Mine

His hair?! oh FUCK me ♥️

TT credit: estialvids

pieces of me

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Part of the 500 Follower Celebration Requested by: Anonymous

Summary: While staying over at Loki's place, you get woken up with violently painful period cramps, having you apologizing to him in a panic when your mind starts flashing back to a night almost exactly like this from a previous relationship

Pairing: Loki x Reader

Word Count: 2.8k

Warning/s: blood; Reader going through her period; mentions of a previously abusive relationship; language (nope not sorry, Rogers) [let me know if i missed anything!]

Things to be aware of: start of steamy moments at the end; precious green flag bf Loki hours

The timer went off with four beeps, and you turned down the brightness of your laptop, rubbing your eyes as you leaned back on the seat of the couch. You groaned into the dark quiet of the living room, stretching your arms and letting your eyes rest for a few minutes before you had to go back in and work on the post-mission report again.

"Darling, what did I tell you about working in such a horrendous position?" You barely had time to react to the sound of Loki's voice, or the gentle yet admonishing tone of his voice, before he scooped you up in his arms and cradled you against him as he sat on the couch.

"You should come to bed," he told you, a soft chuckle escaping him when you instantly relaxed in his hold. He pressed a kiss to the top of your head. "Your mission report can wait until the morning, little mortal, you need your rest."

"'M fine…" you mumbled your protest, words muffled when you nuzzled your face into the crook of the god's neck. "M'almost done…just fifteen more minutes."

He let out a long sigh before tilting your chin up to face him, placing a soft kiss to your lips before moving you off of his lap and reaching for your timer, setting another fifteen minutes to it. "Alright, Y/N. But after this I'm taking you to bed." The way your eyes lit up had him breaking out into an amused grin, reaching over to hold your hand and kiss your knuckles. "To sleep, darling. I prefer you awake and alert when it comes to our lovemaking."

Your boyfriend sat quietly next to you as you resumed work on the report, waiting patiently for the four beeps to go off again. Unfortunately there were still a few fields left to fill out right as the timer went off. He wrapped his hand around yours, placing your laptop down on the coffee table before easily scooping you up in his arms again, this time carrying you to his bedroom.

"You know…I can just go back to my place," you offered. "I know this wasn't exactly what you had in mind when I said I'd sleep over for the night so maybe I can come by tomorrow--?"

"Do you truly think that that is all I want you for, precious mortal?" He sat you down on the edge of his bed before crouching down, his face now level with yours. "I cherish any time I get to spend with you, regardless of what we do." He held the side of your face, weaving his fingers through your hair before closing the distance and capturing your lips in a tender kiss. "Lay down, my darling. Tonight I am more than content simply holding you while we sleep."

Sleep took you as soon as he settled down on the bed beside you and he laid on his side to drape his arm over you. It honestly surprised you how quickly you could drift off ever since you and Loki started seeing each other. Back when you were single you practically slept with one eye open, always ready to spring into action, a fully loaded gun in your nightstand, just in case someone ever made the mistake of going into your apartment and trying something with you.

And it wasn't any better in your previous relationship. Spending the night with your ex mostly consisted of making sure you slept at the very edge of the bed to make sure that his arm didn't accidentally land on you while he flailed about. God help you if it did, it was an hour long tirade about how you "messed up his sleep experience for the night", and he outright demanded that you would "make it up to him" by giving him head.

That was what had you feeling so…foreign in this new relationship with the Asgardian. When he asked you earlier tonight if you wanted to stay with him after coming back from a mission that separated you from each other for the last week, you immediately assumed that it meant part of the night would have been spent naked in bed and most definitely not sleeping.

Not like you would have complained, of course. To say the sex was otherworldly was an understatement.

So having him prioritizing your rest, holding you close at the center of the bed while still wearing the lounge set he laid out for you when you entered his apartment nearly ten hours ago, was entirely uncharted territory. In just a few short months, the god had crafted a blissful little bubble for you that had you so thoroughly and stupidly content. That had you feeling so…safe.

If only the figurative needle that burst that bubble hadn't come tonight in the form of a sharp ache in your lower stomach that had you waking up with a violent start. You lurched away from Loki, clutching your abdomen in pain and pressing your face into the mattress to muffle your groans.

No no no, you thought to yourself in a panic, recognizing the violent clenching as period cramps. This wasn't supposed to be for another week.

The sound of your boyfriend mumbling your name had you scrambling out of bed, mortification and dread flooding you when soft warm light washed over the room and you saw the tiny patch of blood on the mattress. "Darling, what's happened? What's wrong?" He followed your gaze to the spot on the bed. "Oh, my dear heart…"

"I-I'm sorry," you stammered, already reaching for the sheets and starting to work them off of the mattress. "I'll--I'll get the spot out and get these back to you." The words started to spill out from you, as if you couldn't get them out fast enough. "I'm so sorry Loki please don't be mad--"

The feel of his hand gently wrapping around your arm had you jumping to stand up straight and turn to face him. But instead of the ire you'd braced yourself for when your eyes met his, instead you found concern. Tenderness, even. "You will do no such thing, darling," he told you, his tone the gentlest you'd ever heard from him. "You will stay right here and I'll be back in a moment."

When he guided you to sit back down on the bed, you began to protest. "But the blood--"

"Is just blood," he insisted, pressing a kiss between your brows. "Nothing we need worry about." He sat you down on the bed, lightly touching your chin before he disappeared from the bedroom in a flash of green.

Barely two minutes later he returned. In one hand was a change of clothes from your closet. In the other was the little acrylic basket you kept in your bathroom cupboard decorated with shark stickers. He set the clothes down on top of his dresser and held his hand out towards you to take.

He led you to his bathroom, placing the basket on the countertop. "Get yourself cleaned and sorted, darling. I'll take care of the bedsheets," he told you before pressing a soft kiss to your forehead.

"You really don't need to I'll be done in a few minutes--"

The frantic tone in your voice stopped him from closing the door. "Y/N, what paltry excuse of a partner would I be if I didn't do what I could to alleviate what stresses your body is forced to suffer?"

Loki's response, especially the sincerity that came through with every word, had you floored. He said it like it was the simplest, most basic thing in the world. Like it didn't even need a modicum of common sense to come to that conclusion.

And yet your history was more than enough proof that the answer to his question would have been 'the kind that I've always had'. He must have seen the words forming all from the glazed over look in your eyes as you thought back on former boyfriends, and he let out a sigh, crossing the distance between you again and framing your face in his large hands.

"Darling, I may not completely understand Midgardian anatomy quite yet, an issue I will see to it that I remedy after tonight. But this? Ensuring that you need not add to the stress that you must already bear? This I can do. How could I allow myself to simply sit back and not offer my aid where it could benefit the woman I love?"

Both of you froze, stunned silent, at the words that came from the god. Love. It was a word you didn't dare to use even in the solace of your own thoughts. Sure, the last few months that you'd been with him were nothing short of a wonderful dream that you wish you'd never wake up from. Of course you loved him. Even before your first date, you already had it bad for him.

"You love me?" you blurted out, your words barely louder than a whisper.

"I do," he sighed, pressing his lips to yours in a tender kiss. "I have for a long while, my darling." He ghosted his lips up the bridge of your nose before pressing another kiss between your brows. "Get yourself cleaned," he repeated, murmuring the words into your skin. "I'll have tea waiting for you when you finish."

Once you were clean and you'd changed into the clothes Loki brought over for you, you stepped out of the bathroom, your heart warming at the sight of the god having placed a tray with a tea set on the storage bench in front of the bed. He shifted he way he sat at the edge of the bed, stretching his arm out toward you to invite you to sit on his thigh.

"Do you feel better, sweetheart?" He wrapped his arm around you, securing you against him as his hand worked its way under the hem of your shirt, thumb softly stroking at your skin. You only nodded your response before leaning over and giving him a kiss. He hummed contentedly against your lips, playfully nipping at your bottom lip before he pulled away. "What was that for?"

"I love you, too," you told him. "I realized while I was in the shower that I didn't say the words back. Like an idiot. But I do…love you. I don't think I even remember a time that I wasn't--"

He quieted the rest of your words when he pulled you into another kiss, weaving his fingers through your hair and holding you in place. "My precious little mortal," he sighed against your lips before he stole another kiss. "Why did you think I would be angry with you over something so…paltry?" You shifted to move off of his thigh, which made him hold you tighter. "You need not hide from me, my love. I need you to know this."

"It's just…" Your voice grew faint as you tried to find the right starting point to even start telling the god about the scars that had stayed with you from the ghosts of your past relationships. "I don't know how to even start finding the words," you said lamely, picking at the stitching of the hem of your top. "But maybe…maybe I can show you."

Loki's eyes widened as you placed your hand over his and brought it up to touch your temple. "Are you certain?" he asked, breathless.

"Of course," you said softly, giving him a tiny smile. "I trust you, Mischief."

You rested your forehead against his, bracing your hands on his shoulders as the memories flooded your mind, nearly knocking the wind out of you. All of the times that your last boyfriend before him mistreated you, neglected your needs and only called you over to stay the night when he wanted sex.

The time when you woke up on a night just like tonight, with painful cramps that came a week early because of the stresses of passing your SHIELD exams that were a part of your final assessment to be taken on to the Avengers team. You'd left a small patch of blood on his sheets and he had an absolute meltdown.

Even just the memory of his words had you flinching in Loki's arms.

Dammit those sheets were a graduation gift from my mom, you dumb bitch. You better clean that up and it better be fucking spotless.

Baby I'm sorry, it's just you know how important anything from my Mama is to me. I mean how would you feel if I just went and pissed on those journals your dad gave you for Christmas last year? What do you mean of course it's the same thing. But that's not what's important, pookie bear. What's important is making it up to me. I mean, you did disrupt my sleep experience.

"I've seen enough, darling," Loki snarled pulling away from you, pure fury in his eyes upon seeing that bringing those memories so vividly to the surface had made your cheeks wet with tears. "I should have his head for his abhorrent mistreatment of you."

You gave the god a half-hearted shrug. "He's someone else's problem now, thank fuck."

"He should not be anyone's problem."

"We can't just get rid of him, he's a civilian," you grumbled, already hating that you had to argue against his sentiment even though you actually agreed with him on a fundamental level. "He's not worth the legalities that we'd be facing. Trust me, I've considered it. From setting his house on fire to hacking his car to drive off a cliff. He's not worth facing the consequences."

Loki pursed his lips, wrapping his arms around you a bit tighter. "I suppose you're right, my love." He pressed a kiss to your forehead. "Then the only course of action now is taking care of you. Putting those awful memories far in the back of your mind."

He guided you to lay back down on his bed, holding you against him with your back to his chest. He splayed his hand across your lower stomach and used his seiðr to warm the area, relieving your cramps.

It didn't take long before you relaxed against one another, sleep once again sinking its hooks into you.

The next few days felt like something out of a dream, the raven-haired Asgardian going above and beyond, ensuring that you were well taken care of and that you weren't doing anything that could cause you additional undue stress. If he so much as saw you stumble or touch your head while you walked, he scooped you up in his arms and brought you back to his apartment, telling you to rest for an hour. You made a throwaway joke when he laid you down for a nap, calling him "Doctor Loki" right as you fell asleep.

On the fourth day of your period, usually the last day if you were to rely on your history, you got a text from the god telling you to meet him in his apartment for a "routine check-up". It seemed he caught on to your joke and wanted to play along.

However the last thing you expected was to walk into his bedroom and be greeted with the sight of him dressed in only dark slacks and a white doctor's coat, his eyes framed by a pair of angular square glasses. He smirked as his eyes raked over your figure, standing to his full height before making his way to you. "Hello, darling."

"What's all this, Mischief?"

"Well, the symptoms of your…condition seem to have abated," he answered, fighting back the playful smile that threatened to stretch across his face. "Aside from those pesky little headaches that seem to plague you every now and again. Luckily I have a quick and…rather enjoyable remedy for this."

He took your hand in his and started to guide you toward the bathroom.

"And what exactly is this treatment you have in mind?"

"Easy, my love," he said, casually shrugging off the white doctor coat, putting his well-defined chest and abs on display before pulling you into his arms with a gentle tug. He traced a finger down the bridge of your nose before tilting your chin up so he could lay his lips on yours, the kiss quickly becoming more and more heated with each brush of his lips. "Pleasure." With a wave of his hand your clothes and his disappeared in a flash of green and he led you into the shower. "Sweet, decadent, overwhelming pleasure."

A/N: Another request from the 500 follower celebration done! I had such a cozy lil time writing this kind of Loki where he just takes care of his bb and just makes sure that she feels safe and loved 🥹💖

I've got another 4-day weekend ahead of me starting tomorrow and hopefully I can use this time to knock out some stories from both my neverending Tumblr and non-Tumblr TBRs, getting some stories either properly planned out or actually written out, and just overall being productive 🫡

Already working on the next request from the 500 follower celebration list and…it's a Hiddles x Reader story that involves a mango ride 😈

'everything' taglist: @simplyholl @loopsisloops @imalovernotahater @coldnique @loz-3 @huntress-artemiss @salempoe @athalialaufeyson @lokiprompts @kats72 @kikster606 @asgards-princess-of-mischief @lokixryss @thomase1 @mischief2sarawr @lovingchoices14 @lunarnights95 @goblingirlsarah @iamlokisgloriouspurpose @creationsbyme @maple-seed @mjsthrillernp @ladyofthestayingpower @sititran @glitterylokislut @ozymdias @fictive-sl0th  @lokidbadguy @mochie85 @silverfire475 @joyful-enchantress @elizabethmidnight2017 @holdmytesseract @smolvenger @gigglingtiggerv2 @lokidokieokie @superficialdomina @kmc1989 @november-rayne @goddessofwonderland @buttercupcookies-blog @peaky-marvel @lokiified @dryyoursaltyoceantears @herdetectivetheorist @alexakeyloveloki @lulubelle814 @jaidenhawke @km-ffluv @huntedmusicgardenn @steaa90-blog

Game Nights

Pairing: Thunderbolts!Bucky Barnes x Female Reader

Summary: Game nights in the tower are unpredictable.

Word Count: Over 900

Warnings: Humor, mentions of violence, the team loves trolling on John, kissing, implied smut, team bonding (kind of), Thunderbolts spoilers, Bucky Barnes (he's a warning, okay?).

A/N: Silly headcanon set in the same world as Not Exactly a Secret and part of my Tower Shenanigans. I'm not at all sorry. ❤️ Not beta read and written on my phone, so any and all mistakes are my own. Please follow @navybrat817-sideblog for new fics and notifications. Comments, reblogs, feedback are loved and appreciated!

Game nights typically take place on Saturdays since Fridays are reserved for movie night. Snacks and drinks are a must, but there is a drink maximum, so things don’t get too crazy or emotional. 

Bucky purposely gets John the generic brand when it’s his turn to go snack shopping and tells him to deal with it since the quality is just as good. Everyone else gets the name brand of whatever they want. 

There's a huge board with all of your names and the games listed. The tally marks are in various colors, and sometimes names are erased and replaced with affectionate nicknames. 

When John demanded to know who changed his name to “the man with a punchable face”, Bob was ready to confess, but Bucky took the blame, followed by Yelena, you, and Ava. It was a real “I'm Spartacus!” moment. 

Anyone caught cheating is on clean-up duty. You and Bucky have both cheated on the same night so you could clean up together. 

There are occasional tournaments complete with medals and trophies. The gang insisted that participation ribbons were not allowed, but you found a funny last place trophy that you had to get and everyone agreed.

The gang tries to switch it up between classic games, video games, and children's games to keep things interesting. No matter what you play there is a level of competitiveness. 

You try not to rub it in when you win a game, but you will have a subtle smirk on your face when you catch Bucky’s eye. Alexei, on the other hand, loves to yell, “In your face!” while doing air thrusts and Yelena has come close to banning her dad from game nights because of it.

If it’s girls versus boys, the girls win almost every time. The boys can't figure out how, but it might have something to do with John and Alexei both trying to be the leader, Bucky being done, and Bob just wanting to have fun. 

Bucky picks you for any game that requires a partner or teammate outside of girls versus boys, even if there is someone better suited. He doesn't care because he always wants you by his side. 

Bucky also picks two-player games for the two of you to play while the rest of the gang plays something else. Yelena often does the same thing with Bob. 

Weapons aren't allowed. That rule should've been enforced from the beginning, but John insisted after Bucky threatened to stab him during a game of Uno. 

To be fair, John kept playing Draw 4 cards and everyone knew it was a dick move. Even John knew it. 

Bucky will switch to Russian when he gets frustrated or really into a game. He didn't realize it until Yelena and Alexei replied in Russian. 

Hide-and-Seek is banned. Ava kept phasing out of her hiding spots, and you and Bucky got caught fooling around in the coat closet. 

Truth or Dare is also banned. Too personal with the questions when it was meant to be a fun night and Ava kept daring you and Bucky to kiss each other, which you did.

Bob got nervous the first time you all played Among Us, but Yelena assured him it would be fun. It ended with a chair flipped over, which is considerably tame.

Bob also goes into any shooting game prepared to lose because look who he’s playing with? He still has fun with it.

You once sweet talked Bucky into playing Dance Dance Revolution and he did well, surprising no one. So did Yelena and Ava, and not a single one of them cracked a smile while they danced.

John takes Pictionary way too seriously, and you threatened to break the easel and stab him when he raised his voice at Bob. Bucky fell in love with you a little bit more. 

Ava encouraged you to flash Bucky once when he was winning at Mario Kart. You did and he looked, but he still managed to win. 

Yelena argues with Alexei during Jenga. She doesn't need him to tell her which block to move or distract her. 

You and Bucky always end up choosing each other's cards during Cards Against Humanity. You just get each other, and you love getting a laugh out of him every time he reads your card. 

Alexei insists that karaoke should be considered a game and he always wants to sing first, which embarrasses Yelena. He once serenaded you and Bucky because, well, he’s one of your biggest supporters. 

Card games are tense and Yelena usually ends up with the most money by the end of them. She prefers Poker to Blackjack. 

Bob was so happy the first time he won Clue that he almost cried. Everyone hugged him, knowing he never got the chance to have fun game nights growing up. 

John recently made a casual comment about wanting to play games like these with his kid. No one gave him a hard time because everyone could see how much he longed for it. 

Some game nights end with yelling and broken furniture, but more often than not they end with smiles, laughter, and a sense of normalcy. It’s a nice change of pace from some of the horrors you’ve faced, and a great way to bond. 

But Bucky will still find a way to stab John if he can if only to keep him on his toes. 

BAHAHA. What do we think? Any other games? What other shenanigans do we think they get up to in and out of game nights? Let me know! Love and thanks for reading.

Masterlist ⚓ Bucky Barnes Masterlist ⚓ Ko-Fi

You take the dark and carve me out a home

Bucky Barnes x New Avenger!Reader 

Summary: Unwinding after a tough mission is not exactly easy. Especially not when you’re part of a group that is always, constantly under scrutiny. Which is why you were always extra hard on yourself whenever you felt like you made a mistake or let the team down in any way. Bucky was aware of this, he was aware of everything regarding you, and usually he gave you your space and within a day or two you’d get back to normal. But this time was different, he noticed. It had been a couple of days since your last mission and you were still in that weird, distant headspace. And Bucky needed you back, the whole team needed you back, but him more because… well, because he cared about you a lot more than he let on. 

Themes: soft!dom!bucky, praise kink, angst, hurt/comfort, friends-to-lovers, fluff

“Where is she?” 

Bucky demanded, walking in, looking around, and noticing immediately that you weren’t at the dinner table. The rest of the team looked like they’d just been done eating. Alexei was almost falling asleep in his seat already.

“I thought she was with you?” Ava squinted at Bucky. 

Yelena added, “Don’t you two always work out together every night?” 

Bucky frowned. “I know, I…” He paused to think. “I left the gym hours ago. She said she was gonna finish up and come find you guys.” He rolled his eyes at the realisation, “So she’s been in there alone for the past couple of hours and no one checked on her.” 

“I did.” Bob said, always with that lost puppy dog look in his eyes. “I went to the gym earlier to get a workout in. But she glared at me, so I just kinda left, like, really quickly.” 

“Relax, man.” John spoke, adding to Bucky’s irritation. “She’s probably still working out to get her mind off things. You know how she gets.” 

Bucky sighed and walked away, leaving the rest of them in the kitchen. Damn it. He could’ve checked up on you too. But after his work out he had some calls to attend to, and deal with some things on behalf of the team. He’d totally lost track of time. Also, he genuinely didn’t think you’d stay in the gym for hours. He knew you worked out each day, sometimes twice a day. But lately, he was getting more and more worried watching you put your body through pain hours at a time. 

He took the elevator to the floor the gym was on and walked in to find you with your boxing gloves on, the punching bag swinging gently in front of you. Your head was lowered, your back to him but he still saw the way your shoulders moved as you breathed quickly. Your skin glistened with sweat, and Bucky just knew you weren’t having a good night. 

Again. 

He needed to do something about that. 

“Have mercy on that poor punching bag.” He said, keeping his eyes on you as you turned to face him. He realised he would never get used to it, that intense look in your eyes whenever you got into moods like these. The look that made most people run away from you. But not him. Never him. “Let’s go. You’re tired.” 

“I’m not.” You were quick to argue. Always quick to argue. Then you took your fighting stance again, facing him rather than the punching bag, your fists up in the air. Ready to spar. “Come on. And don’t be gentle with me.” 

“No.” He declined politely. “You’ve been here for hours. You need to shower, eat, and get some sleep. I can’t have you walking around looking like that anymore.” He stepped closer, your dark red gloves almost touching his chest. “I know you think you messed up on our last mission. But you didn’t. We made it out alive, all of us. Stop punishing yourself for things you didn’t do.” 

You lowered your fists. Looking defeated. Bucky always saw right through you. “But I put us at risk. I didn’t wait for the signal,” You stated. “I could’ve gotten us all killed.” 

“But you didn’t.” He said firmly. “Besides, one mistake doesn’t take away from the fact that you’re one of the best out of all of us.” He sighed upon seeing how truly hard you could be on yourself. “Give yourself some grace.” 

You hung your head again. Bucky wanted to hold you close and not let go until you felt better. And it killed him that he didn't know how to get you out of that dark, shadowy pit of guilt and disappointment. He reached out and touched your cheek, his fingers cupping your face. “What’s going on with you? Where are you?” He whispered, “Come back to us.” 

Come back to me. 

You gave him a faint smile. Bucky had always been your safe place. With his dreamy blue and often tired eyes, and his Disney prince, perfect hair, and his charming smile. He was definitely your go-to person. You loved the rest of the team, but Bucky was special. He somehow always got it. With him, you never had to explicitly explain everything, he always just understood what you meant. He spoke your language. 

You two had always been closer to each other than to the others. And while the others constantly teased you about the tension between you two, you never acted on it, nor did either of you ever deny it. Sure, flirty comments here and there were a regular thing. And you both cared deeply for one another, but you never talked about it in a serious way. Having the other there was always just… comfortable. 

Bucky managed to get you out of the gym and sent you to your floor. He took the stairs to the kitchen again and made you a plate, full of your favourite things, and took it to your room. The door was unlocked and he could still hear you in the shower. He didn’t want to disturb you so he placed the plate on your bed and left. 

–

Hours later, Bucky still couldn’t sleep. He’d received a text from you, you thanked him for bringing you food and said you were off to bed. But something was keeping him restless. He didn’t know what it was. He simply couldn’t stay still. 

He quickly checked the cameras and was relieved to see the gym was empty. Which meant that you were up in your room. Which was a good thing, but something in his gut was telling him to go check up on you. Bucky got up immediately as soon as the thought crossed his mind. 

He made his way to your floor again, the entire building was quiet. It was well past midnight and he said he’d just check on you. Nothing else. He would knock on your door and if you didn’t answer immediately, he would go back up to his room. 

But something told him you were still awake. And if you were awake you were probably overthinking yourself to death, drowning in guilt and disappointment. Bucky sighed, waiting for the elevator to stop on your floor. That look in your eyes earlier in the gym was haunting him. He missed the spark in you. The brightness. That empty look… he wanted it gone. 

Bucky found himself rethinking his actions once he was at your bedroom door. There was still silence, even on the other side. But he knocked twice, he had to. 

He waited, a little embarrassed because what the hell would he say he was here for? That is, if you were still up. 

He was still wondering what he would actually say when you opened the door quickly, as if you were waiting for him to show up. 

Bucky took one look at you and your face, tear-stained and lips trembling as you tried to keep it all in, and he pulled you into his arms immediately. Walking in and shutting the door behind him, Bucky kept his arms securely around you. 

Your breaths were shaky. Your body trembling with your quiet sobs. 

“Hey, I’m here.” Bucky whispered, his lips pressed against your forehead. “I’ve got you. It’s okay, it’s all gonna be okay. I’m here.” 

And somehow, being in his arms made the darkness go away gradually. Bucky’s scent, his body heat, the feeling of his strong arms around you, hearing his steady heartbeat, it calmed you down instantly. 

“Come here,” He walked over to your bed, sat down on the edge and pulled you down onto his lap. He had hugged you many times before, but this felt different. Intimate. But natural. It felt like you belonged there in his arms. 

You straddled his thighs, limbs wrapped around him like he was the only thing left in the world. Like he was all you had. Your face hidden in the crook of his neck. His hands running up and down your back and sides while he kept mumbling reassuring words in your ear. You felt safe. 

“I’m sorry.” You said. 

And your voice was so quiet and weak that it broke his heart. “Don’t be.” He quickly said. “You didn’t do anything wrong. We all make mistakes, it’s okay.” 

“I feel… inadequate.” You sniffled, pulling away to look him in the eyes. His ocean blue ones looked into your eyes with so much patience and warmth that it healed parts of you. “And empty,” You continued. “I feel like I’m not doing enough. Like I'm still not strong enough. Just not enough.” 

“Hey,” He cupped your face in his hands. “Just ‘cause that’s what the voices are screaming at you, doesn’t mean it’s true. Okay? None of what you just said is true.” He said, sincerely. “None of it. You’re the strongest person I know. You’re fierce and kind. You boss most of us around, but you care so deeply and it shows.” His thumbs wiped your tears away. “You add so much to our team, don’t you see that? You’re one of the few people Bob is comfortable around. You and Ava make a deadly combo. You and Yelena keep everything in order. You and John work really well together when it comes to keeping us safe or protecting us during combat. You and Alexei, well, he loves you just as much as he loves Yelena.” Bucky listed, “And as for you and I, we’re simply the best duo there can be, aren’t we?” He sounded a little playful. 

And it put a faint smile on your face. You sniffled, nodding slowly. “Just having a rough couple of days, I guess.” 

It was more than just that, but Bucky only asked, “What do you need? And don’t say you need to box or spar, or anything. Clearly that’s not helping like it usually does.” He pointed out. “You wanna take a few days off and go somewhere to clear your head?” 

You shook your head, whispering, “No. I like it here. It’s fine, I just… I don’t know.” You took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “I can’t quite put it into words.” 

“Try.” He said, “Take your time. I’m here, I’ll listen.” 

You sighed again, unable to look him in the eyes as you spoke. “I just feel numb all the time. And it gets worse when I don’t do my job well. And now I’m struggling to just… feel something. I feel nothing all the time lately and I know it sounds like I’m whining about it but…” You took another deep breath, “It’s exhausting. It’s heavy. It’s not just numbness, it’s like I’m stagnant and I want to get out of… whatever this state is and I try, I try but something keeps dragging me down and keeping me in a chokehold right where it feels the heaviest. I wanna get out. Of my head, out of this weird headspace I’m in but nothing helps. Nothing works. I don’t know. I don’t know if that made sense, I’m just fucked up I guess.” 

Chokehold. He knew that feeling all too well. “You’re not fucked up.” He said, “I know how it feels.” 

“I know you do.” You finally met his eyes and the shadows disappeared gradually. “I don’t know what I would do without you, Buck.” 

“What can I do to help?” He asked. It killed him to see you like this. You were here but also so distant. He wanted you back, for your own sake, but also because he missed having his best friend around. 

“Make me feel something.” You said, softly like you were afraid someone else might hear. “Anything, please.” 

“Oh, baby.” Something about the way you sounded so vulnerable, which was rare from you, made Bucky forget about everything else. He didn’t care, all he wanted to do was piece you back together. “I’ve got you.” He whispered, and leaned in and pressed his lips to yours, hands trailing down your body until he placed his hands on the curve of your ass and pulled you into him even more. 

You gasped against his mouth, kissing him back slowly, melting into him. His metal hand came to rest on your exposed thigh, only then did you realise that in your PJ shorts really didn’t hide much. His cold fingers lazily grazed the crease between your hip and thigh, and it was all you could focus on in the moment, other than the heat of his mouth. 

Bucky pulled away to whisper, “Just so you know, we can stop if you don’t want this,” before he kissed you hungrily again, his beard and his long, soft hair tickling your face. “We can go back to talking and we’ll pretend this never happened.” 

“Please don’t stop.” You mumbled against his mouth. “I need this. I need you.” 

“Okay,” He whispered, in between kisses, “I won’t stop, baby. I’ve got you,” He repeated. “Don’t worry, I’m right here. Okay?” 

You pulled away from the kiss, teary eyed again. “I trust you, Buck.” 

Bucky accepted the weight of that trust, he cupped your face and said softly, “I know, angel. I’m gonna take care of you. I promise.” 

You could’ve sworn he used superhuman speed with how fast he flipped the two of you, tossing you down on your bed as he climbed on top of you. He carefully grabbed your hand and brought it up to his mouth, kissing your knuckles softly as he whispered, “I’ll be gentle.” 

“Don’t be.” You pleaded, looking up at him. His hair framed his face in a perfectly messy way. His body was warm above you. Bucky was always warmer than most people, you figured it was a supersoldier thing. “I don’t want gentle.” 

He nodded. “Okay, angel. Remember, we can stop whenever you want to. Alright?” 

“Yes.” 

Bucky held your stare as he rapidly undid the buttons of your satin PJ top, and immediately diving in to take a nipple into his mouth once the top was open. Sucking, and biting until your back arched off the bed. 

“Bucky…” You gasped, and moaned as he alternated between each breast while his hand slipped down to pull your shorts and underwear down your legs until you kicked it off yourself. 

He pulled away to look at you, sprawled on the bed under him. Then he leaned in to whisper against your lips, “You don’t want gentle, huh? Well, you’re gonna be a good girl and do exactly as I say, okay? I need you to stop thinking, to stop calculating, and analysing, just listen to me. My voice and that’s it.” 

He knew what it was like – that feeling of wanting someone to just tell you what to do. It didn’t have to be sexual like right now, but just the loss of control in a safe, consensual way. With someone you trust blindly. He knew it could heal, partly at least. So he knew exactly what you needed right now. 

He kissed you roughly, taking what he wanted from your open, willing mouth before pulling away to look down at you with a dangerous, gorgeous smile on his lips. “You’re all mine now. You hear me?” He whispered against your mouth. “You’re my perfect girl. And my perfect girl doesn’t put herself down. She doesn’t think she's not good enough. She doesn’t think she’s done a bad job. She doesn’t think she’s fucked up. Because she’s not. She’s my good fucking girl, and she’s perfect. You hear me? You’re perfect.” 

You gasped as he lazily ran his metal fingers down your wet folds. 

“Look at you, such a good girl. Lying here so perfectly with your legs spread, just letting me touch you however I want.” He stated, grabbing your face in his other hand as he slid two metal fingers inside you. His voice was steady, controlled, and firm as he said, “This is how it’s gonna be from now on, okay? Whenever you need to be reminded how good you are, you come find me.” He slid his fingers deeper, pulling them out slowly in a way that he knew drove you insane, judging by the sounds you made. “Whenever the voices get too loud, you come find me.” He did it again. “Whenever it gets too dark, you come find me.” He leaned in, pressing his forehead against yours. “I’ll fix it, baby. I always will. You don’t have to carry all that alone, I’ll help you. I’ve got you from now on, you get that? You’re not alone, I’m here. I’ll always be here.” 

He had you coming all over his fingers in no time. He stroked you in all the right places and your body responded to each one of his lazy, deliberate strokes beautifully. You squirmed as he kept finger-fucking you through your orgasm. 

“There’s my perfect girl,” He cooed, watching you squirm and whine under him. “You did so well,” He kissed your cheek, then the other, “You sound so perfect when you come.” 

He pulled away for a brief moment, getting off of you and standing at the end of your bed, taking his t-shirt and sweatpants off but leaving his boxers, lowered just enough to free his erected cock. 

He stood there, wrapped his hand around his cock and stroked it twice while he held your stare. “It’s all for you, angel. All for you and no one else.” He said, watching with a slight smirk as you looked down at his cock and bit your lower lip. “Are you gonna be my good girl and take it?” 

You nodded quickly, “Yes.” Not even realising that all the prior shadowy thoughts had completely left your head. This was all you could focus on – him. Bucky. With his perfect body, and his beautiful hair, and his dreamy eyes. Nothing else existed. Nothing else mattered. 

Buckley climbed on top of you again. “Careful what you ask for, baby. Supersoldiers don’t get tired.” He sounded so cocky it made you only want him more just to prove him wrong. 

“I want you, please,” You begged, looking up at him with those eyes that made him weak.

One of his hands found its way to your throat and he wrapped his fingers around it carefully as he stared into your eyes. “Nothing else holds my girl in a chokehold but me, you hear that? Nothing else has power over you, but me. And you,” He leaned in closer to make sure his point got across, “You are my good girl. You’re enough. You do a great job everyday. You’re stronger than all that’s trying to drag you down. And you’re louder than all the dark voices, you hear me?” 

You nodded, the look in his eyes was so intense, so raw and sincere, and so shamelessly feral that you might’ve come undone right there if he asked you to. 

“You will come for me like my good girl, won’t you, baby?” He asked, guiding the tip of his cock over to your clit and circling it, smearing his precum and your wetness around. 

You whimpered at the sensation. So fucking good. You nodded rapidly, “Yes… please,” You begged. 

“Of course you will,” Bucky chuckled, “Because you’re my perfect girl.” He teased you a bit more by just pressing the tip of his cock against your tight hole. Not pushing it in, just pressing ever so gently until you whined and clawed at his neck and shoulders, sliding your fingers into his ridiculously soft hair and tugging on it gently. 

“Bucky, please.” You mumbled, “Please, please, please…” 

“I know baby, I know.” He said, keeping his hand around your throat, pinning you down on your bed with it. “I’m here, I’ll make it feel good.” He whispered, before pushing his cock all the way inside you. 

You gasped loudly at the same time as he groaned when he slid all the way in you. He remained still for a few moments, just relishing the feeling of your warmth around him. Your breath was shaky as you felt him fill you up and stretch you out so deliciously, snug, deep, and big inside you. 

Bucky looked down at your face contorting in pleasure as he breathed heavily. Then he moved just a little, and the slightest friction made you whine even louder. “Does that feel good, baby? Is that cock good enough for my perfect girl? Hmm?” 

“Yes…” You breathed, looking at his gorgeous face above you. Fuck, you could spend forever here under him. He felt so good. 

“Look at that,” He said, “You’re tearing up already,” He pointed out, noticing the wetness in the corners of your eyes. “Feel good inside you, don’t I?” He teased, rolling his hips just the slightest bit in between your thighs. 

You cried out in pleasure. 

He tightened his grip around your throat slightly and said, “I know baby, I know it feels good. This is exactly what my good girl deserves.” He whispered. Then he said, “Now, keep your pretty eyes on me. I want you to watch me while I fuck you, okay?” 

You nodded quickly, a tear escaping your eye already. Fuck, he felt so good. 

Bucky let out a grunt as he started fucking into you hard and fast. He tightened his grip around your throat as he sped up into you, holding your stare and telling you how good you felt. 

You could only respond with moans and whimpers, which only made him fuck you harder. 

He sped up into you, mumbling, “Knew you’d feel fucking amazing around me. ‘Cause you’re my perfect girl, aren’t you? Perfect, tight pussy as well.” He whispered, in a daze as he pounded into you. “You were fucking made for me.” 

Your body squirmed under him, your back arching off the bed, you were burning. Bright and hot. Like the fucking sun. And he was giving it to you like you wanted it, hard, fast and raw. 

His thrust was relentless, his weight on top of you felt too good. So good you never wanted him to pull out of you, so you raised your trembling legs and wrapped them around his hips. 

He chuckled when you did that. “Yeah? Don’t want me to stop, do you?” He taunted. “Just want me to keep going, keep fucking my good girl how she likes it, huh?” He pressed the sides of your throat as he fucked deeper into you. 

He watched as you got closer and closer to the edge. And just when you were right there… he stopped abruptly, and pulled out. 

You gasped in shock. 

“Oh what, you thought you could just come so easily?” He teased, grabbing you by the hips and flipping you around onto your stomach. “I tried to be nice and sweet to you, but that’s not what you want or need, is it, baby?” You moaned as he grabbed your wrists and pinned them to your lower back with one hand, while the other guided his cock over to your hole again. “You see? This is what you need.” He leaned over you to whisper into your ear, sliding back inside you as he said, “You wanted me to make you feel something, huh? Do you feel it now, baby?” He tugged on your pinned wrists, which made you whine in pain and pleasure. “You feel me inside you? Right where I belong, isn’t it?” 

You nodded, rubbing your face against your dark, cool bed sheets. “Yes…” 

He began fucking into you from behind, hard and fast. Mercilessly. Like he was claiming you. Marking his territory. Rough. Raw. The pleasure was overwhelming, building, and building, and building… 

Until you couldn’t hold it back much longer… 

“Come for me, angel.” He whispered, lips brushing against your ear. “Be my good girl and come all over…” 

You didn’t hear the rest. You came all over his cock with a loud moan, gasping and crying as he came right after you – filling you up with his cum as he did. You were gasping for air, and so was he. His body weight on top of you felt nice, his body heat felt nice. Everything was nice, light, and perfect. 

He let go of your wrists and then you felt him kiss along your spine, gently. Softly. Like he hadn’t been fucking you like an animal just seconds ago. “You okay, baby?” He asked, pressing a kiss to the back of your neck. “My pretty girl, so perfect for me.” 

You were still catching your breath when Bucky lay beside you and pulled you into his arms. You immediately clung to his side. 

“I’ve got you.” He whispered. 

You sighed, with a faint smile forming on your face. Your cheek pressing against his damp chest. “Thank you, Buck.” Your mind was quiet, but in a good way. “I needed that.” 

“I know.” He murmured, rubbing your back in that soothing way he always did. 

But then, you still had one question. “How did you know when to come find me? I texted you I was going to bed.” How did he even know to come and check on you? How did he know you weren’t doing well at all? 

A smirk, then he said, “I always know what my girl needs.” 

You teased, “Your girl, huh?” 

“You’ve always been my girl.” 

—

a/n: [escapes my padded cell to throw this at your face]

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

Compiled some sketches I’ve done of Astarion and my Tav :) cuties fr

Marvel you better not fuck this up AGAIN

ah fuck who am I kidding the Russo brothers are in charge they're gonna fuck this up again and i'm gonna be down bad crying at the cinema--

@lokisgoodgirl @lokischambermaid @holdmytesseract @alexakeyloveloki @smolvenger @five-miles-over @ladyofthestayingpower @maple-seed @gigglingtiggerv2 @thedistractedagglomeration @lulubelle814 @joyful-enchantress @give-me-a-moose @loopsisloops @tallseaweed @simplyholl @ijuststareatstuffhereok89 ++

Why can I see Malyshka and Bee having closet ROOMS instead of regular closets bc Bucky buys so much

Bee's closet is so big that Mr. Tato has his own section for all his costumes.

And she can walk around her mama's closet every day and still find new items. (Bee also likes to go "shopping" in there).

Malyshka started with a massive walk in closet but Bucky quickly upgraded it when he realized they're wasn't going to be enough for room for everything he wanted to buy her. He hadn't even proposed at that point. But he knew what her life was going to be like with him and he planned accordingly.

Now she has an entire room dedicated to her outfits. It has multiple full length mirrors, a display case for her jewelry, a gorgeous built in floor to ceiling showcase for her shoes, rotating racks for her clothes.

It's luxurious and extravagant and Bucky wouldn't let her have anything less.

chill, Loki x GN!Reader

A/N: here to post a super duper quick oneshot in between my studying for finals. I couldn't resist this one, and it's very self indulgent as I deal with another bout of anxiety pains. Still, even if it's not particularly relatable to everyone, I hope it is still entertaining enough to be enjoyed <33 I hope to be back soon with more!

thank you to @cafekitsune for my usual choice of dividers! :)

(we don't get enough soft Loki smiles, okay? Loki's literally just a girl, this diva needs to smile more)

ALSO!!!

TW/CW: mentions to anxiety here!! Not a panic attack or anything, but reader is mentioned to be actively dealing with it and is dealing with anxiety related muscle tension

It was a loud thrum inside of you. You usually explained it as it being in your head, but you also felt it in the aches all over your body, your tense shoulders, in the feeling of your heart sitting heavy and uncomfortable in your chest. Every day felt like a new development. Some days, heat worked to ease the tension. Other days, it didn’t, and you had to sit there and let the uneasiness interweave itself with your being. Anxiety sucked.

For the past few days, you’d been dealing with really bad tension in the shoulders and neck. Whilst heat didn’t seem to be helping, ice was. So here you were, laying in bed on a weekend, an ice pack on the back of your neck easing the tension and the slight dizziness that came with it, your two worst companions lately.

“… What in the Norns?”

You  startle at the unexpected voice of your partner, Loki. The door to your bedroom was slightly open, and as he’d been walking by, he saw you lying on your stomach, ice pack on the back of your neck. You didn’t understand his offense.

“What is it?”

“What-” He scoffs. “What is it? Is that an ice pack, dearest?”

“Yes…? Are we cross with them at the moment?”

“Well, I might be amenable to that now.” He huffs, pointedly entering the bedroom and closing the door behind himself, as if to keep this entire conversation under wraps.

“What are you doing, my love?”

“… Icing my neck.” You say dumbly. You were clearly missing something. “I’m all tense again and anxious deep inside and it’s like churning upwards-” You cut your rambling off. Sometimes it felt like no one truly could understand what it was like. Especially because it was so different from person to person, too.

He sighs, moving to sit on the edge of your bed, a hand on your lower back. You can see his lip twitch briefly when you mention how tense you are, but he schools it, opting to be mature. For now.

“I am sorry you feel that way once again, my love.” He rubs your back gently. “But I am also deeply offended by your choice of tool this time around.”

You turn your head back around to look at him curiously, eyebrow raised.

He sighs dramatically, looking up to the ceiling briefly.

“You have chosen to use a measly packet of frozen, quickly melting, gelatinous mixture to ease your pains. Have you forgotten who you share your wonderful bed with every night?” He mirrors your raised eyebrow. A challenge.

Feeling particularly tired and drained, you can’t exactly figure out what he’s criticizing now.

“… You wanted me to use the bag of peas instead…? More surface are?”

He huffs indignantly.

“No. You have a wonderful, powerful, attractive, intelligent God in your bed, my darling.” He sits up higher as he talks, looking all proud. “What’s more, is that I am a Jotun. Or did your clever, delicious mind opt to forget that piece of information for today?”

As he talks, he leans over, pressing a gentle, fleeting kiss to your right shoulder blade.

“Loki… I know that. But this is a silly problem. Nothing too serious, and you always claim you’re ‘too busy’ to do stuff around the house.” You say gently, sighing with relief as you move the ice pack slightly to the left, letting it hit a new part of your neck.

He looks at the gel pack as if it has personally insulted his choice of Asgardian garb one too many times throughout his long life.

“My darling…” He croons, putting on that charming tone he likes to use when he wants to get out of something. Another kiss to your shoulder blade. “I don’t do things around the house because I am a God. And a Prince, if we must be specific. But you… I would do anything for you. What’s more, I love to do you.” He speaks slowly, the last bit evidently making him grin.

You huff, not dignifying him with a response to that salacious comment.

“That’s great, baby, but what are you offering here?”

“What am I offering? I am offering to be a mortal’s ‘ice pack’. You should be very, very honoured. Kneeling at my feet, even.” He murmurs.

“Maybe later.” You quip back dryly, turning back to rest your cheek against the pillow.

He makes an unhappy sound, and suddenly, the weight of the ice pack disappears from the back of your neck. Your hand reaches for it, trying to find it, when Loki’s suddenly finds yours.

“Do not fret, dearest. Your favourite little ice pillow is back in your freezing compartment.” He explains calmly, fingers interlacing with yours, his lips suddenly kissing your knuckles, too.

“It’s called a freezer, Loki.”

“Mm.” He hums noncommittally. “Do you still ache?”

“Yeah, but it’s not as bad.”

“Well, with the ice having abandoned you, I suppose I must rise to the challenge.” He sighs again, almost sadly, as if to express how difficult his life is.

As if he doesn’t lounge around your place like a cat every day.

“You’re the one who made the pack disappear, it’s literally your doing-”

“Shhh, shh, shh, shh.” He shushes you, petting your head like a mother would do to a fussy babe.

You feel almost offended enough to hit his chest or something. But he wouldn’t even care. In fact, he’d like it.

“Fret not, my dearest, sweetest love. You are in the hands of an expert masseur.”

“Lucky me. This won’t end in sex, though.” You warn him.

“Well… not before I’ve even started, no.” He agrees, chuckling softly at his wit.

Just as the back of your neck has started to go back to room temperature and you’ve eased your face back into the pillow, you jolt at the feeling of cold fingers on your neck.

There’s a snort from the (supposedly) very clever and sage God behind you.

“Oops… I forgot to warn you. My mistake.” He says with a tad of forced remorse.

He goes quiet for a bit, moving onto your shared bed in order to sit up against the headboard, letting his hand rest more comfortably and naturally onto your neck. There’s another brief fizz of magic, and then you hear him opening some book or other.

“You can rest now, my love.” He says tenderly, tone much more honest, now. “My hand shall stay there for as long as you need and bring you eternal relief. Unlike that ice pillow.” He mutters derisively.

“… Thank you.” Your answer comes softly, too.

He rubs a cold thumb over the back of your neck in response.

You both sit in quaint, comfortable silence for a while, the sound of book pages turning soothing you into near-sleep. As promised, his hand does not stray, move, or lift itself off your neck. Eventually, the cold of it even gets to be too much, and you move to reach for the blankets, intending to warm yourself up with them.

Loki’s side of the bed goes quiet, and his hand lifts off your neck. He tuts softly.

“What is it now, dearest? Are you cold, now?” He teases softly, leaning down to press a kiss to the cold skin of your neck. He could never resist.

“Mmhmm. Thank you for your services, babe, but I think that was enough for now.” You reply, still feeling a tad bit sleepy.

You pull the covers over yourself, and lay down with the intent of a nap. Your peace doesn’t last long at all, before Loki slides in beneath the covers with you, hands seeking you out and grasping at you. He attaches himself to you like a barnacle, and you can’t help your sleepy smile.

“I thought you were reading…?” You say lazily, words slow and tired.

“Well, yes, but I’ve read that story hundreds of times. It’s centuries old, darling. You are not.” He flirts, kissing your jaw.

“No, but you are.” You snort.

“I see how it is. I was going to offer you a massage, you know. One to warm you up, now that it’s clear just how sensitive you are to temperatures. Mortals… why was I even surprised?” He sighs. “That offer is certainly off the table now that you have called me old.”

He goes quiet again, and you nearly manage to fall back asleep. But of course, he goes back to talking all of a sudden.

“Might I remind you how very delightful I am as a bed partner, my love? Hm? Might I? We are formidable together. Truly. A true menace to your neighbors’ peace and respite. But yes… my mistake, of course. I am old.” He whispers into your ear, the quiet of it not at all enough to stifle his apparent offense.

“… Sorry.” You mumble back.

“Yes, well… I suppose that’ll do. I can’t expect mere mortals to be consistently eloquent, can I?” He murmurs, now focusing intently on kissing your neck, clearly deeming your half-assed apology satisfactory.

“You’re getting soft.” You tease. “You’re so easy to satiate nowadays.”

“Nonsense, dearest. On both counts.” He grins, biting your neck briefly.

Last golden thoughts

Bucky Barnes x fem!exwife reader

*follows the original thunderbolts plot line and thunderbolts!Bucky

Warnings: minor spoilers, mild swearing, angst?

Word count: 4.7k+

summary: Congressman Barnes’ marriage did not end for the better only for his paths to cross again with his ‘wife’ in the most unpleasant fashion where he last expected her to be

an: you guys went crazy over this so I had to finish this in two days we are sooooooo back

—

​As red guardian’s fancy, gaudy and however bulletproof-ish limousine made a flip at Bucky’s detonator. The relieved group of delinquents inside were overcome with shock, bracing themselves for the fall, gripping handles tightly as the surprisingly present airbags opened in their faces. Ghost was the first one out evidently being more equipped to exit in the blink of an eye. Others fell with a thud a collective ache in everyone’s joints, groaning trying to find their way out ever so impatiently. Ghost broke the door open as Bucky was getting closer. In the front seat red guardian needed most strength to be extracted out of the vehicle.

By then Bucky had reached with a task at hand, Ava and Yelena focused more on trying to get red guardian out, “Not cool man” Alexei said in his heavy accent to the long haired who they’d assumed was here to help them.

With a swift tug with his metal arm Bucky pulled the backseat door right off its hinges, before he could lean John was already on his way out, the person following John out made his eyes widen. “You?!” He exclaimed putting his hands on her shoulders instinctively but she brushed him off and got out herself. “Have you lost your mind?! Don’t tell me you were in the goddamn vault with these-“

Standing up on her feet instantly, trying to regain balance given her vision was a bit dizzy after going through a flipping car. “You lunatic-“ she lunged at him but she was still evidently dizzy and had weak steps, he easily dodged. “You could have gotten us all killed!”

“Stop, stop!” Bucky’s hands were surprisingly of a gentle grip on her shoulders yet again, wanting her to find her footing again. “Are you alright?” He asked scanning for major injuries, if he had known she was in the car he would approached in a way less reckless way.

“Get off of me-!” Taken aback by his might to just downplay the weight of the situation, falling into old habits like they were getting reunited or something.

“Husband mode eh?” Alexei commented with a snicker, Bucky took it well, someone else didn’t.

“He’s not my husband!” She barked almost instantly and pushed Bucky even further, even after he’d let go off her shoulders.

Another truck circled around them, “With me” Bucky told them expecting them to follow without much resistance was really some heavy wishful thinking.

The red guardian was already walking, a lot of faith in the metal armed man when Yelana stoped him by his arm, “And why should we just follow you after you crashed us?”

“Bucky you do realise you could get years for attempted murder on captain America-“ Jon was stopped mid sentence by the others taking an offence at him calling himself captain America and less bothered by the attempted murder.

“You were all being chased by trucks with machine guns and I’m sure more are on the way. This is the middle of nowhere if you have better options than getting in the truck you’re all very welcome to do so” Bucky said crossing his arms, the truck driver probably one of bucky’s favour agents got on his bike and left the truck for him.

Red guardian was the first to pitch in to agree with him, Yelena and Ava had their suspicions. “It’s the worse of two I suppose” Ava said with a sigh.

“It’s not like you have anything on us and we outnumber you so there’s that.” Yelana started walking as the rest followed, no obvious threat so far.

“If it’s our help you need Bucky you know you can just ask.” Walker said with his ever high confidence in himself, it never fails to be less staggering.

“Are you people actually considering this?!” Y/n was the only one who stayed put in her place not trusting everyone’s and especially bucky’s instincts to follow him into god knows where, “We can’t trust this man-“

“‘This man’ honey? Really?” Bucky quoted her absolute disregard for their history like he was some stranger she detested so much. He wasn’t walking back to the truck either, well aware of stubborn she was he was ready to let this play out for a while and eventually take matters, her, quite literally into his own hands.

“Don’t call me that!” The disgust on her face was as though he had committed at atrocity, the others had already started accommodating themselves in the truck for her to get her point across.

“You know all this anger really isn’t good for your health.” He told her, leaning a bit forward and she stiffened.

“You know what would be good for you? Letting me be” she told him uncrossing her arms and the last of her ‘loser’fest team were already walking into the truck.

“Why would you get yourself into this mess? You know you are better than this and please don’t tell me you were in the vault” it felt so natural to fall back into old habits for Bucky. The soft scolding with an undertone of concern and frustration. He didn’t miss this feeling of dread that he was yet again so close to losing her but he was grasping at straws into conversations with her, after the divorce she had blocked his number, locked their old apartment just recently because he kept finding reasons to visit her over and over. Even stopped all streaming subscriptions he couldn’t even work through without her so if this was the conversation he could make he’d take what he can get.

“You are the last person I’m answerable to.” She clarified him losing his keeping tabs privileges on her as their marriage fell. It was the least pleasant feeling to be harsh against anyone, even him, despite of what he did. But if it she acted even a bit less colder it would give him hope to no end. So she kept it up and walked across him, he stayed unmoving from her way and her shoulder brushed his somewhat rudely she didn’t even account it. He felt good about her casually striding against him as if his touch didn’t repel her anymore. Idiot.

Before she could climb into the back of the truck with the rest of them he stopped her getting inside himself first and swiftly started cuffing everyone, “hey what the hell” Yelena said struggling against him but those high tech binds were so swift she couldn’t retaliate in enough time.

“Come on Bucky you know me is this really necessary?” John scoffed trying to break free of the cuffs but or was no use.

“She was right” Ava said nodding at the woman standing outside the truck unfazed Bucky would pull this, trying to make the run for it into ghost mode but the cuffs kept her hands in place so she couldn’t even move forward in her projecting form.

“You, in the front” Bucky said looking back at her and she obviously defied it.

“Why?” She scoffed not wanting to walk into his plan after he literally cuffed all her acquaintances. “We are not your little evidential gifts against Valentina”

“She did try to kill you all” Red guardian chimed in as Yelena nodded about the fact.

“It doesn’t align with our principles if he is the one who turns us in, we could do it ourselves” the fact that ‘Congressman Barnes’ would get all credit for brining Valentina’s assets in after they risked their lives to get out really didn’t sit right with her.

“Why would we turn ourselves in at all?” Ava questioned not really into the idea of getting under oath whatsoever.

“Exactly. It is up to us what we decide not him” So glad the others saw her point at least now, despite of walking into getting themselves tied up.

“It really isn’t” he shrugged and pointed to another one of automobiles from vault’s base at a far distance. “Say no and I’d leave you all here to fend for yourself.” No one but her would be ready to call his bluff. He knew that she knew that too well that he would rather fight off nearly everyone in that truck than put her in harm’s way but he had to convince the others somehow and it seemed to work well enough as he got out of the back container to get into the driver’s seat.

“Why doesn’t she get tied up?” John questioned as she had to walk to the passenger seat on Bucky’s uncalled for demand.

“She is the missus!” Red guardian said stating the obvious and a shrug, already under the cool influence of Bucky to question it.

“They’re divorced” John pointed out

“Doesn’t seem like it was mutual” Yelena commented gaining a snicker from Alexei.

-

In the front, looking out the window as Bucky pushed it on the accelerator, “Where are we going?”

“New York” he answered her without much debate or resistance, if he were to recall there was never a time he could lie to her. He would never want to.

She didn’t have much questions to ask because she didn’t want to give answers to the ones he would ask back, not without consulting the rest anyways. Besides she would rather turn herself in than to afford another conversation with him. With a heavy sigh she looked out the window crossing her arms.

He looked in her direction, eyes softening despite the gravity of the situation they were in. The exhaust on her face was evident, “There are some pain killers in the cabinet.” He told her.

No response for her equated to her disinterest in taking them, he knew she hated any sort of antibiotics or meds just to push through her pain but it was worth the shot, as stubborn as she was he hates her open wounds. He opened the cabinet and got out the patching kit, whilst his other hand was still on the steering wheel. He opened the pack between his teeth and applied antiseptic on the patches, without asking he put it on her forehead where she’s seemed to have taken a bad hit. “Ow” she grumbled in pain but needless to say it was a required patchwork for the bleeding. “I’ve got it” she said taking it from his hand on her forehead into her own.

Her palms against his arm…he hadn’t felt it in so long. His hand was much larger in her comparison he’d always noted that. Being reminded of that again made him want to intertwine his fingers in hers and hope she could undo every moment he had to be away from her.

Eventually he took his hand away and put it on the driving clutch, even though it wasn’t a manual drive, he just couldn’t contain the life coursing through him after her hands touched him against. It’s these minuscule of interactions with her that gave him so much purpose. At first when he saw her in the flipped car he felt awful she was here in the first place but now he has her right next to him on the road to New York and he feels bad for wishing the miles are longer than they usually are.

“Hey this is not a manual drive” she was quick to pick that up when he didn’t take his hand off the clutch for a while being lost in thought, unrecovered from her touch.

“Oh” he nodded taking his hand off and back to the steering, “I know” he had to shift the conversation “You practised on our old manual when you were renewing your license right?”

“Your old manual was a good car” she said emphasising on ‘your’ given the fall out.

“I wonder why we let it go.” He was left bemused trying to remember what was the reason to let it go given it wasn’t a bad car.

“You wanted to let it go because it was taking up too much space in the garage after the engine got way too old to be repaired” She reminded him thinking back to it now, it had become an old junk but the two of them held onto it for quite a while. Working on it on the weekends, basically he’d work on it and she would keep the conversation. She had a joke that Bucky was pursuing his abandoned mechanic dream every weekend on that car, that black sleeveless vest top laying his biceps all bare and as hot as he was working on the engine she hated the grime and the smell of automobile oil, he would purposely encage her between his arms and kiss her all over, then shower together later. Snap out of it.

“Had a good run with it, it even had a cassette player system” Bucky looked at her but she wasn’t looking back at him. Clearing her throat she shifted in her seat, they got rid of that car before they had a conversation of getting rid of their marriage but maybe the forthcoming was evident.

“It didn’t have that you modified it that way because we had a lot of cassettes between us” she corrected him as her lips curled into a small smile.

“Oh right” he nodded mirroring her smile, it just happened with him involuntarily every time she smiled and this was his first time in a while. “I think I lost some from my set, I maybe have 10-12 tapes left which is crazy given my set had about a 100”

“How would you lose them you never took them out of the house?” She asked with a faux confused look on her face.

“Exactly! It’s like they just vanished” he told her shaking his head, “I think the house needs a bit going over for me to find them”

Just humming in response she leaned back in the seat as the two fell into silence again, it wasn’t comfortable but it wasn’t awkward either. Nostalgia was often ugly. Their minds were going through ugly sweet things, Bucky’s mind wasn’t going through nostalgia it was in its usual state: consistent reminiscing of their marriage. In his life he didn’t have much things to lose in the first place except for her, she was the last golden thoughts he could have before he’d sleep and the first before he’d wake up all day, everyday. He didn’t have much to think back to fondly but it changed when she walked out of his life.

As he drove through the terrains, glancing through both the side view mirrors then back at her, she had fallen asleep. Leaning against the window, her eyes closed with a completely serene expression on her face he hadn’t seen in so long. She had actually fallen asleep around him. The scene had a strange intimacy to him, the fact that her mind still considered him safe enough to fall asleep around. Even after all dodged calls and messages, all the get-outs, changing her ways to not come across him in the city, telling everyone her mistrust in ‘this man’ yet she could fall asleep with him at the wheel just like the old times.

When they reached the abandoned safe house Bucky didn’t deem it proper to wake her up when she was already so exhausted. The others tied up and over explaining the Bob situation did not let her absence go unnoticed “What did you do with her?!” Ava asked, high suspicions it wasn’t good.

“We should have listened when she told us to be careful about you, he probably left her back there” Yelena said with a scoff, such a decorated man stooping so low.

“Woah woah” Bucky was crazed at the fact that these people assumed that he would hurt her, of all people. “She is still in the truck, she was sleeping very soundly so I didn’t want to wake her up.”

The red guardian snickered, “A real lover!” He commented in a positive way.

“Grow a pair, Bucky” John scoffed leaning against his binds, the man was on the phone for a while and would’ve happily disregarded Walked’s comments anyways.

“Are you like the podcast men?” Alexei asked facing Walker.

“—What does that mean?”

“Toxic masculinity, not good, insecure—bad just bad, are you them?” Alexei listed off his

very accurate descriptions of men who run podcasts.

“Men who run podcasts aren’t all that” Walker said rolling his eyes at the man’s poor judgement of those guys. “Besides Bucky is not a real lover, he’s freshly divorced”

“Do you not see the wedding ring?” Alexei asked nudging in bucky’s direction, the thick gold band was hard to miss: by anyone.

“Probably just wears it because it’s real gold or something” which was a bit ironic because even as a separated husband he didn’t have one on.

“On his wedding finger?” Ava asked raising a brow as she indulged in the divorce too, tied up they had nothing better to talk about.

Before Yelena could pitch in her two cents too, Bucky got off the phone and started freeing the set of ‘thunderbolts’ out of their ties. Giving them a brief explanation of wanting to help Bob they were all on board, as they headed back down to the truck, it was empty. The back and the front, the highly trained ex assassin went full into visible panic mode with her out of sight. A specific drop of his heart only her absence could cause him to feel.

It was difficult trying to explain to the bunch of all-of-a-sudden-ride-or-dies god knows where she picked up from, that her husband of three years and counting with a small bump of divorce of four months would be the last person in this world to hurt her. However difficult it was he managed to get his point across and decided they were off to a detour before getting to Valentina’s HQs.

Once they loaded back in the truck he drove with determination to get where he had deduced he would find her. Their old apartment, she kept her original gear there. If there was one thing he knew about her she was to never back down from a fight, however big and impossible. That had been his biggest fright throughout their marriage, not a single bone in his body had moved on from.

Bucky thought he could fetch her back down himself but he thought wrong, apparently they did not trust him with her so all or thunderbolts went up the six story building. As expected the door was open, “How many times have I told you to keep this locked?” It really wasn’t difficult to fall back into old habits. Always leaving in a hurry, always forgetting to lock doors. He thought to himself but it wasn’t just about locking the door when he hoped the door was open.

“Again?!” She exclaimed walking out of the bedroom into the living fixing the belts around her gear, her old gear. The most trusted one. It was a superstition of hers really, Bucky knew it affected nothing no combat flexibility or space…it was just old. “How did you all not manage to lose him?”

“We didn’t know if you left or he did something” Ava filled her in about her doubting their capabilities to lose Bucky by choice.

“He wouldn’t.”

“—I wouldn’t!”

Both of them said at the same time.

To avert the sync she refocused on strapping her knives into her suit, in all places and possible belt gaps. “Hey, is that mine?” Bucky’s attention went to the set of two in her hands she was about to fixate.

“No it’s not.” Caught, she hurriedly tried to wrap it in her suit.

“Yes it is, those are mine!” He huffed; it had been a long while since he had to be in a position where he would need all his knives but he remembers and counts all the ones he’s had and he knew exactly which ones were missing, surprisingly right after the divorce. “That set is a wedding gift from Sam if I remember correctly!”

“Exactly! It was my wedding too I can keep them!” She stood her ground, well aware it was a set of two, one for him&her type but it was too beautiful to break the set and she wanted both those knives. He hadn’t noticed it this entire time.

“You don’t get to keep them both I get to keep one.” He argued, validly so. “I can’t believe you just took these both with you letting me know once”

“You never asked! All this time you kept coming at my place for the pillow covers, cushions-literally last month you knocked on my door because you thought I took the tv remote with me! You never asked about these” she pointed at the knives and somewhere along the lines both of them knew Bucky was just finding reasons to see her again and she was allowing it too.

“Wow” Yelena commented at the desperate measure. Given the time they were short on this bickering was too intresting to be stopped abruptly.

In the haste to keep the knives to herself in her suit dropped it, giving Bucky the leverage to pick it up and examine it. He bent down to get it and found stored cassettes in the coffee table. “You have got to be kidding me!” He exclaimed frustrated as he got out all the cassettes, he thought were missing. “You had these the whole time?!”

“—I must have packed them by mistake when I moved out” she shrugged trying to downplay how purposeful it was but he saw through it.

“These are all my classics, you didn’t even ask me before taking them in the settlement?!” Bucky huffed going through the tapes.

Cursing under her breath she face palmed herself, for some reason this day was getting way too long. “Look I know the divorce agreement never said-“

“I didn’t even read that” Bucky scoffed shuffling through the tapes he thought he had ‘lost.’

“You signed it without reading?” Surprised she raised her brows.

He put the box down on the coffee table and nodded with a shrug, making a mental note that he will come by at her place over and over for all the tapes and not just take them altogether. There were around 93 tapes in there which belonged to him. 93 excuses to see her. “It was you, I just trust you.”

“See!” Alexei cackled giving Walker a big pat on his back for being right about the lovers fact. “Very silver springs”

“Silver springs?” Yelena asked raising her brows at the refrence.

“Like the song.” Alexei spoke with his thick accent ‘Like zhe songh’ “Never get away from the sound of a woman that loved you” he even relayed the lyrics from the group, Ava nodding at the obvious relation.

“He still wears the wedding ring though” Yelena pointed out trying to frame the dynamics of who’s who for the song reference.

“He would be Stevie Nicks.” Ava clarified stating the obvious as Alexei smiled wide at her, nothing like someone getting the perfect reference.

“What the hell?” The ex wife in question did not take that insult lightly, she didn’t point it out all these months why he still kept wearing the wedding ring. “Real good manipulation tactics, Congressman Barnes.”

“I didn’t even say anything!” Bucky exclaimed unsure how he got under the bus even though the Silver Springs refrence say very right with him. Eire how that refrence came up when no one knew he’s been having sessions of that song in his car ever since she left.

“You need to take off that wedding ring and the whole oh-she-left-me boo hoo theatrics like it wasn’t a mutual decision!” She let out unable to keep it in after these months of heartbroken yet preserving congressman Barnes, all the press issues.

“You know it wasn’t.” Bucky shot back, “I just didn’t want to you to work for Valentina and look what you’re gearing up for! The woman who tried to incinerate you!”

“It was a miscalculation of the job I took up and I got myself alive out of that” it was so frustrating trying to debate this again.

“You chose working for her over me! Over our marriage!” Bucky’s voice grew a bit louder than when he said before and the others just witnessed this break out awkwardly.

“Shouldn’t we let them have this conversation privately?” John muttered looking for the cue to exit this scene.

“No.” Alexei, regardless of his fanboy tendencies towards Barnes, he was somewhat interested in witnessing this, he was the least tensed person in the room. Ava and Yelena didn’t want to exit for the sake of interjecting just in case.

“No I chose a life you couldn’t dictate!” She cried out just as intensely as his voice. “And do not put this on me as if you don’t know what you did.”

“I saved your life that day. Just like today.” Bucky said in a lower voice flatly. Very unbothered and cold to the notion of saving her life, it was such a given to him. She would put herself in such situations and he would just have to make do. Reckless with not much thought but he could always rely on himself to keep that head over her shoulder.

“You put me in danger that day!” The agony in her voice was so evident, “You let me work on that assignment for months and on the final day—you leaked my coordinates on purpose so that Congressmen Barnes can have the best packet, you wanted to Valentina dragged to court and you got that at my expense.”

Putting his arms on his hips; taking in a deep breath. It was planned yes, he gave the feds her location for the OXE group mission she was put on, he could have told her to never take up the job but it had already led to so many countless fights. She had helped him through his electoral campaigns, supported him through it all but it just wasn’t the right fit for her. Combat was all she had known life to be so far, so her let her have her gigs. However he didn’t realise she could also work for Valentina without much thought and by the time he could pitch in she had already accepted the joke. He could have stopped it then too, but he didn’t. There was a bigger gig for him in it, exposing his wife’s secret assignment is how he got Valentina into impeachment proceedings.

Bucky wasn’t proud of keeping it a secret from her the entire time she was working on that assignment but it didn’t prove to be non fruitful, “I am the one who had to bear the expense of you leaving because you didn’t have it in yourself to stay, you just ran. Like a coward. Like always.”

That was a poke at a really old wound, she wasn’t a habitual leaver but at times when stuff got emotionally thick her fight or flight response was not fight. The first time, before they were even together…she always stayed away and distant and after their job was done, Sam upholding the shield. She just left. Leaving everything between Bucky and herself to be unsaid and be lost in fragments of season he just went after her, got the girl and the resr was history. Wretched, domestic, sad, far, a marriage in their history. However she couldn’t stomach that, “You piece of shit-!” She lunged at him full force and he barely held up his defence. More than happy for her to have at it.

“Woah woah woah” Walker spoke as chaos erupted in the small living room itself, not even out in the field yet.

Yelena got a hold of her however Ava wasn’t into the idea of not letting her get her frustration out, Alexei pulled back away, “We are the thunderbolts. Thunderbolts don’t fight ourselves. Not like this.” He said as the fight seemed to break.

“I am no teammates with any of you, especially that man!“ anger still coursing through her she pointed at Bucky as Yelena kept swaying her farther.

“Yeah yeah I think he gets it” Yelena tried to soothe her anger down so he could move on from this outburst.

“Can we just move on with the task at hand?” Before John could even finish that sentence Bucky was walking out the apartment broodingly, slamming the door open out of his way.

She stayed in her place taking in a few deep breaths in order to process it fast enough as everyone left, Yelena stayed with her, nodding off to red guardian in a small look that said ‘I’ve got her.’ “You okay?”

“-Yeah…let’s just get going.”

-

Please let me know if this story is a drag…for some reason it seemed better in my head than this! Regardless tune in for final two if you liked it! ;)

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