message from the man himself, was quite moving. You could not help the chuckle that escaped you, however, at the fact that this was twice now that Cleven had terrified you in the process of trying to share good news.

“All is well?” Your mother asked softly from the living room, and you turned quickly with a smile.

“Yes, he’s ok, his friend somehow made it back to England and wanted me to know he’s doing alright.”

The smile she gave you in return contained no small amount of relief.

The Russians were in Berlin by the next time Western Union made its second delivery at the beginning of May.

‘Please, when we are so very close to victory, please.’

Even less patient with this envelope than the last, you felt a swell of elation at just the first word.

And he meant it. It was not entirely as soon as either of you would have liked, given that Victory in Europe happened not a week after that telegram, on May 8, 1945, but Bucky certainly did come to you and Clara as soon as it was possible.

It was a hot afternoon in early July, the wind having abandoned everyone when the sun rose that morning. Clara was in a bit of a mood courtesy of the heat and her desire to move about the house independently. Certainly, she had been crawling for months, terrorizing everything and everyone in her path, but as of late she had been pulling herself to her feet and trying desperately to take those first few wobbly steps towards upright freedom. She certainly could manage it while gripping tightly to your fingers for balance, but today her chubby cheeks and granite eyes were screwed tight in consternation as she swatted your hands away to go it alone.

“Alright peanut, off you go then.” You smiled encouragingly, sitting back on your heels as beads of sweat gathered at the nape of your neck.

Letting go of the edge of the coffee table, she wavered and wobbled, overcorrecting her round little infant body before landing heavily onto her bottom with a squawk of frustration.

“So close, so–”

The rapping of knuckles against the wooden frame of the screen door cut off your statement and you scooped her up, perching her against your right hip as you rose to your feet.

“Let’s go see if that’s the postman with Grandma’s package, shall we?” You smiled and tickled her soft tummy with your free hand, earning a giggle accompanied by her gap-toothed grin as you headed over to the front door.

The man standing there in uniform was most certainly not the postman, however.

“Bucky…” You whispered in shock as he stood before you, in the flesh, after nearly two years of constant worry and concern.

All that separated you now was a flimsy screen door, which you lurched forward to shove open. His eyes were wide as he stared at the pair of you, Clara peering at him curiously. The movement of your left hand caught his eye and his brow furrowed as his gaze landed on the ring you had been hiding behind since April of last year, making you swallow painfully.

“It’s not real.” You murmured quickly, not wanting him to get the wrong impression, and stepped back to invite him inside.

The sound of his bag hitting the floor was all the warning you had before he was pulling you tightly against him, burying his face into your hair. Pressing your face against him in return, you clung to the back of his uniform jacket, wondering if he had always smelled this good or if he had bought new cologne since returning stateside. A sudden strangled sound came from his throat, and you straightened quickly to see Clara had a ruthless grip on his tie and a wicked grin on her face.

“Ta.” You said firmly, holding out your hand and she surrendered her stranglehold on the piece of fabric which you carefully tucked back into his jacket.

Bucky smirked down at her slightly, but his eyes were filled with barely concealed wonder. Clara, for her part, did not seem the least bit fazed by him whatsoever. Her chubby little fingers moved to trace the shiny buttons of his jacket before stretching up to brush along the coarse hair on his upper lip.

“You like my mustache, Miss Clara?” He grinned and pretended to devour her finger as it strayed too close to his mouth, sending his daughter into a fit of giggles and making your cheeks ache from smiling so wide.

An involuntary yawn suddenly overtook her, and you glanced at your watch, nodding as the time confirmed your suspicions. “It’s nap time, I’ll just take her upstairs.”

“Can I come?” He asked softly, making no move to release his hold on you and you nodded quickly, pressing your lips to his cheek softly before leading him to the stairwell at the back of the house.

“This place looks exactly how you described it…” He murmured softly, threading his fingers through yours as he followed.

Looking back to him, startled, you swallowed down the swell of emotion that had been threatening since you had first laid eyes on him. “I told you about it once, in that…hotel room in London…almost two years ago.”

“And I’ve imagined it almost every day since.” He assured you easily as you climbed the stairs, making you shake your head in awe.

Glancing through the open door into your room curiously for a moment, he followed you into Clara’s nursery, grinning softly as his eyes landed on the drawing he had sent.

“You gave it to her.”

Setting Clara into her crib, you turned back to him. “We talk about you every day.”

Bucky’s eyes met yours and he smiled gratefully before reaching out for your left hand, his thumb stroking along the band of the ring there.

“You know, this isn’t very believable, doll.” He muttered and you felt yourself tense as you eyed him, suddenly nervous in his presence after all those months apart. You had been separated longer than you had even known one another. “I’d have bought you a much bigger rock.” His lips curled into a smirk.

Laughter, something that felt so foreign to you after its long absence, bubbled up from your chest while tears simultaneously flooded your eyes. His hands cradled your face as his lips met yours at last, the kiss distinctly salty despite the best efforts of his thumbs to swipe your tears away. Laying your hands atop his, it began to sink in that he was really home, he had truly made it back to you. And Clara. There was no more need for constant fretting and pleading mantras. He was here.

“In fact I did.” His statement, a continuation of his discussion about your fake engagement ring, felt disorienting as it interrupted your inner musings, and you watched in confusion as he sunk to one knee right there in Clara’s bedroom, slipping the piece of costume jewellery from your ring finger before tucking it one of his pockets.

It was not until he produced a much shinier ring, with a larger and very real diamond, that you registered just what was happening. He addressed you properly, by your full name, before asking the question.

“Will you marry me?”

“Yes. Yes of course I will.” You nodded vigorously, watching him clumsily slide the heavier ring onto your finger before his mouth was on yours once more, demanding and possessive.

Pressing against him, you would have completely forgotten yourself if not for the sound of your mother calling your name from the bottom of the stairs, tone laced with confusion and worry – surely from finding the front door open and a piece of strange luggage in the front hall. Bucky pulled his lips back and pressed his forehead to yours, hot puffs of his breath caressing your face.

“Parents’ house…”

You let out a small laugh of chagrin. “Parents’ house.” You confirmed before pulling back and guiding him out, leaving the door slightly cracked so you would hear when Clara awoke.

Miraculously she had slept through the entire exchange, a superpower she had surely inherited from her father. Descending the stairs, introductions were made, and you did not miss the way you mother’s eyes lit up as she took in the new ring on your finger. Your father was slightly more difficult to win over, still smarting from the perceived mistreatment of his little girl. You were more than a little convinced he might be taking Bucky to the toolshed to shoot him when he asked for the man to accompany him out there for a chat after dinner.

Your aggressive scrubbing of the dishes in the sink as you watched anxiously out the window amused your mother to no end.

“He’s just ensuring Major Egan has your best interests in mind.”

“He’s not gonna kill him, is he, mama?” You worried your lip and she laughed, wiping Clara’s sticky fingers clean after her joyful decimation of a bowl of sliced strawberries.

“He will do no such thing.”

By some miracle, the pair of them immerged unscathed twenty minutes later, shaking hands and sharing a laugh. You rediscovered the ability to exhale and prepared Clara for her evening walk, which Bucky insisted on joining. Even though you assured him you had a perfectly good pram, gestured to where it sat on the front porch, he insisted on carrying Clara on his hip, much to her delight.

Not only was the vantage point much better, but she had unfettered access to all the intriguing bits of his uniform to occupy herself with as the pair of you followed the usual route around the neighborhood. While no one had taken it upon themselves to be overtly rude to you, something about seeing all six foot two inches of Major John Egan carrying his carbon-copy daughter with you on his other arm seemed to go a long way to repairing your somewhat tarnished reputation around town.

People who had politely nodded or offered no more than tight-lipped smiles were now openly waving and calling greetings as you passed.

“Sure are popular around here, doll.”

“I assure you, it’s the pair of you.” You smirked at him and Clara who was busily tugging at the flap of his breast pocket. “Everything alright after your visit to the toolshed?” You asked now that you were far enough away from the house that your father would not hear.

He nodded easily. “Your father and I are of like minds. You and I are going to the registrar’s office tomorrow to get a marriage licence and then we’ll get this little one’s birth certificate sorted as well.”

“He wasn’t…too harsh on you?” You asked with more than a little trepidation.

Bucky looked to you softly. “No more than I deserved.”

“You deserved no harshness, we both know full well how this happened…”

“I sure didn’t stop you. Couldn’t have, even if I had been able to think straight.” He smirked and kissed your temple. “So we did it out of order, that’s fine. It’ll all be how it was meant to very soon.”

Sighing fondly you continued your progress until Clara was slumped against his shoulder, barely able to keep her eyes open. By the time you returned to the house, your mother had set up a small camp bed in the nursery for you and moved Bucky’s things to your room for the night – everyone agreed there was no way he could possibly be expected to sleep on the sofa. He was simply too long. Wishing one another good night in the hallway with a lingering kiss, you pressed your lips together as your mother cleared her throat expectantly from the landing below and slipped into the nursery for the night.

It was difficult to say how long you had been asleep when a faint noise, your ears now well trained to listen out for the smallest of disturbances, woke you. It was most definitely still dark when you raised your head, immediately looking to the crib to see Clara sleeping peacefully on her stomach, index and middle fingers of her right hand suckled soothingly by her full lips. Shifting your gaze in the dimly lit room, you jumped slightly to see Bucky leaning against the doorframe, clad in his boxers and undershirt, silently watching her sleep, expression pensive.

Sliding to your feet as gracefully as the low bed and your thin cotton nightgown would allow, you padded over to him quietly to whisper, “everything ok?”

“She’s just so small…” He replied in a hushed voice, gesturing with his hands, eyes still fixed on Clara’s sleeping form, and you smiled fondly.

Reaching out, you gently manipulated the distance between his palms to represent how small she had been as a newborn. “She was only that big a year ago.”

His eyes tore from the crib to study the small gap between his hands before lifting slightly to drink in how little you were wearing, how thin the material was to try and make sleeping in the summer months bearable. His eyes briefly flicked to yours, revealing the rapid dilation of his pupils before his mouth descended onto yours ravenously.

Sliding one arm around his waist, you pressed with the other against the centre of his chest to guide him back across the hall, closing the door to your bedroom behind you as you quickly surrendered and parted your lips for him. He grunted eagerly, pressing his fully hard length against you through the thin barrier of your clothes, making you gasp at the rapidity of his response.

“The damn sheets smell like you, I’ve been hard all night.” He groaned and you quickly smothered his mouth with yours, well aware just how loud he tended to get.

If you were lucky enough to get away with this, you were going to have to be as quiet as possible.

Rucking the hem of your nightgown up over your hips, he pivoted to deposit you onto the edge of the bed, settling between your thighs as you worked one another’s underwear off. Pressing skin to skin, his head fell back, and you quickly slid your palm over his mouth to smother his eager sighs, rocking your folds along the length of him as you gnawed on your lips and swallowed your own keens. Bucky’s eyes bored into yours hungrily as he mirrored your movements, almost daring you to keep quiet as he continued to moan against your hand.

Silence became impossible for you too as the blunt tip of his cock snagged on your entrance and he rocked his hips forward, slowly sinking into your warmth. Falling back onto the mattress, you slapped the hand that had previously been propping you upright over your own mouth to smother your eager groan as your eyelids fluttered in the struggle to remain open. Shifting forward once he had settled fully inside you, Bucky’s face hovered just above yours, eyes still pinning yours as he began the eager push and pull towards ecstasy.

Desperately trying to keep your hands in place over your mouth and his, your back arched at the long forgotten and very heightened sensation of being so very stretched by him, trembling with each brush of his pelvis against your sensitive bundle of nerves. His hands planted onto the mattress on either side of your head, fisting into the sheets as his hips snapped demandingly into yours, each sharp exhale from his nostrils cascading across your knuckles as you felt the tension building within you.

Sweat glistened on both of your skin, the efforts in the lingering heat of the night only making you both slick as you writhed beneath him, heart hammering inside your ribcage. And still his eyes would not leave yours. The one time you gave into the urge to clench them shut, he sent them flying open once more with a sharp nip to the meat of your palm and you quickly wrapped your legs around his hips, drawing him closer, deeper.

You could feel him clenching his jaw, grinding his teeth, desperately driving into you until your body shattered in release, nearly going limp with the force of it. Bucky nestled his face tighter to your palm as, with two more erratic thrusts, he followed suit with a harsh cry, thankfully still smothered. Slumping forward, utterly spent, you cradled him close a moment before shuffling and maneuvering to rest against the headboard with him properly nuzzled against your neck, and his legs mostly on the bed.

Stroking his hair lovingly, every so often scratching your nails along his scalp, you could not help the fond smile as his harsh breaths evened out and the weight of him grew heavier against you when sleep overtook him. Sighing softly, you closed your eyes and allowed yourself to join him in rest.

The next time you opened them you were alone, tucked beneath the sheet, the soft light of dawn filling the room. The distinct sound of Clara’s giggles carried from across the hall, and you sat up, grabbing your summer housecoat and peered into the nursery to find the pair of them perched on the camp bed engaged in a very entertaining game of wooden blocks it seemed. Bucky had retrieved the model of the B17 from the dresser and was frequently swooping it down to destroy whatever Clara’s clumsy little hands built, much to her delight.

“Ah, Mommy’s up.” Bucky’s statement revealed that you had been caught and you smirked, stepping into the room to kneel on the carpet beside them. “Did we wake you?”

Shaking your head softly, you kissed Clara’s head and then Bucky’s cheek. “Did she wake you, though?”

He shrugged. “Probably my turn anyway.”

You smiled tenderly, laughing as Clara clutched at his arm to demonstrate that she had assembled a new construction in need of his attention. Watching fondly, you blinked slightly to see a new addition to the dog tags, crucifix, and medal that he normally wore. Amidst the collection was now the faux engagement ring you had sported for over a year. Reaching out, you traced your finger along it, raising an eyebrow in silent question as his eyes met yours.

“To remind me of that time I was overly reckless.” He murmured and you swallowed painfully, pressing your lips to his firmly.

Sliding his arm around your waist, he pulled you snuggly into his side, continuing to entertain Clara easily.

“We’ll get the licence today but, what kind of wedding would you like, doll?” He asked quietly.

“Just a date at the courthouse is fine.” You assured him with a nod.

“You don’t want a big wedding or anything? Honestly doll, anything you want and it’s yours.” He assured you softly.

You laughed watching your daughter gnaw on the corner of a wooden block. “Seems a bit hypocritical to put me a white gown don’t you think?” You smirked and shook your head when he looked ready to defend your honor. “I don’t need all those fancy things John, I just need you.”

When he finally came up for air, your lips more than a little swollen from his attentions, he huffed a laugh.

“Not sure what I’m going to do with the parachute I smuggled home now, though…”

“Well, Major Cleven’s getting married soon, isn’t he? I’m sure Marge would appreciate it. She seems lovely from the letters we’ve exchanged.”

He turned to you wide-eyed, struck silent, and you could not help but laugh. “Never underestimate the ingenuity of women, John.”

Bucky shook his head in awe. “Trust me, doll…I would never be so foolish as to underestimate you.”

-------------------------

"Trust" Series Masterlist

Tag list: @gretagerwigsmuse, @precious-little-scoundrel, @rubyfruitjungle, @storysimp, @mads-weasley, @xxanaduwrites, @bcon24, @fxxiva, @slowsweetlove, @hockeyboysarehot, @darylas, @carpediem1219, @blueberry-ovaries

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ And I wouldn't marry me, either.

You were Azriel's mate, but it took losing you three times for him to realise.

[this is long. i'm talking 5k words long so i've split it into two parts. anyway, azriel is the best bat boy and no i won't hear anyone out. i'm so excited to write for him and hope you enjoy. it's very angsty but that's what i love. i hope i can write more for him and maybe other characters if you like. it's been a while since i've actually read the series so if any information is wrong, do let me know. also it was my first time using the term y/n and yes, i cringed NOT PROOF READ... enjoy]

warnings: references to sexual assault and references to suicide. nothing explicit but please don't read if this is sensitive to you.

Part 2 soon…

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

The first, was the worst...

You were Rhys's half sister, the bastard daughter of his father. But when your mother had died giving birth to you, Rhysand's mother took you in and raised you with your brother and sister. You were so little and adorable that your sister loved you at once. Rhys did to, at some point of your life, you were sure he actually cared about you.

But when his mother and sister had died, his eyes shifted, he started to look at you with contempt. After all, you were only his half-sister. The worst half. He only kept you around because it's what his mother would have wanted.

And because there was no way Cassian and Azriel would ever let anything happen to you.

Besides, Rhysand knew when to use you.

Although Azriel was his spymaster, you were pretty good at staying swift-footed too. And you were frankly, very terrifying when you wanted to be.

You tread with power through the war camps, all of them looking at you as you went. All of their gazes wrecked with a predatory gaze. They either wanted to have their way with you, or kill you. Or both.

Rhys had said you could handle it, it was only supposed to be a check in. Cassian hadn't liked it, neither had Mor but it was Azriel who had almost- and for the first time- disobeyed his high lord to accompany you. But no, your brother wanted you to do this alone, so alone you would.

Just to show him you could.

'I can come with you,' Azriel had said, standing in your room as you tied your boots up. 'I won't even have to be seen.' At that, his shadows wrapped up your calf.

You smiled at them, as if they were his own pet. 'I'll manage just fine. Besides, i'm sure that's what Rhys wants, me needing a man.'

It had done nothing to calm your friend. The worry was still stuck between his brows, marring his handsome features. You'd held his cheeks, your wings hiding the two of you. His large ones (enough to swallow the both of you) over-lapped yours.

It was the last time you'd feel your wings.

The war camp wasn't as easy as you'd hoped. It was terror and horror in a place. You'd been to the court of nightmares, you'd gone to the slaughter of the spring court after they killed your family. But this, this was hell of another kind.

You had no idea how many days you'd been locked up, wrists bound in chains and hanging from the cell roof above you. Blood rolled down your arms from the force you'd tried to use to get them out. Your eye was swollen shut and your body trembled in pain.

All because they wanted to know your brothers secrets, and you wouldn't budge.

Your check was only supposed to be a day, but you were sure it had been longer. Days of endless pain and torture. Your uniform hung in rags of stripped material, your hair matted with blood and hiding your face.

You'd used the last of your energy to keep your walls up. You weren't anyone's mate, you didn't have anyone on the other end trying to feel what you felt. But should Rhys come looking (though you doubted it) you didn't want him to feel it. You didn't want anyone in your mind.

The gates opened with a sickening clash.

One of the Illyrian's knelt in front of you, his wings hiding those coming in behind you. 'Listen sweetheart. I don't want to make this any harder than it's about to get. All you have to do is tell us your brother's hide outs.'

You grit your teeth, staring down at the ground.

'So loyal, to a man who doesn't care if you live or die.'

Suddenly, your wings twitched as hands grasped them. Brute hands, the sort you wouldn't want touching any part of you.

Fear spiked in you, horror twisting your gut. 'What are you doing?'

'I told you I didn't want to get things messier, darling.'

You whipped your head from side to side, trying and failing to get a look at the assailants behind you. Your wings were being held apart, no matter how hard you tried to bat them away. You knew the sort of people they were, and what they did to girls like you.

That's when the begging started. 'No, no please. Anything. I'll do anything! Beat me, kill me, rape me, not my wings, please!'

'Anything?' the bastard asked, tongue poking out from his lips. 'Then tell me where your lord's hideouts are?'

You should betray him, you thought. He would never lose his wings for you. Perhaps it was stubbornness that kept you from, or maybe you were clinging to the last bit of love you want from him.

The bastard scoffed, 'anything, she says. Your brother has his own bitch wrapped around his finger.'

That's when they started hacking at your wings.

Your screams tore through your throat, blood spitting and dripping down your chin. Tears soon joined when they hacked away at the bone, the membrane, the flesh of it all. The three of them worked through your screams and your tears and your pain, tearing and cutting at it like it was nothing more than paper.

Not your whole life.

Let them hear you. You hoped your brother heard you, you hoped all and every court heard the pain.

Eventually, even you couldn't keep screaming. The only sound was the hacking away at your wings and the drops of blood.

'Now look at these beauties. I've got a perfect spot on my wall for these.'

They left you after that. There wasn't much more damage they could do. It already felt like they'd destroyed your life. You had never really thought about your wings, they were just part of you, as much as your wit or hair was. But they'd took it and now, you felt empty. Never would you fly with Azriel again, or use your wings to smack Cassian over the head.

Rhys, your dear brother, had took that from you.

The days blended in together after that. You were pooled in your own tears and blood, vomiting up anything they forced down your throat. No, they'd made it very clear they didn't want you dead. They just took pride in making it feel like you were.

At some point, you'd stopped reacting to the gate opening. You let them do whatever they wanted with you. Your wrists were still chained, arms still hanging up, your clothes hanging on your thin body in strips of dirt.

'No...' you heard a mumble. 'What have they done to you?'

Suddenly, the chains gave way and you lurched forward, with no strength to catch you. Luckily, you didn't have to, as strong and warm arms pulled you into his chest.

'Hey, wake up, look at me, dammit.'

Azriel.

You'd know the voice in the darkest days, in the pit of your worst nightmare you'd know.

You try to speak but your head's heavy, your lips are stone and your arms can't lift to hold onto him. You're exhausted, you're dying. The only thing you could do use all your strength to try to open your eyes.

'Please, please, look at me. You have to look at me,'

You were trying, you wanted to tell hm, snap at him, but you couldn't.

You felt Azriel shake, or maybe you were. Then, there was wet drops landing on your cheeks- you flinched.

'I'm sorry, i'm sorry. Rhys! Rhys! hurry up, please!' he was screaming. You'd never heard him scream before.

You heard the rush of feet at the cell doors, you knew it was your brother. You knew it from the presence of him, from the shuffling of feet and chocked sob. Your brother didn't cry, least of all for you.

'Her wings, oh mother, her wings,' said Azriel, his voice barley above that of a whisper.

Your wings. You didn't need reminding. They were gone, long and far gone. You were without a part of you, the very part of your soul that loved to be free. Never would you watch the stars up close or fly over everyone. Never race Cassian or make jokes with Az.

No, this would destroy you.

'y/n,' your half-brother called. 'No, y/n. Can you hear me?'

Your lips parted, mumbling. 'Hurts.'

Azriel's grip on you tightened. 'I know, we're gonna get you out of here, just hold on for me.'

You wanted to tell him you would hold on, you'd always need to hold on to him. That, no matter what he asks, you'd do it. To kill, to live, to breathe, to die.

And that's when it clicked. Amongst all the pain and the doubt. In your blood soaked clothes. In the fear you wouldn't make it, there was a tug. Weak and one-sided, but there. You knew you'd be safe with Azriel, knew you would always be with him.

Mate.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

The pain subsided to a dull ache, there and beating but not excruciating. You were warm and covered in a soft material. Nothing like the cell you'd been kept in. Your fingertips sunk into something soft- a bed. Your bed. It was familiar in its lavender scent to you and the silk wrapped around you gave you some semblance of warmth.

Your wings.

Even coming to consciousness was difficult. You were exhausted but light, without the weight of wings holding you down. You'd never realised how much you needed to feel that weight, to feel pulled down in order to be free.

Gone, all gone.

Your hand twitches around something cold, a shadow holding your hand, creeping up your side.

'You're awake, thank the couldron.'

It wasn't Azriel, master of the shadows. It wasn't your mate. Mate. The word replayed like a terrible song in your mind.

How dare the mother do this to Az. How dare he- nothing but loyal and kind- get stuck with a person made in darkness, who bled shadows, who's heart was so full of hate there wasn't room for love. They'd cursed Az, with you.

But luckily it wasn't him, it was Rhysand.

'It really happened,' you whispered, voice hurting from the screams.

He sighed. 'I'm sorry, i'm so sorry. We-we thought you weren't going to make it, you'd lost so much blood.'

In spite of the pain in your shoulders, you made a shift, turning from him as he ranted on about your condition.

'y/n... sister, please,' he said. He'd never called you sister before. He'd always been content to treat you just like you worked for him.

'Leave me alone.' you couldn't bare to look at him, couldn't bare to face him. The shadows at your hand grew heavier, as if more were piling on. You stretched your fingers away from them, trying to get them off you.

'Are you in any pain?' asked Rhys.

'Get out,' you mumbled.

The end of your bed dipped where Rhys settled, hand splayed on the covers, begging for your hand. 'y/n.'

'Get out!' you snapped, body tense and straining. You felt your wounds open up, blood wetting the bandage around you. But you didn't care. You'd happily bleed if you couldn't fly. A part of you, sick part of you wanted to be left there. It would be better than false sympathy.

Be better than your mate being disgusted.

'Get out!' you yelled again, voice tearing through an aching throat.

'I just want to help you! please, let me help you!' said Rhys, standing from your bed and walking around, trying to face you.

'I don't want your help!' you screamed. You reached for the closest thing you could, a jug of water and chucked it toward him. You aim was terrible, marred with pain and exhaustion. 'Get out!'

Though hesitant, Rhysand slowly started walking back to your door. He did it all looking at you, his hands out to show he wasn't gonna hurt you, but you didn't care. You went for the glasses next and chucked them but they landed against the door which he disappeared through.

Before it slid close you caught sight of Cassian , Mor and Azriel. All crowded, all waiting to see you.

You'd be happy if you never let them see you again.

'Can we see her?' you hear Mor ask.

'Give her time,' said Rhys.

The shadows at your hand grew heavier, darker, tighter.

'Go away!' you yelled at them. To anyone else, you probably looked crazy, screaming to darkness. But the shadows understood. They departed, slithering away and under the crack of your door where you could see the shadows of feet.

Tumbling from bed, you stumbled over and locked the door, leaning on it to and catching your breath. Your nightgown was starting to get sticky with blood all over again. When you closed your eyes, you pictured the cell, the rough hands holding you down, the chain keeping you up.

And the pain, it all washed over you. The hacking at your back, the sting of a slap. It hit you like a tone of bricks as you slid to the floor.

There was a knock, rattling the door.

'y/n,' Cassian. 'Please let us in.'

Us. You felt him on the other side. Your mate, his presence lingering. His shadows under the door, wanting to come in but keeping their distance.

He didn't know. It hadn't snapped for him, you could tell. It was one tug on your end, a chord in your heart. At least he couldn't feel what you did. At least you could shoulder it alone.

'Please.' his voice was almost your un-doing. He sounded so sad, so desperate. It hurt you just to think you were hurting him.

Tears streamed down your face as your curled your fingers into a tight fist. You assumed Mor had left with Rhys, leaving you there with the males.

Cass was always like a brother to you. Granted- a brother you had slept with once or twice- but he was your best friend. You'd always been close to him. But you'd always been good, a happy person.

You couldn't be that for them now, perhaps ever again.

It lasted like that for hours. Cassian and Az begging to come in, you curling into a ball with tears down your cheeks and blood down your back.

Eventually, they gave up. You couldn't hear them anymore and the shadows of their boots had disappeared.

Except Azriel's shadows that still lingered under your door. Maybe he'd ordered them to be there while they left you.

Eventually, you managed to find your footing on shaking legs. Your room was large, one of the largest. It was just as much a mess as it was when you'd left for you mission, clothes thrown over the place, books propped open on the pages you'd left them on. Everything was the same but could never be again.

It took you longer than you'd care to admit to get to your windows and throw the curtains close. Candles light at your request, the house looking after you as it had since you were a child.

You caught sight of yourself in the full length mirror. It seemed smaller, everything in the room felt too large and you too small, as if you were being swallowed by the expanse of it.

Your frame was small in the mirror, your hair disarrayed. Your eyes were red and shutting of their own accord from the tears that had drained you. The starving in the cells had made you look weak, made you feel weak.

And your back. There was no more looming black figures there, no more fluttering. There was just nothing. In spite of the ache as you lifted your arm, you felt around your back, feeling the hitch there, the lump from where they'd been torn from you.

You cry. You sob. You scream.

The scars were long and the nightdress was sticking to you by the blood you'd shed. All you could do, was hold yourself up as your body wracked with tears.

A breeze came from your windows, shadows tugging at the curtains.

You felt him before you saw him. You wanted to tell him to leave you but you couldn't talk without chocking. Without feeling like you couldn't breath.

Azriel had you in your arms before your knees could hit the ground. He fell with you, softening your body on the floor. His arms held you into his chest, his legs caging you into his body. His head rested on yours as he held you. He didn't try to talk, he didn't try to help. It was just him, you and his shadows.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

Azriel remembered dozing off with you, his head on yours. His arms holding you into him, as if it was up to him to keep the sadness away and take it for you.

Afterall, you were his best friend. He should have been there for you, and he'd failed terribly by letting you get hurt and your wings stolen from you. He could hate himself every day for it, for letting you down. But it would never amount to what you felt for yourself and that killed him.

He could see it in the way you cried, in the way you were already keeping everyone out. He'd rather die than let you go through all the pain alone.

When his hands had been scarred by his brothers, you'd help heal him, tell him about everything he still was and all the power he still held in his hands. In the worst days, when he didn't let anyone touch him, he let you.

It was always you.

Azriel wasn't sure how long he'd been asleep, or how deep. He was sure he was still with you, still in your bed.

His shadows crept up on him, engulfing him slowly and whispering to him. Your name, just your name on repeat. It was enough to lull him back into sleep, to keep him calm.

Gone. Missing. y'n. Roof.

He shot up and ran fastest than he ever had in his life. It was as if he'd never been asleep but had been fighting a battle with the way he raced over.

He burst through the doors, the cold hight air hitting him.

You stood facing the stars, your bloody back to him. It wasn't as much blood as when he'd found you, but it was still enough to put a lump in his throat.

Immediately his shadows fell to you, cascading down your body and wrapping around your waist. There was a breeze in the air, pushing your hair back and exposing more signs of the pain and torture you must have gone through.

'I'm not gonna jump, if that's what you're thinking,' you said. You didn't even have to turn to him. The shadows probably told you enough.

'Why are you up here?' he asked, walking to you slowly and with careful steps. As if every step closer could you push you away from him.

'I'll never feel the win properly again,' you answered.

Azriel gulped down his own pain. You’d never sounded so small. ‘Can you get away from the ledge?’

'I'm not on the ledge.'

'You're too close for my liking.'

'Leave if you don't like it.'

'Don't do this,' he said.

'Do what?' you asked, folding your arms over your chest. You were cold, out in the hight but you wanted to see the stars. Needed to see them.

'Make me leave. Make everyone leave you. I know that's what you're doing. It's what you do every time,' you could feel him dawning closer. His shadows were all around you, almost drowning you.

‘Every time,’ you scoff, stepping down and turning on him. ‘It’s not every day you lose your wings Azriel! But don’t let me stop you from leaving, flap them and go!’ You yelled, unable to stop yourself, no matter how hard you tried. You didn’t want to hurt him, you just wanted to be alone.

Mate. Mate. Mate.

'You jump and I’ll catch you,' he said. He was a step away, he could just reach out and touch, just a gentle caress. 'I swear it, whatever you do, I’ll follow. I’m not letting you get away.’

He watched your back shudder as he reached out, brushing knuckles against your shoulder blade. He heard your sharp inhale follow.

'Don’t think I won’t follow, y/n.'

Finally, you turned around in his shadows. You couldn’t meet his eyes but at least you could face his chest.

His hands were gentle on your shoulder as he rubbed it gently. 'Can I get Madja to clean you up?' He asked.

You nodded as he led you away. You truly did not deserve your mate.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

Fifty-two years later...

When Amarantha had trapped the high lords of Prythian under the mountain, it hadn't be a conscious choice to follow your half-brother down. How Amarantha had allowed it, you weren't sure, but perhaps she wanted to use you just like her brother, or she thought it would bring more pain for him to see you suffer under there too.

You and Rhysand had barley spoke the last two years.

It had took you almost two months to heal fully enough to leave your room, another few months to face your family again. But even then, everyone knew something had changed in you. You didn't laugh as loud or smile as wide.

Rhysand was careful to ever let you out on a mission. Mor tried to take you out every night. Cassian spent all day every day with you and Azriel- he'd healed you better than any nurse.

Still, you had not told him he was your mate.

Still, you thought he wouldn't want it.

Still, you cared for your brother enough to not want him to go alone.

But being under the mountain, you could avoid your mate. At a painful price.

Until her. Rhys's mate. He hadn't shut up about her since he first met her, much to your dismay as you had to sit around and listen- having absolutely nothing better to do. And it only got worse when she turned up under the mountain. She was declaring her love for Tamlin- again, annoying your brother, and throwing Lucien into danger- which rather angered you. You had nothing against the ginger.

Rhysand had once sent you to find the girl to summon her as part of a bargain he'd made. He didn't want to go, he didn't want to look too forceful. You'd been lucky enough to find the two tangled up in each other against a cold wall, clothes ripped and hips moving together.

'Well, well well,' you'd intterupted.

Tamlin all but growled at you, but feyre was looking over you- evidently confused. She had no idea who you were. You, in your skimpy outfit that Amarantha kept you in (they all dipped low at your back, showing off your scars) and your eyes that were like a night sky.

'Amarantha's looking for her pet and Rhysand is looking for his. Honestly, i'd be a bit more worried if I were you. You know, considering Lucien still has an eye to lose.'

The two parted with your words as you sent Tamlin back to his master, the high lord glaring at you as you went. While Feyre tried to fix herself.

'Rhysand is over there, better not keep him waiting.' That was the first time you met her, having no idea how much trouble she'd be worth. The family that she'd become.

But Rhysand made sure you knew it all. From when the bond snapped in him and he'd stumbled. He ranted and ranted as they climbed out.

If only you were so talkative about Azriel. If only you could talk about him with your brother. But you'd tried not to painfully think about him. Climbing out of the mountain. It was all you could think of.

Maybe he'd have forgotten you? it had been fifty years. He'd probably realised how happy he could be without having to take care of you.

Rhys was allowed out of the mountain, he'd felt the breeze in his hair but you hadn't in fifty long years. You stood there a moment, bathing in the warmth as everyone left, as everyone ran off for their families and courts and the war that was inevitable. Eventually, Rhys offered you his arm. 'Shall we go home?'

He winnowed you there, on the balcony of your home. In a cloud of black smoke, the two of you appeared.

He went first, slipping through the doors slowly- like it could all be taken from them any minute.

You were hesitant, taking a moment to glance at the landscape behind you. It hadn't changed, not at all. The mountains were still there, everyone was still alive. Your home. In the last years it hadn't felt like home, but how could anywhere ever feel so close in your heart.

When you could find your feat again, you managed to slip through the doors. You were suddenly aware of how little clothing you were wearing, just enough to cover your chest and run down your legs. A chill settled down your back, your scars would be on show. What a way to great them all after fifty years.

Mor had her arms around Rhys's shoulders, crying into his shoulder.

Behind them you caught Amren, with something like tears in her eyes. You were just about to tease her before a body barrelled into yours in a blur of red syphons and your feet were lifted from the ground.

'Cassian.'

His arms tightened around you. You shoulder started to dampen with tears, his tears. The last time you'd seen him cry around you was when he'd seen a dog with only three legs. 'I'm keeping you on a leash from now on, stupid idiot.'

Your arms wrap around his shoulders, a smile gracing your lips. 'Is that a promise?'

He held you longer, tighter, not daring to let you go but at least settling you on the ground. He sighed against your head, controlling himself. 'He's missed you, you know,' he said. He was the only one you'd told, about your mate. 'Now that you're back, tell him. He deserves to know.'

Cassian slowly pulled away, holding you at arms length and smiling at you. He kissed your cheeks and then your forehead before parting to Rhysand.

Mor approached you next, slapping you in the arm.

'Ow!'

'Why would you follow him?' she snapped.

You blinked at her before she took you by the arm she'd slapped and embraced you, like a sister would. You dared not looking over her shoulder to find the one who hadn't come to you. Maybe Cass had got it wrong...

Mor pulled away, wiping at her eyes.

Azriel was as beautiful as the day you left him. His hair was the same length, he was the same height. He was just as you left him. It was hard to tell fifty years had passed on him.

And inside of you, tugging in your soul and heart you felt the familiar string of gold throbbing. But you still didn't feel that tug. You'd hoped it would have faded from you after half a year separated. Or at least have snapped for him. But no such relief.

He approached you, slowly. As if he was scared of scaring you away. But you just stood there.

His arms were delicate and soft around you as he brought you into his chest. He still smelled the same, cedar wood and shadows. Shadows that wrapped around you, shielding you from the rest of the room. They caressed you, head to two.

You held onto each other for what could have been another fifty years, but this time, it wasn't so painful.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

Although nobody wanted to part after yours and Rhysand's return, you were exhausted. A trip to Rita's could wait another night or two. The only thing you wanted to do was hide in your room.

Strangely, your room looked lived in. As if somebody had moved in since you'd left. A moment of anger replaced grief. Had they brought someone else and given them your room? but then you smelt it, Az.

Lying in bed that night, exhausted, you couldn't find sleep. You closed your eyes and pictured Amarantha. You'd never been afraid of her, you weren't afraid of anything. But you re-played the horrors. Watching servants beat Feyre, watching Amarantha use your brother and on the occasion, even you. How she flaunted. How the most powerful lords were weak.

Under your door, shadows seeped in, rushing across the room to you. You smiled, watching your hand disappear in their darkness.

'Azriel?' you called.

There was shifting on the other side of the door before he slipped in, clicking it shut behind him.

You sat up in bed, shadows moving with you. 'Couldn't sleep?'

He wondered in, looking around your room. 'Sleeping's been... hard.'

You rolled over, opening the blanket and nodding your head. You couldn't think about the bond, not yet. Not while he looked so.... ruined. Beautiful- the most beautiful person in the world, but sad. As he climbed in next to you, you could see the dark circles under his eyes, his shoulders slumped and his wings too.

His eyes scanned over you. You were in a thin and silk night dress that only brushed your knees, but the way he looked at you, mother you could've been naked. 'Fifty years,' his voice sounded barley controlled. 'Fifty years. You followed your brother down for fifty years? Why would you do that?'

You gulp. 'I would've done it for any of you. Except maybe Amren, she'd probably enjoy the peace for fifty years.'

You go to brush your hair back but Azriel seizes your wrist. He was angry. That's why his voice was rough and his chest rising and falling with barley controlled emotions. Could he feel it? your nerves, your lying?

'You left. You should've stayed, y/n, you know Rhysand didn't want you under there with him,' he said. 'For fifty years I haven't been able to sleep through a night thinking about the pain you must have been going through. After I swore to keep you safe, after I promised to catch you every time!'

'You couldn't have stopped me. You didn't promise, Az.'

His grip grew tighter. 'It went without saying.'

You looked around his eyes, seeing the pain and grief there also. Slowly, you brought your other hand up. He flinched as you took his cheek but eventually settled as your thumb ran over his cheekbone. 'I won't leave again, ok? I promise.'

He gulped, letting go of your wrist and looking down. 'I slept here,' he mumbled, but just loud enough to hear you. 'I couldn't sleep in my room. This was the only place I could rest.'

Your heart stuttered. Your hand dropped from his cheek. This man was your mate. Your mate. Your only love, whether or not the cauldron deemed it.

Azriel took your hesitation. 'I-i'm sorry, you probably didn't want to hear that. I've probably ruined your one place of peace-'

'Stay,' you said, before you could think of what you were asking. 'Sleeping wasn't exactly easy under the mountain either. I just trust I won't have to put a wall of cushions between us.' as if you wanted that. As if you haven't thought about his calloused hands all over you.

Azriel smiled and stayed the night.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

The third time he almost lost you, broke him...

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

this opened up a great big hole beneath me and devoured me, everything about it was perfect

Like he means it

Pairing: Roommate!Bucky x Reader

Summary: You can’t take another night of hearing Bucky fuck a girl who isn’t you.

Word Count: 13.6k

Warnings: Bucky is a fuckboy (but he’s still a sweetheart); lots of talk about unrequited love (but is it?); mentions of sex; crying; lots of desperation; longing; heavy confessions; feels; happy ending

Author’s Note: This is written for the lovely cinema themed writing challenge of @elixirfromthestars ♡ I had this kind of idea for a while but when I read those lyrics it somehow immediately came back to my mind and I needed to make something out of it. This is kind of inspired by your Boulevard Confessions because I loved it so much! And damn, I've already written so much about roommate!Bucky but I can’t help myself lol, I love him. Also, this got a little long, I'm sorry. Still, I hope you enjoy! ♡

Hold My Hand "Pull me close, wrap me in your aching arms. I see that you're hurtin', why'd you take so long to tell me you need me? I see that you're bleeding, you don't need to show me again. But if you decide to, I'll ride in this life with you. I won't let go 'til the end." — Lady Gaga

Masterlist

You hear the giggling before anything else.

It’s always the giggling.

And, as always, it grates on your nerves.

It carves through the air, seeps into the walls, into the floorboards, into you. It tears its way inside and scrapes its manicured nails along the rawest and most sensitive parts of you, only to bury itself deep, where you can’t simply dig it out.

Then comes the keys.

The light, metallic jingle, so careless in its melody, but so troubling in its meaning.

Then the lock turning, the click soft and yet so irrefutable.

Then the door opening.

More giggles.

His breathy chuckles.

Then the door closing.

Shoes being kicked off, one hitting the wall.

You press the pillow harder against your ears, as if you could suffocate the sound before it reaches you, as if you could bury yourself deep enough under the covers to escape what you already know is coming. But you can’t. You never can.

Your brain usually does you the favors of drowning out the parts in the hallway, knowing it will probably make your heart stop in an instant. Today, it doesn’t do you any favors and you close your eyes, accepting the sting behind them.

And then, his bedroom door.

And if all that wasn’t torture enough, it was only the easy part.

Because now is when it really starts. It’s when your throat closes up, the breath in your lungs turns heavy, thick, impossible. Because no matter how many times this has happened, no matter how many times you laid here in your bed, still, so still, waiting for the agony to stop, pretending it doesn’t happen - it never stops hurting. It never stops breaking your heart - or whatever’s left of it.

At first, there is silence. The small period where you almost dare to believe, to hope.

But then comes the moaning.

High-pitched and breathy, hinting at a pleasure that strikes you with a hammer.

Someone else. Always someone else. Someone who is not you, someone who never had to try, someone who will never know what it means to ache for him like you do.

Then, quieter, but just as devastating, Bucky’s voice. The low sound of him unraveling. The sound of something slipping from him that you will never be able to take.

And that’s what breaks you most. That’s what turns the ache into utter misery. Madness even. It’s the inescapable proof that he has something to give - something deep, something intimate - and he is giving it away. Over and over again, but never to you.

You close your eyes, as always. It doesn’t help, as always. The sounds don’t stop anyway. The images come anyway - the touches you have imagined, the way his hands would feel against your skin, the way his mouth would shape your name if you were the one beneath him. The way he might look at you, if only he could see.

But right now, you are just the ghost in the next room, curled in on yourself, ears filled with the sound of someone else living the life you always wanted.

And in the morning, or right after, when the door will open again, when the giggling will turn to goodbyes, you will still be here, where you always are. Where you always will be. Waiting. Wanting. Breaking. Wishing you could turn it off, this feeling. This unendurable and never-ending heartbreak.

And that finally makes the tears flow.

They well up before they spill over, down the slope of your cheek, gathering in the hollow beneath your nose before falling onto the pillow and wetting it like a pool.

You squeeze your eyes shut, so tightly it should hurt, so tightly it should make them stop. But they come anyway. They come despite the barricade of your willpower, despite the way your body coils tighter in on itself. They come despite the desperate war you wage against them.

They come because you have lost. Because it’s too much.

The moaning doesn’t stop, and it’s too much. It’s the middle of the night, and it’s too much. It’s the third night in a row, and it’s too much.

Bucky’s hushed voice shatters something inside of you, you didn’t know was left intact a few seconds ago.

Your breath turns sticky, only half of it making its way up your throat. The other half stays attached to the walls of your throat like honey gone rancid. It refuses to leave completely, snagging and trapping you in the awful space between breathing and choking.

Maybe if it stopped altogether, it would be easier. Maybe suffocating would be gentler than this slow and unsparing death of heartbreak.

Your hands are shaking. You bury your face into the pillow, willing it to just take you as a whole and never let you leave again. The fabric muffles the shuddering sobs, but it cannot do anything for the way your body trembles. But you know that the sounds of pleasure in the other room will tune out the sounds of your cries. The pillow is being clutched so tightly, you might tear the fabric. But it’s your heart that’s being torn into so many pieces. So what is a pillow compared to the ruin of your heart? It’s nothing.

You are alone in your grief.

The moans stop for a second - abrupt, cut off mid-breath.

Bucky’s voice comes. He says something but you don’t catch his words.

However, you do catch the displeased groan of his girl for the night. Drawn-out and petulant. Annoyed.

Bucky speaks again. Firmer, this time. Again, it’s too quiet to catch it.

And then you hear your name. It’s muffled still, but you would hear your name coming from his lips always and forever. You know the exact cadence of it shaping his mouth.

Everything in you halts. Your breaths are suspended somewhere in your throat, caught between shock and devastation.

The girl scoffs. It’s a snappy sound. Almost whiny. You would have rolled your eyes if you weren’t so troubled.

The moaning resumes. But it is quieter this time. Controlled almost. A courtesy. A mercy. But not for you. Not in the way you wish.

And it makes you know.

He asked her to keep it down. For you. He must have told her he has a roommate - you - and that they need to be mindful, that you might be trying to sleep.

Somehow, in all the infinite ways he could have cared for you, this is the one he chose. Not to love you, not to want you, but to make sure his flings don’t disrupt your sleep. As if that’s the worst of it. As if the noise is what truly keeps you up at night, and not the agonizing truth of it all.

Harshly, your teeth sink into your lip, fighting to stifle the sob that trembles on the edge of you. But again, you are losing.

Because hearing your name in the middle of something so intimate, spoken in the same breath of his pleasure, is pure anguish.

Because your name should not exist there. Not like this. Not casually sneaking into a mind occupied with pleasuring someone else.

If he were to say your name in a moment like this, it should be a soft whisper against your skin, entangled in sheets, buried in kisses that steal the air from your lungs. It should be something private, something sacred.

Not an idle afterthought. A consideration. A passing thought before he loses himself in someone else’s body. You have never heard him say any girl’s name before when sleeping with them, but hell you also don’t try to listen too closely.

You won’t talk about this. You never talk about this. When the morning comes and you meet Bucky in the kitchen for breakfast, you will not mention it. Just like you never mention the other nights. Just like you never dwell on the soft apologies he offers when they got too loud. And just like always, you will brush it off, force a brittle smile, and tell him that it’s fine.

It’s not. It never has been. And you don’t think you ever manage to make it sound like you mean it. But you are gone before Bucky can push or apologize again. Or see how deep the knife has gone.

Because he might be careful to be quiet. But he will never be careful enough to stop breaking your heart.

So what is the point?

You don’t want to do another morning like this.

You can’t do another morning like this.

Not three times in a row.

Not when the night has already taken your soul and what was precious of it, barely sewn together by the time the sun fights its way through the window.

Not when you know how it will play out. Like it has the day before. And the day before that.

The door to his room will creak open, the girl already gone. You will hear the shuffle of his bare feet against the floor, the sigh as he stretches, and the yawn that usually makes it past his lips. He never tries to stifle it.

And then, him standing there and watching you.

Disheveled. Bed hair sticking up in a mess. You never let your mind wander to how her fingers might have something to do with that. His shirt would loosely hang over his frame, probably thrown on in a hurry, collar askew, revealing a sliver of skin you shouldn’t be looking at.

That lazy and slightly flustered smile. Sleep still in the corners of his eyes, his lips, his voice, when he greets you with a scratchy morning.

Like nothing happened. Like he didn’t shatter you into a thousand unfixable pieces last night. And the night before that. And now this night.

You will do your best to greet him back without sounding pained. Focusing on making coffee. The way the steam normally curls into the air, the warmth of the mug in your hands. You will have to focus on it as if it’s the only thing keeping you upright.

And despite knowing you shouldn’t - despite hating yourself for it - you will slide a cup toward him. As you always do.

His smile would shift. Settling into something fond, something warm, something that digs its claws into your ribs and refuses to let go.

Because that’s usually the worst part. He’s always so sweet with you. Thoughtful, affectionate in ways that don’t count. In the ways that make you feel like maybe if you just hold on a little longer, if you wait just a little more, he might start feeling what you do.

But you are certain, he won’t.

Because for him, everything seems fine. For him, this will be just another morning. Another easy, comfortable start to the day. With his eyes on you and sipping his coffee, exhaling like he is finally at peace, and leaning against the counter with a lightness that always has your stomach all up in shambles.

He always makes it seem so normal. Starting conversation with you, talking to you as if nothing has changed. Like you didn’t spend the night curled in on yourself, swallowing down sobs so thick they feel like razor blades. Like you didn’t spend the night choking on the sound of him with her.

He never mentions them. Never says any of the girl’s names, not that you even know what they are. He never makes plans to see them again. Just another faceless but very loud girl. One to be forgotten.

But tomorrow night, there will be another.

Tomorrow night will be the same.

And in the morning nothing will have happened.

Only him standing there with his sleep-mussed hair and that sweet, easy smile, drinking the coffee you should have stopped making for him a long, long time ago.

You rise out of bed, not even aware of it. The cold air nips at your tear-streaked cheeks, your sheets thrown back in a mass of tangled fabric still warm from the ball your body was curled in, breaking in silence. The pillow is still wet.

Your hands move on their own, tugging on slacks, yanking a hoodie over your head as though the fabric could hide you, save you from the devastation caving a hole into your chest.

You fumble for your phone before throwing open your bedroom door.

The moans are louder again. Yanking at your resolve and laughing at the way your tears keep coming.

Your feet move faster. You don’t actually run, but it feels like running. Like fleeing. Escaping a burning building before it collapses. The living room comes into view and it’s like a cruel trick, like the universe is taunting you, because all you see are phantoms.

The coffee machine on the counter. How many times have you two stood there, still tousled with sleep, you making coffee for the both of you because Bucky burns everything. How many times did he lean on the counter, watching you with that stupid little half-smirk, pretending to judge your process but always humming in satisfaction when he took the first sip.

The bookshelf in the corner - the one you swore you could build on your own. And you tried, you really did, but the second the screwdriver slipped and you gasped out loud, Bucky was there immediately. Hands on yours, worry furrowing his brows, grumbling about your stubbornness and continuing to grumble when he passive-aggressively built it himself.

You sat cross-legged on the floor, watching him, pretending to be annoyed but secretly savoring the way he kept glancing at you, again and again, to make sure you were okay and giving you instructions as to how it’s done but throwing you a glare when you insisted on trying again.

The carpet. The same one you both collapsed onto after a night out with your friends, too tipsy to move, giggling like teenagers as you pointed at the ceiling, pretending to find constellations in the uneven paint. He named one after you. You named one after him. You fell asleep there, side by side, and when you woke up he was so close. So close.

The couch. The one he practically melted into last week when he had a fever, whining dramatically until you caved and brought him soup. He kept pulling you back when you tried to leave, pouting like a child, demanding your attention because I’m sick, doll. Can’t ignore me when I’m sick. Until you sighed and sat down, letting his head rest in your lap. He fell asleep like that. Snoring. And you didn’t have the heart to move.

And now he is in his room, tangled in her, moaning into her skin, kissing her - like it doesn’t mean anything. Like none of it ever meant anything.

Your breath is uneven, your hands shaking as you grab your shoes. The laces blur, your vision fogs, but you can’t stop.

You throw open the door to your shared apartment, barely thinking, barely breathing, only moving. It swings back into the frame with a sharp sound echoing through the hallway, louder than you had intended. But it doesn’t matter now. Because you are sure that Bucky doesn’t hear it. He doesn’t notice. He is otherwise occupied and you are utterly drained of thinking about with what.

The air outside the apartment feels different. Lighter and cooler, but it doesn’t bring relief. It’s thin and hard to pull into your lungs properly.

Natasha’s place isn’t far. Fifteen minutes on foot. You tell yourself that over and over, like a mantra, like something to grasp on.

No more moans. Lost to silence, left in a place that feels little like home right now. Still, they resonate in your skull, haunting reminders of that pain you can’t dismiss, that hurt that hangs off you like a heavy burden.

You slow your steps on the staircase and inhale deeply. It trembles on its way out.

You hate how fragile you feel. How breakable. Hate how much this affects you. How much he affects you.

But you keep walking.

Just yesterday, you talked to Natasha and she offered you to stay with her for the night, looking at you all sharp and knowing, but in her own way sympathetic. You declined. Because you thought you’d be fine. Well, you were wrong.

It’s past midnight now, completely dark, but you don’t care.

You know, Natasha will let you in. And that will have to be enough for tonight.

The city is alive even at this hour. Neon lights glow in the distance, their reflection shimmering in rain-slicked puddles that dot the cracked pavement. Somewhere across the street, there is a group of people laughing, and disappearing around a corner. A car flies past, with headlights unlocking long shadows lengthening down the sidewalk.

You focus on those things. On the shoes thumping against the pavement. The way the crisp air is somehow refreshing as it weaves through the fabric of your hoodie and stings slightly at the tear-streaked skin of your cheeks, keeping you awake and propelling you forward. Not that you need any more motivation to leave.

You wind your arms around yourself like a shield, like a last-ditch effort to keep yourself from falling apart completely.

You don’t look back.

Somewhere above you, there is a creak of a window opening.

It makes you freeze for a small second, before tightening your arms around yourself and picking up your pace.

Your stomach spins violently because fuck, you know that sound. You know the groan of that window when it moves, just a little off its hinges, just enough to make a noise you’ve heard a hundred times before. Because it’s the window of your apartment. And it makes a noise that has never felt so much like a punch to the gut.

“Y/n?”

You close your eyes.

“Y/n!”

Your name spills from his lips, laced with confusion, infused with something that makes your fingers clench around your arms.

You could ignore him. You should ignore him. Just keep walking, keep moving, pretend you didn’t hear.

But you can’t. You never can.

With a slow, dragging breath, you turn around.

Bucky is leaning over the frame, his torso reaching out the window, bare from the shoulders down. He is bathed in the hazy yellow glow of the streetlights.

His hair is messed up, brown tendrils all sticking in different directions. His brows are knitted in confusion. His lips in a frown so full of worry. And it’s just too much.

Too warm. Too intimate. Too familiar.

Your chest stutters, lurches, and swirls itself into a dozen moving shapes that hurt more than they should. Because he stands there shirtless. Shirtless. And you know why.

You swallow back your hurt, but it stays stuck in your throat and crawls right up again to make you taste it on your tongue.

You force your gaze away from staring at the curve of his collarbone, the slope of his throat, the soft lines of his skin, the hard lines of his muscles that she had her hands on just minutes ago.

“Where are you going?”

The tone highlights his concern, thick with the kind of worry that would have meant everything if it weren’t coming from him like this, not now. His voice is rough, remnants of the time already spent with that girl, but all you can hear is that damn worry in it.

As if you owe him an answer. As if he isn’t the reason your chest feels like it’s been hollowed out and left to rot.

You draw in half a breath and look away - down the street, down at your shoes, the bricks of your building. Anywhere that isn’t him.

“To Nat’s.”

It’s clipped and short. You don’t want to explain, don’t want to talk, don’t want to stand here in the night air beneath the window of the apartment you share with him like some pathetic wreck while he worries about you.

“Nat’s?” You can hear the bewilderment in his voice, the way he is trying to piece it together, the way his brain is already working overtime, scrambling to make sense of this - and you can practically feel the moment he decides he won’t let it go.

“Somethin’ happen?” His voice just won’t stop to be so perplexed, so concerned. It is softer now, but you only glance up at him briefly before averting your eyes again.

Because damn Bucky, yes, something happened. Everything happened. Every night that he brings someone home, every touch that belongs to someone else, every soft moan that isn’t meant for you.

All these moments, all these memories, every feeling left unsaid that swivels and stings and grows into what it is now - a storm inside your rib cage, a hurricane of almosts and never wills and why does it have to be like this?

But of course, you can’t say that. You won’t say that.

So you just shake your head, tighten your arms around yourself, and take a step back.

“Go back to bed, Bucky.”

Because you can’t do this right now. You won’t do this right now.

Not when you are already about to break.

“I- What?”

His voice is a little raspy, puzzled, and under any other circumstance, it might have been endearing. On a normal day, if this were some cozy Sunday morning and not the breaking stretch of midnight, you might have smiled at the sight of him like this - hair in a wild mess, eyes a little heavy from the day, bare shoulders shifting in the glow of the streets.

But this is not a Sunday morning. And nothing about this feels good or cozy or right.

You are so damn exhausted. So damn drained.

“You-” he starts again, brow furrowing deeper, but before he can get another word out, hands appear - slim fingers wrapping around the thick of his bicep, tugging, pulling, trying to drag him back inside.

Bile is pooling at the base of your throat.

She’s alone with him up there, in the space that you have spent so much time making into something warm, something filled with comfort. A space where you feel home. With him. And yet, it’s that random girl in there, laying in his bed, under his covers, in his scent, in him.

“Bucky, come on.” Her voice is thin and peevish, thick with impatience. And exhaustion you believe she has no right to feel when you are the one who has spent the time suffocating under her presence.

But Bucky doesn’t move.

His hand only grips onto the windowsill tighter, muscles in his arm locking.

And his eyes stay fixed on you.

Still searching. Still confused. Still trying to understand.

And it makes your hands clammy.

The way he looks at you like he is reaching for something just beyond his grasp, something that eludes him no matter how hard he tries to hold onto it.

He huffs out a breath that just borders on frustration when her fingers won’t stop pulling at him.

“Hold on, doll-” he calls out to you and unwinds her hands from his arm, barely sparing her a glance as he leans out the window again. There is a little something in his tone when he speaks to you again. Something like exasperation. But it’s not meant for you. “What’re you doin’ at Nat’s? Tell her it’s the middle of the goddamn night. Why would she let you walk over to her? She knows it’s not safe.”

You shake your head, already half turning away again. You just cannot do this right now.

“It’s fine. Just go back to bed, Bucky.”

“Y/n - hey. What’s wrong? What’s this about?” There it is. That softness in his voice. That concern. And it hurts. Because he doesn’t get it.

“Go. Back. To bed,” you repeat, sharper now, gritting it out between clenched teeth.

But Bucky has always been stubborn. And so infuriating. It’s like he doesn’t hear you at all.

“C’mon doll, did something happen? Talk to me,” he urges, voice gentle but he doesn’t seem to like the way you look as if you would bolt around the corner any second. His tone is coaxing in a way that makes you ache because this is what he does. This is what he has always done - pulling you in, making you feel safe, making you feel cared for, making you feel like you matter. Like he means it.

And it’s cruel. So cruel.

Because you are in love with him.

And he is standing in that window, bare-chested and rumpled from a night with another woman, while you are in slacks and a simple hoodie beneath him with your heart cracked wide open, bleeding into the pavement.

“I don’t wanna do this right now, Bucky,” you snip, voice losing patience. But you are so tired.

Bucky sighs and runs a hand through his hair, frustration growing, seeping into his voice. “You’re killin’ me here, sweetheart. Just tell me what’s goin’ on. It’s cold out, doll. You’re not even wearin’ a jacket.”

You swallow down a choked breath.

Because this is making things so much worse.

That he cares. That he is looking at you like this, like you matter, like you are his.

Like you are something he wants to figure out. And he wants to take his time with. Like he wants to fix you.

But you are not broken. You are just in love.

“Bucky,” that girl calls out again, dragging his name out, voice honey-thick and pettish. “Come on babe, let it go. Just-” She tugs at his arm again, nails skimming along his forearm. “Come back to bed.”

But he doesn’t move.

Doesn’t even glance at her.

His mouth twitches, jaw ticking as he exhales sharply through his nose, shaking her off with a firm roll of his shoulder. “Would you quit it for a sec?” His voice is edged now, tinged with a kind of terse impatience he seldom ever lets out. “Jesus, m’tryin to talk here.”

The girl huffs, clearly displeased, but Bucky doesn’t spare her another second.

But the one second he threw his head around at her was your chance. Your feet move before you can think, before you can talk yourself into staying, because if you do, if you let him pull you in, let yourself hope-

“Woah, doll, hey. Wait, I-”

His voice is frantic, stammering over its own syllables and filled with too many things your mind is too jumbled to focus on.

But it makes you stop your body in the midst of a step. And you grind down on your teeth against the frustration burning inside you.

You should keep walking. Shouldn’t have stopped.

But Bucky is leaning even further out now, his knuckles bracing against the sill, the night air tousling his hair, eyes wide and concerned, searching. One of his arms is reaching out, down to you as if he could touch you like this.

“Hold up, yeah? I’m comin’ down.”

You whip halfway back to him, brows snapping together, heart slamming against your ribs.

“No, you-”

He’s already pulling himself back inside, shaking his head as if it should be obvious. “I’m coming down,” he repeats, more insistent, more sure. Leaving no room for argument.

Your fists squeeze the fabric of your hoodie. Your stomach churns. “Bucky-” you try again. But he has already made up his mind.

“Wait there, alright?” His voice dips lower, steadier but still urgent. Resolute, as if he would run after you if you bolted down the street. “Doll. Promise me you’ll wait.”

Something in his tone, the look he is giving you, like he’s begging, almost a sweet-talking declaration. It’s catching your breath somewhere in your throat.

You could run.

You should.

You should turn right back around, disappear into the night, and leave him standing there, shirtless and confused and worried.

But you hold his gaze for just one long and heavy beat, then exhale shakily, shoulders dropping slightly.

“Okay,” you say weakly.

Bucky nods determined and taps his fingers against the windowsill, before rushing away, leaving the window wide open.

And you stand there hating yourself for waiting.

Hating yourself for hoping.

Technically, you could just leave.

Take a different route to Nat’s apartment, slip into the dark veins of the city where his voice wouldn’t reach, and let him walk out onto an empty sidewalk with his hair still tousled from another woman’s fingers and the taste of someone else’s lips still lingering on his own.

You could make him feel just a fraction of what you feel, with something hollow pressing up against his ribs when he finds nothing but cold pavement where you used to stand.

But you don’t.

You know you won’t.

Because it wouldn’t just frustrate him. It would hurt him.

And that’s the one thing you could never bring yourself to do.

Not Bucky.

Never Bucky.

You know him. The way he chews at the inside of his cheek when he’s trying not to say something reckless. The way his brows pull just a little too tight when he’s agitated but trying to play it off like he is fine. The way he folds his arms over his chest, not because he’s closed off, but because he needs something to hold onto.

You know exactly how he would react if he stepped out here and you weren’t there.

How the slight crease between his brows would deepen. How his fingers would twitch, opening and closing, like he’d missed his chance to catch you. How his lips would open and he would stare helplessly around and call your name.

And god, as much as this pain is devouring you from the inside out, pushing its way into the light but leaving you sitting in the dark, as much as your heart feels like being torn apart with unsaid words and unmet confessions - you cannot stand the thought of hurting him.

So you stay.

With feet planted on the concrete, fists clenched so hard, that your fingers start to cramp. You lift your trembling hands to your aching cheeks to hastily scrub away the fresh wave of tears surging forth downwards, willing your body to erase any evidence of your devastation.

But the more you wipe, the more it hurts.

You believe your cheeks are red from the effort of wiping so much, eyes swollen and puffy, your body trying to rebel against all of your commands.

Inhaling shakily, you force the breath down, down, down where you can pretend it doesn’t hurt so much. You angle your face slightly away from the building, hoping the dim spill of moonlight won’t betray your inner struggles.

Because the moment Bucky steps out that door, it will be the same as always.

He’ll look at you like you are his best friend. Like you are his safe place. Like you are the person he can always count on.

And you will look at him like you aren’t falling apart.

Like your heart isn’t unraveling at the seams.

Like you aren’t drowning in a love that will never be returned.

The door swings open with a force that startles you, the sound of it hitting the frame a little too sharp against the night.

Bucky storms out onto the sidewalk like he’s got something urgent to say, like the world might stop spinning if he doesn’t get to you fast enough. He doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t pause. Just moves straight to you, his steps quick, closing the space before you can change your mind about standing here. He has a crumpled shirt thrown on and it hangs a little off. But it makes you want to run so hard.

His fingers wrap around your arms, not hard, not forceful but firm.

Those warm hands on you make you want to crumble.

His breath is coming fast, chest rising and falling, like he ran down the staircase to get here as fast as possible.

His eyes are so deep, deep and blue, roaming your face with so much intensity, searching and scanning and pausing.

Shadows cast over his sharp cheekbones at the way his brows are furrowed, his lips slightly parted.

“What’s going on, doll? You been cryin’?” His voice comes out rough and he talks fast. Urgent, breaths spilling over themselves as he rushed through the words, almost tripping on them in his desperation to get them out. “Why’ve you been crying? What happened?”

His thumb twitches against the fabric of your hoodie.

You open your mouth, close it again. Your throat is dry from the sobs you tried to silence earlier. You shake your head, a knee-jerk reaction.

“I was just going to Nat’s, Bucky. Nothing happened.”

It’s a weak excuse, said in a weak voice.

And you hate how it makes Bucky’s expression shift. That tiny wounded something that crosses his features, something that shouldn’t be there, because you did wait for him, you didn’t leave, but it’s still not enough. You lied to him. And he knows it. And he’s hurt. And you hate yourself.

He shakes his head, his jaw going tight.

“No,” he murmurs, eyes never leaving you, voice so low. “That ain’t nothin’, doll. C’mon. You’re runnin’ off in the middle of the night, how could this be nothing?”

You look away. Because if you keep looking at him, him with his concern and confusion and hurt all interflowing in the pool of those blue eyes, you won’t be able to hold yourself together much longer.

You swallow hard and force yourself to breathe slowly.

The sting behind your eyes is never really leaving you.

Bucky leans in, just a little. His grip on your arms tightens, but it’s not harsh. Only insistent. Desperate for you to give him something here.

“Somethin’ up with Natasha?” His voice is gentle, like he knows this has nothing to do with her, but he has to ask anyway to go through all the possible options of what might be going on.

“No,” you croak, barely managing the word.

He softens at the sound of it, but that frown doesn’t ease.

“What’re you doing then, huh? Why’re you running off like that? S’ not safe, you know that.” His voice is soft. Almost like he’s trying to soothe a skittish animal. But the concern is wrapping around every word. “What’s got you so upset, sweetheart? Talk to me, yeah? Please?”

His voice takes on a desperate intensity. Like he’s begging you to just let him in. To make him understand.

You bite down hard on your bottom lip, willing it not to tremble, willing your face not to crumble right in front of him, but the air is too thick for your airway, making it harder and harder to breathe.

And Bucky is looking at you, like you are breaking his goddamn heart. Like you took a shot straight for it.

He is so full of worry, it looks painful, the crease of his brow always there when he’s thinking too hard, when he’s feeling too hard. His lips are still parted, like he wants to beg for an explanation, for some string of words that will make this all click into place and turn this into something fixable.

Because Bucky Barnes fixes things.

But this might be the only thing he can’t fix.

His hands on you are a contrast to the way you feel as if you’re falling apart. You hate how much you just want to collapse into it, to let yourself lean into him, let him hold you up. Because he would. You know he would. He would pull you in without hesitation, wrap his arms around you like he has done so many times before.

But you don’t want him to hold you. Don’t want him to hold you like a friend.

You want him to hold you like he means it. Like you mean something more than the sum of all the nights you spent choking on your own silence, swallowing words you could never say.

So all you can do is stay frozen, bones locked, eyes burning, heart splitting itself open in the middle of the street where he doesn’t even know he’s killing you.

“I-”

You try. You really try.

But then the door swings open again. And the sound of it alone is enough to send a bolt of ice down your spine.

Because this time it’s her walking out.

She steps out onto the sidewalk like she has every right to be a part of this moment.

Like she hasn’t spent the first part of the night in Bucky’s bed. Like she hasn’t been touched by him, kissed by him, fucked by him, wanted by him in a way that you have only ever ached for.

Like she hasn’t taken something that was never hers to have.

But it’s not yours either.

She looks so composed, too. More put together than you would have imagined. Her hair smoothed, clothes adjusted, skin glowing in a way that tells you she wasn’t just sleeping up there - she was living in something you’ve been dying for. She probably took a moment in your bathroom to check herself, to fix her lipstick, maybe even to admire herself in the mirror while you were downstairs, breaking apart.

She had the time for that.

Meanwhile, you can barely stand.

Your body is alive with magnitudes of unspoken things, suffocating. You feel like you’ve been sanded down, like a piece of wood, leaving nothing but the ache and longing and all the words you can’t say. This destruction is slow and ruthless, it doesn’t come with an explosion, but rather a slow erasure.

Like you’re being unmade. Piece by piece.

Like you were never meant to be here in the first place.

And Bucky is still looking at you.

Not at her.

You.

And maybe that should be enough. Maybe it should mean something.

But it just puts more pressure on the knife that is already turning around in your flesh.

The girl doesn’t leave and Bucky stiffens.

“Bucky,” she drawls, almost lazy, like she’s bored with this already. “Are you coming back up, or…?”

Your stomach lurches.

You feel exposed, scraped raw, like you’ve been trampled over, flattened by something massive, left behind for everyone else to step around.

Bucky lets out a slow breath through his nose. His jaw works under pressure. And then, he huffs. Annoyed. Like she’s interrupting something important.

“Go home,” he flatly tells her, his attention still on you. Not even addressing her with a name. Perhaps he doesn’t even know it.

“Seriously?” she scoffs, crossing her arms. Her eyes flick between the two of you.

Bucky exhales another breath and drops one of his arms from you to scrub it over his face, pushing through his hair. He turns toward her just a little, stance rigid.

“Yeah, seriously,” he mutters, already turning back to you. “I’ll call you a cab if you need-”

“God, you’re such a dick,” she snaps, cutting him off, rolling her eyes with an exasperated huff. “Unbelievable.”

And then she’s gone.

But so are you.

You don’t even think about it. You just move.

Your arm slips from Bucky’s loosened grip, your body already shifting, already turning, already pulling you down the sidewalk, away from him, away from this.

It’s pathetic. You know this. But you have to get away.

Your vision is a blur, the streetlights smearing into a soft, hazy glow against the wetness welling in your eyes, and no matter how much you try to breathe through it, it’s too much. Simply too much.

You’re hurting. And you need to go. Now.

But Bucky doesn’t let you.

“Woah, whoah, hey!” His voice is quick, rushed, and then he is moving, closing the space between you. And this time, he cuts you off completely, stepping right into your path, right in front of you, blocking the way like a wall. He’s so broad in front of you, and so fucking present, making it impossible to escape.

You stop so fast it almost sends you stumbling back.

His eyes flick over you so quickly, so intensely, scanning for something he doesn’t understand but is so desperate to find.

“Alright,” he exhales, low and careful, holding his arms out as if ready to stop you again if you make a run for it.

“You want me to put you in chains to keep you still?”It’s a weak and failed attempt at humor.

And it’s not funny. Not even close.

His voice is too thin, too strained, and there is something in his eyes, something tight and aching, that makes it clear he is not even trying all that hard to make his joke work.

You don’t smile. Don’t look at him. Arms still around yourself.

Bucky’s throat bobs as he swallows, as he shifts his weight, as he lets out another slow and deliberate breath. He moves so slow. As if any tiny movement of him would make you walk away from him.

“What’s going on with you, mhm?” His voice is so soft. So concerned. Brooklyn warmth and worry combined with something gentler than you can handle right now.

“What’s this - this fight-or-flight thing you got goin’ on?” he continues, tilting his head just slightly, watching you too closely, reading too much. “You’re rushing off like the damn place is on fire. The hell is that about, doll?” Still so soft. So cautious.

His eyes are on you like you are the only thing in the world that matters, like he’s trying to solve you, like if he just looks long enough, he’ll figure it out.

But if he really understood, if he really found out, everything between you would change.

And you can’t handle that. You can’t handle anything at the moment.

“Just drop it, Bucky, alright?” It comes out sharper than you mean for it to. Harsher. A little spit of venom that you hate yourself for the second it hits the air. He doesn’t deserve your attitude. But you can’t hold it back.

You see the way it lands. The way his brows pull in tighter, the way his lips press together, the way his chest rises and falls so measured. But it’s all not out of irritation. He just tries to figure out where that came from. What is happening. What has you react the way you do.

His voice is even and calm. But oh so careful. “I don’t think I will, doll.”

You look anywhere than at him and his troubled face.

Your throat tightens so fast, you have to swallow hard against it, teeth digging into the inside of your cheek as you blink up at the sky like maybe that keeps the tears from spilling over.

And Bucky watches all of that.

His expression stays soft, but his eyes are burning with something deep, something real, something that makes you feel like you might actually drown if you keep looking at them for too long.

“Y/n,” he almost whispers, and it sounds so pained. “Why are you crying, sweetheart.” He’s so gentle, so tender, so fucking careful like he’s afraid that if he pushes too hard, you’ll just break.

You shake your head, arms around yourself tightening. “I’m fine.”

Bucky makes a quiet noise in his throat, somewhere between a sigh and a scoff, something deep and disbelieving.

“See, that’s bullshit.”

You’re about to turn again, but he anticipates and gets hold of your arms.

“Look,” he sighs, heedfully taking off a hand of you to rub it down his face. “You don’t wanna talk? Fine. You wanna bite my head off cause I’m askin’? Fine. But don’t stand here and tell me you’re okay. Because I’ve got eyes, doll, and I can see that you’re not.”

You want him to stop.

You want him to turn around.

You want him to leave you here to fall apart in peace.

But he won’t.

And you don’t know what to do with that.

And you break.

No matter how hard you bite your lip, it doesn’t matter.

The tears slip and streak down your face before there is anything you can do. A sob follows. You can’t choke it down. Your shoulders shake, your breath stutters, and your face tilts towards the ground as you bring trembling hands up to wipe at your cheeks, in a futile and desperate attempt to regain composure. It’s useless.

You feel so pathetic.

Embarrassed. Ashamed that you ran off like this. That you’re standing here, crying in the middle of the night, on a sidewalk with no explanation, making a fool of yourself in front of him.

And the second your face crumbles, his does, too.

The second your breath hitches, he is moving.

Strong arms envelope you, winding tight, pulling you straight into his chest like he doesn’t even need to think about it. Not for a single second.

You let him.

Because it’s either this, or you’ll collapse down onto the asphalt.

His grip is firm, grounding, warm in a way that makes you ache even more. His hand cradles the back of your head, tucking you against him, and you feel the press of his lips there, gentle, but somehow rough.

Like your pain is his own.

“It’s okay. Shh… it’s okay,” he breathes, pained and low, the words pressed into your hair, into your skin. Making space between your ribs. “Oh, doll.” He presses you tighter to him. His hand brushes over your hair. “It’s okay.”

There is something so deep and aching in the way he talks to you, like the sound of his own voice hurts him. Like you hurt him.

His other hand moves over your back, soothingly, trying to give you some strength.

“I gotcha,” he breathes. “M’here, doll. Okay? Just breathe. Gotta breathe for me, baby. Please.”

It’s a slip. Baby. A mistake.

And it makes you cry harder.

Because it’s so soft. Gentle. Because it falls from his lips like something that’s always been there, something that’s always belonged to you.

Except it hasn’t.

It doesn’t.

Not in the way you want.

You don’t know what he calls those girls he takes home. If they get to hear him say it. Girls who have felt his hands in places you never will. Girls who have heard his voice rasp against their skin in the dark.

But you are not one of those girls.

You never will be.

And you know you will never be able to untangle that damaging wrench in your stomach.

So hearing him call you that. Baby. Like it means something. Like it’s yours. Like it hasn’t been whispered in the dim glow of your apartment, murmured against someone else’s lips, someone else’s skin, just someone else just hours ago.

It’s too hard. too cruel.

You wish it didn’t matter. You wish it didn’t rip through you the way it does, splitting you down the center, carving you open.

But it does.

Because even if it doesn’t belong to you, you still want it.

So you cry harder.

Sobs wrack through you, your chest hitching with the force of them, your hands gripping the fabric of his shirt, clumping it in your fists.

Bucky feels it and he hears it and he grips you tighter, pulls you closer.

“Hey, hey, hey,” he coos, voice just above a whisper, more desperate now. Like he’s drowning in your hurt right along with you.

“Sweetheart,” he tries again, voice strained, thick. His lips are in your hair. “Please talk to me. Make me understand, baby, please! Tell me what’s wrong.”

But you can’t.

Because what the hell would you even say?

That you’re in love with him?

That you’ve been in love with him?

That seeing him with her - hearing the sounds that bleed through the walls, the ones you’ll never be able to unhear - feels like being skinned alive?

That you want him in a way you shouldn’t?

That you want him in a way he will never want you back?

You won’t.

So instead, you just press yourself harder into his chest and squeeze your eyes shut, letting him hold you like you are something precious. Like you are his. Even if you are not.

“Help me understand here, baby. Please,” he repeats with a voice so soft, that makes him seem afraid you might break apart completely if he speaks any louder.

Maybe he’s right. Maybe you’re already in pieces at his feet, shattered beyond repair, and he just hasn’t realized it yet.

He lets you cry when you don’t answer, hand stroking up and down your back, the other soothing over your head. He whispers into your hair, words you can’t even process, just the deep cadence of him, the low rasp of his voice against your temple.

His lips move to your forehead, brushing over it. His breath is warm against your skin. You don’t have it in you to pull away, but you wish you would.

Because none of this makes it any easier.

Because his hands feel too good, too steady, too right - and it’s a lie.

Because it’s him.

And that means it hurts.

You wish he would just go and let you have your pathetic heartbreak alone.

But Bucky Barnes has never been the kind of a guy to leave things unsolved.

He pulls back just slightly after a while, just enough to get a better look at you, and when you try to duck your head, to keep him from seeing too much, he doesn’t let you.

Strong, warm fingers cradle your face, thumbs brushing over the damp skin of your cheeks, tilting your head up and forcing your gaze to his.

He looks wrecked.

His brows are drawn, lips parted, chest rising and falling unevenly. His hands tremble just a little against your skin, but his grip stays firm. Solid.

“Don’t look away, doll. Eyes on me, yeah?”

You swallow hard, jaw tight. “You just ruined your good night,” you say, the words falling out bitter, self-deprecating, stiff with something that tastes like resentment but feels like heartbreak.

Bucky’s frown deepens, his lips pressing together, eyes scanning over your face like he’s searching for something, anything that’ll make this make sense.

“The hell I did,” he scoffs, shaking his head. Confused you even brought this up. “I don’t give a shit about her. Don’t even know her name, if I’m bein’ honest.” He lets out a huffed laugh.

But you don’t.

Because somehow this makes it worse.

And you hate it.

You hate that some part of you wanted her to mean something.

Because if she meant something, if she was special, then at least this ache in your chest would have a name. A reason. A shape you could hold in trembling hands and squeeze so hard that it stops hurting at one point.

Then, at least, you could maybe finally accept that there is no hope. No reason to hold on to those feelings.

But Bucky just shrugs.

It meant nothing. It never meant anything. Not with them.

Not with the girls that come and go, the ones who pass through his nights in the same easy way the hours do - fleeting, ephemeral, touched, and forgotten.

Not with anyone. Not even with you.

You have spent so long feeling this, holding onto it, trying to keep it hidden beneath layers of friendship and longing and careful restraint. You have spent so long pretending that it is fine, that it doesn’t matter, that you can live like this - on the sidelines, just the girl in the other room, in the shadows, in the spaces between what you want and what you’re allowed to have.

And he stands here and looks you in the eyes, telling you that it is nothing. That she is nothing. That they - all of them before her, and all of them after her - are nothing.

You can barely breathe past it.

You don’t say anything.

And Bucky freezes.

His hands, where they cup your face, stop their soft, absentminded strokes. His thumbs, which had been tracing reassuring circles along your cheekbones halt. His breath catches and his eyes shift.

There is something uncertain in there.

And then, his lips part. His brows go up ever so slightly. His pupils flare.

Something settles over his expression that you don’t recognize.

Like a switch has been flipped.

Like a puzzle piece has clicked into place.

Like suddenly he is seeing something in your eyes, something like an answer, something that has been there all along.

His fingers tighten, anchoring himself. Making it seem that if he lets go, if he moves even a fraction, something will break. In him, or you, you’re not sure.

He pulls back. Not far. Just an inch. But he needs to see you better. Just enough to search your face for something he needs to know. His gaze locks onto yours and holds you there, testing something, making sure.

His voice is hushed when he talks. Breathless.

“Is that what this is about?”

It’s quiet, the way he says it. Like he’s afraid of it. Like he’s careful with it. There is disbelief on his face. Astonishment.

You shake your head too fast, too sharp, like if you deny it hard enough, it’ll erase the way he’s looking at you right now. That it’ll undo the meaning of his words and the way they sit between you. Something fragile on the verge of breaking.

“No,” you say, but it barely comes out, barely sounds convincing. Your voice is hoarse, scraped raw form holding back everything you don’t want to say. Your lungs refuse to work in sync with the rest of you. You swallow, eyes darting away, grasping for something to latch onto.

But Bucky doesn’t let you.

“Doll…” It comes like a sigh. Weightless and soft. His hands don’t drop from your face, don’t loosen, don’t give you the space you’re so desperately trying to carve out between you. If anything, his grip grows more robust. Just enough to keep you there.

“Hey. Look at me.” His tone is low, carrying the kind of warmth you’d usually like to lean into, but now all you want is to get away from it. You don’t want to meet those stormy blues.

Bucky’s thumbs are sweeping, so feather-light, over the curve of your jaw, smoothing along the damp trail of your tears, and his voice dips even lower. Softer. He is so close.

“C’mon, sweetheart. Give me somethin’ here.”

It’s not fair that he gets to call you all those sweet names like he means them. Like you mean something. Like it’s not the same word he probably called her and all those others who got to have him, even if only for a night.

“I don’t-” you try, but your voice is trembling and thick with tears, and Bucky’s gaze shadows.

“Don’t what?” he coaxes, leaning in just a little, close enough that his breath skims your skin, warm and stable in a way you aren’t. His fingers slightly move against your cheeks, as if resisting the urge to pull you closer.

You shake your head again, your hands wrapping around his wrists - not to push him away exactly, but to have something to hold onto. You have no idea what to say.

“It’s- It’s not-” Your words trip over themselves, stuck somewhere between your throat and your ribs, tangled up in everything you’ve never let yourself say.

But Bucky just watches you, unreadable things swirling in those impossibly blue eyes. Wary things. Still so damn careful.

He exhales and his hands slide down, skimming the column of your throat, settling against the curve of your neck like he’s grounding you. Holding you both together.

“Doll,” he sighs, and it’s too much.

It’s not teasing. It’s not playful. It’s not easy. Not the charming lilt he likes to throw in his tone.

It’s vulnerable. Tender. Substantial.

“You’re breakin’ my heart here.”

And that’s what has another tear slip over your lashes.

Because you’re breaking his heart?

What does that even mean?

You were the one trying to escape the heartache he caused and now he tells you it’s his heart that hurts?

“Please,” he whispers, and his voice is wrecked, gravel thick in his throat. “Just tell me, doll. Tell me what I did. Tell me so I can fix it.”

His lips stay parted, trying to find air, trying to find some kind of solid ground. There is a sheen over his eyes.

“I can’t-” Your voice cracks, but you don’t look away this time. His hands won’t let you. He won’t let you.

His eyes are pleading.

“Can’t what, sweetheart?” he urges, dipping closer, voice just a rasp of sound between you. His thumbs wipe away the new tears and he winces while doing it as if it actually causes him pain that they fell.

The streetlight flickers above. It casts shadows across his face, highlighting the sharp line of his jaw, the tight pull of his mouth. His fingers flex against your face.

“Is it-” he starts, then stops, then starts again, throat bobbing and voice rough and hesitant. “Is it those girls?”

A shallow gasp slips from your lips. Fractured and tripping over something unseen. Your shoulders grow stiff.

You can’t answer. You only shake your head, not in denial, not in confirmation, but in something else, something tired and so fucking done with feeling like this.

You try to pull back, try to slip free from the heat of his palms, try to turn away. Another tear drops onto the back of his hand.

Your reaction must be answer enough.

Bucky’s head, Bucky’s hands, Bucky’s eyes, Bucky’s whole body - everything is moving so much, keeping you from slipping away, reaching for you, not letting you go.

A breath. A pause. Like his brain needs an extra moment to process what this all could mean. His breath catches in his throat and you can feel the exact moment he gets it.

The exact moment he realizes.

“Shit,” he breathes, so quiet you almost miss it. His grip tightens. It grows distressed. Despairing. Keeping you from leaving his hold, although you don’t stop trying.

You sob and his hands press into your cheeks, thumbs smoothing away tears like he can erase this, like maybe if he holds you tight enough, he can go back five minutes, five months, five years, to a time before he made you feel like this.

“Shit, doll, I-” His voice breaks, gravel and regret and anguish - and something so painful - landing with every syllable.

You don’t stop trying to pull back, trying to push him away. You can’t talk. You can’t stop crying. You can’t look at him.

But Bucky is devastated. And he is desperate. And he won’t let you go.

“No, no, don’t - please, Y/n, don’t.” He runs through his words, frantically getting them out, frantically trying to make you look at him.

He reaches your face again and holds on like it’s important. Your tears won’t stop falling. A whimper falls from your lips when you realize he won’t let you leave.

Bucky panics.

His swallow seems to hurt him. Everything he does seems to hurt him.

“Oh, sweetheart - fuck, fuck, I didn’t-” He lets out a rough breath, one of his hands letting go of you to scrub over his face, pushing through his hair in frustration.

Not at you.

At himself.

“Doll, I didn’t - Jesus Christ, I didn’t know.”

It comes out hoarse, scraped down to nothing but feeling. Each word drags from his throat like sandpaper against silence. Coarse and raspy.

And then he’s shaking his head, hands sliding to your shoulders, his hold firm, his eyes darting over your face like he is trying to memorize it, searching for the right words in the curve of your lips, the glisten of your tears, the way your breathing is a single shuddering mess.

“I didn’t - fuck, I didn’t mean-”

He seems to hold back a scream.

Sucking in another sharp breath, he squeezes his eyes shut like he’s in pain, angry at himself, wanting to go back and rewrite everything, tear out every page where he made you feel like you were anything but his.

You wish you could believe it.

“Bucky-” you croak out.

“No, don’t-” His head doesn’t stop shaking. His jaw is clenched tight. Hands shaking against you. “Don’t say my name like that.”

“Like what?” Your voice is whisper-thin.

His breath shudders out, and when his eyes meet yours again, they are so earnest. Glossy with a sheen of tears.

“Like it’s over.”

Your throat closes around your next breath, never making it reach your lungs.

Because what is he saying? Nothing ever had the chance to be anything.

“I didn’t know, doll,” he whispers, voice breaking. “I swear to God, I didn’t know. You gotta believe me, I - fuck, I never wanted to hurt you. Never wanted you to feel like- I didn’t think you’d-”

He cuts himself off, voice choking.

His hands drop suddenly, like he doesn’t even deserve to hold you anymore. Like the guilt is weighing them down.

And then, unsure and hesitantly, he lifts one of them again and pauses before cupping your face, waiting for something - permission, maybe, or just a sign that you won’t pull away this time.

When you don’t, when you just keep standing there, frozen and broken and bewildered, he lets his palm settle warm against your cheek, his thumb brushing so lightly it sends a shiver down your back.

“Tell me how to fix it. Tell me I can,” he pleads, like he means it. Like he would do anything. “Tell me what to do, baby. Anything. I’d do anything. Just gotta tell me. Please,” he chokes out.

Cars roll past you. There are voices in the distance. A neon sign flickers. But none of it touches this.

This thing between you.

Bucky’s hand shakes against your cheek. His breath stirs against your skin so ragged and he leans in. His forehead presses to yours, his body curling toward you like he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it, just needing to be close.

“I’m so sorry,” he gasps out. “God, I’m so fucking sorry.”

Never have you seen Bucky like this. He keeps things easy, keeps things light, and shrugs off pain like it never quite reaches him. But it does now.

It consumes him.

His fingers curl at the back of your neck, not pulling, just holding, grounding himself against you. And when you continue standing there, breath shaky, tears still trembling in your lashes, his whole body sags.

His chest heaves with a breath so deep it sounds like it’s costing him something.

“I never meant for this to happen. Please, believe me.”

His forehead presses harder to yours, seemingly trying to press his words straight into you, that maybe if he gets close enough you’ll feel how much he means them.

And you do. You just don’t know what the hell is going on.

He lets out a sound that resembles a sob. And then you feel the damp heat of a tear where his face brushes against yours.

Bucky is crying.

It breaks you. You don’t know what to do with all this pain. His and yours. Don’t know how to ever let it go.

You pull back. Just slightly. Just enough to breathe, to think, to process.

But Bucky’s whole body tenses, and his eyes squeeze shut as if he knew it was coming but it still pains him. Bracing himself for something he already knows is going to hurt. His hands drop to his sides.

And maybe that should give you some kind of satisfaction, a tiny sense of justice for the nights you spent lying awake, wondering if you meant anything to him while he had his hands on someone else.

But it doesn’t.

Because the way he is looking at you, when he cracks his eyes open again, when he meets your gaze with so much open ache, makes your chest hurt. It makes something inside of you quake.

“Bucky,” you start, but your own voice is so small, so lost. You shake your head, scanning his face, trying to piece it together, to make sense of something that refuses to fit. How the tables have turned. You just can’t seem to find the irony in it. “What are you even - I don’t - I don’t I understand.”

His throat bobs, thick and tight, and he pulls in a breath like it’s the last one he’s going to get.

“I love you.”

Your mind blanks. You flatline. Your knees go weak.

He says it like it’s the simplest thing to say. As if it is the most obvious thing in the world. But it isn’t.

Because if it was then why has he spent all those nights with those seemingly meaningless girls. Why has he let you ache for him while he touched someone else.

“I love you,” he says again, softer, trying to make sure you believe it.

But you don’t know how to.

Your lips part, but nothing comes out. You feel the words, heavy and warm and terrifying, but your body doesn’t know what to do with them. Your mind is screaming at you to run, to protect yourself, to build the walls back up before it’s too late, but your heart doesn’t listen.

Bucky’s hand trembles when it reaches for you, fingertips ghosting over your jaw, waiting, waiting, waiting for you to pull away.

You don’t and he steps closer again.

His whole body thrums as if he is scared to touch you but more scared not to. He looks at you with those red-rimmed and puffy eyes, so tremendously bare, holding onto your own eyes like he is drowning and you are the only thing keeping him afloat.

“Say something, doll,” he pleads, his voice so unsteady, that it guts you.

But what could you say?

Because love is not supposed to feel like this, to hurt like this. It isn’t supposed to feel like your heart has been split open and stitched back together all in the same breath.

But looking at him and at the way his eyes are just as pleading as his words, at the way he is breaking right in front of you - it makes you wonder if maybe it was hurting him all along, too.

“You-” you begin, voice barely more than a whisper. You have to stop, have to pull in a breath that doesn’t seem to want to settle, have to force your hands to stay at your sides instead of reaching for something - for him - that you don’t know if you can take. “But that-” Another inhale, sharp and broken. Your chest hurts. Your whole body hurts. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

Bucky exhales, long and slow and then he drops his head. Shoulders slumping, spine curling, like something inside of him, has just given out.

Guilt.

It sits heavy in his frame, in the set of his jaw, in the way his hands jerk like he wants to touch you but knows he shouldn’t.

“Yeah,” he mutters, a humorless little laugh escaping, barely more than a breath. He drags a hand down his face, through his hair, before letting it fall uselessly at his side. His voice is lower when he speaks again, raspier, weighed down by something that feels an awful lot like regret. “I know.”

You watch him, waiting. Because he owes you this. Because he cracked open something you weren’t ready for, something you tried to bury, and now you need to understand.

And Bucky must feel that. Because after a beat, after a deep, shuddering breath, he looks at you again.

“I didn’t think I could have you,” he admits, voice quiet. Cautious. The words fragile in his mouth. “Didn’t think I was allowed to even want you. To this extent, anyway.”

Air enters you unevenly, shaking on the way in like a shiver made of sound. “Bucky-”

“You’re my best friend,” he pushes on, stepping in just a fraction, like he can’t help himself. His voice is getting rougher, rawer, like something in him is unwinding too fast for him to stop it. “I didn’t wanna mess that up, y’know? Didn’t wanna lose you over somethin’ I couldn’t control.”

Something tightens in your chest. Something shifts.

“So you-” you swallow, shaking your head, trying to put it together, trying to make sense of it. “So you just went around to go get yourself other girls you can fuck?”

Bucky flinches. Actually flinches.

Gaze dropping in shame, his features form a grimace. “I tried,” he croaks out, gesturing at his chest with one hand. “Tried to stop feeling like this. Tried to move on, tried to-” He exhales sharply, tilting his head side to side, something torn playing out with the movement. “It didn’t work. Nothin’ worked. Didn’t even make it easier. But I was afraid to face it. Really face it. So I just kept going.”

It hurts.

It hurts in a way you don’t know how to hold. Don’t know how to carry.

You thought, for so long, that the way you love him, ache for him, is a one-sided agony.

But he is confessing to you, eyes red and weary, voice splintering, telling you that he’s been afraid to speak it aloud too.

That he loves you, that he tried to kill it, that he thought losing himself in someone else would somehow erase you from his mind.

Bucky’s words are a fist curling around your ribs, squeezing the air from your lungs.

It should matter. It should mean something that he’s standing in front of you, breaking apart, pleading for you to understand. Shouldn’t it be enough that he’s telling you it was always you? That no one else ever came close?

But he still touched them.

Still chose them, even if only for a meaningless night.

While you sat in your room, staring at the ceiling, wondering if you were going insane. While you clenched your fists so tight beneath your sheets at night, biting your tongue, swallowing it down, because Bucky is your friend and friends don’t ache like this.

And yet, he is telling you, showing you, he aches too.

But instead of sitting with it, instead of letting it consume him the way it consumed you, he tried to make it disappear.

He tried to fuck it away.

And now he looks at you like you are the only thing that has ever mattered, like the ground beneath his feet, is unsteady, like he is afraid you are going to bolt at any second.

You feel like the ground beneath your feet shits a fraction of an inch, not enough to send you falling, but enough to make you question if you were ever standing solid in the first place.

“But, doll, it-” he rushes forward, watching your pain, stepping into your space until there is barely anything between you. “It never meant anything. Swear to god, none of ‘em ever meant something to me.” His hands wrap around yours, squeezing, grounding, begging. “They weren’t you. Couldn’t be you. Didn’t matter how hard I tried, how many times I told myself to stop thinking about you because you’re supposed to be my best friend, but I wanted so much more than that - it didn’t matter. Nothin’ worked.”

He is struggling to force the words out, but he does. And they leave him with a catch in his voice. Faltering.

“I thought about you, sweetheart. Every fuckin’ time.” His voice turns frantic and he leans in to make it convince you. He watches your lips tremble and shakes his head quickly. “Thought about how you’d feel. How you’d sound.”

Your breath stalls.

Bucky swallows, taking a quick pause but continuing, voice growing softer. Lower. Reverent. “Tried to picture you instead. How you’d look under me, wrapped around me. So goddamn beautiful.” His voice cracks. “But it wasn’t you. And I know it was wrong, but I couldn’t help it.”

He stumbles over his words, afraid of saying too much, of pushing too far, or admitting too much - but it doesn’t stop hurting.

Even if you know it might not be fair.

But the thought of him with them, the thought of his hands gripping someone else’s skin, his lips murmuring something soft against someone else’s throat - it makes you sick.

And he sees it.

You try to blink back another wave of tears.

His hands are on your face again, thumbs swiping furiously at your damp cheeks like he can rub the hurt away.

“Please tell me I didn’t ruin this.” His voice cracks through the words, the panic breaking through. Your silence seems to suffocate him, squeezing his ribs until there is no space left for air.

“I’m so sorry, baby! I wish I could take it all back. I would.” His bottom lip trembles and he bites down on it before continuing. “Tell me I can fix this. There’s gotta be somethin’ I can do. Anything.”

You blink rapidly, vision swimming, breath hiccuping in your throat. You don’t know if there is anything to fix, if there was ever anything there, to begin with, but he is looking at you like there was. Like there is. Like it is still hanging in the air between you, waiting to be caught, waiting to be named.

And you want to catch it. To press it to your heart and cherish it.

But the wounds are fresh. Still bleeding. Still open.

The images you conjured up in your mind, him with all those girls. The sounds of him bringing one after the other home - the routine.

The giggling. The keys. The apartment door. More giggling. His chuckles. The hallway. His bedroom door. The goodbyes. The mornings.

But worst of all is that you can’t even blame him.

Because what was he supposed to do? Wait for something that was never promised? Hold out hope for something that was never offered?

You had no claim on him.

But still, you hate how he tried to fuck you out of his system. Hate that he couldn’t, that he’s standing here now, telling you it was all for nothing, that you were always in his head, in his bones, and that that somehow is supposed to make it better.

You don’t know if it does now. But you hope - you hope so dearly - that it will get better. If he’ll stick with you.

“No more girls.” The words choke out of you, weak and broken, barely a breath. But he jolts like you have screamed them.

“Never,” he breathes immediately, shaking his head as if to get rid of his own images, gripping you tighter, his thumbs pressing into your cheeks, his eyes burning through yours. “No more, baby. No one else. Not ever.”

Your breath catches, body sways.

There is a burn behind your ribs, not quite pain, but not far from it. It is something that pulses in time with your heartbeat. Too quick. Too uneven.

“Only you,” he adds, his forehead dropping to yours, noses brushing, his breath warm against your lips, his hands trembling where they hold you. “It’s only ever been you.”

Heat rises up your throat, something between nausea and electricity, a burst of too much all at once.

“I got a lot to make up for.” His tone is unraveling at the seams. But it sounds firmer now. Convicted. “I know that. I know I- fuck, I screwed this up before I even knew I had a chance. And that’s on me.”

You squeeze your eyes shut, because it’s too much - his voice, his touch, the way he is looking at you like you hung the damn moon when you’ve spent years feeling invisible to him in the way that mattered.

“I don’t wanna rush this, alright?”

You blink up at him. Your chest feels stretched too tight, as if the ribs themselves are holding onto something they shouldn’t, something too large, something too consuming.

“I don’t wanna mess this up more than I already have. I don’t wanna push or expect anythin’ from you - I just wanna do this right. For you.” His voice wavers on the last word, still scared of saying the wrong thing, scared of losing something he only just realized he had. “You understand me?”

You nod wordlessly. Almost feeling hypnotized by him. His eyes are so intense. So full.

“I’ve been waitin’ for this, hopin’ for this - Christ, I don’t even know how long.”

Your stomach flips, something curling in your stomach at the heaviness of his confession, at the realization that you weren’t alone in this. Maybe never have been.

“And now that it’s happenin’ - now that I have you, even if I don’t deserve it - I wanna take my time. I wanna make this good for you. Have to. I have to make this right,” he says, voice filled with something gravelly, rough like something barely holding together.

His fingers slide over your jaw, tracing along the column of your throat, memorizing the feel of you beneath his hands.

“And I hate-” his voice falters, eyes squeezing shut for a moment before he forces himself to look at you again. “I hate that it’s happening like this. That I hurt you first. That I didn’t see this sooner.”

“Bucky-”

He cuts you off with his eyes and a shake of his head.

“Please I- I gotta do this. Gotta say this, baby.”

You nod.

He closes his eyes again for a moment like he wants to go back and shake his past self by the shoulders, tell him to wake the hell up and stop hurting the one girl he ever cared about.

He continues, voice hoarse. “I would do anything to make this different. Better. The way you deserve.”

Your breath is shallow, not quite catching, but hovering just short of where it should be, as if your body can’t decide whether to brace itself for collapse.

You’ve spent so long breaking for him, wanting him in ways he never seemed to want you back. But now he is pouring his heart out and asking for something he already has but isn’t sure he is worthy of.

“You don’t gotta say anythin’ right now, doll,” Bucky whispers. Afraid of scaring you off. “I know I shoulda told you sooner.” He grimaces, disgusted with himself. “I shoulda known sooner. I was so fuckin’ stupid. So fuckin’ blind.”

You don’t even notice you started leaning further into him.

Bucky stares at you for a moment. You look back.

“I don’t deserve you,” he says quietly. Whispers really. He exhales shakily and you feel the breath fan along your cheeks. “But I swear to God, I will.”

You don’t weigh the hurt against the want, don’t let the war in your head talk you out of your next move.

Your hands reach up, curling into the fabric of his shirt and before he can say anything else - before he can tear himself apart further - you kiss him.

And for a split second, Bucky freezes.

Not believing this is happening, not expecting it even after everything he just told you.

But then, he exhales this soft and quivering breath against your lips, relief knocking the air out of his lungs.

One hand flies to your waist, pulling you in, the other threading into your hair. He kisses you back like he is starving, like he has been dying for this, like he can’t believe you are real and this moment is something he’s imagined a thousand times but never thought he’d get to have.

And he is so warm. So solid. His lips move against yours, soft and slow at first - savoring you, afraid to go too fast, to push too much. But when you let out a little sigh and your fingers tighten, Bucky melts, pressing in closer, enveloping you in his arms in a way that has you feeling he tries to make sure you never go anywhere else again.

He breathes you in like you are something holy, tilting your head and deepening the kiss. He is not forceful. He takes what he can get and he cherishes it. Like he said, he wants to take his time with you. It makes you fall in love with him even more.

It’s like he can’t believe you are even letting him have this. But he kisses you with a hope and a determination that this will not be the only time he gets to have this.

And when you pull back again, he rests his forehead against yours once more. You feel the way his chest rises and falls against your own, the way his breath shakes, the way his grip does not loosen at all.

“Jesus, doll,” he rasps, panting. “You tryna kill me?”

And the way he says it, the way he looks at you, so full of longing and desire and relief makes you realize that maybe he’s been suffering just as much as you have.

“I want you. It’s as simple as that. I’ve spent a great deal too much of my life already trying to convince myself that I can make do with less but I can’t. You hear me? I’m done. I’m not giving up. A life without you is not enough.”

- Beau Taplin

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You’re still my winner

Bucky Barnes Masterlist

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