rivers-rambles21

[rivers-rambles21]

No Strings Attached

Ex!Steve Rogers x Reader

Summary: “Every time you’ve called me, I’ve come,” Steve says, voice thick with hurt, and you clench your teeth. “Every. Time.”

Warnings: smut! language, hurt, exes to lovers <3

Notes: this is one of my fave oneshots i've ever written tbh. i really love the trope of people breaking up, because of xyz issue, and then the person with xyz issue actively works to resolve or change it, but with no expectation of reuniting, just because they want to be a better person. so ye, that's basically this whole fic lmao

Words: 15,849

You make a sort of doe-eyed blank expression as you listen, that makes your building’s security guard duck his head a little lower into your line of sight and wave his hand.

“Ma’am?” You blink suddenly, snapping out of your spiralling thoughts and focus back on the man’s face.

“Huh?”

He smiles sympathetically and repeats himself.

“I asked if you had anybody who might come stay with you tonight? Super said he can’t get a hold of anybody who can change your lock…” You sigh and look around him at your door, it’s lock busted and breaking through the wood of the door.

You’d arrived home to find it like that, although the cops the security guy had insisted on calling said that it looked like no thief actually made it inside, probably got spooked. Seeing as none of your stuff was stolen or out of place, you’d have said they were right.

You run a hand over your hair and sigh.

“Uhm. Yeah. Yeah I do.” You nod your head, not actually coming up with a name off the top of your head, but you’re sure you’ll think of someone once you have a moment to breathe. The security guard nods.

“Do you want me to wait until they get here?” You smile and shake your head.

“Oh, no, no… it’s fine! I’ll be okay until then!” You assure him. You know he got paid for every hour he spent on the door, and not for any he didn’t.

He checks with you twice more before he leaves, and you shut your busted door behind him, slipping your side table in front of it in the meantime before you fumble through your bag for your phone.

You stare at your home screen for a solid two minutes, mind going over the people you’d feel comfortable calling, who you’d actually feel safe having stay with you overnight, and for the life of you, you can only come up with one name.

Unfortunately, this name belonged to your ex.

It wasn’t as if you and Steve Rogers hadn’t broken up amicably, or at least, you hadn’t ended badly, but for a moment you debate with yourself on if you really need to call anyone at all. You think about sleeping, knowing your apartment door was basically open.

You bring up his contact.

The first thing you see is a list of past calls and texts, the date signalling that the last time you’d called him had been almost seven months ago, and for a moment your eyes linger on that.

Seven months? It hardly felt like it, really.

You and Steve had met through work. You worked in the forensics at Avengers Tower, and so you’d occasionally see each other when the team had lab work to be done. It had been a slow progression for him to ask you out, and when he had, the two of you dated successfully for an entire year. Things were always slow with Steve, due in part to his schedule making it hard to really get anything done. If he wasn’t on a mission, he was resting from a mission, and the times you did go out or see one another were a lot less than you would have liked.

It’s why you broke up.

Steve was a great guy, the best you’d ever dated, but his work was his first true love and honestly? You required more attention than he could give. You weren’t needy exactly, but when you made a plan, you tended to expect to follow through. Steve’s last minute missions, or his cancelling and rescheduling was understandable in his line of work, and if had only been every so often, you’d have been just fine.

But it wasn’t, and you weren’t.

And so… you’d broken up. You’d explained to him that while you really liked him, you just didn’t mesh well together. He’d been understandably upset, but had told you he got it. You’d parted on good terms, with only a residual sadness lingering behind. Even now, you felt a small jolt of angst at even seeing his name written. Really, Steve was your perfect guy, and if he’d ever been around, you might’ve been able to experience more of that perfection.

You shake your thoughts aside and tap the call button, bringing the phone to your ear and waiting as the dial tone rings out. You can’t help but chew your lip as you wait, anxiety beginning to well up.

What if he didn’t answer?

What if he was on a mission?

What if he saw your name, and then didn’t answe—

“Hello?” You nearly gasp at hearing his voice, seven months suddenly feeling longer than before and you swallow thickly to remember why you were even calling in the first place.

“Steve… hey, it’s uh, me…”

“Yeah, I… I have caller ID on this phone.”

“Finally switch from the flip, huh?” You can’t help but shoot back, smile covering your features when you hear his warm chuckle on the other side.

“Yeah, it was time to change things up… Is everything okay?” Maybe he can hear it in your voice, or maybe he’s just that confused as to why you’re randomly calling him at ten on a Tuesday night, but you hear a note of concern in his reply that makes you want to curl up into a ball.

“Um… not really, no… I got home a little while ago and someone had tried breaking into my place—”

“—What? Are you okay? Did they take anything?!” You chuckle awkwardly at his immediate worry.

“Yeah, no— I mean, yes I’m okay, no they didn’t take anything.” You assert, and can practically see him letting out a breath.

“Uhm… I do have a favour to ask though, and I wouldn’t call if I had anybody else, but—”

“—Of course, whatever it is, just let me know.” You let out a shaky sigh and swallow again.

“The lock on my door is busted, and my super can’t get anybody in to fix it until tomorrow… I just… really don’t want to sleep here alone, with a broken door…” On the other side of the line you can hear keys clinking, and feel your tummy flop in dangerous ways.

“I’m coming out now. You want me to stay on the line?” You could fall to your knees and praise every god in existence for the special kind of beautiful Steve Rogers was.

“No, I’m okay, I just don’t wanna be alone later…” You cringe a little at how that might sound like a proposition, but Steve only hums.

“‘Course. I’ll see you in ten.”

When you hang up, you stare down at your phone for a few seconds.

And then you promptly drop it, head whipping around your messy living-kitchen space and quickly get to work tidying it to a presentable degree.

—-

Steve arrives almost exactly ten minutes later, the light knocking on your door followed by his voice.

“Hey, it’s just me!” He says, and you hurry to slide your end table out of the way, your door pretty much swinging open by itself.

For a moment you can only stare at him, dark blue jeans, white t-shirt, brown leather jacket. He’d grown his beard out since you saw him last, thick and golden and groomed just right to hit you in the lady parts. He seems fixated on you as well, though recovers far more gracefully, eyes dipping to look at your splintered door and he whistles.

“When you said it was busted, you meant it huh?” He asks, and you laugh, a little awkwardly, pulling the door wider as you usher him inside.

“Yeah… cops said they must have gotten scared off before they got inside. None of my stuff is missing or moved.” You explain, closing the door behind him, and when he sees you move for the table, steps forward to help you, looking at your makeshift barricade up and down for a moment when you’re done.

“Good. That’s good.” You look up at him again as silence falls upon your apartment, and find he’s already looking back at you. Realising you hadn’t even changed from work yet, and you’d cried a little bit after discovering the break-in, you attempt to smooth your hair down and wipe any potential makeup from under your eyes.

“Jesus, I must look like a mess.” You sort-of apologise, trying to play it off with a chortle, but Steve shakes his head, smiling kindly.

“Not at all.” Is all he says, and you hate the fact the completely non-committal sentence makes your belly flop again.

“Oh, uh, can I get you anything? Coffee, tea? I think I have a six pack in the fridge…?” You gesture to your kitchen, but move for your fridge anyway, Steve shoving his hands in his pockets as he follows, shrugging his shoulders. You find the beer behind your salad, and pull it out.

“Well, I’m having one.” You tease, setting the pack on the counter as you attempt to pull a bottle from the plastic rings. Maybe you’re just too exhausted, maybe this particular plastic was just stronger than you, but it doesn’t budge and Steve steps forward, hands already out.

“Let me…” He offers, even as you let him take your chosen bottle from you, tearing it out as if it were nothing. It likely wasn’t, for him, and you swallow, the room feeling warmer suddenly.

“Thanks. Help yourself.” You nod to the pack, a little thankful he takes one too, placing the rest back in your fridge.

“I uhm, I might go shower and change, I haven’t even thought about that yet…” You gesture down at yourself again, and Steve nods.

“Whatever you need.” He tells you, and then points to your couch.

“Mind if I watch the game?” You frown, but nod anyway.

“Who’s playin’?” You both move over into your living room, and you quickly find and toss him your remote.

“Mets vs Giants.” He says, and you ‘ah’, watching for a moment as he flicks to the right channel, your eyes finding the score and you wince, turning back to him.

“Hope you don’t have any bets on your boys.” You say, faux-sympathy dripping from your voice. Steve gives you an unimpressed eyebrow, pointing at you.

“We’ll come back.”

“If it makes you feel better.” You tack on, but burst into a laugh as he rolls his eyes, making himself comfortable on your couch. You note with mild amusement he takes the same spot he would always take up, before you’d broken up. Apparently one of your couch cushions was just comfier than the rest.

You leave him there to go get cleaned up at last, and relish in the hot water as you do little more than just stand under it for ten minutes. Despite your stress from the past few hours, you feel oddly light, Steve’s sudden reappearance back in your life, in your apartment making you feel a little woozy, but only in a good way.

You try to tell yourself that it was only because your breakup had been so amicable, if he were any of your other ex’s you wouldn’t be feeling the way you do…

You dry off and dress quickly, throwing your hair up before stepping back out into the living room. Crossing your arms over your chest in some subconscious way of shutting yourself off to how damn good he looked, you take a seat on the opposite end of the couch, grabbing your beer again and tipping it back.

“Cops get the security footage from the hall?” He asks, one hand around the neck of the bottle he rests on his thigh, the other thrown over the back of the couch toward you, almost invitingly. You blink for a moment as you process his question and hum.

“Yeah. But it’ll probably get written off if the guy didn’t, you know, look straight into the camera or something. You know how they are.” Steve tears his eyes from the TV and looks at you with a frown.

“You get a case number? I’ll follow up tomorrow, make sure they—” Before you can really stop yourself, you cut him off.

“—Steve you don’t have to do that.” The blond shuts his mouth, and you can practically hear the words unspoken.

‘Because you aren’t my boyfriend’. For a moment you can both only stare, until Steve nods and looks away, his brow smoothing out as he relaxes, but the tick in his jaw tells a different story.

“Well, let me know if you need to…” You can’t help but smile a little, behind the rim of your beer, and you take another sip before turning back to the game.

The Mets make a comeback and you finish the night cursing under your breath. You weren’t a Giants fan by any means, but you made a habit of rooting for anybody going against the Mets.

Steve helps you pack away the light snacks and empty beer bottles, all the while wearing a smug grin, and you can’t even stay too annoyed. Smug and playful was always a good look on him.

As you put away the last of the rubbish, you yawn a little and check the time.

“I might head to bed… I’ll get you some pillows and stuff…” You announce, and ignore when he looks up at you in favour of making for the linen closet. You do however grab the pillow from your bed that you know he used to favour, and lay it all out on the couch. When you look up again, Steve is pulling his jacket from his shoulders, and laying it over the back of the opposite couch.

“Uhm, if you need to leave, could you just wake me up?” You ask, stepping back, and Steve frowns deeply, cocking his head.

“Leave? Why would I need to leave?”

“I don’t know… if you’re needed, I guess…” You shrug, shifting awkwardly and for a few seconds Steve’s face filters through a few emotions. Confusion, concern, offence, and then some sort of resignation.

“I— you know if you really needed me, I wouldn’t leave… right?” He asks, and you feel something stir in your chest. It isn’t exactly positive like all the other feelings you’d been having tonight, more like a sting of annoyance, of hurt and you purse your lips, shrugging again and looking to the side.

“I don’t know. You’re important, I’m sure people would need you a lot more than me.” You don’t mean to sound so passive aggressive, but you can’t help it.

He’d never made a point of making sure he’d be around before, the fact you even caught him on an off night is surprising to you. Steve’s brow dips and he opens his mouth, but you cut him off once again, pointing to the kitchen.

“Feel free to take whatever you want from the fridge, I’ll make sure not to sleep in too much… goodnight, Steve.”

You turn on your heel and don’t wait for a reply, shutting your bedroom door behind you. You know he can still hear whatever you do perfectly, so you don’t let out a sigh, or groan at your own fat-headedness, instead you switch off all your lights and settle under your covers.

In seven months you hadn’t felt out of place once in your room, but now, with Steve sleeping in the next room, your bed suddenly feels all too big.

—-

Strangely, despite your pass-agg comments, after that night you and Steve actually begin speaking again. At first it was just his texted check ups, making sure your door got fixed, making sure you were alright, making sure the cops did their jobs… it was sort of nice actually, to be friends with Steve again. He’d even shown his face down in forensics. You know his lack of attendance, Nat, Sam or Bucky showing up in his place, hadn’t been coincidental post your breakup, but the first day he shows up to deliver evidence for testing, you almost sigh at how much you’d missed seeing his face down there.

You actually think you become closer than you had been before, platonically that is. Steve doesn’t seem to make any moves toward rekindling your romance, and honestly? You were just fine with that. Steve was a great guy, but you couldn’t deal with his schedule… even if he did seem to be around more these days.

You don’t ask. You don’t even really think about it, instead chalking it up to good timing and coincidence.

You were wrong though.

Steve clinks the top of his glass with Sam’s as the man passes him his refilled drink, and the three men, including Bucky, settle back down around their seats on the Tower’s balcony.

“So, hey, can I ask you something?” Sam clears his throat some, and Steve cocks his head, gesturing for him to go ahead.

“You and Doc… are you guys like… getting back together, or…?” The blond squints, his face scrunching up a little as he looks off, sighing some.

“We’re just friends.”

“Yeah, but I mean, you went from not talking at all to hanging out again.” Bucky chimes in, and Steve shrugs, eyes finding his shoes.

“I don’t think she’s interested anymore. If friendship is all she wants, it’s what I’ll give.” Sam and Bucky make eye contact, sharing a frown between them and Sam leans forward slightly.

“Sure, but man, you changed up your whole shit for her… You don’t even wanna try again?” Steve sighs and finally looks back up at them.

“It wasn’t necessarily for her… but she was right. How am I supposed to foster any sort of relationship if I don’t make time for it? What we do is important, but I have to be able to prioritise other things. It’s not fair on anybody in my life.”

Bucky hums. He for one was glad Steve had taken a slight step back from the Avengers. Not only did it mean Sam and Rhodey were given more chances to lead, but it had upped the pressure on everyone slightly, in a good way. Previously Bucky would have felt anxious going on a solo mission with another member who wasn’t Steve or Sam, but now he regularly went on ops with Wanda, his bonds with other members growing immensely.

He clears his throat and reaches out to squeeze Steve’s shoulder some.

“I know how you felt about her, but I think you did the right thing.” Steve gives the dark-haired man a long look and a soft smile, ducking his head.

“What was that thing your Ma used to say?” He asks, and Bucky frowns a moment, before his face lights up again in recognition.

“‘Some folk only bless your life so you can learn from them’.” He says, and Steve hums, raising his glass.

“I’ll drink to that.”

—-

It’s late, you should really be asleep by now, but you’ve been lying awake for hours now. Springtime in New York made the night air warmer than you were used to, and the slightly hot feeling of your body was not helping.

You growl in annoyance and switch your vibrator off, tossing it lightly into the open drawer of your bedside table. Between your thighs your clit still throbs slightly, but you hadn’t been able to make yourself cum in the almost two hours you’d been trying, and your hand was going numb from all the vibrations.

You were damn near desperate. You needed to be fucked, good and proper and thoroughly. With only a moment's hesitation, you reach for your phone and tap out a text.

You up?

Steve: Is everything alright?

It’s fine. Come over?

There’s a minute or so where you see the three dots appear as Steve begins typing, before they disappear, and then reappear, only to disappear once more. You almost smile to yourself. He was unsure.

Come over, pleeeaaaseeee?

Steve: … Are you alright?

You huff this time, and purse your lips. You could be forward here and now, giving him an out, or you could wait till he arrived, which might be far less convenient for your pride if he rejected you.

I need you… please…

This time Steve doesn’t type and then retype his messages, instead you’re forced to stare at your read receipt for a full two minutes before a reply comes back, your body lighting on fire the second you process the four little words.

Steve: Be there in ten.

Anticipation builds in you like a storm, and you quickly straighten your sheets, spritz some perfume, fix your hair a little, and pull on a gown, all in time for the knock on your door. The sound is curt and tense and you swallow thickly as you hurry to answer it, sliding your locks back before swinging it open.

Steve stands once again in dark jeans, this time with a dark grey sweater on. His hair was slightly damp still, messy, and you figure he must have just gotten out of his the shower when you’d texted. His eyes find you quickly, a little wide, a little confused, and with all the desperation from the past two hours fueling you, you pounce on him.

You’re lucky he’s as stable and strong as he is, you throw yourself bodily at him, arms wrapping instantly around his neck, your lips pressing to his own hungrily and he returns in kind, one hand steadying you around your middle, the other tangling up into your hair at the back of your head. You almost mewl at the way his hand clutches at your scalp, and you let him walk you back inside, his foot kicking your door closed behind you.

You keep moving, until your back hits your kitchen bench, and you take the moment to pull open your gown, letting it fall to the floor as your hands move for his own sweatshirt. The fabric is quickly discarded, and you’re a little surprised to hear Steve’s groan at your skin on skin contact, his hands beginning to roam more adventurously now. You weren’t keen on messing around for too long, and you make quick work of his belt, letting him kick his shoes off before he shucks the jeans down himself, stepping out of them, all without pulling his lips from yours.

You sigh into his mouth as he captures your tongue with his own, bearing down on you intently, his hands holding you tightly against his own body like he was trying to pull you into himself. You let a hand drop from his face to the hardness against your abdomen and allow yourself to relish in the soft gasps Steve lets out when you pump your fist over him several times, before increasing your pressure, making him all out moan.

His lips fall away from yours, instead he trails sloppy kisses along your cheek and down your neck, pausing to adjust, widening his legs some. With your mouth free, you find the time to speak.

“This… this is just sex, alright? It’s not… it’s just sex…” You tell him, feeling how for a moment he pauses, and you dread it for a second when he pulls away a little to look down at you. His expression is unreadable, but he’s nodding soon, and you breathe out in relief.

“Gotcha.” Is all he says, and you’re forced to release his length as a moment later you’re hoisted up. Your legs wrap around him, even as you’re set on your countertop, and his mouth moves back to yours. It’s your turn to gasp when his hand drops between your thighs, fingers immediately dipping into the dampness at your core, a touch you’d been craving for too long.

“You really needed it that bad, you had to call me?” His voice is low, and you shiver. Steve’s bedroom talk was always amazing, and now, for some reason, the fact you weren’t even together makes it better. It felt dirtier, more obscene, and you nod, panting as he pulls his lips away from yours, his eyes falling to watch his hand slide from your folds.

You swallow, leaning back on the counter as he becomes more purposeful, two fingers prodding at your entrance, his thumb gravitating to your clit, already overstimulated. When he pushes his two fingers inside you, you let your head fall back and your eyes close, widening your legs even more to give him room to work as he begins slowly pumping back and forth.

“F-fuck…” You breathe, toes scrunching as his fingers move a little faster, curling them slightly to run along your g spot and you feel your legs start to quiver already. He seems to anticipate your squirming though, and uses his free hand to hold one leg, the other he keeps open with his own thigh, moving quicker now. A slower moment lets him insert another finger, and soon you’re clutching around his neck again, needing something tangible to hold on to as he strokes you to finish.

“Steve! Steve, fuck, don’t— please don’t— ah!” You try to catch your breath before you even lose it, but you only swallow down more air as you cum, your hips shaking involuntarily against his hand as he continues to ride you through it, thumb never letting up over your clit until your head lolls back once more.

You’re about to speak, praise him perhaps, when his fingers pull away, taking your hips instead and any words you have are punched out of you with the feel of his hands drawing you onto his cock. You scramble for a hold again, gasping and moaning at the same time as you wrap your arms tightly around his neck.

“Holy fuck…!” You whimper, Steve already curling his hips up and into you, all the while lifting you from the counter itself to bounce you against his standing lap.

He liked this, you remember, liked being able to hold you up all on his own, control the pace, control his movement and yours.

“That okay?” His lips move against your cheek and you nod vehemently, a hand carding through the back of his hair.

“Yes! Fuck, fuck, I need it!” You squeeze your eyes closed as he really starts setting a pace, and you feel that deep spot inside of you that hadn’t been touched in months begin to light up. Regardless of your relationship issues, Steve had always been good in bed, his body fitting into your perfectly, his desire matching up with yours similarly so.

“Yeah? You need it, baby? … shit, I’ll give it to you, sweetheart.” His voice is like molten honey, running over you warm and sticky sweet, and you can’t help it, you pout a little, nodding at his words.

“Please… please!” You whine. You know how much he loved to feel needed, in and out of the bedroom, but that didn’t mean your mewling was all for show. You’d finished once, yes, but you were so pent up you were still rearing to go and Steve’s cock pounding into you hurriedly was only spurring you on. You needed release and he was going to give it to you. Your mind always went a little hazy, a little blank when he’d have you like this, you’d do practically anything he asked, and he knew it.

“Come on, sweetheart, one more, wanna feel you squeeze me…” You whine again with his added words, his lips nipping your ear and you nod, face falling into the crook of his neck as he continues to pant and puff with effort. Your sounds start becoming shorter, more gasped and as he slows to level you with long, deep strokes, your orgasm rolls over you, gentler than the last, though powerful still, amplified by the feel of your cunt actually clutching, gripping onto something as your muscles tense and flutter.

Steve groans, keeps up the longer, slower strokes until you begin to relax again, and with little warning, pulls out. He presses his cock against your inner thigh, but pumps with one hand until he’s sighing airily, thick hot streams of cum streaking over your thigh and abdomen as you watch.

For some reason, all you can think about for a few seconds is how he’d never come on you before. Always inside you, condom or raw, and the change in behaviour confuses you for a moment, but you don’t intend on asking.

You both pant heavily, still partially leant against one another as you catch your breath, and you feel a slight awkwardness settle over you. Would things be weird now? Would he expect more from this? For a moment you have to admit it was nice being back in his arms, nice to pretend he was yours, but reality sets in and you cool off.

Even if he was still your boyfriend, he would never really be ‘yours’. Not while he shouldered so much of the world’s responsibilities.

Steve settles you back on the lip of the counter, and you jump slightly at how cool it feels against your bare skin. As you finally make eye contact, a pit opens in your gut. Steve after sex was always a sight to behold, his hair hanging in his face, his cheeks flushed red and his lips swollen and parted… it makes your stomach lurch in longing, and you quickly clear your throat, gently pushing him back so you can stand.

Finding your robe on the floor, you quickly pull it on despite the sweat covering your skin, and look back toward Steve, though you avoid his eye contact.

“Uhm, do you want to wash up before you go?” You know if sounds a bit harsh, but you’d made it clear to him before you’d properly gotten started that this was just sex. You couldn't bring yourself to expect anything more from him, and risk another broken heart.

Steve blinks, and you see a brief moment of hurt flash across his features before they harden somewhat, and he straightens, tucking himself back into his pants gingerly and collecting his sweatshirt.

“It’s alright, I… I’ll clean up at home.” He says, and you have to cross your arms over your chest at the tight feeling that begins constricting you.

“Okay.” Steve hesitates, looks at you a moment too long before he nods to the door.

“I’ll get out of here.” He says, sounding far more casual than he had a moment ago, as if nothing at all had just transpired between you, and you latch onto that ease, making it easier for you to play along too.

“No worries…” You trail him to the doorway, holding it open behind him as he steps through and turns around. His mouth is open, poised to say something but for some unknown reason you decide to cut him off, a hand shooting out to land on his arm, and you squeeze just a little.

“Thank you, Steve.” You want to cringe at the sound of thanking somebody after sex, but really, it was more about the fact for the second time in a row he actually came when you’d needed him… even if the second was a far more rival affair…

Steve blinks at you slowly from under his long lashes, in that dreamy way he does when he’s thinking something sweet or mushy, and again your insides twist. He only ducks his head further and swallows, a small smile pulling at his lips, far too innocent for the acts you’d just committed barely inside your doorway.

“Of course, uh, anytime…” You snort a little bit, rolling your eyes, but he gives you a final little wave before you shut your door behind him.

You’re left staring at your living room and kitchen counter, eyes fixated on the spot you’d been hauled up against just minutes ago. Your mind immediately begins the playback and you groan, remembering the mess still on your thighs and between them, suddenly more bothersome and uncomfortable than it had been previous, and you retreat to your shower, questioning yourself on if sleeping with your ex, who you’d only just begun talking to again, was a good idea.

—-

You walk in on Steve almost kissing someone.

It’s one of Tony’s parties, the big ones, where he invites everyone and absolutely insists everybody comes, even if he’s only on face-name basis with them. It was actually the first gathering you’d been to with the Avengers since you and Steve broke up, certainly the first since you’d started fucking again. It was good to see Sam and Bucky and the others outside of a work environment, and you think from their genuine smiles and the way Sam keeps talking you into one more round of pool, that maybe they missed you too.

You finally manage to duck out from under Sam’s arm, in search of a bottle of water, when you stumble into the private kitchen, where you’d been told the fridge was stocked full. At first your brain lights up.

Steve was in here! You’d hardly spoken to him all night! But then his hand registers, more specifically, the hip his hand is on registers, and your eyes suddenly piece together the scene before you.

A young woman, pretty, you think you know her from HR actually, leans with her back against the counter, her hands both wrapped around Steve’s biceps. One of his arms is around her waist, the other on her hip and they’re both smiling softly, if not shyly, heads so close their lips are barely apart when you accidentally squeak in surprise.

Steve pulls away instantly, even before he’s seen it’s you, and you realise that whoever this woman was to him, it was new. Steve was always a little skittish with PDA with new relationships. You’d seen it with Sharon, before yourself, and then again with your own relationship… and now with this.

“Oh! I—!” You feel your face go warm and you mouth wordlessly for a moment as you point to the fridge. The woman ducks her head in slight embarrassment and awkwardness and you do feel terrible, despite the wave of grief that overcomes you at the fact Steve was actually moving on.

Not that he wasn’t allowed to… you just hadn’t thought he’d do it first.

“Uh, just, water…” You stutter, suddenly feeling rather sick. Steve follows your pointing, even as you begin to move, avoiding his eyes. It shouldn’t be so weird! The situation the two of you had was strictly no strings attached! Steve was allowed to start dating, so were you! Still… that didn’t mean you wanted to walk in on him about to lay it on a woman that wasn’t you.

You rush out of the room with your water before anybody can gain enough sense to actually talk, and you tuck yourself back between Sam and Nat quickly.

You spy Steve and the woman leaving the kitchen a short while later, and though you don’t see even a bit of smudged lipstick or beard burn, your mind starts to whir in anger. But you know it's unjustified, and you curse yourself for being nearly a year out of your relationship, and still jealous. You consider breaking it off with Steve in the coming week, but your mind wanders back to the way he’d tipped his head back in a moan only days before, the thick column of his throat bobbing as he swallowed, his hands bruising on your hips as you rode him hard.

You decide instead that you’ll just act as if you’d never seen anything at all in the kitchen.

—-

Moving on is… hard.

Not necessarily out of some romantic idea that Steve was ‘The One’, in fact you’re more resolved against anything romantic with him now than you were before, more so because you were… picky.

Even if you lower your standards, every guy you seem to give a chance ends up firmly in your ‘no’ pile after a few dates or less. Most of the time it was because your interests didn’t align, you found them boring or you just weren’t attracted to each other, but occasionally one slips through.

Tom, his name was and Tom was nice. He was polite, handsome, you could talk about both shared interests and your jobs (he worked for the city morgue). Tom was good. You were still unsure of anything long term, or anything serious at all for that matter, but for someone to hang out with and occasionally be kissed by, you could do a lot worse than Tom.

He takes you out almost like clockwork every Friday or Saturday night since you’d met (that was four dates so far), you’d get dinner, maybe some drinks, walk around for a bit, and then he’d kiss you goodbye at your door. It was sweet. Tonight though, tonight you aren’t after sweet at all.

A SHIELD agent you know has her birthday, or maybe it’s a joint party? You aren’t sure, all you know is that it’s at a club, you look hot as hell, and if Tom doesn’t put his hands on you later you’ll burst at the seams.

The club is dark and loud, meant for dancing and drinking, not conversation and polite small talk, and the moment the bouncer sees you inside, you grab Tom by the hand and drag him along, a wicked smile thrown over your shoulder. You do the customary rounds, saying hello to people you know, introducing Tom. You even manage to figure out who the birthday girl is, and give her a hug. You’re aware when you lean over the table to do so that your already short skirt rides up further, and you’re aware tom is standing right behind you, watching.

You make sure not to drink much, you had plans for later after all, but you act a little giddier than you are, letting your hand linger on Tom’s thigh, holding on to him more than normal. You coax him out to the dance floor and that's where you get him. Hot bodies writhe to a beat, pressed up against one another, it doesn’t seem as obscene in the dark. You grind your hips back into Tom’s, his hands snaking their way around your hips and you smile, because you know.

In the dim light and through the throng of bodies, a flash of familiar stops you for a moment. Blonde hair, wide shoulders, beard, beer in hand, untouched… You swallow for a second as you make eye contact with Steve. He must have been invited too, must not have had a mission to go on to get out of it either. Before he can lift an eyebrow or do anything at all, you look away, wrapping your arms around Tom’s shoulders, you lean into his ear.

“Let’s get out of here.”

This… this had not been what you’d had in mind.

Your bedroom is lit only by a spare few candles that flicker your shadows against the wall, and you watch them absently for a second longer, before dropping to rest on your elbows, your body moving in the rythmeric back and forth each time Tom’s hips gently buck into yours.

He can’t see your face since he’s got you on your hands and knees, and you’re glad for it, because you’re not sure you could fake it even if you tried. It wasn’t that it didn’t feel good, it was just… you aren’t sure… he touched you like he wasn’t supposed to, and if you’re honest it felt less like he was having sex with you and more like he was just having sex. You could be anyone right now, and he probably wouldn’t care.

Tom pants and moans and then stops, his hips stuttering gently before he pulls out and away from you.

“Bin in the bathroom?” He asks, and you plaster on your best post-sex look, and nod, rolling over in time to see him disappear into your ensuite to dispose of the condom. When he returns, you go about cleaning yourself up.

“That was great.” He chimes, and you offer him a smile. At least somebody had fun, though you note a little bitterly how he hadn’t even asked about you. Maybe Tom wasn’t so nice.

“Yeah!” You enthuse. You already knew he wasn’t going to stay the night, he’d made sure to tell you as much before you’d begun. You pull on a gown and help him dress and gather his things.

At the front door he kisses you chastely, and tells you he’ll call in the morning. Mentally, you cross him off your list, and close your door.

You seeth while you change your sheets, getting angrier and angrier over your situation. You should have known from the start there was no spark with Tom, you shouldn’t have tried to kid yourself! And he should have at least tried to make you cum!

A quick glance at the time tells you it's not too late, and you send off a text, expecting a gentle refusal.

What you don’t expect however, is Steve arriving at your apartment twenty minutes later, angry as all hell, and he all but pushes past you when you’ve opened the door, coming to stand in your living room with his hands on his hips, his brow low and his lips in a thin line.

“Are you serious?” He asks at last, when you’ve stood staring at one another for long enough. He gestures absently, but his hand comes back to his hip.

“Wha—”

“—Don’t.” He says sharply, and you shut your mouth. This was different… you’d never really seen Steve angry before, let alone angry with you… it doesn’t at all help your current situation though, and you swallow, adjusting your stance.

“You know damn well I saw you leave with him earlier! I can smell the sex in the air. You haven’t had enough already tonight?” The words are harsh and hurt lances through you momentarily, before defensiveness takes over and you cross your arms over your chest, lifting your chin a little.

“Excuse me? Who I spend time with and how is none of your business!” Steve scoffs and looks off for a moment, a mirthless smile on his face.

“Right. But you still want me to fuck you after anyway.” The vulgarity is new as well, and it occurs to you in the back of your mind, that he must be really pissed with you.

“If you didn’t want to come, you should have just said no!” You say, your voice sounding a little more shrill and a little more crackly than you want it too. All your bravado aside, Steve was imposing when he was angry, and the fact that anybody yelling at you, let alone him, was enough to make you cry, gives your voice a shake you didn’t ask for. Not to mention that you really hadn’t expected him to show up at all, especially angry.

Steve looks back at you, his fuming expression not exactly subsiding, but it softens some, and he drops one hand from his hip to rub at his brow before he looks back up at you, more exasperated now than anything else.

“Why did you call me?” He sounds tired, but you know an olive branch when you see one, and you snatch it, stepping closer, ducking your head.

“Why do you think…?” You shrug and purse your lips before looking up at him again.

“He was shit. You aren’t.” His shoulders square just a little at your words, and you know it's a bit of a low blow, any guy was likely to be more inclined to having sex with you if you compared him positively incomparison with another man. Steve cocks his head, lids dipping slightly and you know you’ve got him hook, line, and sinker.

“Is that right?” You’re right in front of each other now and you let your hands wind up around his neck, playing demure as he fixes you with a knowingly amused look, his hands landing firmly at your waist.

“Mhmn.” You hum, nodding, shrugging once again.

“He didn’t know how.” You say, pouting as Steve dips his face closer to yours, and again you find yourself pretending that this wasn’t just sex, that these arms where ones you could be wrapped in whenever you wanted.

“Didn’t know how to what?” Steve asks, voice deep and rumbly in his throat, his breath coasting over your lips, and you lean in quick, nipping at his mouth chastley, feeling his hands tighten at your waist.

“Didn’t know how to take care of me.” Magic words, really. Steve is on you in seconds, mouth devouring your own, the warmth of him engulfing and you let yourself sink into the fever.

Perhaps some of that anger still simmers under the surface, because he fucks you hard, his thrusts just a little more pointed, his fingers digging a little deeper into your skin. His teeth nibble at your lower lip making you keen for him with another gasp as his hips snap against yours once again.

He’s covering you completely, chest to chest, his arms rest around your head, caging you in, and you grasp onto him wherever you can, hiking your thighs higher around him as he drives into you quickly.

“You know, if I wanted to make a point,” Steve begins, his voice raspy and puffed slightly, and you peel your eyes open to look at him, his face so close to yours it almost makes you cross-eyed.

“I’d not make you cum either.” He finishes, and you start, a slight wave of panic setting in, and you open your mouth to preemptively beg, but then he’s shifting, a hand sliding between your sweaty bodies, fingers pawing until they find your clit, and you suck in air sharply.

Steve wears a lazy but wicked grin, and he begins swirling his fingers over your bundle of nerves, dropping his face low enough that when he speaks his lips brush over yours.

“But I like watching you cum while I fuck you.” As your breathing shallows, Steve seems to swallow down each short breath, eyes never leaving your face as you quickly feel your release creep up on you, his harsh, deep strokes combined with the rough pads of his fingertips rapidly spinning circles and you’re falling.

Steve uses his body to hold you down, prevent you from shaking or jerking too much as you topple over the edge of release, your pussy clutching onto his cock even as he grunts, continuing to grind into you as you call out his name over and over.

He drops his face to your neck as your senses come back to you, your brain feeling light and your eyesight a little dimmed from the sensations. You know any second now he’ll pull out, jerk himself until he spills on your stomach or thigh like he always seemed to nowadays, but something ticks in your brain, raw and primal and you hook your ankles as best you can behind him, raking your fingernails over his back in marks that will disappear by morning.

“She tighter than me, Steve?” You feel his head start to lift a little, but you gently bite at his earlobe, stopping him.

“Does she feel this good when you’re fucking her?” Something switches then in the atmosphere of the room, he picks up his pace again, and you jump when one hand fists in the back of your head, pulling your neck back and away. Steve glares down at you, though his game is half given away by the grunt he gives a second later.

“Shut up.” He says, though it isn’t half as harsh as you expect, and he rolls his eyes some, dropping his lips down to your exposed throat now and you feel a thrill run through you.

“Does she let you fuck her like this or is it gentle missionary only?” You press on, yelping a little when teeth scrape at your skin warningly, and the hand in your hair tightens, pulling.

“Because you know I’d let you have me any which way… on my knees, under you, over you… fuck,” You pause, panting a little with effort as he fucks you even harder, each word punched out of you.

“Fuck, I’d let you have my ass if you brought the lube…” Triumph colours you as Steve  groans, gasping almost, his fist at your scalp a little painful as he curls his hips deep once, twice, three times more before you feel him finish, and he stills.

Your bodies are hot and sticky with sweat against one another, and you can feel him shake a little in his come down as he finally relaxes.

Like always, in the aftermath you’re both silent for a few moments before Steve lifts his head, his chest heavy against your own, and he fixes you with a unconvincingly unamused expression.

“Thought I told you to shut up?” He asks, shifting to hold up more of his own weight, and you pretend to not hear him, cocking your head.

“Towel?” He seems to relent, rolling off of you and sinking into your mattress as you hop up, moving to your bathroom to grab a spare towel.

When you return, you almost falter for a few seconds in the doorway, swallowing thickly. Steve lies on your bed, one arm hooked under his head, naked as anything, looking like he belonged there. Your chest lurches, and your stomach falls to your knees as you force yourself to keep moving, gently tossing the towel at him as you gather your gown once again.

You’ll shower when he’s gone.

“Really that bad, huh?” He asks when he’s drying his hair, his underwear now pulled up around his hips, and you sigh, smiling slightly.

“Honestly… I think I’m pretty forgiving, but he didn’t even try. I’m the one who had to suggest we change positions even!” It’s easy to fall into this routine with Steve, especially after you’ve both been satiated, but it’s not really a dynamic that exists anywhere else at any other time.

At work you were friendly but professional, around friends you were polite but never seemed to stray too close (neither of you wanted a particular redhead in your business), and you made a point of not hanging out outside of that. You were already sleeping together, that was more than enough. Anything more would just make you hope, and hope would only let you down.

Steve was still Steve. He was still the guy everyone turned to in a crisis, he was still the man on the ground nine times out of ten. You broke up for a reason, and you needed to keep that in mind.

Steve shoots you a wince and scrunches his nose as he pulls his shirt over his shoulders and pops his head through the hole.

“I’m sorry for… yelling.” He says after he’s pulled on his pants, and you frown, looking away.

“Don’t be… I probably shouldn’t have called you.” You say, missing the dip in his brows when you don’t look away from one of your flickering candles. Steve purses his lips as he threads his belt through his pants, but shrugs.

“You should just tell him, if you like him”

“Nah… I don’t think there’s much there for me anyway. I don’t know.” You wave him off and stand as he pulls on his jacket. This part was always the most awkward.

“Whatever you want.” He readies his keys and you move with him to the door. You always felt like you were missing something in your goodbye’s, but a hug or a kiss or a thank you was the exact last thing you wanted to do.

Keep it casual.

Steve pauses at your door, his expression unreadable and you fold your arms over your chest, flashing him an easy smile.

“Drive safe, Steve.”

“Goodnight. Sleep well.”

—-

“Wait, what?” You turn in your seat to look at your coworker Lucy, who nods, and finishes her mouthful of yoghurt.

“Yeah, right! Two in the morning and I’m getting calls to analyse samples as if I’m at the off—”

“—No, I meant…” You trail off, mind whirring, trying to think over the details you knew already.

“I didn’t know they’d gone on a mission…” You finish with instead, sitting back in your chair.

It wasn’t like you knew the Avengers schedule off my heart, or that it was your job to know everytime they left the tower. It made sense as to why Steve hadn’t been talkative the past few days though… Still, he’d confirmed that your ‘meeting’ was still happening this afternoon, even though you’d just gotten word that the team was landing in two hours.

Lucy chitters on until your half-day ends, at which point you quickly pack up your things and make your way to the elevator. You consider calling in to the upper floors, the residential ones, to speak with the man himself, but you decide against it. It wasn’t like you were a regular up there, it would be weird and raise questions, not to mention that given his recent return from a mission, he was likely in debriefings or writing up his reports.

You pull out your phone instead and send off a quick text.

‘Just heard you got in from an assignment… Do you want to reschedule this afternoon? I know you’re probably tired as hell…?’

Steve doesn’t reply right away, and honestly you don’t expect him too. You make it all the way home before your phone buzzes, and you find yourself staring for several minutes at the words on the screen.

S: ‘I’m happy to come over, if you’re still free. I’m totally fine.’

You send him a quick confirmation, but can’t help but chew on your lip. Part of you wonders why he’d bother. You know he was lying about being fine, super soldier or not, everybody liked their downtime after an extremely stressful few days, and coming to your ex-girlfriend’s house for a hookup wasn’t exactly that… then again, maybe he really needed his itch scratched. Who were you to judge?

You’d finished your day at two, which was nice, and you do a quick clean up of your apartment before Steve was set to arrive at four. You shower and change and throw a little bit of makeup on, finishing just as your doorbell rings.

When you open the door, you can see right away that he’d been lying about being fine. Maybe nobody else would notice, but you had spent a considerable amount of time around Steve, and you could pick out his undereye bags straight away. To anybody else he’d look completely normal, but his shoulders slump just so, his smile just a little too tight.

“Hey.” He greets as you step aside, letting him kiss your cheek as he enters. You don’t know when that became a thing, but it was something you’d seen him do with a few of his female friends, so you let it slip, knowing it wasn’t just you.

“Hey…” You shoot back, suspicion slightly etched on your words. Steve immediately rolls his eyes, shaking his head as he hangs his jacket on the back of your couch.

“I’m fine.” He tells you pointedly and you decide that you can’t be bothered arguing. It was his choice to come, if he didn’t really want to, then he’d have to deal with that like a big boy.

Casual conversation ensues, he asks about your week, you tell him the hot goss in the forensics lab, and then somehow from that very enticing subject, you end up on your bed, Steve hovering just over you, lips pressed hotly against your own. Despite yourself, not all your hook ups with Steve were hot and heavy and quick. You missed making out with someone, the build up of it all, and even though you told yourself it was dangerous territory, you went there anyway.

Steve’s hands trail slowly up your body, feeling you over your clothes, and then under. You get rid of his shirt fairly quickly, his shoes kicked off already, and not for the first time, you just relish in being held, the fantasy that this was real, and you weren’t casually sleeping with your ex-boyfriend. Steve plants his knee between your legs when you scratch at the back of his head, a groan following shortly after as his fingers work to find the bottom of your shirt and get it up. You part for only seconds when he pulls it over your head, throwing it to the edge of the bed. You hadn’t bothered putting a bra on, leaving you already exposed. Steve may be Captain America, a symbol of a nation and whatever else, but he was still a man, and the second he can, he’s got his lips pressed to the skin of your neck and rapidly descending, hands groping appreciatively at your breasts.

His mouth leaves hot kisses down your throat, over your chest, and you’re so ready to feel his lips take over from where his thumb brushes over your nipple when the doorbell rings.

You both pause a moment, Steve lifting his head and you groan, scrunching up your face as the bell is joined by rapid knocking. Steve smiles, cheeks a little pink, and shifts off of you, already reaching for the nearest shirt. It’s his, but you don’t think he’ll mind much as you slip it over your head and shoot him an apologetic glance as he makes himself comfortable on your pillows, placing an arm behind his head.

“Sorry, just… give me a moment…”

“It’s fine.” Steve waves off your apologies as you jog from the room to your front door.

It’s a package you have to sign for, but the courier brings up the wrong electronic form, and you’re forced to wait impatiently as his slow device loads the correct one instead. You’re trying to remain polite, trying not to tap your foot or your fingers, but by the time you’re closing your door again, you don’t even stop to look at what the package is, chucking it onto your couch and all but racing back to your bedroom.

“Just a courier, but while I’m up, do you want a be—” You cut yourself off, coming to a stop in your doorway, eyes landing on the sight laid out before you. Steve lays against your decorative cushions, shirtless, his arm no longer behind his head, instead now he’s curled on his side, another pillow stuffed between his arms where he squeezes it, eyes shut tight, mouth slightly ajar.

Your heart skips several beats, the urge to squeal at how adorable he looks only overruled by the odd stirring in your stomach at how much you missed seeing him in your bed. And then that thought is cancelled out by your guilt.

For Steve to actually fall asleep unintended, he must have been exhausted. You really should have insisted on rescheduling…

He stirs a little, humming softly and adjusting his hold on the pillow he was cuddling and you start. You should wake him up and send him home. You weren’t dating, you were only tentatively friends. You were just sleeping together, nothing else.

But you don’t.

Instead, you move to your laptop in the living room. You had stuff you could stand to get done. It wasn’t that big of a deal.

You end up logging back into your work server and ticking off several tasks on your to-do list, losing track of time in the process. It isn’t until nearly seven when you notice, at which point you send a glance back to your bedroom doorway, before pulling up your local pizza places’ online ordering site.

Steve wakes not too long after, his footsteps purposefully loud, and you turn again to look at him as he exits your room, scratching his head and looking for all the world like an embarrassed child.

“For someone who wasn’t at all tired and was totally fine, you sure did take a midafternoon nap.” You tease and he gives you a thin, apologetic smile.

“I’m sorry… I—”

“—It’s fine, Steve. Besides, I ended up clearing off my schedule for the week, so that’s nice.”

He still looks bashful, even as he takes a seat opposite you at the table.

“Do you want me to head out?” He asks, and you wave him off, standing up to move to your fridge.

“Nah. Unless you want to. But I ordered pizza a little while ago. Figured you’d be hungry. Beer?”

Steve blinks and you see him processing his choices, but he eventually nods, and you pull two bottles, cracking them open and handing one to him as you take your seat again.

“Beer and pizza isn’t exactly how I’d expected tonight to go, but you know, it’s up there.” You shrug, and Steve chuckles, shaking his head.

“I’m never going to live this down, am I?” He asks.

“I’m just saying, I’ve had some interesting sex in my time, but I’ve never actually had a guy fall asleep on me before…” You both laugh, and trade jabs until your food arrives.

Steve offers to get it, which you don’t protest, grabbing some plates and moving your drinks to the couch instead. You realise, when you take a look back at him handing some cash to the delivery guy, that you’re still wearing his shirt, and groan internally.

You change quickly, pulling on your own clothes, and chucking Steve back his own when you return to the living room. He’s sat in ‘his’ seat once again, and he only lifts an eyebrow at you when he catches his shirt, before pulling it on. You don’t even pretend to not stare at the way his body stretches and moves when he does, and he doesn’t pretend not to notice.

“You know, I was gonna ask for it back when I woke up.” He tells you as you both start grabbing slices to put on your plates.

“Oh?”

Steve ums, and settles back in his seat as you search for something to play on the tv.

“But I kinda miss seeing you in my clothes.” He says, and you pause.

You fight the urge to look at him, and even though your heart beats loudly in your ears at his confession, you try to go on as if what he’d said was totally normal.

“Um, have you ever seen this one?” You point to the screen, displaying the rundown of a show you’d heard some of your coworkers talking about, and Stev shakes his head.

“Clint talks about it, but I haven’t had the time.” He shrugs and you press play.

Eventually, you find yourself relaxing again, one of you occasionally piping up to chat some shit about how unrealistic or contrived the show was, and eating your fill (and then some) of pizza. It’s weirdly casual, in a way you truly haven’t felt around Steve in a long time, but just like when you’re doing far less casual things together, it’s easy to just pretend for a while.

You fall asleep on your couch sometime after midnight, and in the morning wake up in your bed, your living room devoid of beer bottles and pizza boxes, all the remains plated and covered in your fridge. You want to be angry at yourself for allowing your interactions with Steve to go beyond the physical, but you can’t.

For the rest of your day there’s a lightness in your steps and a softness to your thoughts, as you permit yourself this one, silly, selfishness.

—-

One pizza and netflix night turns into two, and then somehow your hookups with Steve become less about sex and more about the company. You still sleep together, of course, but more often than not, you’ll find yourselves too tired for anything. Steve sits on your bed and borrows your laptop to type up reports, and you beside him, a friendly distance away, scrolling through your phone or finishing the latest book you’d started.

You don’t think about it.

But it’s nice.

Natasha and Bucky stop by your lab on a friday night and subsequently invite you to join the rest of the group for drinks that evening. You don’t even feel hesitant to accept, and you don’t think about that either.

You can’t be bothered going home to change and then come back, so you head right up when you clock off. The team is already in good form, lounging around a set of coffee tables on the upper level, several empty bottles already littering the space. The huge glass sliding doors that lead to the balcony have been pulled wide open, and Sam and Clint stand at the grill, trying to out-fry each other.

“You look nice.” Steve tells you, greeting you with a casual half-hug. He foregoes the kiss on the cheek this time, and you don’t think about it.

“Really?” You ask, genuinely amused.

“I came straight from work and I feel like I’ve been sweating in this dress all day.”

Steve grins and shrugs.

“You look nice.” He repeats, eyes not leaving you until Nat calls your attention away.

“Geez Rogers, she’s been here for five seconds and you haven’t offered her a drink?!” The redhead teases from behind the nearby bar, and you laugh, playfully shoving Steve in the arm.

“Yeah, where are you manners?!”

Steve holds up his hands in defeat, still smiling, and you move with him to the bar.

“Don’t you worry. I’ll take care of you.” Natasha winks, and you wave a hand, letting her mix you some concoction you don’t catch the contents of.

“I may regret this in the morning but; I trust you.”

Nat only laughs again as Steve reaches over the bar to grab himself another beer, and you watch, unconcerned with who could be watching you. When your drink is made, you clink glasses, and move to where the others all sit. His hand grazes your lower back as you walk, but you don’t think about it.

Night falls and food is served. More drinks and more laughs, and when you’ve returned to the bar to fetch a couple more martinis for the fellas now crowding around the pool table, one Sam Wilson slides against your side.

“Good to see you make it tonight.” He nods, his signature grin spread across his face. You chuckle and shrug.

“I really needed to take a load off.”

Sam nods and looks over his shoulder as several cheers erupt from the ongoing game, before he’s staring back at you once again.

“You and Steve back on or…?” The question doesn’t totally shock you, but you still give a friendly scoff, and shake your head.

“No… Definitely not.”

Sam’s brow furrows and he cocks his head.

“We’re just friends again. That’s it. Steve’s a great guy, but…” You trail off, and shake your head once more. Sam shifts to face you and lifts an eyebrow.

“You guys aren’t subtle, you know that right? And I know you ain’t calling him to come fix your sink every other night.”

Your face grows warm and you roll your eyes.

“So what? Doesn’t mean we’re together. We just know each other. It’s comfortable.” You shrug and Sam hums in a disbelieving way.

“Look, Steve is… Steve. He’ll always be more tied to his work than anything, or any one else, and that’s fine. I just know I can't expect more from him than… this.”

Sam watches you for a moment, eyes searching your face until he looks away, nodding his head, relenting.

“Whatever you say. I’m just saying maybe you should give it another go… with the three of us now rotating leadership, things might be different.” 

You frown at that, as Nat finishes with the drinks you’d asked her for, and cock your head.

“What do you mean ‘the three of you on rotation’?”

Sam sideyes you.

“Steve stepped down as our sole guy, like, a year ago now. Rhodey, he, and I take turns. We got a week each on rotation.”

You blink at the information, and wonder why Steve had never mentioned it before.

Him stepping down as the Avenger’s go-to leader was… a pretty big deal. Actually, you’re kind of shocked by it. Steve had always been, as long as you’d known him, unable to walk away from a fight. If a situation was going down, he had to be there, at the front taking charge. It was literally the reason you’d broken up. He didn’t know how to take a break, and in his life, you’d always be second, maybe even third priority.

Sm nicks one of the drinks in front of you, and you half-heartedly scold him for it as you attempt to carry the other three back to the pool table, Steve putting his cue to the side and stepping up to help you when he notices.

Sam’s words continue to spin around your brain as you settle back in to watch. It isn’t until Bucky elbows you gently in the side that you realise you were being spoken to, and you blink around.

“We were saying that we forgot to set a prize for the game.” Sam re-explains, and you hum.

“I said maybe you’d give the winner a kiss.” Bucky adds, his face clearly joking, but in that ‘only joking if you are’ way.

You scoff and roll your eyes.

“Jesus, what is it? 1955?”

Bucky shrugs and sips at his drink. He’d always been a flirty drunk, not that he was drunk-drunk, but his serum seemed to affect him in slightly different ways to Steve. If he really tried, he could get a pretty decent buzz.

“And besides, I doubt Steve would see that as much of a prize, and last I checked, he was wiping the floor with you chumps.” You wave a hand and Sam cackles. Steve lifts an eyebrow at you, catching your eye.

“Don’t be so sure, sweetheart, a prize is a prize.”

You hardly hear his words, it's his expression that draws you in, makes you forget about the company around you. The air feels hot all of a sudden and you really wished you could drag him off. You shrug.

“Well maybe I’ll give you something else if you win.” 

If the others pick up on anything other than friendly banter, they thankfully choose not to mention it, simply laughing and moving back to the game. Steve’s cheeks tint a little pink, but he throws you a wink when he takes his next turn, and you have to laugh, shaking your head at the absurdity.

Steve holds the lead for two rounds, but Bucky, fuelled by Nat’s martinis, makes a comeback, and as the final scores are tallied, he leans in, tapping his cheek expectantly. It’s all in good fun, and you roll your eyes for the hundredth time, but make good in your promise of a prize and instead grip him gently by the chin and plant a quick kiss to his lips. Bucky lifts his drink in achievement, and you playfully shove him away.

“I’m sure Freud would have something to say about that.” Steve says teasingly, plopping down beside you, and you scoff.

“Nobody listens to Freud, and you and Bucky aren’t actually family.” You almost add that you and he aren’t actually dating either, but you stop short. Steve throws you a grin and relents.

“You finish that book yet?” He asks, referring to the Freud book in question that you’d been halfway through the last time he’d been over.

You shake your head.

“No. And I don’t think I will. I can put up with a lot of batshit crazy things, but I draw the line at him.”

Steve laughs, and takes a swig of his beer. A thought occurs to you then, and you turn to face him, squinting.

“Did you lose on purpose?”

“What?”

“The game. Did you lose on purpose?”

Steve blinks sheepishly at you in the same way he did when he was formulating some kind of believable lie, and you roll your eyes, smacking his arm.

“You’re so full of shit!” You laugh, watching him shrug and shift awkwardly.

“I didn’t want you to feel awkward.”

You sideye him with another huff of laughter.

“I mean I offered, in front of our friends, mind you, to give you a blowjob if you won… how awkward did you think I felt?” You watch Steve’s cheeks light up again, and he shakes his head, rolling his eyes at you this time.

“Was that what you meant?” He asks, as a sort of recovery, but you can see he’s still a little flustered. You chuckle, and lean into him, resting your hand on his upper thigh and squeezing just slightly.

“Maybe next time.” You wink, and watch his expression shift, his eyes flickering down to your lips briefly, and you just know he’s imagining what would be happening right now if you weren’t surrounded by at least ten other people.

Again, you feel the urge to drag him away, but you keep your cool, leaning away from him and removing your hand as Tony and Rhodey make their way over to the couches.

As the night wanes on, Steve’s arm ends up over the back of your seat.

You don’t think about it.

—-

“Are you sure you don’t have anything better to be doing?” You ask, a little exasperatedly.

It wasn’t that you weren’t thankful, but Steve was too good to know when to say ‘no’. Not that you’d even asked him, he’d offered and then showed up at your door bright and early anyway, regardless of your non-committal answer.

He just shrugs and shoves his hands in his pockets.

“Day off.” He tells you. You squint. You know now thanks to Sam that he wasn’t lying, but it still makes you squirm a little.

“Well, whatever. Don’t come complaining to me about splinters.” You snark, moving ahead to inspect the branches of the next pine tree along.

Steve pouts.

“But you know those tweezers are too small for my fingers…”

“Oh, what a hard life, Steven! You never get sick and are basically invincible… except for those damn pesky tweezers!”

Steve nudges you in the side, as you laugh.

“Don’t let the bad guys know about that.” You side-eye him and he gives you his best puppy-dog eyes.

“You’re the only one who knows my secret.” He says, with over-the-top sincerity.

“I trust you.” He adds a moment later, and you snort.

“Well, that sounds like a ‘you’ problem.”

You continue to sass and snark at each other as you walk down the rows and rows of trees, not even really looking at the pines, until you realise that an hour is probably too long to spend tree-shopping, and pick out the nearest half decent one.

Steve carries it to his car, as he’d offered to do in the first place, and you strap it up tight before getting in.

The conversation flows easy and light on the drive back, and when Steve’s phone rings, you switch instead to staring out the window at all the Christmas lights and decorations the city had put up in preparation.

“Hello? Oh, yes…?” You can only hear Steve’s side of the conversation, not blessed with super-hearing like he was, but you turn your head, intrigued when he seems to falter.

“Today? Well I… in twenty minutes? Oh, um…” He looks over at you, a frown pulling at his brows.

“If you need to stop somewhere…” You whisper, waving a hand to confirm you were okay with the detour, and he shoots you a tight smile, before setting his eyes back on the road.

“I can do that, no problem. Okay. Thank you. Bye.”

“What was that about?” You ask immediately, curious now that you were seemingly being dragged along.

“I had to get a suit altered— for Tony’s christmas party on the weekend…” He begins and you ‘ah’. Tony had declared all attendees go all-out. No jeans were allowed, it was supposed to be a strictly formal event.

“But the owner of the store just realised my appointment clashed with her flight out of the city this afternoon.”

“So we’re going to pick it up?”

“Yeah.”

You hum, and nod, fiddling with the radio now as you drive past the turn off for your place. Steve had promised to help you carry your tree inside, and given the time, it would probably take too long for him to make his appointment if he took you home first. You didn’t mind though.

The tailor he’d chosen wasn’t some fancy, high end retail store, but you never expected it would be. Instead, Steve holds open the door to a small, mom-and-pop type shop, with dark wooden interiors that just screamed old-school class. You enter and promptly take a seat in the showroom as Steve is whisked away to try on his suit for a final inspection.

You’re staring mindlessly at your phone when he steps back in, a little awkward, clearly asking what you think.

“Well, well, well Rogers… So you do clean up nicely after all!” You tease, standing and moving closer as he rolls his eyes at you and faces the mirror. You watch him smooth down the suit jacket, looking a little self-conscious if you’re being honest, but then his eyes find yours again in the mirror.

“You’re going, right?”

You nod, shrugging your shoulders a bit.

“I think Tony would have my head if I made up an excuse… and I kinda like christmas parties… dressing up, mistletoe and all that.” You wave a hand, and Steve turns back around to face you.

“Come with me.” He says, breathily, like he’d been holding the words in for so long he just couldn’t keep them anymore. You freeze, staring up at his hopeful expression, feeling for all the world like your veins had suddenly turned to ice.

“What?” You can’t help but ask, and the blond shifts on his feet, lifting his chin a little more confidently this time.

“Come with me. To the party.”

You aren’t sure how you hear him so clearly when your heart beat thunder loudly in your ears, and suddenly, the walls in the room begin to close in on you. You shake your head with a frown and take a step back from him.

“W-what? No, Steve, I…”

Steve straightens a little, his brow furrowing now and you struggle to speak, panic rising in your chest.

“Steve, we’re— we’re just friends. This isn’t— we aren’t dating!” You stress, still shaking your head, and still stepping away from him. Steve ‘s jaw sets a little and he gets that look on his face like when he had something to say, but he knew it would be incendiary.

“Maybe not, but I don’t think we’ve been just friends for a while now, and you know that.” He says instead, voice tight, and you suck in air sharply.

You knew this was a mistake.

You knew doing anything outside of your agreed-upon interactions was dangerous, and yet, like an idiot, you’d gone there anyway.

“Steve— I am—” You lower your voice somewhat, remembering where you are, and hold out a hand.

“This, what we’re doing now, this is fine. Nobody gets hurt, it’s fun and—”

“—Who's getting hurt exactly?” Steve cuts you off, and you barely refrain from yelling at him.

“Me! I am not going to sit around, waiting for you to find the time to see me! I’m not doing that again. I’m not playing second fiddle to your job!” You explode, immediately pulling back at the flash of grief that lances across Steve’s face.

You look away from him and rub at your temple.

“Every time you’ve called me, I’ve come.” Steve says, voice thick with hurt, and you clench your teeth.

“Every. Time.” He repeats, and you finally bring yourself to look at him.

“I am sorry that the lines got blurred. But I am not—” You stutter a little, choking on your words, but you clear your throat.

“I cannot do this again.”

And you leave.

You run away, because it was less scary than whatever Steve wanted from you. Less scary than opening yourself up and getting hurt like before.

And you were an idiot for it.

You hate yourself for crying when you get home, sans christmas tree now, and a big part of you is glad Steve doesn’t follow you, or try to call. A bigger part of you cries that he doesn’t, and at the fact that despite trying to keep things casual, keep him at arm's length, you’d gone and gotten all tangled up anyway.

It was a mistake.

You knew from the start, but you can’t even revel in your own self pity for too long, because soon enough you’re coming to your goddamn senses.

You were a complete and total bitch.

Steve had hurt you, yes, and maybe springing a date on you like that wasn’t the best way, but even you aren’t dumb enough to not notice his change. He had hurt you, and then he’d changed. He’d taken a step away from leading, to be more present, to be more around, and he was right, he had come every time you’d needed him, for whatever reason. He’d kept your scheduled meetings, even when he was dead tired and really could have called them off. 

He’d done everything you could have asked for.

And you hadn’t even asked for it.

—-

Your nerves nearly consume you when you step through the doorway and into the open space of the residential floors. Tony had gone just as nuts with the decorating as you’d imagined. Not a single corner of the room looked like Christmas hadn’t thrown up all over it. Yet, even your love of this time of year couldn’t trump the anxiety that rolls back over you as you look around the room.

You’re actually glad that you can’t spot him right away. It lets you relax, greet other people, ease into the nerves you feel. Besides, if your little meltdown had sent him back into the arms of whatever-her-name-was, you might just be sick.

The jig is up however, when Sam Wilson slings an arm around your shoulder, bright smile betrayed only by the knowing glance he gives you.

“Didn’t think I’d end up seeing you tonight.” he says casually, leading you toward the bar, and you shrug as best you can.

“I’ve got to grovel at some time. Christmas party seemed dramatic and cinematic enough.”

Sam gives you a sympathetic look and squeezes your arm.

“He isn’t upset with you.”

“He should be.” You say, shaking your head and dropping your gaze.

Sam sighs and removes his arm from you so that he can signal the bartender.

“He’s upset with himself.”

You roll your eyes.

“Of course he is. Cause he’s so damned good.” You kick the bar lightly in frustration, and sink a little more into self-hatred. Sam slides a shot of clear liquor toward you.

“Courage.” He says, tipping his own back seconds later, and you relent, plastering on a tight smile before pouring the contents of the glass down your throat.

It burns, and fills your nose with the distinct taste of vodka, and you scrunch up your face, Sam laughing at you when you put your glasses back.

“I’d like less courage next time.” You tell him, and he shrugs.

“I doubt you’ll be saying that in five seconds.” His eyes skip over your shoulder and you frown.

“Wait, why?” A quick glance behind you makes you panic, wide eyes finding a grinning Sam once again, who is already slinking off.

“Sam!”

It’s useless though, he’s gone in seconds, and quickly you become very aware of the man who’d come to stand a small distance away from you at the bar. Biting the bullet, you swallow thickly, and turn to look at him.

Steve looks much like he had the last time you’d seen him, which really only makes your stomach churn more in memory of the way you’d acted.

“Hey…” You greet, worried perhaps he might ignore you, even though you know damn well he could hear you over the crowd. But he doesn’t, eyes swivelling to find your like it was what he’d been waiting for. He gives you a conservative smile and nod.

“Hey.”

The one word alone, filled with so much simple sadness makes the damn break, and before you even realise what you’re doing, you’ve stepped right beside him, hands wringing in front of you.

“Steve, I am so sorry. What I said— I was just— I was a bitch.” You finish lamely, but he only looks down at you, slightly bewildered, as if he really hadn’t expected you to say anything about what had happened.

He turns in to face you, feeding off of your distressed body-language, one hand coming up to touch your arm, and he looks around concerned for a moment before back at you.

“You wanna go somewhere else…?” He asks, and again, you wallow in self-hatred at the way that he so quickly seemed ready to defend your clear anxiety. You swallow, and nod, letting him lead you away from the bar.

He guides you through familiar rooms just as decked out and just as full with people, until you reach a small, quiet staircase, one you know leads up to the private floors.

You’re well aware of how long it had been since you’d last stood in his apartment, and it only spurs your nerves on more. Maybe you should have waited… maybe the christmas party wasn’t the ideal time…

“As far as I’m concerned, you have nothing to apologise for.” Steve says, which only makes you scoff, rounding on him where he stands.

“Steve, you’ve got to be kidding!”

He only shrugs, sad eyes turning down and you sigh.

“Everything I said was… I shouldn’t have said it. You were right. Things haven’t exactly been ‘casual-hookups-no-strings-attached’ for a long time.” You fiddle with the hem of your sleeve and shuffle on your feet.

“I… I like what we had. Just… hanging out. You’re… you’re so easy to be with, and I like that, Steve. I never feel like we’re on different pages, you always get me, you’re great in bed… I— I like being with you, so much…” You pause and take a shaky breath.

“And I know that you’ve been trying. You’ve… frankly, you’ve changed more than I was even asking for back when—” You cut yourself off and shake your head.

“My point is. I’m sorry. I was a bitch because having you in my life in some way is better than not at all, and if things ended the way they did last time, I wouldn’t be able to even look at you— Am I even making any sense?!” You drag a hand over your hair and sigh. Steve moves toward you, slowly, and you force yourself to look at him.

“Yes.” He says, stopping just in front of you.

“I think.” He adds a moment later and you can’t help but laugh. You shake your head.

“I’m sorry.” You say again, and watch him stare at you, before nodding.

“Thank you. I’m sorry too.” He says, though you can’t even imagine what for right now.

“Is it too late to retroactively accept your invitation to the party?” You joke, and his face breaks into a smile, a light chuckle leaving him.

“I think so… Didn’t get to pick you up or anything…”

You click your fingers in an ‘oh shoot’ gesture, and Steve grabs your hand before you can drop it again. You watch as slowly he brings it to his lips, kissing the backs of your fingers.

Your breathing gets shallower at the action, and you wonder if him bringing you here, to his private rooms, was really a good thing after all. You rescind your earlier thoughts. You’re glad you didn’t wait, you’re glad you decided to do this during the Christmas party.

He pulls you closer in a way that feels only natural, and for the first time in a long time, you don’t have to pretend that any of this is real, you don’t need the fantasy.

Steve kisses you long and sweet, his hands firm and secure where he holds you, a silent promise. You think it feels different to how he normally holds you, but you think it’s probably just in your head. You bite at his lower lip, pulling on it just slightly, and his chest rumbles, his hands moving then, squeezing and pawing at you, feet blindly guiding you, moving towards his bedroom.

Clothes are peeled off and set aside, when you try to move atop of him, he only grabs your wrists, trapping you in place against his mattress, and you don’t even care. Steve was here, with you, in his room, and it was real.

He has you face down, pillow raising your hips slightly, his body draped over yours warm and heavy, sweat slicked and firm. Your thighs are only just parted, enough for him to slip inside you, so close, so deep you think you see stars with each thrust. He moves slow, arms caged around your own, hand splayed out against your throat, lifting your head up and back so he can kiss you as he moves, taste each moan he creates as he creates it.

You feel overwhelmed and utterly saturated in him, picked to pieces and pulled apart, his cock sheathed so deep, his weight bearing down on you, you’re drowning in him.

He kisses the back of your neck and shoulders, resting his forehead against you as he picks up his pace, driving faster and deeper, your desperate words of filth and want muffled into the pillow you hold tightly. You think your nails might’ve ripped a hole in the fabric, but you aren’t sure.

You come together, heady cries filling the air before dissipating into heavy, breathy sighs. He doesn’t leave you, stays right there atop of you, still inside you as you both come down. He kisses along your spine again, sweeps some hair out of the way to reach your neck, and that place behind your ear.

“Am I too heavy?” He asks a moment after, voice muffled in the skin of your shoulder, and you laugh, shaking your head, and peering up at him as best you can. He was atop you, sure, but his arms still held most of his weight, never too rough, always just enough.

“No. I like it.” You say, feeling a little shy. All the times you’d slept together, in a relationship, and out of it, this felt real, like all else before was just practice. Steve shifts his hips a little and you suck in a sharp breath.

“Yeah?” He asks, eyelashes fluttering just slightly. You nod.

“I like when you’re here… like this. And you don’t hold back on me.” He lifts his head a little and raises an eyebrow.

“I don’t think I’ve ever held back on you, when you’ve asked.” He reminds, and you hide your face, laughing into the pillow.

“Well maybe sometimes…” He admits, likely referencing all the times you’d beg him for ‘harder’ and he’d adjust his angle instead, already fucking you as hard as he felt comfortable with.

After a few seconds, he lets up a little to allow you to roll over, though he still hangs over you, chest to chest.

“I never liked leaving after.” He admits, dropping his lips to your cheek.

“I hated going back to my own bed, knowing you wouldn’t be with me in the morning. I don’t think I’ve ever said it but,” He lifts his head again and you stare up at him.

“Waking up with you in the mornings after we’d stayed together, it always felt like a battle to get up and leave. I always thought ‘today I don’t need to run. You can take a break’.”

“But you never did?” You wonder, and see the regret flash over his features.

“I should have. Maybe not all the time, but… I should have.” You purse your lips and try to catch his guilty eyes.

“Steve… I never wanted you to completely overhaul your life. I still don’t want you to do that. That part of you, the part that wants to help people and be there for them, I love that. It’s what fundamentally makes you you.” You push back the hair that hangs on his forehead and sigh, tracing the edges of his face now instead.

“I don’t care if six out of seven days a week you need to get up before me, as long as I have that seventh day…” His face softens from the self-judgement you could see reflected in his features and you smile.

“I just… I don’t know, I want to feel like at least a bit of a priority. I know that’s not always going to be possible, I get that… but…”

“I know. I’m sorry I ever made you feel like you weren’t.”

“And last-minute cancellations should be the exception not the rule!” You joke, and he hangs his head again, but chuckles against the crook of your neck.

“Understood.”

You lay like that for a while, just relishing in one another's presence, feeling your chest’s rise and fall against each other. When he moves next, it’s because his phone buzzes loudly on the bedside table, and you watch him reach blindly out to grab it.

You play with the hair on his arm as he checks the message, the amused sigh he gives off a second later heavy against your chest.

“It’s Buck,” He tells you.

“Says the fellas are getting ready for a round at the pool table…” He trails off as another message comes through, and this time you see him roll his eyes, and chuck his phone to the side.

“He wants to know if you’re going to kiss the winner again.” Steve’s voice is amused still as he finally crawls off of you, and helps you up. You both know you can’t, and shouldn’t stay locked up here all night.

“Well, I tell you what, Rogers, you don’t go easy on Barnes again, and I’ll give you what I promised last time.”

For a moment Steve just frowns in confusion, but as it slowly dawns on him, a challenging, determined glint fills his eyes.

“Better start keeping score then, sweetheart.”

[rivers-rambles21]

𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐬𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐡𝐞𝐫? | 𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐯𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐭𝐨𝐧 𝐱 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

summary steve finds out that falling in love can be really, really easy. you find out what it’s like when somebody wants to take care of you [10.5k]

warnings fem!reader, fluff, mutual pining, getting together, dustins next-door neighbour!reader, sick fic, hurt/comfort, reader is implied to weigh more than nancy, you’re upset one time and steve goes overboard, small s4 spoilers no major plot details, post s3 pre s4, feat. the lunch club, karaoke, rollerblading, sunbathing

𓆩❤︎𓆪

A vast green jungle, so damp the forest floor bathes your ankles in rainwater runoff. The air is thick with humidity and smells green. Earthy, the sweet scent of petrichor tickles your nose, and- 

A shadow distends over the yellow pages of your paperback, dark, eating up the image of the amazon and replacing it with reality – a normal summer's day in Hawkins. 

Steve Harrington stands in front of you, his body blocking the sun and its warm glow. The light throws a halo around his head and turns the ends of his brown hair golden. 

"Watcha reading?" he asks in lieu of ‘hello’.

"Ever read Journey to the Center of the Earth?" you ask him, leaning towards him invitingly. 

You love to mess with him like this, watch his cheeks slowly pink as you bend towards your knees with a demure smile playing on your lips. 

"Yeah, I did. In middle school," he says, trying his best to play it cool, hands pushing deep into the pockets of his pants. 

"Well, it's nothing like that." 

The grin he gets when he realises you're messing with him is adorable. He chuckles warmly and pulls a hand through his hair, looking down at the ground and then up at you again with a bashful pinch to his thick eyebrows.

"You're looking for Dustin?" you ask. You haven't seen your young neighbour since this morning. "He ran off earlier with his huge radio thing." 

Steve rolls his eyes. "Typical. I paid him fifteen dollars," he says, his frustration clear, "fifteen dollars, Y/N, to fix my Walkman like three weeks ago. Every time I come by he's out. Little shit probably hasn't even looked at it." 

You like Steve. He's a great looking guy who's more than nice when he sees you even though you're always pushing his buttons, and his poorly hidden fondness for Dustin is something you find heart-squeezingly attractive. You don't think twice about your next move. 

You stand up from your lounger and have to shield your eyes from the sun, tucking your book under your naked arm. "If you want… I have a cassette player I'm not using. I got a Walkman for my birthday." You don't give him an opportunity to say no as you start for the front door. 

"Are you sure?" Steve asks. You hold the door open for him, standing at the threshold with a grin. 

"Positive. It's collecting dust, at this point." 

"I mean, sure, if that's cool. Just until Dustin gets his act together," he says, pushing past you. His hand brushes your hip. 

"That's cool," you confirm, walking behind him through your open kitchen and living room. "It's on the left." 

Steve pushes into your bedroom. The window's open, breezing around the smell of fresh linens and the hydrangeas in the planter on your sill, shifting the gauzy white curtains. 

The suncatcher hanging from the window sprays rainbow kisses over your walls and posters, your laundry basket full of summer dresses and discarded night shirts. The carpet is freshly vacuumed and plush underfoot as you beeline for your desk. Steve hovers by the door before leaning his weight against your bookshelf, eyes taking it in curiously. 

"Cyndi Lauper," Steve says, eyes on a big poster of said singer with her iconic orange hair and hat. You raise your eyebrows at him, pleased, and he shrugs. "She's famous." 

"You like her?" 

"Nah," he says. "But I'll listen to anything. Except Depeche Mode; sharing a player with Robin all summer has sailed that boat." 

"Yeah?" you ask, kneeling down in front of your desk to dig through the cabinet underneath. You frown, up to your elbow in bric a brac and forgotten trinkets. "It's in here somewhere." 

"Yeah. I mean, maybe not anything. I don't think I have the palate for some of those rock and roll bands. Dustin made me listen to Black Scabbard in the car last week and…"

"Black Sabbath," you correct lightly, pulling out of your cupboard with a relieved huff. 

"Right," he says. 

You look over your shoulder to find him perusing your bookshelf, his hand running lightly over the shiny glass paper weight you use as a book end. He teases the spine of a hardback book curiously but must feel your gaze, turning to you with a sheepish smile. 

"Do you like to read?" you ask. 

Steve wrings his hands held at his hip. "Sure, I don't mind it. Bigger fan of movies." 

"Right, Family Video must get pretty distracting," you say, walking towards him on light footing to offer the dinged-up cassette player. "She's well loved but she works, I swear." 

He takes it from you, fingers brushing the backs of yours. "Thank you." 

You shift from one foot to the other — because oh my god there's a boy in my room — before smiling with teeth. You stop. "You're welcome. Want a drink?" 

"Uh…" 

"I've got pink lemonade." 

"Oh, then definitely." 

You lead him into the kitchen and install him at the kitchen table with two empty glasses. The carafe of lemonade is beautifully cold from the refrigerator with slices of lemon and strawberry bouncing around the top as you pour it. The condensation wets your fingers. 

Steve looks handsome and maybe slightly silly behind your homely oak table, all clean cut and well dressed. You feel bare beside him in your tank top and flowy midi skirt, too much skin. 

"Are you hungry? I make a mean BLT," you say, bringing your feet up onto the chair, knees digging into the table. 

"I'm good, thanks," he says. 

"Are you having a good time of it at FV? They denied my application, but that's 'cos Keith has a vendetta against me for wiping out his score on the Palace's Tempest." 

"You're a Tempest girl?" 

"Everybody plays Tempest," you say. 

Steve gives you a look. "Nerds play Tempest." 

"Fine, every nerd plays Tempest," you allow, rolling your eyes. "Lemme guess, you're a Centipede guy. No, worse! You play Pac-Man. I can tell."

His silence is enough to make you giggle in triumph, elated to have sussed him out so quickly.  

"How did you know that?" he asks finally. 

"You called Black Sabbath 'Black Scabbard'. You're not a nerd." 

"I could be." 

"But you're not." 

You share a steady look over the table. His eyes are bright with mirth, a sleek brown like fresh brewed coffee. You love the shape of them, deepest with the round under eye blanketed in straight black lashes. A red polo stretches across his chest. You find your eyes drawn down the length of his arm to his hand where he's drawing circles around the rim of his glass. He takes it into his hand and you watch his wrist bend, his arm flex as he brings the cup to his lips and a drop of condensation drips onto the table mat. 

"I don't look the type?" he asks after a rough swallow. He sounds almost incensed. 

"No, of course you don't. King Steve," you croon. 

He crosses his arms across his chest and leans back, looking you up and down showfully. "Neither do you." 

He's all charming smiles as he raises his chin and shakes his head, lips stretched up in an open-mouthed smile. 

"Tempest," he mutters in bemusement.

You burst into laughter, quick to defend yourself when there's a pounding knock at the door. You're still laughing as you stand, calling to Steve as you walk to the door, "Tempest isn't even that nerdy! It's the Dragon's Lair dorks you need to watch out for. Oh, hi baby. What's wrong?" 

"You haven't seen Steve, have you? His cars outside," Dustin announces, standing under the porch with his wild curls stuffed under a hat, his pulley cart ditched halfway between your yard and his.

"He's in the kitchen. You want some lemonade? You look frazzled," you offer, brushing your hand over his sunburned shoulder lightly as he scoots right past you.

"Thanks, Y/N." Dustin strides into the kitchen with purpose, glaring at Steve pretty heavily as he takes your seat at the table. "Why are you here?" 

"Fucking charming. I came to see you, Henderson, but you're never home. Too busy finding secluded knolls to radio your girlfriend and play karaoke." 

"Dick," Dustin says, though he defrosts as you fill a glass for him. 

"What do you want?" Steve asks him. 

"Why do you assume I want something?" 

"Don’t be coy, you're not Madonna. It's tacky." 

"Dick," Dustin says again, glaring. 

"Dustin, do you want something to eat? You shouldn't go out in the sun all day by yourself, you know? What if you get heat stroke?" you ask. 

Steve gives you a strange look like he's puzzled with you. You smile back at him, hand coming down on the back of Dustin's chair easily. 

"Steve, I need a ride to Mike's," Dustin says, completely ignoring you.

Steve kicks him under the table. "Manners." 

"Can I please have a ride-" 

"To her, dipshit. Jeez, what's wrong with you? She asked if you're hungry." 

Dustin beams at you innocently, soft cheeks rounding. "No thank you Y/N you're a godsend and I appreciate you very much," he says all in a rush, turning back to Steve, the act entirely dropped. "Now can we go?" 

"Christ, fine. I'm gonna get you one of those rewards cards for being a shithead. This incident would be a double stamp, by the way." 

"Uh-huh," Dustin says. 

The younger teen chugs his glass of lemonade and spins off, calling a thank you over his shoulder. Steve gets up to follow him, your old cassette player held carefully in his hands. 

"I'm sorry about him." 

"Don't be. I've known him his entire life. He's in a phase," you inform him with a small grin, shrugging as if to say, what you gonna do? 

"Long phase. Thank you. For the player and the lemonade." 

"You're welcome," you say warmly, walking him to the door. 

Dustin's already in the passenger seat, having taken his pulley cart back inside. He makes a hurry up motion from behind his window and Steve mutters expletives to himself, giving you one last smile before he trudges off. 

The two boys wave at you through the windshield. You wave back.

When Steve's car has winked from view you take your lemonade and paperback outside again to lie under what's left of the sun. You try your best to fall back into the jungle and conjure its sights and sounds, only you keep finding your thoughts wrapped up around a certain boy's laugh and the face he makes as he does, that startled grin, a fist half raised to his mouth. 

-

"Y/N!" A familiar teen voice accompanied by battering knocking at your front door. 

You pull it open, still in your pajamas, hair a mess. His knocking had woken you up. You'd had about ten seconds to check you hadn't drooled too violently in your sleep before he was calling your name, and so you hadn't bothered getting dressed. 

You wish you had. Dustin stood at the door with Steve Harrington behind him, a happy smile on both their faces. 

You try not to flinch as you throw an arm across your chest subconsciously. "Hi?" you ask. "Is everything okay?" 

Dustin's dressed for the beautiful weather in shorts and a shirt with sleeves so short it may as well be a tank top, a hat perched familiarly over his cute curls. Steve is dressed in a tormenting pair of jeans paired with a denim jacket. Double denim. He looks hot, physically and figuratively. 

"Do you wanna come skating?" Dustin asks urgently. 

You blink at him, pulling the edges of your strappy vest down to cover your navel, plaid bottoms low on your hips – you're a mess.  

"Skating? I don't have one." 

"A skateboard?" Dustin asks, shrugging. "Bring your rollerblades." 

You err at the door, leaning your weight against it as you think. "When?" 

"Now!" he says.

"I don't want to hold you up," you say, aimed more towards Steve than Dustin. 

Steve smiles, hooking cheeks pink with the heat, and is about to talk when Dustin says, "He made me come ask you, he's fine to wait." 

You bite back a smirk at Steve's deer-in-the-headlights expression and nod happily. "Alright. Twenty minutes and I'll be ready. If that's okay?" 

"Totally," Steve says. 

You close the door most of the way and catch a look over his shoulder, finding his pretty friend Robin in one seat and a gaggle of Dustin's friends in the back.

You hear a sharp thwarping sound as you spin away followed by a "What the fuck, dude?" from Dustin and hope that he hasn't tripped over one of your flower pots. You get ready and spend at least ten minutes worrying after your appearance in the mirror before grabbing the skates and jetting into the kitchen. You gather as many impromptu snacks you can find and shove them into a grocery bag, struggling to lock the door behind you in want of a free hand. 

Steve jumps out of the driver's side to open the side door for you. You smile gratefully and dump the snacks and your skates in the footwell before climbing in, an empty seat between you and Dustin’s redheaded friend.

You're saved from the awkwardness of seeing people you've met but don't quite know by their ongoing debate, something about which Bruce Springsteen song is best. 

“It’s obviously Dancing in the Dark. I don’t really know why we’re still talking about this,” Robin says from the passenger seat.

“You’re just saying that because it’s his most popular,” the girl next to you says.

“Things are popular for a reason.” Robin shrugs. 

“Yeah, Max. Plus, popular or not, it’s his best.”

Max scrunches up her entire face. “Better than I’m on Fire?”

There’s a long pause where each child deliberates. Dustin and Mike dissolve into fierce looks. 

“Nobodies talking about Born in the USA,” Steve says into the quiet, eyes on the road but head tilted back.

“Shut up, Steve,” Mike says, looking as exhausted as he usually does when you’ve seen him coming in and out of Dustin’s. Though it's been a while, he hasn't changed. Perpetually done with people's shit. 

“Disrespectful,” Steve murmurs. His eyes flash to the rear view, catching you red-handed as you stare at him. “What do you think?” 

“About what?”

“About Springsteen."

You consider him, his smile, his gaggle of cruel children. “I like Born in the USA,” you say nonchalantly.

“That’s two points,” Steve says triumphantly.

The skatepark is pretty busy because of the good weather. You and Steve end up unpacking your snacks onto a blanket Robin lays out whilst the boys go look for their friend Lucas, who's supposedly already here. 

Max doesn't seem pleased with this revelation, sitting down heavily by Steve's picnic basket. Steve offers her a PB&J from the basket and a cold caprisun and she perks up, but not a lot. You want to spend time with Steve, you're not disillusioned into thinking you're anything but a flower under his attention, blooming and wanting, but Max's sad eyes get the better of you. 

Too late for introductions, you dive straight in. “What’s in the Walkman?” you ask, nodding at the player sticking out of her jacket pocket, the foam padded headphones around her neck. 

“Wild Things Run Fast, Joni Mitchell.” It sounds like a question. 

You’ve struck gold immediately. “I love Joni Mitchell! Have you heard her new stuff?”

Max seems alarmed and happy at once, red messy braids swaying as she lifts her chin. “I mean, only what they’ve played on the radio.”

“Her album came out this October, Dog Eat Dog? I have the cassette if you wanna borrow it. It’s amazing.”

“Really?” she asks. She’s peeling the crusts off of her sandwich, one side at a time, dropping them into the small pile of discarded Saran Wrap. 

“For sure. You’ve heard Shiny Toys?” Max nods. “It’s all as good as that one. Seriously.”

“Awesome,” she says, taking a huge bite of her sandwhich. 

You realise you might’ve come on a little strong and try to backtrack into cool territory again, hand brushing Steve’s ankles as you lean away from the poor girl, smiling sheepishly. 

“My mom loves Joni Mitchell,” Robin says.

“Robin," Steve chides lightly.

“What?” 

You and Steve share a look that’s so familiar it gives you pins and needles in your hands, something small between the two of you clicking into place. Or at least that’s how you feel.

Max has almost finished her sandwich by the time Mike returns. “Are you ready?” he asks her.

She clambers onto her feet and grabs her skateboard from behind Steve. The two walk away, a distance from Dustin and Lucas, who both seem to have acquired a pair of skates each. Dustin in knee pads and a helmet, Lucas without. 

“Why would you say Max listens to mom music?” Steve asks incredulously once they’re out of hearing distance. 

Robin shakes her head, similarly incensed. “I didn’t say that.”

“There were so many other things you could’ve said, Robs.” He sounds less mad and more pitying. 

"I didn't say that! I said my mom listens to her. She does!" 

"Don't take offense. Robin got dropped as a baby," Steve says to you offhandedly. 

You know the best course of action here and you take it – in what world would you make an enemy of a boy you might like's best friend who is a girl? Not this one. Plus, Robin seems super nice. 

"I'm not offended. My mom loves Joni too," you say cheerily, smiling at Robin, unabashed.

You're slightly disappointed when she looks away towards her lap, until she says, "Projections a bad look on you, Harrington. He has, like, a flat head," she tells you.

Steve starts yammering loudly. "Shut up! My head's perfect, you're being ridiculous. Perfectly round and ordinary, thank you." 

"Yeah, I'd definitely say your head's perfectly round," you agree through giggles, reaching for your skates.

You have a funny feeling that a silent conversation is happening as you slide off your shoes and into the skates, lacing up tight, but when you look up Robin's sifting through the accumulated snack pile and Steve's looking the opposite way, towards the kids. 

You clear your throat. "Are you guys gonna skate too?"

"Steve is." 

"I didn't bring-" 

"He's borrowing mine. It's too hot, I can't skate. And I don't have the coordination, anyway."

Steve looks at Robin, at you, Robin again. "I'm not good," he says. You take it for yes. 

Steve gets on his skates and straps out of his denim jacket, exposing the distracting lengths of his arms. He's better than he gives himself credit for, steady on his feet. He knows how to stop and start, and you smile to yourself when the two of you skate off towards Dustin and Lucas, following their journey around the skate park, careful to stay clear of the bowls and rails. 

"You're good! You said you weren't good!" you say to him. 

"I'm not good." 

"You're doing great!" 

He smiles gratefully, the expression at home over his warm features. He's not really a very smiley guy, you've realised, his lips often pulled up into a grimace or a cruel approximation of a smile, sarcastic. It suits him. You go to say as much, eyes eating up every little detail of him. 

"Hey Steve? You should-" and your foot pops over a rock. 

You shriek and throw your arm out towards him. Steve catches you with impressive strength and speed as your leg buckles. You've quickly righted yourself and he brings you to a slow but not quite stop. Stopping on skates is easier said than done, especially old skates with the front guards already worn down. 

"Are you okay?" he asks. 

You've taken his hand without thinking, the two of you widening apart and then coming together like the eclipse of a blinking eye. 

You pull your hand away apologetically, the warmth of his palm lingering. 

"I'm sorry!" you say. 

"Don’t be. Last thing I wanna do is have you crack your head open on my watch. I’m glad you didn’t wipe out." 

"Thanks to you." 

You slow and stop. Steve does the same, the two of you clumsy for different reasons. He watches as you calm your racing heart. 

"Shit, I really thought I was gonna fall. You're a lifesaver." You stare straight into his eyes, their sunlight honey brown, smiling with complete genuineness. He's more than pretty. "Thank you." 

Steve swallows and his smile is warmer, somehow, impossibly warmer. Maybe it's the beautiful weather, maybe it's the beautiful boy. You suddenly feel very, very hot. 

"I think I might need to sit down." 

"Oh, shit," he says, reaching for your arm. You're about to correct his touching – you're not dizzy, just a little nauseous. Only, his hand. His fingers clasped around your elbow, his face fiercely protective. 

You let him guide you back to the picnic blanket. One hand around your elbow, the other behind your sun-warmed back, and somehow his hand is the hottest spot. 

"Are you okay?" Robin asks, shielding her eyes from the sun. The book in her lap slips shut as she straightens. 

"She's okay," Steve says. “Too hot. Budge up." 

Robin moves over on the blanket and throws the basket open. Steve reaches in for a capri sun and passes it to you. It's lukewarm, though the day is so hot it's a relief to drink it. 

"Steve's really good," you tell her after a noisy suck, the orange plastic straw stabbing your lip. You frown down at it.

"I saw you guys whizzing around. Public menaces, both of you," Robin says, though she smiles as she does. You know she's joking. You don't want to think it in case it's not true, but you feel like maybe she wants to be friends. 

"We prefer speed demons," Steve says easily, still kneeling at your side. 

"They should lock you up." 

You snort and almost squirt juice from your nose, spluttering and coughing as you bend at the waist. Steve pats your back less than gently and then more so as you move your hand towards him. 

"I'm okay," you cough, embarrassed at how you must look hacking your lungs out. 

Steve's hand, again on your back, rubs a stern line. "Chill out, Y/N. You can't die before dinner." 

"We're getting McDonald's," Robin supplies. 

"Don't tell the kids," he says, smirking. 

He's still rubbing your back. You suspect you might agree to anything while he's this close. 

"You sound like such a dad when you say shit like that." 

Steve scowls at Robin's words and pulls his hands away, crossing them over his chest. "Don't say that. Babysitter is more than enough, don't you think? Y/N?" 

"An older brother?" you suggest to Robin's extreme delight. 

She laughs. Steve scrubs at his face with both hands until his eyes are red. 

-

Robin's sick and Steve's going crazy by himself, manning the desk at FV with almost no energy and even less enthusiasm. A week since he'd held your hand and he can't seem to stop thinking about it. 

He catches himself staring at his own empty palm and clenches his fist, bringing his eyes back to the door in case someone walks in and he has to pull off the headphones of your borrowed cassette player. 

Steve had discovered a forgotten cassette inside, listening to it out of curiosity the night you'd given him the player and then every night since then. He felt guilty about keeping it without saying anything but he was only borrowing it, he reasoned. He'd give it back when Dustin fixed his skipping Walkman.  

The tape was Van Halen II. And Steve's not stupid, he knows who Van Halen are, but he's never sat and listened through any of their full albums. Now he can't stop, constantly rewinding back to the same song, over and over. 

He does so now, fingers clumsy and too big over small buttons until the first line kicks in, powerful and high energy like a burst of fresh air. 

Have you seen her?

So fine and pretty.

He grins as it plays, thinking of you instantly. Your smile and your legs, the wind whipping at your skirt and exposing stretches of skin he can't stop remembering. You on your rollerblades, the second time after an emergency PB&J, skating in front of him without looking behind you. 

"Don't let me crash into someone, okay?" you'd asked, swaying from one side to the other as you shifted your weight. 

"It'll be too late to stop you if I see someone! Turn around!" he'd demanded, though his fondness had peeked through. 

You'd thrown your hands out. "You'll have to steer me!" 

And so he'd grabbed your hands and you'd laughed like a fool as you skated together, squealing through close calls and bumpy ground. 

He thinks of your hands in his, their weight and size, the magnetic pulse he'd felt between them, how happy you'd seemed to be with him. 

He was harbouring a crush on you. Too old to deny what it feels like to want a pretty girl, Steve wonders if this is entirely a good idea – letting himself like you when the possibility of rejection feels high. You are, as Dustin had promised him, out of Steve's league. "Don't try your luck, dude." 

Steve thought for a second that his thinking about you had summoned your image, your easy walk and the elegant way about your hands and how you held them, in a blue dress with matching strappy mary-jane's, white socks with the ruffle tops. He blinks. No way he could think up anything as pretty. 

You push open the door and grin from across the room, a large tupperware of some type in your hands. His eyes move up from your fingers where they clutch plastic, your wrist, your arms. The puff sleeves of your dress are short and cuffed, similar to the matching ruched neckline that shows enough to make him swallow. A necklace lays in the valley of your chest, a silver chain with a blue flower at the end, small but thick. Five round petals, a cutout missing that shows a circle of your chest beneath. 

"Steve," you say, like you'd been in mid conversation. "Please tell me you have a sweet tooth."

He pulls the headphones from his head and leaves them around his neck, fixing his hair as casually as he can when he says, "Sure, I like candy." 

You set your container down on the counter and crack it open, the rich, buttery smells of its contents quickly filling the room.

"I made penuche for Dustin's mom's birthday, but I made so-" you drag the word out, lips a gloss-sticky 'o', "much of it. I can't eat it all. And she said I wasn't allowed to give it to Dustin 'cos he keeps using the f-word." 

His laugh is startled but genuine. "Not the f-word." 

The fudge is a light brown, almost pink in the neon tinted lighting. It smells divine, and he's saved from an internal debate about what's cool when you push the tub towards him. "Do you like fudge?" you ask him.

He takes one and you take one, and he tries not to look at you as you eat, or when you scratch gloss and a crumb from the corner of your mouth. 

"You’re a modern Martha Stewart," Steve says happily.

"Only on special occasions. Where's Robin?" you ask, elbows braced on the counter and leaning in. 

"Sick. Apparently." 

"Apparently," you repeat, grinning. "What, she didn't look sick?" 

"She talked to me on the phone. She sounded sick," he concedes. "Good things it's Thursday." 

You look around the completely empty store. "This is what it usually looks like on a Thursday?" 

"It's Hawkins. Half the people here get their VHS from the library, the others drive out to Blockbuster. We get about as much foot traffic as an ice cream stand in September." 

"It's 'cos you take too long to get the new ones,'' you say. "No offense." 

"The tone of someone personally victimised by a Family Video wait list." 

"You got me. I've been trying to get the Breakfast Club for two months!" you complain, scratching your chest lazily. 

Steve crosses his arms over his chest until his hands are hidden, rolling his eyes. "Oh, so this is bribery penuche." 

You blink at him and then your lips part in horror, pretty eyes widening. "No!" 

"It totally is. You're trying to butter me up," he says, suave tone disrupted by the need to giggle at his own pun. "Y/N, how could you? Here I thought we were starting to be friends and you're using me for my video store?" 

His mock horror puts you eat ease when you realise he's joking. "I really wanna see that movie," you say dejectedly. You reach for another piece of fudge and bite it in half, your chewing morose. "It feels like everybody saw it at the movies but me." 

"Of course they did. Why didn't you?" 

You glare at him. "I was busy!" 

"For the month it was in theatres?" 

"Yes!" you defend yourself from his teasing. "I have things to do!" 

"Like what?" 

"Like school!" 

"Everybody has school." 

"You're picking on me after I brought you candy. This is so cruel." You don't sound like you've suffered any cruelty. Steve might say you're really enjoying yourself. 

"Sorry, sweetheart."

You glare at his insincere pet name. "Whatever. Oh, hey, how's she treating you?" you ask, eyes on the cassette player. "Steve, you have my Van Halen tape! Thank god, I thought I lost it."

"Right. Sorry, I meant to give it back," he lies. 

You shrug your shoulders. "Keep it however long you want to. It's good, right? Which one's your favourite?"

He pulls the headphones out and rewinds back before setting the player in front of you. You raise your eyebrows at him but click play, and the audio starts abruptly, loud and mid quality. 

Yes, it's love in the third degree. 

You grin, head bobbing, eyes flitting to his with approval written all over your face. You don't seem to hesitate before you sing along under your breath, high pitched but quiet.

"Ooh, baby baby. Won't-cha turn your head my way?" 

He feels a little enchanted by you, that same magnetism he'd felt between his hands, can't believe how pretty you are and how sweetly you move. You laugh at yourself as you sing the next line, an intense, almost theatrical look upon your face. Like you're swooning.

"Ooh, baby baby. Ah come on! Take a chance, you're old enough to-" You flare your eyes at him and nod, mouth open encouragingly. 

He won't join in, no matter how electric he finds you. You roll your eyes and your shoulders roll in a half-dance as you hum along to the chorus. 

Dance the night away. 

"You're no fun, Steve," you complain, giggling. 

"You're enough for the two of us." 

You peer over the counter, still moving with the music as you ask, "What were you doing? Before I came in?" 

"Looking through the computer at what's late being returned. Riveting, extremely hard work." 

"Do you get, like, secret intel on what new movies are coming in?" 

"Sure we do. Wanna see?" he asks. 

You creep around the counter and stand by his side. He scrolls through the system and translates acronyms for you. "This is the coming in," he says, drawing a line down a list of movie names. "These are what's being moved back to the headquarters."

"Headquarters," you repeat, leaning in to see the screen more clearly. You browse the new titles idly, slipping closer and closer to the computer. 

"You'll burn your retinas." 

"Invaders from Mars, Youngblood, Black Moon Rising," you list thoughtfully. You turn on your heel. "I don't know any of those. You got a chic-flicks section?" 

You're really close. Steve looks at you, this close, this pretty, his hands itching to touch you. He leans in and your arms fall to your sides, the space between you growing ever smaller. 

"We do," he says slowly, eye to eye, almost daring you to look at his mouth instead. He wants you to. He wants to look at yours. 

You're steadfast, not impassive but certainly unreadable as you say, "Show me?" 

Steve reaches for the mouse behind you like he was always intending to, hiding any smugness he feels when you exhale noticeably. You turn back around, his arm brushing over yours as he sorts through the tag system to show you "ROM-COM INCO". 

"These are all the ones we have coming in. You know any of those?" 

"Hannah and Her Sisters. I saw that one." 

"Finally had some free time?" he asks wryly. 

"Shut up, Steve." 

"You know… I can keep the Breakfast Club for you. Next time it comes in." 

The smile you give him is blinding. "Thanks, Steve." 

"Yeah, no problem." He hopes the sudden increase in temperature is mutual. 

-

Your backyard is a field of flowers. Maybe dramatic, but Steve's never seen so many, a heavy green spotted in chartreuse, vermillion, bright oranges and pink-white. You lay on a towel in the grass surrounded by them, the sun lighting you up, your skin glowing and perfect. 

You're in black, spandex type shorts and a bikini top. Steve feels like a perv for looking, so he clears his throat. You don't budge. 

He creeps closer. You're in headphones listening to your Walkman. He can hear the music from where he stands at your backdoor, so it must be loud. He stands over you and hopes his shadow will wake you up. When it still doesn't he gets concerned, kneeling down carefully with his knees digging into your towel. 

"Y/N. Hey," he says. 

Still nothing. 

He pulls your headphones off gently, looking over your face in worry. You must be sleeping. 

"Y/N, you shouldn't sleep out here. You'll get sun stroke," he says. He strokes your arm though he shouldn't. He can't help himself, his fingers pressing into the crook of your elbow.

You blink awake and then slam your eyes closed. Steve adjusts himself to block the sun from your face and you manage to pry your eyes open, confused.

"Hello." 

"Hey," he says. He can't help the fondness that plays over his smile.

"Shit." Your eyes go wide and you cover your chest with your arm. "I'm naked." 

"You're not naked," he says. 

"I'm naked. Stop looking at me." 

Steve turns away obligingly. 

"Stop laughing at me, Harrington." 

"Is there anything I'm allowed to do?" he asks, though he does stop laughing.

"I'm so embarrassed. I was sunbathing and I must've fallen asleep." 

Steve lets his eyes stray to your naked thigh. He stares at your skin, follows a stretch mark upwards and then swiftly peels his gaze away. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be a total perv. I can go wait in my car." 

"You're not a perv. I'm being a priss. Sorry. I know I'm not, like, a model and I wasn't expecting to have this much skin on show. I don't look like Nancy Wheeler."

You sound more nervous than Steve has ever heard you. Worse, you sound dejected, though you've tried for nonchalance. Steve stares at you until you raise your chin, your fingers pinching meanly at your thighs. 

"You're messing with me," he says.

"What?" you ask, incredulous. "I'm not messing with you." 

"You gotta know you're beautiful. That's, like, a stone cold fact. A hard truth. You're beautiful. Who cares if you don't look like Nance?" 

You sigh, though it's not very believable when you're smiling so much. "She's really pretty." 

"So are you." 

"You know what I mean, Steve. She's… small." 

"She's a small woman," he agrees. "That doesn't make her prettier than you." 

"You're sure?" you ask quietly. 

Steve means it a hundred percent when he says, "I'm sure." 

The two of you sit there for a few seconds. He can hear your breathing and he's wondering if you can hear his. 

"What are you doing here?" you ask. 

Your hand is still held across your stomach but you're thankfully looking more relaxed. Steve meant what he said, you're beautiful, he couldn't care less that you're taller or that you weigh more than his ex. You're fucking pretty, and seeing you all laid out and sun kissed has made him kind of crazy. 

"Steve?" you ask. 

"Oh. I brought you The Breakfast Club. Just got it back in this morning," he rushes to say, grabbing the VHS tape from where he'd left it on the ground. The Family Video spine is glaringly ugly compared to you and your flowers. 

"Woah, thank you!" 

"You're welcome. It's under my name though, so don't keep it late. Can't disprespect the FV name. I'm going for employee of the month." 

You giggle. "You are? Are you the top contender?" 

"Nope." 

You laugh some more, the sound delicate and sweet as spun sugar, in Steve's humble opinion. 

"Not that my fellow employees try any harder, but Keith just picks himself every month for the free credits." 

You rub your fingers across the front of the box. "I won't be late. I mean, I'll watch it today, I've been so excited to see it." 

Steve stands up. "Sorry to disturb your idyllic sunbathing." 

"Idyllic," you murmur, smiling. "You're good, Steve. Thank you for the movie." 

"You're welcome. I'll see you later?" he asks, shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans, slowly backing away. 

"No," you say. He raises his eyebrows and you look sheepish but not shy when you continue, "Do you wanna stay? Watch the movie with me? I have stovetop popcorn and soda and everything." 

"What about the great weather? You don't wanna waste it." 

You force your hands between your thighs and hunch forward slightly. "I do wanna waste it. I mean, I've had enough for today, don't you think? I'm a half hour from heat stroke." 

"You're looking pretty warm," he says. Anything to take you up on your offer without sounding too interested. 

-

You're trying not to give Steve the side eye. Trying, but he's very attractive and very close, and he keeps making funny jokes. It's annoying how hot he is. 

Steve has slouched back and his jeans have slowly edged down, exposing the flesh of his hip. Not that you've noticed, or anything. 

You cram a big handful of popcorn into your mouth and flick your eyes back to the screen. You'd really wanted to see this movie but Steve keeps capturing your attention, again and again, over and over. You can't believe you'd asked him to stay and he had, can't believe he brought the VHS for you in the first place. 

That's a dedicated employee right there. 

You shuffle closer to him under the guise of sharing your popcorn. Your shoulders touch. 

"Thanks," he says. His thigh hits your thigh as he takes a handful. 

"Steve," you say softly. 

"What?" 

"I don't feel well. I think the sun killed me." 

He throws his arm around the back of the couch and twists, careful not to upend the popcorn bowl as he looks over you searchingly. You've seen Steve play caretaker before, but being under his watch is different. He's almost a different person as he checks you over. 

"You feel sick?" he asks. He holds his hand out between you, his knuckles at your eye level. "Can I?" 

You tilt your head back and close your eyes. Steve presses the back of his hand to your forehead and pets down softly, feeling for your temperature. 

"You're still really warm. Let's get you cooled down." 

Steve springs up and knocks the bowl. You blink, slightly disoriented as he disappears into the kitchen, picking up spilled popcorn off of the couch and eating it with slow chews. Now you think of it, your arms hurt, too.

Steve returns and sits on the edge of the sofa, a bag of peas in his hand. "I raided your freezer. Lean your head back." 

"I'm fine," you say, but tilt your head back anyways, gasping when the cold hits you.  

"You might actually get heatstroke. Do you know how dangerous heat stroke is? You need to cool down. Where's the A/C?" 

"It's on." 

Steve feels along your cheek gingerly. "I can't believe you fell asleep outside. What's that about?" He pauses. "Are you sleeping okay?" 

"I'm sleeping fine." 

"Are you sure?" 

His wrist turns and you feel the pad of his fingers rather than the back, the palm of his hand as he cups your face. 

You peek through your lashes at him. His eyebrows are pinched and his bottom lip juts out in a concerned pout. 

"You can tell me." 

The way he says it – well, you imagine you could tell him anything. He sounds warm and worried. This close you can smell his cologne, something heavy with sage, a little bit of lilac hidden under unmistakable bergamot. It's all so comforting and the sun has loosened your tongue. 

"Maybe not so much. It's… it's hot. You know? And…" 

"What?" he murmurs. Your heart skips as his thumb rubs over your cheek. 

You close your eyes like your confession might take form. "I'm kind of lonely, lately," it sounds like a question, "and it's- it keeps me up sometimes. I don't know, it sounds stupid when I say it out loud." 

"It doesn't sound stupid." 

"No?" 

"No, I get it." He pulls away but doesn't move too far, his hand still holding the freezing peas to your forehead, the other brushing against your arm as he drops it in his lap. "These days Dustin doesn't leave me alone. I don't want him to, either. The same with Robs." 

You let your head loll to the side. Steve doesn't look shy or scared to tell you, talking almost matter of fact. "But my parents were never home when I was in high school. They still aren't. I felt it more back then." 

"Yeah. I don't know. I never see anybody. Besides Dustin," you say. "We have him in common." 

"You see me." 

"When I'm annoying you at work." 

"You don't annoy me." He's stern though he abruptly turns into a conspirator whispering secrets. "Robin's fuse gets shorter with me everyday." 

"How come?" you ask, co-conspirator. 

"I can't stop watching the door." 

You lift your head. Steve takes back his bag of peas and feels along your forehead, now cold enough to ache. 

"Here, hold these to your chest. I'd do it for you, but…" 

You take the peas and hide a terrible smile, heart racing between your ears. Your nausea has flipped  completely into butterflies and they're rabid, knocking at your abdomen insistently. 

You're trying to think of a way to make him say nice things again when there's a knock at the door. 

"Dustin," you both say. 

"Jinx, buy me a soda," Steve says. 

You glare at him and he laughs all the way to the door. 

"Why are you always here? Where's Y/N?" 

"She's got heat stroke." 

"I don't!" you call hoarsely. 

"You sound like you do," Dustin says. "Can one of you give me a ride?" 

"She has heat stroke." 

You climb onto the back of the sofa to look down the hallway. Dustin stands at the front door with a huge piece of engineering in his arms that you don't understand, wires and ciricuits and things. 

"Remeber when you used to bike everywhere? What happened to that?" Steve asks, sounding majorly pissed. You can't work out why he's so frustrated but it makes you laugh again. 

The two boys turn to you with twin looks of confusion. 

"I can't bike there, genius. This won't fit in the basket." 

You laugh again, twice as loud. 

"What's wrong with her?" Dustin asks, shaking his head. 

"What don't you understand about heat stroke?

"Potential heat stroke," you interject.  

"She fell asleep in the sun. I don't know how long she was out there her brain might be totally jellified, dude." 

"You should take her to the hospital."

You clamber onto aching limbs and walk until your behind Steve, reaching for his elbow automatically. "I'm fine, babe. What's your doohickey?" 

Dustin smirks and pulls the weight closer to his chest. "Prototype." 

"For what?" 

"Top secret." 

You giggle some more, wobbling with the force of it. Steve sighs and wraps his arm around your back, his hand under your arm to grip you at the ribs. 

Dustin gets wide eyes like a looney tunes character. "What's going on here?" 

"Nothing," Steve hisses. "Look, let me set Y/N up with the works and I'll drive you where you want to go, you brat." 

Dustin drops his suspicion, having got what he wants. "I'll wait in the car. Feel better!" 

"That's three stamps on the shithead card, shithead!" Steve calls after him. The two of you watch his retreating figure and then Steve is manhandling you (not too roughly) down the hallway and back onto the sofa. 

"I'm not dying, Steve." 

Steve puts your popcorn bowl in your lap and the frozen peas back on your chest. He fills your glass either the warming carafe on the coffee table and then bends down to talk to you, entirely too intense. 

"Are you good?" he asks. 

"Perfect. I don't even feel hot anymore." 

He rolls his eyes. "Yeah, okay. Listen, I'm gonna go drop Dustin off, and then I'm gonna call you to make sure you're not dead." 

"You don't have to do that, Steve," you say, moving down into the couch, a cushion falling over as you do. He straightens it out, cups your face in his hand so fast you think you've imagined it and then squints at you. 

"Don't die of heat stroke." 

He starts to walk away and you're startled. Unfairly, you don't want him to go, and you call, "Steve?" 

"Yeah?" 

"What about The Breakfast Club?" 

He grins at you, a lazy, King Steve kind of smile. "I was always gonna leave that here. So you can come 'annoy' me at work when you return it." He pulls a hand through his hair and gives you a once over and then spins on his heel. "Make sure you answer when I call!" 

You lose sight of him as he leaves, the couch backing too tall. He shuts the door kindly and you can just about hear the crunch of gravel as his car pulls away. 

"He was definitely flirting with me," you say to yourself, pouring a sweet handful of popcorn into your mouth. You're smiling so wide it's hard to chew. 

-

Dustin bursts into Family Video with his small entourage, Mike and Lucas, and an urgent look on his face. Steve quickly stops his facade of being busy when he clocks them.

"What? Need to borrow ten dollars?" he asks, rolling his eyes. 

"Actually, it's about Y/N," Dustin says. 

Steve stretches across the desk on his elbows. 

"What about her?" he asks, suspecting a waste of time.

"She was crying her eyes out in her backyard last night." 

Steve blinks, feeling a pit open up in his chest. "What? Why?" 

"Well…" Dustin says. "I didn't ask." 

Steve pictures your pretty face crinkled with tears, sitting on the paving stones outside your house. He wonders what would make you cry, sob, whatever it was. You'd confessed to being lonely though he sort of hopes that the feeling has ebbed now that he's calling you every day. At first, under the guise of checking up on you, but, I don't think I'm at risk of heat stroke anymore Steve. It's been a week and a half. 

Better safe than sorry. 

"Nancy said she saw her outside outside Bradley's Big Buy last night looking miserable," Mike adds, in one of his worst outfits, a mismatch of colours and long socks, a visor that Steve once tried to bribe Dustin to destroy on a hot day with his magnifying glass. The small burned spot perseveres at the caps edge. 

Steve feels weirdly proud at their concern and better, their detective skills. The three of them look like they could solve crimes, a mystery gang. Lucas is the only one dressed well in Steve's opinion, though that might be because he's in similar fashion, a nice polo and blue jeans. 

"You don't know what's wrong with her?" Lucas asks.

His pride wanes. "Oh, you guys are here for gossip?" he asks scathingly. 

"No!" 

"You're her boyfriend, right?" 

"Not-" Steve swallows, "exactly." 

Robin, who had been listening from her stool a few feet back, strides over and falls into place by his side, braced by her elbows. 

"If Steve were her boyfriend, we'd know why she was crying," she says, earning a round of boyish chuckles. 

Steve nods and then understands her meaning, feeling stupid for assuming Robin would say something that wasn't mean while at work. "Fuck off, I'm a good boyfriend." 

Four sets of eyebrows raise. 

"I am! I'm romantic." 

"You smashed our trellis and dislodged a drain pipe," Mike says. 

Steve pins the dark haired boy with a smarted look. 

"Sorry, is that not romantic? Sneaking out to see a girl?" 

"Sneaking in to a young woman's bedroom," Robin says dryly. 

"Pervert style," Dustin agrees sagely.

"Jesus Christ." Steve turns away from his band of adopted heathens and takes the phone into his hand. "I'm gonna call her." 

"And what? Tell her we were spying?" Dustin says. 

Steve holds the cold plastic to his neck. "Were you?" 

"Girls lie about their feelings, anyway. You're never gonna get a straight answer," Lucas says morosely. "Trust me." 

He slams the phone down. "What am I supposed to do?" 

They stand in a heavy silence. Steve can feel a headache clipping his heels, approaching fast, stress and a sharp worry for you. He really doesn't see why he can't call you and check in. 

"Something nice?" Robin suggests, picking at her nails. 

"Like what?" he asks. Though, as soon as he says it, he already has the beginnings of an idea. Whether its a good one or not is anyones guess. 

-

Somebody knocks the door and all you can think is, oh god why me? 

You're in a bad approximation of pajamas - your comfiest and yet your sloppiest, old and worn and unattractive. Fresh out of a stress-cry shower, you've only just managed to catch your breath. 

It's like you told Steve, everything lately feels so lonely. You'd gone grocery shopping by yourself and had known without a doubt that you were moving unseen through the world. Something about deciding between TV dinners. Nobody knew where you were, what you were doing, or where you were going. The only people seeing you were the storegoers of Bradley's Big Buy and your disgruntled cashier. You doubt you'd made a good impression. 

It was maybe a silly thing to feel overwhelmed by, but you felt it anyways. Sick with loneliness and then panic. A thousand what ifs had filled your head; you couldn't stop thinking, what if it's like this forever? 

What if I feel this lonely forever? 

You'd finished grocery shopping with a peculiar numbness weighing you down and then you'd gone home to cry in the garden, comforted and horrified by your flowers. They were pretty and you'd planted them and it didn't matter, you were still alone. A ladybug had crawled over the nearest planter and you'd watched it until you calmed down, knees crossed and elbows digging into your thighs, pins and needles in your hands. 

Another insistent knock. You consider ignoring it and curling up into a ball. Something hooks you out of it. What if it's Steve? 

If it's Steve, you're gonna feel very embarrassed about your appearance. You check your reflection in the sheen of a photo frame and sigh, rubbing your face with one hand as you open the door. 

Steve stands a few feet away, leaning against the side of his car with a pair of shades slipping down his nose. He takes them off.

You're so happy to see him you forget your rumpled outfit. 

"Hi," you say, half-shouting to cover the distance. 

"Hey beautiful!" Steve shouts, properly, loud and unabashed.

The door digs into your tummy. You don't know what to say. His compliment flusters you from the get go. 

"Hi," you say again, laughing under your breath. 

"Hey." 

"What are you doing here?" 

"Somebody told me you weren't feeling well!" 

You frown, thoughts racing, and suddenly summon the image of your nosey young neighbour. You take a step back instinctively and Steve must see it because his face goes stony. 

"I'm sorry, I know you probably didn't want me to know. But- when I found out you were upset, I couldn't ignore that. You'll have to forgive me." 

You try pushing the smile off your face with your hand and stand there scratching your top lip. "No. No, it's okay." 

He raises his eyebrows and takes a few big steps towards your house. You step out onto the porch and he closes the space between you, holding his hands out. You take them and he envelopes you, warm hands pulling you along and up the path. 

He walks backwards. "Don't let me crash into someone, okay?" 

A memory. The two of you hand in hand, ground flashing under your skates. 

"Okay," you say weakly. 

He squeezes your hands and drops them, a foot from the car. "Stay," and he doesn't finish, turning away from you. He opens the passenger door, the door behind and then the trunk. 

The smell is beautiful. A floral wave. 

The sight is something else. A carpet of bunches, bell-shaped freesias and carnations, roses in darkest red, chrysanthemums, dahlias, tiny orchids and irises; gorgeous purple irises with white centred petals buffeted by frilly sweetpeas. 

"They didn't want to give me the buckets but I told them I had a really pretty girl waiting for me, and if they suffocated in the heat then I was gonna drive right back and complain loudly." He stands by your side and nudges you. "Break out in tears." 

"That's a lot of flowers," you mumble. 

"Half the store. The other half's on standby." 

"Standby?" 

"I worried you might not have the space." 

"I won't." 

Your gaze flits over soft petals and light green stems, thorns and leaves and greenery, baby breath tucked in by plastic wrapping. 

"Why did you do this?" 

"You…" he laughs at himself. "Okay, so. The day you had heat stroke-" 

"I didn't have heat stroke. I had heat exhaustion." 

"Semantics. You were lying in the backyard. Just… sleeping. I was waiting for you to look up and see me, and I couldn't- I still can't get the image out of my head. You looked unreal." 

You feel hot all over as he searches for words. He's smiling wide as he talks, like he can't believe how happy he is. It's infectious. 

He shakes his head. "Anyway, I know you like flowers. Obviously. So." 

"So you got me a florists?"

"Half." 

You hug your torso. The idea that somebody would do this for you, that Steve would do this for you, is so alien you can't comprehend it. 

"They're for me?" you whisper. 

"For you. All of them." 

You look at him, the flowers, him again, and start to laugh. You throw your hands up to your cheeks and giggle like a little kid. 

"Why are you laughing?" he asks, an undeniable affection in his curiosity. 

"Why would you do this for me?" you ask in a similar tone. 

He purses his lips and shrugs. "You could've called me. I want you to know that." 

You scrub your hot cheeks and shift from foot to foot. "I was being silly." 

"It's not silly. It's not stupid. And even if it was, I still want you to call me. These are 'call me' flowers. Call me first." 

You wrap your hand around the top of the door and lean in for a look at the sea of flowers. Pollen sticks sweet in your nose. 

"Do you like them?" 

The smallest hint of insecurity. You can't stop laughing, joy warping every word. "Yeah, I love them," you say over your shoulder, feeling as though you've become nothing but a vestibule of breathless wonder. 

"I didn't know which one was your favourite." 

All of them, you think. Not sure you could pick one, your eyes bump from bouquet to bouquet. 

You try to blink them away but tears form quickly, lashes heavy with them as you stand up straight and wipe under your eyes with the back of your index finger. 

"Thank you, Steve." 

"You're welcome." Steve comes up behind you and takes your shoulder into his hand, thumb rubbing roughly over your shirt. "C'mon, don't cry. I got you all those flowers because I don't want you to cry, not to make it worse." 

"They're really pretty," you say, strained, pushing the bottoms of your palms into your eyes to stop from sobbing. That would be dramatic, you argue with yourself, so dramatic, but this is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you. 

"Shit," he mutters. 

You tense up as his hand moves across your back to grip your other shoulder and he hugs you to his chest, left hand stroking the length of your upper arm, encouraging your hands from your face. 

"You're okay, baby," he says. 

You sniffle as his right hand climbs your shoulder to cup your neck. He pulls your face to his mouth and presses a kiss into your temple, warm and tingling, firecrackers under the skin. You turn your face to look at him and he pulls back, his chin jutting down. 

The shape of his lips lingers on your forehead, a burn. White hot.

Steve wipes the tear tracks from your face with the side of his hand.

"I know what'll cheer you up," he says. 

You miss his touch as soon as he's gone. He leans over the passenger seat, the chair and its footwell both bursting with flowers, and turns on the radio. You watch him click to the cassette player. He turns the volume up high and then pulls out. 

Slowly, the song builds into a zinging guitar. 

"Oh my god." 

"Have you seen her? So fine and so pretty," Steve sings with no hesitation. You're startled by his confidence.

"Fooled me with her style and ease," he continues, holding out his hand. 

You take it, listening to him fight his way to the right pitch, his voice cracking.

"And I feel her from across the room-" He takes your second hand, gaze electric. "Yes, it's love in the third degree." 

He tugs at your hand, nodding until you join in.

"Ooh, baby, baby," you sing weakly, searching for footing. 

"Won't-cha turn your head my way?" he begs. 

"Ooh, baby, baby," you both sing, Steve with more passion, pulling your arm one way and another in an awkward dance. 

"Come on, take a chance, you're old enough to," and here's where you both go weak and high and enthused all at once, glad the stereo's up so high you can't really hear it when you both shout, "dance the night away!" 

It's not quite night yet. You've a lot of dancing to do if you're gonna listen to Van Halen's instructions, the sun a half-disk of gold on the horizon, the sky raspberry pink bleeding up into darkening indigo. 

Steve grins at your growing enthusiasm and twirls you around. You only allow him this, too afraid to step on his toes as you come to a stop. 

He hums along and you clutch his hand. You covet the other where it's held to his chest, pushing your fingers through his. They fit together perfectly. 

"Am I ever gonna get that tape back?" you ask. 

"No," he says, laughing loudly. "No way. I love this song." 

"I love this song too. That's why I bought the album." 

"You said however long I wanted!" 

"I didn't think you'd stick around this long," you confess. 

"I did," he says. He leans down, stops. "Can I kiss you?"

You nod and beat him to it, hand at his collar as you step on your toes and press your mouth to his. You're both smiling, your eyes closed tight and your lips tight together until he pulls back, pulling his hand from your brushing grip to stroke the side of your face, rough in his rush. 

When you come back together it's slower, your lips parted mid-giggle as he moves in. You sigh, a high-pitched and embarrassing sound from the back of your throat that's quickly swallowed by his ardency. 

"Stop laughing at me," he admonishes playfully. 

"I'm not! I'm not, I'm really happy," you defend yourself, setting back on your heels. 

You've forgotten all about your pajamas and the icky feeling in your chest. With Steve's palms to your cheeks like this – like you're something worth being cradled in careful hands – you can't feel anything but happy. 

"I don't have enough vases for your flowers," you apologise as he chases you down, dropping kisses over the corner of your mouth and the apple of your cheek. 

"Good thing I begged for all those buckets," he says, brown eyes squinting with the force of his cherubic smile. His pert nose flares with a silent laugh. 

"Good thing," you agree. 

He holds you by the shoulders. "Good thing," he says again. 

You descend into another round of laughter that leaves you panting for air, your head dropping into his chest. "A really good thing." 

"I didn't go overboard, did I?" he asks, petting the nape of your neck.

"You did." 

"Sorry, I-" 

You wrap your arms around his waist and squeeze him as hard as you can. He groans lightly as he encircles your shoulders, the tip of his nose a butterfly's wing against your forehead, impossibly light and skipping, back and forth and back again. 

"I'm gonna make you flower shortbread," you say eventually, soaking in his warmth, his closeness. 

"Yeah?" 

"I swear. And more penuche. What's your favourite? I'll make you whatever you want. What do you have a sweet tooth for?" 

"Could I get another kiss?" he asks quietly.

You tilt your head back and wait. Steve isn't quite smiling though his eyes boast an emotion you're afraid to name, unbearably fond. 

"Are you gonna kiss me again?" you ask into the gap. 

"In a sec, just… let me look at you," he says, hand cupping your cheek. 

You blink back a stinging wave of tears and smile, tracing over his features greedily.

"You're beautiful," he says. 

It’s funny. You were thinking the same thing about him.

𓆩❤︎𓆪

thanks for reading!

[rivers-rambles21]

The Bienville: Chapter 11

Word Count: 7.3K

Summary: Everyone wants to believe in a fairy tale ending, but you know better.

Warnings: Angst, mild swearing, anxiety and embarrassment, FLUFF (we've earned it, haven't we?)

A/N: *big breath* whoa! The final chapter! 😲(with a little epilogue coming soon and maybe a few nonlinear one-shots if you're all interested?) I have to say this is a HUGE accomplishment for me! I rarely do series and this was a pretty big undertaking. I'm so glad I did it though, I have a lot of love for this story and I appreciate all of your love for it too. A GIGANTIC thanks to @jbarneswilson who betaed this whole thing for me and who helped me get this last chapter out sooner than I thought I could. You rock ❤️Another big thanks to my taglist folks, you have all been so wonderfully supportive! Thank you for all the love you've shown for this story, you're all amazing (and I'm sorry for the unreplied-to reblogs, I fully intend to respond, I just have been using as much of my freetime as I can for writing). Ok, here we go!

One year later

The insistent bouncing of your knee has nothing to do with the jolt and rattle of the train.

You press the palm of your gloved hand firmly into your thigh just above your knee, trying to subdue it. It works. Temporarily. Because as soon as you let up the pressure, it bounces back to life of its own accord.

With an annoyed huff, you stand abruptly. Thinking you’ve outsmarted your body- your knee can’t bounce if it’s holding your weight- you groan inwardly when you find yourself tapping your fingers nervously against the pole and fighting the urge to pace.

Maybe you should get off at an earlier stop. God knows you could use the extra blocks to burn off some of this anxious energy. But a quick look at your watch reminds you that it’s negative nine degrees outside- or, what is it again in fahrenheit? Fifteen? Why do Americans have to be so annoyingly “unique” when it comes to measurement?- And if there is one thing you hate about this place, it’s the cold. Your warm island blood just can't quite seem to get used to it. Of course, even then, even in your hatred of it, you do still kind of love the cold despite yourself. It’s so different from home that it reminds you everyday of how far you’ve come.

Still, you don’t like it enough to walk five extra blocks in it, especially not with the wind chill. Even if there’s a chance it would calm your nerves, it’s just as likely to make you irritable, which would be even worse. The last thing you need is to be nervous and in a bad mood.

Not when you’re seeing him for the first time since you said goodbye.

Oh, to hell with it, you’re just going to let yourself pace. It’s not like you really have to worry that anyone’s going to think you’re crazy. You’ve learned that commuters have developed a remarkably thick skin when it comes to weird behavior on the train. You could probably start doing a full calisthenic workout and no one would bat an eye.

Adjusting your gait so that you don’t fall over as the train rattles and sways along the tracks, you walk from your seat to the far end of the train and then back again two times. The tension in your chest starts to ease a little. Keeping your balance consumes enough of your attention that it quiets the constant churning of your thoughts. Unfortunately for you, before you can make another round, the train pulls into a stop and several more commuters get on, blocking the way and making more pacing impossible.

Resigned, you wait until the doors close and then lean back against them. Closing your eyes, you hope that the noises of the train will keep your rioting thoughts at bay.

No such luck.

As soon as your eyes close, his face swims into your vision and your chest tightens. Your heart bangs wildly against your ribs.

God, what must he be thinking right now?

Eight months without a single text from you and then three days ago you text him out of nowhere? Imagining that he was shocked would be the least frightening of your assumptions about his thoughts on the matter.

What if he’s angry or annoyed? What if he hates you for disrupting his life after all this time? Or worse, what if he doesn’t know why you even bothered to reach out at all? What if he only responded to be polite but had been happy enough to have forgotten all about you?

A soft whimper squeezes its way from your tight throat and you feel queasy.

Reaching into your pocket, you pull out your phone. You force yourself to breathe in slowly through your nose as you open your chat with him from three days prior.

Hi, I know it’s been a long time. I hope it’s okay that I’m texting.

You’d spent weeks mentally composing that message before you finally got up the courage to type it out. The two minutes it took him to reply had been torturous.

Of course, it’s okay. It’s always okay.

I’m happy to hear from you.

How are you?

You remember biting your lip and warring with yourself, should you just jump right into it first or stick with vague niceties and then work your way up to it?

Niceties won out. Mostly because you were a coward.

I’m good. Keeping busy. How about you?

Barely any time passed before his reply.

I’m good too. Work has me busy as ever. Just got out of the most boring board meeting. Actually, you’re saving me right now from an even more boring work lunch that my accountant was trying to rope me into, so thank you.

Tapping out your response, you hoped he’d pick up on your teasing tone.

Oh no. I’m sorry to deprive you of the joy of talking about your general ledger and what? Taxes?

Oh, it’s worse than that it’s ebook accruals.

I don’t even know what that is. But it sounds terrible.

I don’t know either. But don’t tell anyone. I’m sure the accountant will try to explain it to me and then I’ll :’(

You giggled softly, as much in relief as in response to his jest.

You typed out a teasing reply and the two of you went back and forth like this for a bit, slipping into what felt like a familiar rhythm. Not quite as easy as it once had been. But close.

Finally, you got up the courage to get to the point.

So, you’re probably wondering why I messaged you after so long.

You hit send and without waiting, started typing again. Before you could get the next text out, his reply had come and shot straight into your heart.

If I’m honest I wasn’t. I’m just happy to hear from you.

You let out a huff of air and your stomach flipped. Warmth spread through you and bolstered your confidence.

You finished your message and hit send, a lip caught nervously in your teeth.

I’m actually in New York and I was wondering if you would want to meet up.

Your fingers fidgeted nervously along the edges of your phone for the whole ten seconds it took for him to respond.

You’re in New York?!

YES

I want to see you.

Relief nearly buckled your knees and you quickly arranged a Saturday meet-up at his favorite cafe.

Re-reading his words now, you tell yourself once again- just like you have no less than a million times already- that at face value, everything seems fine. He seems happy and excited. No hint of resentment or anger. Not even of indifference. You tell yourself this over and over again and try to drown out the darker thoughts that try to push their way in, the ones that offer sadder and more painful interpretations of what lurked under his seemingly innocuous words.

For a moment, you manage all right, to push those thoughts aside and ask yourself “What if it all goes right?” instead of that significantly more tempting “What if it all goes wrong?” But then you unhelpfully remind yourself that the Bucky who responded to those texts didn’t know the whole story, you’d been careful about that. He still doesn’t and the truth may change everything.

Your thumb hovers over your phone. You’re tempted to scroll up, but you stop yourself.

Clicking the screen off, you shove the phone back into your pocket before you can change your mind. You can’t let yourself scroll back to your old messages with him. You don’t think you can bear it, reliving the time before you “lost touch”.

“Lost touch.” Not exactly, but that’s what you told your friends when they asked you about him.

“Nope, I haven’t talked with him. We lost touch,” you’d say with a shrug.

A “no big deal” shrug, a “these things happen all the time” shrug, a “please don’t worry about me, I’m fine” shrug.

But it was a lie, all of it.

You didn’t lose touch. “Lost” implies a careless but accidental occurrence.

And you certainly weren’t fine.

You hadn’t been for awhile.

Which was why you asked him to stop contacting you in the first place.

Not never, you'd promised that night so many months ago, voice trembling as your heart crushed under its own weight, just, not so much.

It was a conversation that you never expected to have. Because despite everything you felt and knew that he felt too, you never expected anything to last after he was gone.

Those first few days after- when he’d called you after he landed like he said he would, when he texted to say that he missed you, when you admitted that you missed him too- those really hadn’t surprised you much. Even when those early days stretched into weeks, you hadn’t yet really suspected that it meant anything. After all, even the most unkeepable of promises, the most impossible of hopes can be kept alive for that long.

But when those weeks stretched into months, when that slow, sad fading away of connection never came on it’s own, that’s when something dangerous started to happen. You started to hope in a way you had not previously allowed yourself to even consider.

Maybe, somehow- against all of the impossible odds- maybe you really could make this work. It wouldn’t be traditional by any means. And yes, it would be tough- the distance was no small obstacle- but did that really matter if the feelings were there?

But it turned out, in the end, that it did matter

Because as time went on, life reminded you exactly why you had thought it was impossible to begin with. And you realized that all of that hope you’d been living on was just the desperate, clinging denial of a broken heart.

It was around three months when you forced yourself to take a very hard look at just exactly what it was that you had allowed your life to become.

Everything revolved around him. You hadn’t meant for it to. And he certainly never asked it of you. But there he was, right at the center. And you had become like an addict, with the whole of your life focused around the highs that never lasted long enough and suffering through the lows of wasted time until you could talk to him again. It wasn’t his fault, you never blamed him, but somewhere along the way, you had forgotten that you had a life of your own to live.

This hard realization made, you swallowed down the part of you that tried to rationalize it and made your best bid to reclaim your more practical self.

There was nothing wrong with staying in touch with him, you reasoned, but it would probably be wise for you to scale back. And to reassess just exactly what your priorities in life should be.

And so you tried. To ease back a little, to bring your head back above the water that you’d only just realized you were under. To regain your place in your own life.

But it wasn't enough. You kept slipping backwards. And It didn’t take long for you to realize that as long as you kept up regular contact with him, even tempered down, you would always be living with one foot in one world and one in the other. And when one of those worlds is real and the other isn’t, that isn’t really living at all.

What you needed to do was clear, even if there was a good chance it would destroy you.

You spent a whole week nearly in tears before you got up the nerve to call. You held it together as best as you could, especially when and where you had to- at work, with friends, with your family- but the rest of the time you were a barely contained mess and fraying at the edges.

It was the night before you finally called him, the night when Aline showed up with a bag full of comfort food and a sixth sense that something was terribly wrong, that you finally really broke down. And it was in that hollow space between one round of exhausting tears and another that you finally allowed yourself, for the first and only time, to speak what you knew to be true.

"I love him," you whispered in a voice worn and broken, as you stared vacantly into space. Aline held your head in her lap and ran her hand softly over the crown of your head.

“I know you do, love.” Her voice was as soft as her hand in your hair. “And it’s not fair. It really isn’t.”

She breathed in slowly before pushing on gently.

“But knowing that it’s unfair doesn’t change anything.”

Your breath hitched and after a moment, you turned away. You squeezed your eyes closed as you pressed your face into the solid comfort of her leg. You swallowed back as much as you could, held your tears back as long as you could, breathed in slow through your nose and kept your voice as steady as you could.

Even then, the most you could offer in reply before the grief and tears overtook you once more was the simple truth you had no answer for.

“No, it doesn’t.”

You close your eyes and let your head fall back with a thump against the train doors.

You try not to think about the way that he said nothing for a long time when you finally told him. Or the way that his voice stuttered and broke when he said he understood. The way that there was a promise and prayer laced through his "I'll always be here when you're ready".

But you never were.

You never meant for the silence to stretch on for so long. You had always intended to call again. When you were stronger, you told yourself. When your skin had grown a little thicker. When the wound didn't feel so fresh. When you thought that you could handle it without your heart breaking.

But everytime you thought that maybe you could chance it, everytime you would bring your phone out and hover your fingers over the keyboard, those fingers, they would tremble. And you’d bite your lip raw trying to hold back the sting in your eyes. Until eventually, slowly, you’d click your phone off and slip it back in your pocket, knowing that you would be undone.

Even when everything changed in your life, when your whole world was shifting on its axis, when the one person you wanted to talk to most was him, even then you still couldn’t do it. The doubts and fears would sneak in and time slipped on.

The train screeches to a stop. Startled, your eyes pop open and you get your feet back under you just before the doors behind you slide open. Glancing at the station wall you realize this is your stop. You stiffen, and if it were not for the flow of people around you, you might not have gotten off the train. Without thinking, you let them sweep you up the stairs and out onto the street. When you get there, a cold blast of winter air shocks you back into reality. You realize that you’re going to have to actually make a choice now and before you can let yourself think much about it, you look around to orient yourself. Then wrapping your arms around yourself and bowing your head against the wind, you start moving.

Just two blocks up and one over, not very far at all. Even in the short time you’ve been in the city, you’ve been to this part of town before- the station being one of the more highly trafficked- but you never noticed the little cafe that his text leads you to now.

The cold hastens your steps, while your wild beating heart tries to slow them. Despite the war waging for control over your feet, you’re two blocks down and turning the corner in no time. As soon as you do, you see the sign just a little more than half a block down.

A surprisingly quaint hanging wooden sign shaped like a cream puff sitting atop a book greets you cheerily. "Pride and Profiteroles" it proclaims sweetly. But your blood runs cold.

You thought you were done being a coward, but your feet suddenly feel stuck to the concrete. You stop so abruptly in the middle of the sidewalk that you earn yourself a litany of curses from a chorus of other pedestrians. It takes all of your strength to get your feet moving forward again, instead of turning right around and running back the way you came like they want to.

You move forward with cautious and measured steps until the sign looms only three meters ahead. This time you have enough awareness to step sideways out of the flow of foot traffic before stopping.

Pressing yourself to the wall just to the side of the cafe windows, you pull your hand from your pocket and glance at your watch. Seven minutes until you're supposed to meet him, enough time to give yourself some grace.

You don’t know if he’s here yet, and you debate whether it would be better to be waiting for him or for him to be waiting for you. You decide that trying to answer that is more work than your frayed nerves and busily churning brain can handle. So, instead, you focus on giving yourself a pep talk so you can just get yourself over that threshold already.

You tell yourself once more that everything about your last encounter was positive. You have no reason to believe that he’s unhappy about seeing you. So, what’s the worst that could happen?

Of course, though the question is meant harmlessly, it apparently serves as an invitation to all of your most anxious thoughts and you have to reign them in before they overrun you and steal what little confidence you have left.

In the end, it’s the thought of how much worse it would be for him to find you cowering out here on the sidewalk that finally propels you to move. Rolling yourself sideways off the wall, you peer cautiously into the first set of windows. You’re greeted by an aisle between two bookcases, each brimming with a gloriously hodge-podge collection of books. The only occupants of the space are a man and what appear to be his twin daughters.

Cautiously, you move forward to the second bay of windows. From here you have an unobstructed view of the cafe portion of the shop.

A small, wood-topped counter is at the back with a plexiglass pastry case taking up most of its surface. Behind is a large chalkboard menu, the edges decorated with fanciful caricatures of literary characters, artful representations of the punned names for each dish and beverage on offer.

The dining area fits into the space once occupied by four rows of long bookshelves, back some thirty years ago when it was only a bookstore, before the original owner's daughter decided to make it a cafe as well. In that space are as many tables as the health code will allow, each painted in a different color with intricate patterns decorating the legs.

It doesn’t take you long to find him, but it does take your heart a minute to restart once you do.

He’s chosen a good spot, out of the direct path of the draft that slips in everytime the door opens- even with the heavy velveteen curtain draped in front of the entrance- but still with a good line of sight so that he can’t miss you when you walk in. He’s away from the windows, but the long rays of sun still stretch across the room, as if they long to be near him just as much as you do, and gild his dark hair with warm flecks of bronze and gold. That hair is different than the last time you saw him, swept back from his face and just a little bit longer. Your fingers curl involuntarily in your pockets as they itch to sink into it.

He’s paler too. A New York winter will do that to a person. No warm island sun to heat his skin and turn it golden. And he certainly never needed those heavy boots or that sweater back on the islands.

Your lip quirks up involuntarily when you catch the bouncing of his leg under the table. Just like you had done on the train, he presses the heel of his palm down the length of his thigh to tame it. And just like you, he has little success in subduing it for long. The fingers of his other hand fidget with the handle of his mug and everytime the bell above the door chimes, his head jerks up.

Your chest, already tight with nerves, squeezes empathetically. He’s nervous, just like you, and you’re only prolonging his discomfort by standing out here on the sidewalk like a coward. You blow out a hard breath and straighten your spine. Time to swallow down your own fears and maybe spare him a little of his own.

You force all thoughts from your head as you walk the seven steps to the door and then your hand is on the knob and you're pulling. The curtain blocking the entrance sucks outward and flutters. As you ease the door closed behind you, you catch the edge of the curtain and pull it back just enough to step through. You’d be lying if you didn’t admit that you gave this task a little more attention than it needed, allowing yourself an excuse to focus your eyes and thoughts away a moment longer. Just a few more seconds of respite before you can no longer hold back the inevitable.

He clearly didn’t allow himself those same extra moments. When you lift your eyes, you find him already looking and your eyes lock immediately. His face lights up quick as a switch being thrown, and he shoots to his feet. Incautious in his abruptness, his leg bumps the table and sloshes the contents of his cup across its top.

“Fuck!” he exclaims as he looks down, he shoots you a quick grimace before he grabs his napkins and dabs at the mess.

The puddle isn’t that large but his nervous hands somehow make a bigger mess of it. An inexplicable giggle bubbles up in your chest and you try to suppress it. Giving a quick look around, you catch sight of a napkin holder and grab a handful. Closing the small distance between you, you take the bunched up wad and start cleaning.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, his voice thick with embarrassment and a giggle rises up in you again.

“It’s okay,” you assure him with a shake of your head.

When the table is once again dry, he reaches for the dirty napkins you hold.

“I’ll take those.”

He takes the whole lot and moving only a half step to the side, he stretches as he tosses them into the nearest garbage bin.

As he turns back, he bobs his head and nervously rubs the lingering dampness from his hands. Slowly, he lifts his eyes to meet yours once more.

“Hi,” he offers shyly.

“Hi,” you reply, your voice just as soft.

For a moment, neither of you does anything, letting only silence and breath pass between you. Then, you reach up and carefully place your hands on his shoulders and stretch up to kiss him lightly on both cheeks, just like you’d greet a friend back home.

He bows his head down to you as he lifts his hands to rest cautiously at your waist. When you don’t object, he slides his hands behind your back and pulls you in for a hug. You let him, your own arms looping around his broad shoulders instinctively, and for just a heartbeat, you let your cheek press against the soft fabric of his sweater.

The sweater is thick and warm and dangerously inviting. The kind of thing you could bury your face in while napping on his chest. Thoughts like that will do you no good, so you pull back before you can do something embarrassing like pressing your nose into the knit and drawing the comforting smell of him into your lungs.

You open the space between you slowly. As you meet his eye, you let your hands slip down his arms and rest in the crook of his elbows for just a moment before you let him go. For a split second his hands linger in the air between you as if he might reach for you again, but then he cocks a half smile and secures his hands into his back pockets.

“Um,” he smiles tentatively, “have a seat?”

With a nod, you pull off your hat and start to unwind your scarf. When you start to pull off your heavy coat, he hesitates for just a moment before reaching to help you pull it from your shoulders.

Turning half back, you thank him softly. With a smile in reply, he drapes your coat over the back of your chair. As you settle into it, you look around you. He sits across from you and you can feel him watching you as you take in the space. Though you’ve already seen it through the window, seeing it up close you have a better appreciation for it. It’s just on the comforting side of cluttered and full of a kind of contagious cheer that helps to soothe your nerves.

“I like this.”

His nervous smile brightens.

“I hoped you would.”

He turns back towards the counter and gestures to the barista, who gives him a nod.

Returning his attention to you, he explains.

"I ordered you something. I hope that's okay-" You nod- "but I, uh, asked them to hold off on making it until you arrived because I got here a little early. I'm already on my second cup of coffee." He ducks his head. "And that's not counting the two I had at home this morning."

His cheeks tinge pink and soft warmth stirs in your belly.

"You do seem a little… caffeinated." You let a soft tease, a little test of the waters, slip into your voice.

He gives you a crooked, self-effacing smile.

"Yes. Let's blame it on the caffeine."

You laugh softly. Then decide to venture just a little further into the unknown.

“For the record-” you smile but keep your eyes turned down- “I’m nervous too.”

At this last, you flick your eyes up to meet his. He holds your gaze and his eyes crinkle softly at the edges, a look of shared sympathy and understanding.

“It’s really good to see you,” he says quietly.

“You too.”

Your eyes hold and the moment stretches. The air around you expands painfully as you think about lost time and opportunity.

You’re grateful when the waitress arrives, popping that air like a balloon.

“Here you go, hon.” She says happily, and you smile at the Americanism. You thank her as she sets your drink down along with a plate filled with a small collection of pastries.

When she walks away, you look down at the creamy yellow liquid still swirling slowly in your cup then narrow your eyes suspiciously at him.

He smiles and holds his hands up.

"I know you said Americans don't know how to make them, but you have to give this one a try. I promise if you don’t like it, I’ll order you whatever you want."

The earthy scent of turmeric rises with the steam as you bring the cup to your lips and blow on it for good measure before taking a sip.

You let it rest on your tongue for a minute, tilting your head like a sommelier testing out a new vintage. When you swallow it down, you look at him sideways.

"It's not the same.” You lift your chin primly before smiling widely. “But, it is good. Really good actually." He smiles proudly back as you cup your hands around the mug. "And not just because it's keeping my hands warm."

He laughs and nods happily.

“How are you handling the cold? It had to be quite the shock.”

“Oh, it was. Let’s just say that it is not my favorite thing about New York.”

“Fair enough,” he chuckles. Leaning forward, he asks, “So, what is your favorite thing about New York so far?”

It's a simple enough question, a pretty typical one in fact, but it feels like it could very easily slip into dangerous territory. Because your favorite thing in all of New York just might be sitting across from you, but you can’t exactly say that. Especially when you’re not sure if he would believe you once he knows the whole truth.

Biting your lip thoughtfully, you tilt your head.

“Well, it’s definitely not the garbage bins on the sidewalks.” He snorts over his coffee cup as he brings it to his lips. “And it’s not the honking of the car horns or obscenities being shouted in the street. And it’s probably not the rats or the flashers…”

“Wow! The city really has pulled out all of the stops for you, huh?” He offers with a half grimace and you laugh.

“It seems that way!” you laugh. “But, uh, I think what I like best is that this feeling that you could walk from one end of Manhattan to the other- even if you lived here your whole life-” You gesture to him and he lifts his cup in acknowledgement- “and you would still see a hundred things you’ve never seen before, and hear at least a dozen languages that you don’t know, and you could try food from as many different countries as you wanted. I like that there always seems to be something going on, something new, and it’s like-” you cast your mind about, trying to think of how to explain- “if you’re bored in New York, you’re doing something wrong.”

Your voice has turned high with excitement and when you catch the way he’s smiling at you- a look of both pride and warm happiness in response to your own obvious joy- you tuck your head shyly.

“So, uh, yes, I think I like that it really does feel like ‘the city that never sleeps’.”

“It definitely is that,” he confirms. His cheeks still pink with pride, he adds, “I’m happy that it doesn’t seem to have disappointed you.”

“No,” you shake your head, “not at all. I actually really like it.”

For a long moment, he simply smiles at you and you want nothing more than to do the same, and so you do. You let the moment sit sweet and soft between you, free for now from all of your anxious thoughts and what ifs.

After a minute, he ventures shyly.

“So, I was thinking… um… that maybe-” abruptly his brow wrinkles in question- “you didn’t say how long you are visiting for-” your heart thumps painfully- “but if you’re up for it, I thought maybe I could show you around the city a little bit?”

For a heartbeat, all you can do in response to his hopeful expression is say nothing. But before he can start to worry, you draw in a shaky breath and force a smile.

“I- would love to see the city with you,” you reply, your voice barely stronger than a whisper.

The way his face lights up does nothing to extinguish the feeling of guilt growing stronger in your belly and you drop your eyes to the table.

Apparently unaware that anything is wrong, he continues excitedly.

“Great! That’s great! I’m not going to lie, January isn’t exactly the best time for a visit, but I promise there are still a lot of great things to do. I started putting together a list of all my fav-”

No longer able to take it, you shoot a hand across the table and grab his wrist.

“Bucky, I-”

At first surprised, a look of embarrassment quickly flits across his face, and he smiles apologetically.

“I’m sorry. I’m probably getting way ahead of myself. I know I can’t expect-”

“No,” you cut him off, “Bucky, that’s not it. I-” you swallow hard- “I have to tell you something.”

His brow wrinkles, but he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t try to fill the space with his own assumptions. Instead, he bobs his head and waits for you to speak.

You suck your lip between your teeth and pull your hand slowly back to your side of the table. You’re still not sure how to begin your confession, but the uncertainty and worry in his eyes propels you to speak.

“I’m not here on vacation.”

He cocks his head in confusion.

“I- I moved here. I live here.”

Brows wrinkled and face blank, he processes your words slowly.

“You- live here?”

He blinks as confusion turns to clarity. The corners of his mouth quirk upward and his eyes begin to lighten.

“You live here?!” he repeats. Though the shock is evident in his tone, a bright edge works its way into his voice.

You thought that you would be happy to see his joy at the news, but it only makes the guilt twist deeper.

“Yes,” you whisper and drop your head.

“That’s ama-”

“I’ve-” you cut him off again. You can barely stand the rising excitement in his voice. You force yourself to go on, he deserves the truth. “I’m enrolled at NYU.” You lift your eyes to him, your face tight. “I’ve been here since September.”

He goes still, the smile slipping from his face as your words sink in.

“September?”

“Yes,” you want to cringe back from your own confession, but you can’t. You’re the one who put yourself in this situation, you simply have to bear it.

“You’ve been in New York for four and half months?” The color slowly leeches from his face as shock settles over his features. When you simply nod in reply, you see a stiffness creep over his face, before he forces his lips into a smile and crinkles the edges of his eyes. His eyes remain dark with pain.

“Oh,” he replies, his voice too light and his eyes dropping. “I didn’t know.”

“No,” it comes out a croak and you clear your throat. “I- I didn’t tell you. Obviously.”

You dip your head and draw in a slow breath. Though his eyes are still turned away, you force yourself to face him again.

“I was going to-”

He lifts his head and raises a hand to stop you. He smiles the smile of a man who is trying very hard to be okay.

“It's okay, you don’t owe me any explanations.”

For a moment, you can say nothing. Shame rises to the back of your throat.

You shake your head.

“Maybe that's true, maybe I don't, but I want to. Explain. Why I didn't contact you before. If you'll let me.”

He holds your eye for a long moment, searching for something, though you don’t know what. After a minute, he bites his lip and nods.

You nod back, though more to yourself than anything. Your fingers curl nervously on the table top and without much thought you find yourself picking at the edge of the last clean napkin on the table.

“I wanted to tell you. I did. Several months back, I reached out to the universities that I had applied to a few years ago. It turned out that my original acceptances were still good for many of them. And when I found that out, I wanted to call you then. But I- I was scared.” Your voice hushes and you watch your fingers as you twist the napkin around them. “What we had- back on the islands- it was…”

You’ve thought about this a thousand times over and you know that there isn’t a word that can even begin to compare to what you felt, so you raise your eyes to his and put as much weight as you can behind what you do say.

“It was wonderful.”

As you hold his eye, you know he feels it too, that weight. And for a moment you don’t want to say anything else, but you know that you have to. You breathe in as much courage as you can and continue softly.

“But, it was a moment.” Pain tugs at the corner of his mouth. “A beautiful and perfect moment. But ephemeral nonetheless. I was afraid that it couldn’t survive in the harsh light of the real world.

“And I didn’t know-” you turn your eyes away again, you’re not sure you want to see his reaction this time- “if you would even want that if it could.”

You hear him draw in a breath to speak but stop him with a gesture before he can say anything.

“And, I needed to know- when the opportunity arose for me to come here- I needed to know that I was doing it for myself.”

Slowly he closes his parted lips and nods. He’d never deny you that, your right to your own dream, of that you are sure.

Your breath wavers. You know you should say more but the words get lost somewhere between your brain and your shuddering heart.

“Can I ask-” he ventures cautiously after several heartbeats pass in silence- “what made you decide to reach out now?”

You nod slowly. It’s a good question, fair, understandable.

“I’m-” you lick your lips and search for the words- “I’m happy here. I like my school. I have friends. I have a life. But- there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about you.”

His brows draw together and he breathes out unevenly.

“I texted you because I couldn’t not anymore. Because I miss you. Because I jog in Central Park because I know that you like it. Because I go to Nick's Pizza, the one on 49th not the one on 53rd because you said it was better." He snorts a half laugh and you smile, but you can't hold it. Your voice trembles as you push on. "Because I know the exact distance from the front stoop of my apartment building to the front door of your offices. Because, this feeling, it won't go away-" You press a hand to your chest as you huff out heavily- “and I don't want it to.

"Bucky…I don't want to fuck up your life. I know I'm the one who pushed you away and I know that I don't have any right to hold you to promises that you made that neither of us ever thought we could keep. But- if there's a chance- if you could- if we could-"

You break off, words failing you once more. You blink back the sting in your eyes and look to the side, hoping to calm the frantic beat of your heart so that you can go on.

"You know-"

His soft voice calls you back. There’s spilled sugar on the table and he traces his finger through it, eyes turned down as he watches the patterns he makes.

"When I took over the company, I was terrified. I was devastated about my father. I was inexperienced and overwhelmed and scared all the time that I was going to screw it up. Not just my job, but the whole company and my father's legacy. But I never-” he shakes his head- “Even with all of my doubts, all of the times I felt unqualified, I never wanted to give it up. Not really. I wanted to do right by my father and my family. So I never resented it. Not-” He finally looks up and his eyes, clear and bright as the ocean you left behind, cut right through you- “until I met you. Because that was the first and only time the job stood between me and something I really cared about. I wished then for the first time that it didn't have to be me.

“I understand why you were scared. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I had my own fears. But-” he pulls in a deep breath- “if what you’re trying to say- if what you’re asking me is if I still love you-” the word that you’ve never heard him speak before stops your breath in your chest- “I do. As much as the day I left and every day since. And if what you're telling me now is that you want to take a chance to be together, to see if this could be something? Then I want to take that chance with you. I’ve never wanted anything more.”

Your breath restarts abruptly, pushing out of your chest with a sound somewhere between a laugh and cry. Tears slip down your face as you reach across the small table and catch your fingers in the collar of his sweater to pull him closer.

“That is what I want.”

“Thank god.” He slips his hand around the back of your neck and presses his forehead to yours. “Because if I was going to have to say goodbye to you again, I really don’t know if I could do it.”

You shake your head and squeeze your eyes closed.

“That’s not going to happen,” you promise.

Ignoring the harsh screech of the wooden legs on laminate, Bucky pulls away from you only long enough to slide his chair around so that he’s sitting next to you. Slipping his arm around you, he pulls you close once more.

Tilting your head up so that you can look him in the eye, you whisper, “I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you- I’m sorry that I wasted so much time.”

“No,” he shakes his head. “I understand. I understand and it doesn’t matter, because you’re here now.” He presses a light kiss to your forehead. “You’re here now.”

You pull his mouth down to yours.

"I'm here now," you confirm before pressing your mouth to his.

Sinking your fingers into his hair, you feel his grip tighten on you. Giddy from the taste and feel of him all around you, you part your lips to deepen the kiss and he eagerly accepts the invitation. Electricity rushes through your veins and even the winter chill seeping in from outside cannot diminish the heat that builds within you.

Part of you thinks that you should slow down and savor this moment, your long-awaited reunion. But then a happy shiver runs through you when you realize you don't have to. Because this isn't a sad kiss, a "this is all we have" kiss, a 'goodbye forever" kiss.

No, this is a kiss full of promise. The kind of promise you can keep. And fully intend to.

Three times you break away as involuntary giggles of joy bubble up and spill from your lips. It's contagious and he laughs with you each time. And just as happily greets you again each time you return your lips to his.

When you finally pull apart, for a few moments of happy respite in the wild rush, and breathe heady laughter into the space between you, he pulls out his phone. You lean your head into his as he wraps his arm tight around you, and he excitedly tells you about all the places he wants to take you.

Except now, instead of trying to figure out how to squeeze everything in over the span of a couple of days, he plans out for the long stretch of days ahead. Days that will turn into weeks and months and maybe- if you're lucky- the rest of your life.

Epilogue

Series Masterlist

Taglist: @emmabarnes @enchantedbarnes @moonlightreader649 @rivers-rambles21 @silentkiller2374 @jackiehollanderr @watarmelon212 @aeo10fan @aquariusbarnes @to-the-road @bucky-fricking-barnes-reads @keepingitlokiii @j2brosforlife-spn @abitgryffindorky

[rivers-rambles21]

No Such Thing (1) - Bucky Barnes

Helloooo! Here I am with another series instead of finishing the ones I’ve already started. Writers core <3 Anyway, let me know if you guys want to read more of this one. I’m a hoe for this trope. 

Title: No Such Thing

Summary: You’ve been assigned to write a column for your school paper on the team’s spectacular center. You don’t care very much for your university’s football team; you just can’t understand the hype, okay? Turns out your distaste for football bigheads was exactly on point: James Barnes is insufferable.

Pairing: college!Bucky Barnes x female!Reader

Word count: 3.6k

Warnings: enemies to lovers, swapped insults, my limited knowledge of college football.

A/N: Okay, this one is another enemies/rivals-to-lovers, but it’s definitely got more spice than The Mess, for those of you that read that. Bucky is a bit of an a-hole jock in this one, but don’t you worry! Reader will get her moment ;) 

MASTERLIST | TAG INFO

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“Alright. Final order of business: being that it’s midway through football season, Indra and I talked it over, and we decided that we should have an interview with one of the players. It’ll boost traffic and hey, maybe we’ll get actual readers for once.”

You hadn’t been paying much attention after your initial assignment to work on your own column about the musical theatre’s production of The Phantom of the Opera. So you kept typing on the clunky Mac computers they’d donated for the school paper, tuning everyone else out until you heard your name. 

“Huh?" 

Jamie frowned at you, hand on her hip. 

"We’re doling out assignments. It’s your lucky day: you get to interview the center, James.”

“Excuse me?”

“Football, Y/N,” Indra offered helpfully. 

“Oh. You know I haven’t been to any of the games, right? Like, none.”

Keep reading

[rivers-rambles21]

Caught in the Fire 12 - After the Fall [Bucky Barnes x Reader]

A.N: Thank you so much for your wonderful support my loves! ❤ I hope you like it as well, and please don’t forget to tell me what you think of this chapter, kisses!❤

Pairing: Mobster!Bucky Barnes x Female Reader

Summary: Ex friends are supposed to play nice.

Warnings: Violence, death, crime, explicit language, dysfunctional relationships, drinking. This is an AU, friendly reminder that I don’t condone any of the actions depicted on this story and please read with care.

Series Masterlist

It was one of those days where you had to run around and do everything in a hurry, and picking your little sister up from school was the next item on the list. You had gotten there 5 minutes earlier than usual and that gave you the chance to actually sit down for the first time the whole day to enjoy your cup of coffee you had gotten from a drive-thru on the way here. You rubbed at your eyes, trying to relax for at least couple of minutes before the chaos started again but the only thing wrong with relaxing was that your mind wandered off to the one person it wasn’t supposed to.

As if dreaming about him wasn’t enough, now you had to try extra hard to make sure he stayed out of your thoughts during the day.

Great.

Keep reading

[rivers-rambles21]

The one with the road trip

Part 15 of The one where Bucky has a cute neigbour series!

Pairing: Bucky Barnes X Reader (f)

Warnings | 18+ only  - no smut but mentions of it

Chapter 15 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 1 | Masterlist

Apologies for any mistakes, this has been written on my phone and its a bit difficult to edit. Once I’m back with a working laptop I’ll give it a once over :)

Bucky had intended on renting a bike so you could ride down to Louisiana but with Sam’s suit it would’ve been an impossible feat. 

He settled for hiring an SUV and added you both to the insurance so you could take it in turns driving on the long trip down south. 

“Been together one day and we’re already on our first trip” You teased as you rested your feet on the dash, taking in the scenery as Bucky drove. His metal hand gripped the steering wheel as he peaked a glance over to your bare legs, resisting the urge to pull over. 

“You’re the one having a mid life crisis doll not me” You feigned offense and swatted the soldier beside you, pleased to get a hit in as he tried to dodge your attack. His eyes remained on the road as he grasped your hand in his. “Less of that thank you” He laughed, bringing your hand to his lips, leaving a kiss on the back before giving it back to rest on your thigh, his hand not leaving yours. 

“Looking forward to seeing Sam again?” He didn’t respond but his face said it all. “You’re so dramatic” You chuckled as you leant down to root around in your bag for the road trip snacks. Retrieving a bag of cashews, you offered it to Bucky who gladly took a handful. 

“I just know he’s going to ask a billion questions about stuff we’ve not even discussed yet, that we’re probably not even ready to talk about. He didn’t stop asking about you y’know? Y/n this, Y/n that…he kept threatening to ask you out.” 

“Oh he did” 

The car swerved slightly as Bucky's grip on the wheel tightened, his concentration lapsing for a split second. 

“He did what?” He asked, tearing his eyes from the road to glance over at you. 

“It was just a bit of harmless flirting-” You began before being cut off. 

“We flirted.” Bucky stated, his jaw clenching. 

“We also did a lot of things just friends don’t do. Relax Sarge, he only asked to get a reaction out of me.” 

Bucky grunted in response, knowing his reaction was a tad over the top but he couldn’t help it. You were his. 

“We could always mess with him in return.” You pondered as you took a swig of your drink. “Maybe hold off on telling him about us, it’s only meant to be a flying visit anyway isn’t it? So we wouldn’t have to pretend for long… play him at his own game?” 

Bucky smirked in response, completely on board with your little plan.

  The next few hours passed with the typical car games and a quick power nap as Bucky continued driving. 

“How long until you start at Starks?” 

“A month thank god, the GRC wanted me gone pretty quickly, I didn't have to work my notice which was a blessing really. I’ll schedule a day to go and clear out my desk and say my goodbyes. Will you still get your pension if we live out of the country?” 

“I’m not sure to be honest, I can pick up work wherever we are though, it wouldn’t be the first time. I’m good with my hands” 

“You’re telling me” You muttered under your breath. Bucky heard you loud and clear and let out a laugh as he recalled how you spent most of last night. “Are we crazy? Travelling with no plan, barely any money and only just starting out as a couple?” 

“Oh absolutely”

Eventually Bucky took a break from driving after you stopped for food in a roadside diner. It had been a while since you’d driven but you wanted to give Bucky the chance to get some sleep, something you knew he still struggled with. 

Despite telling him to try and get some sleep on the back seats, he remained upfront with you, doing his best to battle the drowsiness that had overcome him. He’d not gotten much rest the past few weeks, from battling the Flag Smashers in Europe, to hunting down Zemo and then back to New York. In truth he was worried he’d have a nightmare and wasn’t sure on how he’d react but upon your insistence, he tried to get some shut eye. After an hour or so he dropped off, the sound of you humming along to a song on the radio sending him off into a dreamless sleep. 

Bucky couldn’t quite believe it, he couldn’t remember the last time he slept without being haunted by memories of the Winter Soldier. Granted, he only got four hours of sleep , but it was the best he’d felt in a long time.

When it came to your turn to get some shut eye Bucky insisted on stopping over in a hotel for the night. You’d tried to convince him a motel would suffice after you lost the battle of you sleeping in the car but he was victorious. 

To be frank, after spending so many hours in the car, you were grateful to be sleeping in a bed with your super soldier by your side. 

As you slept, Bucky took the time to fire off a few emails advising he’d be ending his lease. Having slept earlier, he felt energised and was content in browsing the internet as you slept tucked into his arm. 

He did his best not to wake you as he opened a selfie from Shuri of her with Ayo and Nomble, a chuckle escaping his lips as Shuri and Nomble looked to be thoroughly enjoying themselves on a boat trip in New York whilst Ayo sulked in the background. 

He also replied to an email from his therapist's office, letting them know he’d be absent from his next session but planned on returning the following week.

Bucky was tempted to let Sam know he was coming but thought it best to surprise him.

The next day was much of the same, both of you switching the drive and stopping off at diners for food. Due to the lack of respect Bucky had for the speed limit, you were making good time and would be in Delacroix the following morning. 

“-it was like I didn’t exist. Honestly it was the most humbling experience of my life” 

“Sergeant Barnes in his uniform… now that is something I’ve got to see.” 

“Maybe one day”  

Your eyebrow perked at the thought. “Good god man” You groaned dramatically and sank further into your seat, giggling as you caught sight of the blush covering his cheeks. “For what it’s worth, lack of nutrients from the rationing clearly messed with her eyesight.” You were genuinely baffled how Peggy didn’t swoon for the man next to you.

“Where were you in the 40’s when I needed you huh?” 

“I doubt I’d have been your type” 

“Intelligent, strong woman with a great sense of humor? And thats not even mentioning your ass.. Oh no, definitely not my type” He replied sarcastically. 

“Ha ha fine, I’ll take your word for it.” 

“I’d have taken you dancing, maybe gone to a show or even the carnival. Anything you wanted.” He took your hand in his again and kissed the back of it as he pondered just how he’d of won you over back then. He usually didn't like to dwell on life before the war, the pain of losing his family and the future he lost was too much but having you in his life somehow made the memories hurt less. Having you with him now along with the future he could picture with you helped him make peace with his past life and accept that it wasn’t something he could ever go back to. 

When Steve was returning the stones, he did wonder whether he should go back with him but the realisation that there wasn’t anything waiting for him apart from a time that he didn't belong to made his decision to remain in the present resolute. And by god was he thankful he stayed.

On your way to your final hotel before arriving at Sams, you’d taken over the driving and had kept Bucky entertained with your off key singing and terrible car games. 

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me” As it turns out, Bucky was a sore loser. 

“What? It counts!!” 

“You cannot see bacteria Y/N” 

“Yes I can! It’s right...right… right there!” You pointed to a random bit of the car interior and held back a laugh at a clearly unamused Bucky.

“You’re so full of shit” 

“How do you know I can’t see it huh? Guess it’s my turn again, I spy with my little -” 

“No” He cut off as he pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Absolutely not. I’m going to choose a game.” 

You let out a little smile and continued focusing on the road until the super soldier landed on something he liked. 

“Okay okay, would you rather sounds fun. Doll, would you rather have the superpower of being invisible or ability to fly.” 

“Aw come on Buck these are tame! If I have to answer, without a doubt invisibility.” 

“Not dirty enough for you sweetheart?” A tingle rang down your spine at your new nickname. “I’d have to agree, invisibility easily.” 

“Buck you’re an actual superhero, you’ve already got powers, leave some for us mere mortals!” 

“... you think I’m a superhero?” 

“....you’re literally an Avenger.” You reached across towards the man beside you, keeping your eyes on the road as you pressed your hand against his forehead. “Are you feeling okay?” 

Bucky rolled his eyes at your sarcasm and swatted your hand away from his head. “Fine you made your point.” 

You shook your head as you returned your hand to the steering wheel, tapping away to the song on the radio. 

“The rest of these questions are boring” He muttered as he furiously scrolled through his cell. 

“C’mon, go R rated” 

“It’s no fun when I already know the answers to these!” 

“Pfft doubtful, come on, hit me” 

“Spit or swallow, you’re a swallower doll.See?” 

“Okay okay! You’re right, I give in. How about we just ask each other some questions?” 

“But you already know everything,” He remarked, throwing a few cashews into his mouth. 

“When did you first see me as someone other than a friend?” You’d thrown him off guard with that question, his hand stuck in mid air as he went to throw more snacks into his mouth. 

“Wouldn't you rather know my most embarrassing sexual encounters?” He offered but was met with silence. “Fine……. I’ve never seen you as just a friend. Yes we were friends before we became more and honestly Y/n if it never progressed further than just friendship I would’ve been fine with it, more than fine with it y’know? Meeting you was the best fucking thing-” “Buck, it’s okay” Your hand reached out towards him and squeezed his thigh as you kept your eyes on the road. 

“There’s more… before we officially met in the lobby when that creep wouldn’t leave you the fuck alone, I’d seen you around. I was coming back from lunch with Yori and he was complaining about having gone for burgers instead of our usual and there you were, headphones in completely oblivious to the world and searching for your keys in your purse as usual. You were just so carefree - everything I wanted to be. And then a couple of days later we met and I was a goner.”

You bit your lip as you fought back a smile, overwhelmed by his honesty. It was a welcome feeling, knowing you weren’t the only one that felt an attraction almost immediately. 

“I’d seen you around too, before we officially met I mean. It’s kind of hard to miss you” You chuckled as you snuck a glimpse over at him and found him doing his usual glare. “It was pretty early on for me as well, do you remember when we went for coffee?” 

“And you ordered us two cups of sugar? Yeah I remember” 

“Mocha Latte’s aren’t bad for you… they just give you a bit of a buzz” 

“Especially if you order extra cream…” 

“Anyway! I’ve always been attracted to you, I’m not blind y’know but after seeing this dark looming strong man consume a drink like that, and have some residue cream left on his lower lip mind you, I just knew that it was more than just a crush. There’s something oddly charming and attractive about seeing someone so intimidating be so soft. It’s like I’m the only one who gets to see that side of you and I love it” 

Bucky didn't quite know what to say, he was slightly flustered at the compliments you were throwing at him and by the knowledge that you’d been interested far earlier than he had ever dreamed of. 

“We’re idiots aren’t we? For not realising sooner.” 

“Oh without a doubt”

Tag list:

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#bucky #bucky barnes #bucky x female reader #bucky x reader #bucky x you #bucky x y/n #bucky barnes x female reader #bucky barnes x reader #tfatws #ao3 #fic #bucky fic #bucky fluff

[rivers-rambles21]

The one without a plan

Part 14 of The one where Bucky has a cute neigbour series!

Pairing: Bucky Barnes X Reader (f)

Warnings | 18+ only

Chapter 14 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 1 | Masterlist

Bucky had taken the opportunity whilst you were in the other room to give your bedroom a quick tidy and pulled on a pair of shorts from his bag. He hadn’t thought twice about where he wanted to go after leaving Sokovia, catching the first flight he could. He’d not even opened up his apartment, too eager to see you. Much to his dismay he’d found your apartment door unlocked but knew you must’ve been returning soon. It wasn’t ever his intention to end up in your bed, hell it wasn’t even his intention to kiss you but the moment he saw you and had you in his arms, he couldn’t help himself. He never could with you.

His heart practically melted as you peeped your head around the door, suddenly shy in your bare state. “Here doll” He reached into his duffel and retrieved one of his black t-shirts, throwing it your way. Although you obviously had a change of clothes available considering it was your own apartment, he wanted to see you in his clothes again. The memory he had of you in his shirt was one he found replaying in his mind time and time again; he was eager to see a repeat. 

“Thanks Buck” You smiled back at him and pulled it over your head, breathing in his scent as you did. 

Tentatively, he reached out with his left arm and without hesitation, you accepted his hand, grasping it in yours. With a gentle tug he led you into your kitchen, lifting you by your thighs as he reached your countertop, gently depositing you in his usual spot. After leaving a quick peck on your nose, he turned his back to you and finished off putting away your groceries.

You smiled to yourself as you noticed how he managed to put away every item in its correct place, owing to how many times he’d watched you do the same thing the past few months. 

“Are you staring at my ass?” 

You diverted your eyes away from Bucky's behind, unaware you’d been staring as he gave you a smirk over his shoulder. 

Finally finished, he turned to face you and leant against the wall opposite you, head cocked to the side as his eyes took you in; enjoying every inch of bare skin. 

“I really missed you doll” 

“I missed you too Buck” Lifting your arms, you reached out trying to grab at him but missed him by a few inches. 

A large grin spread across his face at your ‘grabby hands‘. “As adorable as you look, I need to get something off my chest.” 

You dropped your hands as you nodded, your interest peaked.

Bucky’s mouth opened and closed a few times as he tried to put what he was feeling into words. On his way home he’d rehearsed over and over again what he wanted to say to you; but somehow he was coming up short. After seeing you, being with you, every coherent thought he had left his mind. 

Frustrated, he clenched his jaw as he felt his breathing become heavy, panic running through him as he realised he was messing up his chance. 

“You don’t need to say anything” You offered, seeing how uncomfortable and anxious he was becoming as he struggled to voice what he wanted to say. 

“I just-” He began before groaning as he continued to struggle. 

Jumping down from the counter you took a step towards him, your hand coming to rest over his heart, finger tips skimming where his flesh melted into the vibranium. 

“I know Bucky… I feel it too” You whispered, your eyes meeting his as you offered him a small smile, praying he understood. 

Raising his right hand, his fingertips grazed your arm before reaching your palm which rested on his chest, softly lifting your hand. Bowing his head, his lips brushed over your knuckles, paying every finger attention, littering them with kisses. His eyes closed as he pulled you closer to his chest, cradling you against him as he tucked your head under his chin. 

For the first time since the war, Bucky felt at peace.

Rather reluctantly he later left your apartment but not after giving you a stern look for leaving your door unlocked before. He’d gotten a text from Ayo to say Sam’s suit was ready to be picked up and that it would be waiting for him in the new gardens on the Avengers Tower. 

Pleasantly surprised at the quick turnaround, he made his way over there with the aim of getting back to you as quickly as possible, knowing you were waiting for him with a home cooked meal. 

Upon arrival, he took a few moments to admire the changes made to the building, the newly planted flowers and trees giving life to the previously cold tower. 

“White Wolf!” A familiar voice brought a smile to his face as he turned to face the young woman it belonged to. 

“Shuri!”

“My favourite broken white boy” She replied, grasping his hand and pulling him into a quick hug. 

During his time in Wakanda he got close with Shuri as she worked to fix him along with Ayo. Her feisty temperament reminded him of his sister Rebecca but it was her unwavering confidence in her own abilities that bonded them together. For someone who didn't trust his own mind for so long, it was refreshing to be around someone who trusted themselves so completely.

“Ayo not with you?” He queried, looking around and finding no one. 

“She’s bringing up the suit, she’ll be here in a few minutes.” 

With another smile Bucky gestured for her to sit down on a nearby bench, still thrilled to be seeing her. 

“I’m surprised you came to be honest… after the whole Zemo thing” He remarked, bowing his head in shame. 

“Unfortunately even I can’t fix stupidity.” With a cheeky smile she elbowed him in the side “So you’ve gotten over your ex boyfriend.” She joked, shooting Bucky a grin. 

“Oh here we go! I’ve told you before, Steve was not my boyfriend.” Shuri merely rolled her eyes as she held back a laugh at Bucky’s clear discomfort. “How did you even find out about Y/n anyway?” 

“Y/n? Who is Y/n?” With a loud gasp Shuri nearly jumped out of her seat in excitement. “White Wolf has a girlfriend! Ayo, Nomble, get over here!!” Bucky groaned as Shuri beckoned an approaching Ayo & Nomble who were carrying a large case between them. “I cannot believe it. Not only has the goat whisperer gotten a haircut but he’s got a girlfriend!” 

Bucky tried to be annoyed at Shuri, he really did but he couldn't contain the smile that graced his lips at the sound of you being referred to as his girlfriend. 

The group spent the next few minutes conversing back and forth before Bucky made his tracks home; leaving with the case containing Sam's new suit in his arms and a promise to Shuri to introduce you to her and go see a show once things with the Flag Smashers had been resolved.

After dropping the suit off in his apartment he made his way back to yours, pleased to find the door locked. 

You opened it up to him, inviting him in with a quick peck to his lips as you hurried back to the stove, stirring the sauce you’d been making. 

“How did it go?” You asked. You’d not gotten changed since he’d left, enjoying the softness of Bucky’s tshirt against your bare skin and his lingering scent. 

“It went well” He murmured as he made his way up behind you, arms snaking around your waist as soft kisses made their way down your neck. Bucky couldn’t quite believe this was happening, you’d both fallen into domestic bliss quickly and nothing had ever felt so natural to him. You’d both been dancing around each other for months now, never quite crossing the line but coming pretty close. He’d known the way you both acted around one another wasn’t how friends usually acted but he’d never let himself believe you’d ever want something more with him. But now? He was planning on thoroughly enjoying every minute with you, worried that somehow the bubble would break and you’d come to your senses. Until then he’d be greedy. 

“Buck-mhmm!” His hand had begun to wander and his fingers brushed against your damp sex. 

“Yes doll?” He asked rather too innocently as he pushed a finger inside you, slowly pumping it in and out as his lips continued leaving soft kisses on your neck. 

No words came out of your mouth as you dropped your head back to rest on his shoulder. His spare hand gripped you around your waist as your legs began to give out when his second finger slid inside and began to curl. Soft whimpers left your lips as Bucky continued thrusting his fingers inside you, your eyes screwed shut. 

“You’re doing so well doll” He muttered in your ear, completely transfixed by the feel of your body pressed against his. Your hips pressed against his as you rubbed your ass against his crotch, his cock rock hard in his jeans. 

The food in front of you was long forgotten as Bucky brought you closer and closer to orgasm. He continued whispering praise in your ear as his fingers continued to brush your sweet spot over and over again. Moans filled your apartment as you chanted his name, a sound Bucky could listen to on repeat forever. 

Bucky's hips thrusted against your ass one more time as his lips nibbled on your ear lobe, his voice sounding rough and gravelly as he issued his command. “Come for me Y/n” 

Your body complied as your orgasm erupted, your sweet release drowning Buckys fingers as you rode wave after wave. 

You eventually returned to your body as Bucky slipped his fingers from you, bringing them to his lips and sucking them clean as he did. 

“Come to bed” He asked as he tried to pull your hips backwards with him. 

“Buck we need to eat!” You protested, giggling as you caught sight of his sulk. 

“But-” he began but was swiftly cut off. 

“You may be a super soldier with super stamina but I am not, I need food Bucky! Plus I made you meatballs….” Bucky perked up at the promise of food and begrudgingly let go of you. 

He set the table as you finished off the food, not trusting himself around you, knowing damm well he’d be carrying you to your bedroom in seconds if he got too close. 

You both ate in silence as you wolfed down the food you’d prepared, smiling to yourself as you realised you’d made him the very thing you’d promised him the day you met - the day he saved you from the creep in the lobby. 

“I finally did it” 

“Huh?” 

“I quit my job” You confessed as you wiped your mouth clean with a napkin. 

Bucky stared back at you as he grinned, not quite knowing what to say. 

“I had this crazy idea you see” Bucky didn't say a word as he took in every word you said. “My best friend was half way round the world and although he was technically there for work, he was seeing the world. And it got me thinking… maybe he’d want to see it with me?” There was hope in your voice as you explained yourself, finding yourself getting giddy at the thought of travelling. 

“You want to live on the road?” 

“Oh! No, I mean I want to see a lot but I think having somewhere permanent to call home would be good y’know? There’s something else… Before quitting my job I got offered an analyst position, remote working, great benefits… the lot” 

“Why didn't you say anything!” Bucky exclaimed, jumping out of his chair and kneeling down in front of you, pulling you into his arms from your seated position into a tight hug. “I’m so proud of you Y/n” 

“It’s with Stark Industries.” The super soldier went rigid in your arms, dread filling him up. 

“Do they know?” his voice came out far more timid than he intended. During one of your many heart-to-hearts with the man, he’d opened up about the events that took place after Steve found him. He still carried the guilt with him wherever he went and the regret he had over not resolving things with Tony before he passed still haunted him. 

“Yeah, I let them know we’re close after I got the job. They don’t care Bucky, they know you’re not him.” You tried your best to reassure him as you pulled back from the hug, leaving a lingering kiss on his forehead. 

Bucky sighed with relief, grateful his past hadn’t hindered your future. 

“So you’d like a super soldier tagging along for the ride?” He joked, trying to lighten the mood as he remained kneeled in front of you, his hands running up and down your arms as they rested on his shoulders. 

“If he’s up for it” You replied, grinning back at him. 

“I just have one request.” Turning his head, he began kissing up one of your arms, slowly reaching your chest. 

“Oh?”

“I pick our first stop” 

“Deal”

Tag list: @iamtheonewhocares @indigo123789 @xpurpleglitter

#bucky barnes #bucky #bucky x female reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky fanfic #bucky x reader #bucky x you #bucky x y/n #tfaws #ao3

[rivers-rambles21]

The one where Bucky comes home

Part 13 of The one where Bucky has a cute neigbour series!

Pairing: Bucky Barnes X Reader (f)

Summary | Reader and Bucky become friends after he saves her from  a creep in their apartment building. Each chapter explores a different point in their friendship - very slow burn!

Warnings | 18+ only !!Smut!!!

Chapter 13 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 1 | Masterlist

I’ll be continuing this fic for a few more chapters before starting on my Mafia/Mob Enemies to Lovers Bucky X Reader fic! Thank you for all the notes :) x

Keep reading

[rivers-rambles21]

The one where Bucky has a cute neighbour series!

The order of the chapters is a work in progress and titles may change - my work is also posted on ao3 under Impulse53669

(I won’t lie, thesechapter titles were quite fun to come up with - they might change as I write each one)

Chapter 1: The one where Bucky is a hero

Chapter 2: The one where things get saucy

Chapter 3: The one where Y/N can’t find the hole

Chapter 4: The one where Y/N’s a tease

Chapter 5: The one with the surprise

Chapter 6: The one where Bucky struggles to get it up

Chapter 7: The one with the marathon

Chapter 8: The one where you’re both idiots

Chapter 9: The one with the ring

Chapter 10: The one with the flipping

Chapter 11: The one with Cupid

Chapter 12: The one where Bucky sets the record straight

Chapter 13: The one where Bucky comes home

Chapter 14: The one with the road trip

Chapter 15: The one with the sneaking around

Chapter 16: The one where Y/n quits

[rivers-rambles21]

The one where Bucky comes home

Part 13 of The one where Bucky has a cute neigbour series!

Pairing: Bucky Barnes X Reader (f)

Summary | Reader and Bucky become friends after he saves her from  a creep in their apartment building. Each chapter explores a different point in their friendship - very slow burn!

Warnings | 18+ only !!Smut!!!

Chapter 13 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 1 | Masterlist

I’ll be continuing this fic for a few more chapters before starting on my Mafia/Mob Enemies to Lovers Bucky X Reader fic! Thank you for all the notes :) x

Everyone you knew had seen the video of John Walker killing an unarmed man in Latvia. It shook you to your core as you recalled your brief meeting with the former soldier outside the police precinct and wondered just how fucked up the mission had gone for him to commit such a crime. You'd caught a brief glance of Bucky and Sam in the video you had watched and had been worried they were somehow involved in the altercation but those concerns were swiftly shut down when you got a text from Bucky letting you know they were okay and he was returning to Brooklyn. 

You'd not spoken to one another on the phone since your last call and hadn't really texted either apart from his brief text so you had no real idea of when his flight would be arriving. 

After a quick visit to the grocery store you made it back to your apartment with the intention of cooking a meal ready for when Bucky would arrive home. You let yourself in, not having locked the door on the way out, knowing you wouldn’t be gone for long. Throwing your purse on the side table, you began unpacking your items, humming to yourself as you did. 

“Hi doll” You screamed in shock, your hand going to your chest as you spun on the spot, dropping the apples you were holding. 

“BU-! You almost gave me a heart attack!!” Your heart practically beat out of your chest as adrenaline ran through your veins; your voice shrieking with the shock. 

He smirked at you as he leant against the couch arm, his jacket discarded and arms bare as they stretched across his chest.

“C’mere” Opening his arms he flashed you his boyish smile, laying on the full Bucky charm as he did. 

Without hesitation you ran towards him and leapt into his arms, not thinking twice as you wrapped your arms around him, pressing your face into his neck with joy. 

You remained like this for a few moments, both wrapped up in each other as Bucky held you close to his chest. He enjoyed the feeling of you pressing up against him before you slowly pulled back from him, faces impossibly close as your eyes dropped down to his lips, just as he did the same. 

Neither of you could say who moved first but within a second your lips were upon one another, desperately fighting for dominance over the other. Bucky won as his right hand found the back of your neck, holding you against him as his other hand grasped the back of your shirt, resting just above your ass. 

You kept your arms wrapped around his neck as the kiss deepened, both caught up in the moment and intensity. 

A moment of realisation suddenly hit Bucky and his soft lips left yours, a gasp escaping your mouth. His eyes sought yours, as his hand moved from your neck to your cheek, his thumb brushing over your bottom lip. “Doll” His lips quirked into a small smile as his eyes bored into yours. “You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to do that” 

“Oh I have an idea” You murmured back, your eyes setting back on his lips before kissing him again. Your fingers threaded into his hair, pulling on it slightly which earnt you a groan from the soldier. The sound dampened your already wet panties, your cunt throbbing with need as you started to guide you both towards your bedroom. 

Bucky’s lips moved from yours and started trailing kisses along your jaw before reaching your neck, greedily nipping and sucking as he did. 

“Bedroom” You gasped as he bit on a particularly sensitive area, fingers finding his hair again as you tugged at it desperately. Your other hand snuck down to his jeans and pulled at his belt, urging him into the direction of your room. You felt your legs hit the back of your bed before you fell backwards, pulling Bucky on top of you. 

His lips left your neck as he rested his weight on his metal arm, hovering above you as his crotched pressed against your clothed core. His bulge felt heavy as you anticipated what laid beneath, your cunt throbbing with need. 

Your hands made quick work of his belt before your fingers descended on his jeans, fiddling with the buttons. 

“Hold on a second doll… I want to take my time with you.” He whispered, kissing your nose as he did. Moving back onto his knees he glanced down at you, eyes raking your body before slowly sliding his hands up your waist and grasping your tshirt; guiding it up your stomach. His head bent down as his lips descended once again on your bare skin, his lips dragging up your torso as he eventually reached your bra. “I’m sorry” he grunted as you raised your head, wondering what on earth he was talking about before you heard a rip as your shirt was pulled apart along with your bra. Your breasts sprung free and Bucky delved in like a man possessed as his tongue flicked your left nipple, his right hand pulling on the other.

“Oh god” you panted, your fingers tugging on his hair, pressing him against your chest as your pussy throbbed. 

Bucky was in heaven, with every suck and flick he earnt a moan from you beneath him. His cock somehow grew even harder with each noise that left your sweet lips. Despite wanting nothing more than to sink into your wet cunt and pound you into oblivion he wanted to pull an orgasm from you before giving into his desires. Settling for thrusting his groin against the bed he squeezed your breasts before moving his lips further down your body, eager to have a taste of your sweet nectar. 

“Bucky - you- you- you don’t have to” Your fingers tugged on his hair, trying to lift his head away from your body.

His head suddenly shot up, his eyes reaching yours as he raised an eyebrow, almost mockingly before popping the button on your jeans. He hastily pulled them off your legs, throwing them over his shoulder. Yanking your legs, he pulled you towards the edge of the bed as he knelt down, tugging them over his shoulders. “Fuck doll, you’re soaked.” His thumb brushed over your damp panties, teasing your core with every gentle stroke. His eyes were transfixed on your clothed cunt, his tongue licking his lower lip in anticipation.

“Bucky please” you whined, desperate for some friction. 

Feeling generous, Bucky complied with your wish and gave your panties the same courtesy he gave your top before throwing them over his shoulder to join your jeans. 

“Bucky!” You protested, leaning up on your elbows to shoot him a glare. However, every thought suddenly left your mind as he licked a stripe from your dripping hole to your clit. 

Your hips thrusted upwards as he began his assault on your soaked pussy, alternating between dipping his tongue into your aching hole and flicking and sucking on your clit. You threw your head back as pure bliss overcame you, your back arching as your cunt fluttered around nothing.

 Bucky’s metal hand suddenly pressed down on your stomach to keep you in place, the cool metal providing some form of relief as he continued his ministrations on your core, pulling moan after moan from you. 

“I need-I-I-” You panted as you tried to keep control of your legs which had started to clamp around his neck.

“I know doll, I know” He cooed as he thrusted a finger inside your cunt, almost cumming in his pants as he felt your soaked walls flutter around it; sucking it in further. 

“Oh fuck” You panted, grabbing hold of your own breasts, pulling and plucking on your nipples to help pull you over the edge sooner. 

“Ah ah ah” He tutted as he swatted your hands away. “Eyes on me” 

You were too blissed out as your eyes were screwed shut, overcome by the feeling of Bucky's finger stroking your walls to hear what he said. 

A light slap to your thigh and a curl of his finger caused your eyes to shoot open before his lips descended on yours, his tongue pushing into your mouth as you tasted yourself on him. A second finger slipped inside as his lips left yours, curling against your most sensitive spot. 

“Eyes on me” His voice came out rough as he fought down the urge to thrust harder against the bed, seeking friction. 

You nodded your head, unable to form a single word as another sinful moan left your lips, only growing in volume as he returned his mouth to your dripping core; your eyes never leaving his piercing blue ones. Your first orgasm was nearing fast as you felt your coil tighten, your legs shaking uncontrollably. 

“Come for me doll” He mumbled against your clit before sucking hard and pumping his fingers into you, almost erratically. 

Your body did as commanded and you tingled all the way from your head to your toes as your orgasm overcame you. You rode wave after wave as Bucky continued thrusting his fingers, gently slowing down as he carried you through your high. Your eyes had closed on instinct but Bucky didn’t mind, he was utterly transfixed with how wrecked you looked. He wanted to make you this way time and time again. He was a man obsessed. 

“Fuck” You muttered as you felt your soul return to your body, your legs going limp. 

You opened your eyes just in time to watch as Bucky slipped his fingers out from you and popped them into his mouth, licking your juices clean. It was the single most erotic thing you’d ever witnessed. Heat flooded your chest as you squirmed on the bed, eager for further relief. 

“You did so well doll” He praised as he slowly crawled his way back up your body, rolling your nipple between his fingers as he did, his eyes transfixed on your chest. 

Taking advantage of the distraction, your legs circled his waist and you pushed your body weight to the side, rolling him onto his back with your soaked cunt pressed against his jean clad crotch. 

“Off” You ordered, tugging on his shirt before returning back to his jeans, pulling them down his strong legs along with his boxers as Bucky removed his top. 

You gulped as you took in the sight of his engorged cock, the head dark and angry, precome leaking down it. 

Sensing your nervousness Bucky sat upright, his feet planted on the floor as he sat on the edge of your bed; pulling you close to his chest. Your legs slotted either side of his as his hands caressed your thighs, slowly making their way up to your ass, squeezing your cheeks as they did.

“We don’t have to” He murmured, nuzzling his face into your neck, kissing every inch he could get his lips on. 

“I want to” You gasped in response, your head tilting back to give him more access as he made his way down your chest. “It’s just been a while” 

“I’ll be gentle” He had every intention, he really did but when you lifted your hips and slowly sank down his length, your tight cunt squeezing and sucking him in, he nearly lost it. 

“Y/n” he groaned, sweat forming on his brow as he used every ounce of will power he had not to thrust up into you. 

A whimper left your lips as you finally took his entire length, his cock bottoming out deep within you. The pain was undeniable, although he’d gotten you as ready as you could’ve been, the stretch wasn’t something his fingers could prepare you for. You felt as though you were being split open as you took inch after inch of him. 

But, the pain soon dissolved and turned into pleasure as you felt an uncontrollable need to move - to feel the drag of his thick cock rub against your velvet walls, hitting the spot you’d been able to reach only a handful of times before. 

Slowly, you lifted your body, gasping as you felt his cock twitch inside of you; never before had you felt so full. “Bucky!” Your fingers threaded through his dark locks, pulling tightly as you sunk back down, the pain that was there before suddenly gone and replaced with wave after wave of bliss. 

“Doll” He choked, his fingers digging into your ass as he remained still beneath you. Unwilling to move until you’d given him the all clear. God, it had been so long since he’d felt a woman wrapped around him, but he was positive no one had ever felt as good as you did.

“Please, please!” You begged, not quite sure what you were asking for as you continued to bounce on his cock. Taking charge Bucky’s metal hand moved from your ass and gripped your chin as he pulled your face towards his. Lips smashed together as his tongue invaded your mouth, pulling yet another moan from you. 

His hips started to lift, meeting you thrust for thrust as his flesh hand cradled your back, keeping you close to his chest. 

Your lips left his to catch your breath just as his cock dragged along a particularly sensitive spot. A high pitched moan left your lips before you began chanting his name, his fingers having found your bud between your legs, the coldness of the metal adding to the intensity. 

Bucky’s grunts beneath you only brought you closer and closer to the edge once again, his brows furrowed as his eyes flitted between your face, chest and where you were both joined. 

“Come for me pretty girl” He breathed, his hips rutting against you harder than before, the sinful sound of your bodies slapping together filling the room as your juices dripped down his cock. 

A yelp left your lips as stars erupted behind your eyes, your soul nearly left your body as Bucky fucked you through the aftershocks, speeding up as he felt his release near the instant your juices drowned his cock. 

He couldn’t hold back any more and his thrusts became erratic before he groaned upon release, his hot cum squirting up into you, coating your insides. 

It took a few moments for both of you to catch your breaths, your chests crushed together as you came back to earth. His cock softening inside you brought you back to reality and your legs suddenly became very uncomfortable in their position, aching from riding the man beneath you. 

Sensing your discomfort, Bucky tucked his hands beneath your thighs and gently lifted you off him before turning you on your side, propping you up on his lap. 

The evidence of your activities made itself known as it trickled out of you and onto his thighs. The realisation suddenly dawning on Bucky. “Shit Y/n, I didn’t think” he panicked, his hands clawing at his hair as his mind ran a thousand miles per hour. 

He’d certainly thought about what a future with you would look like, how you’d look carrying his children, mothering your offspring and a selfish part of him wanted his seed to take. 

However, he knew it was wrong, something this huge should’ve been a joint decision, but he’d been too caught up in the moment, too wrapped up in the feeling of being wanted by you.

“Hey, hey” you cooed as you gently stroked his cheek, thumb rubbing over his stubble. “It’s okay, I’m on the pill. As adorable as it would be, there won’t be any mini Bucky’s running around causing chaos any time soon” You tried your best to reassure him and peppered his nose and cheeks with light kisses as you did. “I’ll be right back.”

On unsteady legs, you rose from his lap and headed into the bathroom. After relieving yourself you took a moment to stare back at your reflection. You truly looked a mess, your hair was sticking up in all sorts of directions and your neck was littered with light bruises from where Bucky’s lips had assaulted your skin. A giggle left your lips as you left the room, high on the happiness that bubbled in your chest.

Tag list: @iamtheonewhocares @indigo123789 @xpurpleglitter

It’s been a while since I’ve written smut so any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes x you #bucky fanfic #bucky barnes #bucky x female reader #bucky x reader #bucky x y/n #bucky x you #bucky barnes x female reader #tfatws #ao3

[rivers-rambles21]

The one where Bucky sets the record straight

Part 12 of The one where Bucky has a cute neigbour series!

Pairing: Bucky Barnes X Reader (f)

Summary | Reader and Bucky become friends after he saves her from  a creep in their apartment building. Each chapter explores a different point in their friendship - very slow burn!

Warnings | 18+ only, Smut in later chapters (this is a slow burn), swearing, unprotected sex, oral sex, (later chapters)

Chapter 12 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 1 | Masterlist

This is just a short filler chapter but I’m debating wrapping this story up after the next chapter, please let me know your thoughts!

You didn’t hear from Bucky for a couple of days but kept a watchful eye on the news. The flag smashers had been blowing up buildings and you had no doubt your Super Soldier would be hot on their tails. 

You were on your way home from work when your phone lit up and rang, signalling an incoming call from him. 

“Hey Buck!” You answered cheerily, pleased to be hearing from him as you dodged people on the street. 

“Hey Doll. Have I caught you at a bad time?”

“No no of course not, it’s good to hear from you. What’s up?”

“What? I’m not allowed to call my best girl just to see how her day is?”

“Did that work on the girls back in the 40’s?” You teased, smiling to yourself as you enjoyed this side of your best friend. 

“You wound me doll” 

“Yeah yeah, I’m sure your ego can take it. How have you been? Any sign of coming home yet?” 

“No, not yet. Things just seem to go from bad to worse. What about you? Quit your job yet?”

You scoffed as you stopped by a bench and took a seat, wanting to give Bucky your full attention. “Unfortunately not. Some of us don’t have a pension to live off y’know, we’re not all a hundred and six.” 

“I know I know, I just don’t like you being stuck somewhere like that. You deserve a lot better than the GRC. I guess you’ll have to quit if you move out of New York though right?” 

“Honestly, I don’t know what I’m doing. I think with you being half way across the world it’s hit home, quite literally, on how little is keeping me here. I know you’re going to tease the shit out of me for this Buck but I think if it wasn’t for you living across the hall, I’d have left months ago.” You fiddled with the ring on your finger as you waited for his response, your breath shaky down the phone. 

“I’m glad you stayed.” 

“Me too” 

“I just - I don’t- Y/n… why do you even bother with me?” The self doubt was evident in his tone as you wondered what on earth had brought him to even question your relationship. 

“What do you mean? Where is this coming from Buck?” 

“Zemo… he said the serum corrupts everyone who takes it, with the exception of Steve of course. I’m not a good person Y/n, I’ve done terrible things, I’ve hurt a lot of people… and yet here you are, acting as though I’ve not spent the last seventy years murdering people. I nearly corrupted Steve - how are you not scared of me?”

“No. Stop it Bucky. You’re not going down that path. You’re not a bad person, you’re not corrupted by it. Steve wasn’t the only one okay? I need you to listen to me Buck, and I mean really listen. You’re good, you James Buchanan Barnes are worth it, Steve saw it, Sam saw it, I see it. But you’ve got to let us in and let go of the past. You didn’t choose to take the serum, you didn’t choose to fall off that train, you didn’t choose to become him. But… you can choose now. And...and - and- the person you’ve chosen to be.. Well he’s….well he’s incredible.” 

You closed your eyes as you caught your breath. The words had tumbled out faster than you’d anticipated, trying to quash any doubt Bucky had about himself. 

“You really believe that?” His voice was barely a whisper down the phone. 

“Yeah” 

“Doll… I have to go” 

“O-okay”

____________________________________________________

Bucky had been on edge ever since John had said your name back in Baltimore. He couldn’t wrap his mind around how he found out about you. He’d been so careful. He’d kept his phone a secret, only showing his therapist his burner. He paid in cash for everything and had all his utility bills in false names. He couldn’t afford for his enemies or what remained of Hydra to know about you. 

“This is ridiculous…” John muttered as he paced back and forth, waiting for Sam to give the signal. They were holed up in a back room as Sam attempted to negotiate with the leader of the flag smashers, something the budget Captain America had more than an issue with. 

“How did you know her name?”

“What?” John stopped in his tracks and faced Bucky, his face unreadable. 

“How did you know her name” Bucky stood from his seat and strode towards the other man, going toe to toe. 

“Oh your girlfriend?” Walker chuckled, nodding his head in understanding. “We’ve been keeping an eye on her for a while.”

“John” Lemar urged, pulling on his friend's arm, knowing no good would come of his taunting.

“I’m surprised you’re still here quite frankly. I’d have thought you’d be at home with your wife.” Bucky taunted, his jaw clenching.

“Why wouldn’t Captain America be hunting down a terrorist?” Walker smirked, overly confident. 

“If I was married, I’m sure my wife would want me home for our ten year anniversary. Tomorrow isn’t it?” Bucky's eyes bored into John’s, almost daring him to make a move. After Baltimore Bucky had done his own intel, getting as much information on the downgraded Captain America as possible. He’d felt slightly uncomfortable invading his privacy but he pushed any ill feeling aside when he reminded himself he’d done the exact same thing to him. When it came to you, Bucky didn’t have a limit on how far he’d go to keep you safe. 

“You fucker” John hissed, shoving Bucky with all his strength but only able to push him back a single step. 

“Ah, now I remember. She’s got other plans, what was his name… Ah! Carl. That’s it.  Her personal trainer. He’s got glowing reviews John, maybe he can help you out?” Taking a step forward, Bucky came toe to toe with Walker again. The man before him was seething, practically shaking with rage. “Stay out of Y/n’s business and I’ll stay out of yours.” 

“Or what?” he spat, fists clenched as a worried Lemar looked on. 

“You’ve read my file, I’m sure you can fill in the blanks.” Raising his left arm, Bucky gently slapped John’s cheek twice, smiling back at the man as he mocked him. He kept his eyes trained on him as he slowly backed away and leant back against the door frame; patiently waiting for Sam.

Tag list:

@iamtheonewhocares @indigo123789 @xpurpleglitter

#bucky #bucky barnes #bucky x female reader #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x y/n #bucky x you #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes x you #tfaws #ao3

[rivers-rambles21]

The one with Cupid

Part 11 of The one where Bucky has a cute neigbour series!

Pairing: Bucky Barnes X Reader (f)

Summary | Reader and Bucky become friends after he saves her from  a creep in their apartment building. Each chapter explores a different point in their friendship - very slow burn!

Warnings | 18+ only, Smut in later chapters (this is a slow burn), swearing, unprotected sex, oral sex, (later chapters)

Chapter 11 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 1 | Masterlist

With a sigh you slid your phone back into your pocket and carried on with your day of cleaning.

Around midday you heard noise coming from the hallway you shared with Bucky. Fearing yet another visit from the Police, you investigated. 

"Hi, can I help you?" 

A kid no older than sixteen stood opposite Bucky's door, fist raised to knock. 

"Oh! Hi, I'm looking for Mr Barnes, does he live here?" The young man gestured towards the door whilst fidgeting with his bag that was slung over his shoulder.

"Who's asking?" You boldly asked, hand on the door knob ready to slam it closed as a precaution 

"I'm Peter, Peter Parker" he held his hand out for you to shake before hastily retracting it. 

"Oh my god you're Spider Boy!" 

His eyes practically bugged out of his head as he frantically looked around the hallway to make sure you were alone. 

"First off I'm pretty sure it's Spider man and no I'm ...not.. I'm not him" 

Peter wasn't overly convincing, unable to get each word out without nervously coughing in-between. 

"Uhuh and Bucky has two normal arms" You let go of the door as you teased the kid, amused at his panic stricken expression. "Relax Peter, I'm a friend of Bucky's, I'm Y/N" This time you held your hand our to his which he took, shaking it with a firm grip. 

"I didn't know Mr Barnes had friends" 

"Because of the staring thing?" You joked, knowing how intense your best friend sometimes came across as. 

"Well, I, er… he's a bit scary at times yknow?"“

“So how come you’re looking for him? He’s out of town at the moment.” 

With a sigh Peter looked down at the ground, clearly disappointed. “Of course he is” He muttered. 

Taking pity on him, you reached inside your apartment, grabbing your purse and jacket before closing the door behind you. “Come on kid, you look like you could do with a milkshake.” 

Peter pulled a face, a bit taken aback. “I’m sixteen” 

“Well what do sixteen year olds drink? I can hardly take you out for a beer to talk about whatever is clearly eating you up.” 

Realising you were right, Peter nodded and followed you down the hallway. 

It took Peter a while to eventually open up, but after you divulged a bit more on how you and Bucky met, he relaxed around you and started to word vomit. 

He explained how the loss of a mentor was weighing heavy on his shoulders, how the girl he liked didn’t know his secret, how the responsibility of being Spider Man overwhelmed him at times. You could tell it had done him some good to speak freely and openly to a stranger but you knew he needed someone to relate to, someone who knew what being an Avenger truly meant. 

You both exchanged numbers and you left him with a promise you’d speak to Bucky, asking for him to get back in touch with him when he had the chance.

______________________________________________________

“So you and Y/N?” Sam couldn’t contain the grin on his face. He’d been waiting for the perfect opportunity to quiz the Super Soldier on the subject and with Zemo and Sharon out of the room getting ready, he couldn’t pass up the chance.

“What about her Sam?” 

“How long have you been seeing each other?”

Bucky's brows furrowed and his eyes shot up to meet Sam’s “We’re not- she’s-” he stumbled over his words before rolling his eyes as Sam held back a laugh, clearly enjoying making the other man uncomfortable. “Don’t okay? We’re just friends” With a dramatic sigh, Bucky fiddled with the edges of his worn out notebook, eyes no longer able to meet Sam’s. “Nothing more” He muttered, more to himself than anything else.

“So you won’t mind if I ask her out then?” Sam didn’t really have any intention on asking you out but he was enjoying tormenting Bucky too much to let it drop. He could see clear as day you both had feelings for each other but for some unknown reason, hadn’t taken the next step and admitted it to each other. Sam however, was more than happy to give a little push.

Bucky’s mouth opened and closed multiple times as he contemplated whether Sam was being serious or not. Inside he felt rage building up at the thought of you being with another man which mixed with an overwhelming feeling of sadness; knowing he didn’t stack up to Sam. 

There was a reason Steve gave him the shield, he knew he was a good person, honourable, kind and decent. He protected people, stood up for the little guy and lived by clear morals. 

Bucky on the other hand… he was damaged, he’d killed hundreds of people, tortured dozens, and protected war criminals. 

But… despite this, something stirred within him. A need to claim you as his, to be selfish with you and have you all to himself. He sat for a while, pondering on what he should do but was mainly worrying about Sam asking you out, unaware the Falcon liked to act fast.

Please let me know if there’s any issues with the formatting or with the screen shots!

Tag list:

@iamtheonewhocares​ @indigo123789​ @xpurpleglitter​

#bucky #bucky barnes #bucky fic #bucky x female reader #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x reader #bucky fanfic #bucky x y/n #text fic #tfaws

[rivers-rambles21]

The one with the flipping

Part 10 of The one where Bucky has a cute neigbour series!

Pairing: Bucky Barnes X Reader (f)

Summary | Reader and Bucky become friends after he saves her from  a creep in their apartment building. Each chapter explores a different point in their friendship - very slow burn!

Warnings | 18+ only, Smut in later chapters (this is a slow burn), swearing, unprotected sex, oral sex, (later chapters)

We’re starting to see more from The Falcon and The Winter Soldier - there are some bits taken from the show to help shape the story.

We’ll also be seeing Y/N & Bucky texting whilst he’s away

Chapter 10 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 1 | Masterlist

It didn’t feel right with Bucky away. Although he’d only been gone for just over a day you felt the void he left. Over the past few months you’d become inseparable, seeing each other every day - whether it be hitting the gym together, cooking or just hanging out.

After coming home from yet another terrible day at work, you wanted nothing more than to open a bottle of wine and binge watch TV with Bucky who was undoubtedly now your best friend. 

You were two glasses in when you heard a banging outside your apartment door. 

Stepping out into the hallway you were greeted with two cops hammering away on Bucky’s door, nearly breaking it clean off. “Excuse me, can I help you?” 

Both officers quickly spun on the spot and reached for their guns, stopping when they saw you were on your own. “Do you know the man who lives here?” 

“Yes, do you?”

“Ma’am do you know where he is?” 

“No I don’t” You lied, not trusting the two men infront of you. 

One of their radios suddenly turned on “-he’s is now in custody in Baltimore” 

Both cops nodded to one another before turning back to you. “Nevermind ma’am” 

You watched as they left as quickly as they arrived before running back into your apartment, grabbing your phone and frantically calling Bucky. You tried a few more times before stuffing your wallet into your purse and heading for the door. 

Fortunately you managed to catch a last minute flight to Baltimore after confirming with the police precinct they were holding him in . You hadn’t thought twice about going to him, your heart ached at the thought of him being confined to a cell, trapping him like an animal. 

After paying the cab driver your fare, you sprinted into the precinct heading straight for the desk. 

“Hi, you’re holding my friend Bucky -  I mean James Barnes.” You panted, tired from the sprint to the officer behind the desk.

“Who the hell are you?” 

Turning around, you came face to face with someone you instantly recognised. “Falcon” You grinned, a little bit star struck at meeting an actual Avenger. 

Sure Bucky was one too but to you he wasn’t some superhero on the evening news who fought aliens and terrorists, he was just Bucky - your friend who stole your food and listened to your never ending rants. 

Realising you hadn’t answered his question, you continued. “I’m Y/N, a friend of Bucky’s.” You extended your hand out to him which he shook. 

“Sam” He replied, releasing your hand from his. 

“The one who believes wizards are real” You joked, trying to remove the tension. 

“I’ll tell you the same thing I told the cyborg, a wizard is a sorcerer without a hat!”

“Uhuh” You laughed, rolling your eyes. “Have they said when they’ll let him out yet?” 

Sam gestured you to the seating area and sat down. “Once his therapist arrives they’ll let him out.” You sat in comfortable silence for a few moments as the busy precinct bustled around you, cops and civilians passing through constantly. 

Sam was the first to break the silence. 

“Do you want to watch a funny video?”

The first time you watched the video of Bucky jumping out of the plane you were worried sick he’d hurt himself with his terrible landing. But by the fifth time watching it you’d found it hysterical as you laughed along with Sam as you watched the video over and over again from different angles to kill the time. 

Reluctantly, you left the waiting area and headed to the restroom to relieve yourself. When you came back you were stumped to find Sam wasn’t where you’d left him. 

“Excuse me, do you know where the man that was sat there went?” You asked the officer behind the desk. 

“Therapy session” She replied, pointing towards the double doors before returning back to furiously typing on her computer. 

“Thanks” You muttered before returning back to your seat, patiently waiting. 

You didn’t have to wait for long before Sam came back with an annoyed look etched across his face. “He’ll be out in a minute” he said as he passed by you, heading for the exit. 

With a sigh of relief you stood from your seat and adjusted your clothing as you watched the door with eager eyes. 

The moment you saw him through the small windows you felt all the stress and anxiety of the day seep out of you as you saw he was relatively okay. 

Bucky must have been distracted as he didn’t notice you standing in front of him until his eyes landed on you, his mouth hanging open in shock. 

“Hey Buck” 

“Doll what are you doing here?” He asked as he strode over to you, pulling you into him in a tight hug, your face pressed against his warm chest. Your arms wound around his back, pulling him in closer, his scent overwhelming your senses. He left a kiss upon your head before pulling back slightly to look down at you, searching for answers. 

“Cops came to your apartment looking for you, and then I heard they’d got you and I just panicked. Are you okay?” Reaching up, you cupped his face in your hand, your thumb stroking his soft cheek. 

His eyes fluttered closed for a moment before he opened them again, suddenly aware of where you were. 

“C’mon lets get out of here.” Taking your hand in his, he led you out of the station and into the fresh evening air. 

A shiver ran down your spine as the cold air hit your bare arms. In your rush to go after Bucky you’d foolishly foregone a jacket. 

Instantly noticing your discomfort, Bucky dropped your hand and shrugged his jacket off and wrapped it around your shoulders, the leather swamping your form. 

“Thanks” You said shyly, Bucky merely smiled back at you in response. 

“Well I feel better” Sam’s voice broke you out of the moment as he walked up to you both. Bucky opened his mouth to respond before being interrupted by the sound of a siren and flashing lights.

“Gentlemen!” You recognised the voice from the news - the Captain America knock off. “Good to see you again.” 

You felt Bucky's hand slide down your arm to grasp your hand once again as he walked towards the imposter, angling you behind him. 

“Look, if we divide ourselves, we don’t stand a chance, you guys know that.” 

“So what do you got?” Sam asked, rolling his eyes. 

“Well the leaders name’s Karli Morgenthau. We’ve been targeting civilians who’ve been helping Karli move from place to place.”

“They geotagged a location then scrambled the signal. But our satellites have found their symbol popping up in various displaced communities all across Central and Eastern Europe.”

“We think she’s taking the medicine she just stole to one of these camps.” 

“Well, there are hundreds of those all over the planet since The Blip so I guess you’ll have to look real hard.” If it wasn’t for present company you’d have rolled your eyes at Bucky’s sarcasm.

“Good thing I have 20/20 vision, huh?”

“Where is she now, Walker? Do you know?” 

“No we don’t know Bucky. It’s only a matter of time before we find out”  

“Things are really intense for you, aren’t they Walker” Your lips twitched as you fought off a smirk.

“Take it easy. Look Walker’s right. It is imperative that we find them and stop them. But you guys have rules of engagement and all kinds of authorisations you have to get. We’re free agents. We’re more flexible. So it wouldn’t make sense for us to work with you.” 

You all turned to walk away, Bucky squeezing your hand as you did before fake Captain America stopped you in your tracks. “A word of advice then… stay the hell out of my way.” The two men turned and began to walk before Walker stopped again. “Nice to finally meet you Y/N” 

You felt Bucky tense as he turned back to the two men, his eyes glaring at them. Gently, you squeezed his hand and tugged his arm, pulling him back towards Sam, not bothering to respond to dumb and dumber. Looking down at you, he sighed before complying. 

With one last glance behind, you raised your hand as though to wave before smirking and flipping them both off instead - earning a chuckle from Sam.

A few blocks later, Sam hung back to give you and Bucky a moment alone. 

“I can’t believe you came for me doll” Bucky couldn’t keep his hands off you, he kept switching from rubbing your arms to keep you warm and tucking pieces of hair behind your ears. After the day he’d had you was a welcome sight, reminding him that not everything in his life was terrible. 

��Of course I did” You replied, confused as to why he would even doubt it. “I’d do anything for you.” Your confession came as a shock to both of you. You weren’t quite sure as to why you voiced your feelings, maybe it was the day of stress finally getting to you, or the realisation what Bucky and Sam was up to was dangerous and you feared losing him. But regardless of your reasoning, you didn’t regret saying it. 

Bucky's breath hitched as his blue eyes searched yours, looking for the moment where you’d crack a smile and make a joke out of it. But that didn’t happen. 

Gently, Bucky leant forward and pressed his lips against your forehead, lingering for a moment before pulling back. “I don’t want you getting caught up in this doll.” His right hand cradled the back of your head as his eyes sought yours, trying to memorise every part of your face, committing it to memory. 

“I’ll stay out of it, I promise. I just couldn’t bear the thought of you caged up again-” Your voice had become erratic as you processed the days events. Bucky pulled you into another hug, silencing you as he did, his metal hand rubbing up and down your back. 

“I’ll be fine y’know that right? But I have to stop these people Y/N, the serum can’t end up in the wrong hands. I need you to trust me, to trust I know what I’m doing.” 

You merely nodded in response, too caught up in the feeling of being in his arms. 

Bucky pulled away from the hug and stroked your cheek, wiping away the tears you hadn’t realised had fallen. “Cmon, where’s that smile?” 

You couldn’t resist his boyish charm and smiled back at him, although weakly. 

“Attagirl”

__________________

If you’d like to be added to the tag list let me know!

 @xpurpleglitter​

#bucky #bucky barnes #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky fanfic #bucky x female reader #bucky x y/n #bucky x reader #bucky x you #tfatws

[rivers-rambles21]

The one with the ring

Part 9 of The one where Bucky has a cute neigbour series!

Pairing: Bucky Barnes X Reader (f)

Summary | Reader and Bucky become friends after he saves her from  a creep in their apartment building. Each chapter explores a different point in their friendship - very slow burn!

Warnings | 18+ only, Smut in later chapters (this is a slow burn), swearing, unprotected sex, oral sex, (later chapters)

Chapter 9 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 1 | Masterlist

As the weeks went by Bucky slipped further and further into his own personal hell.

You’d asked if he could show you how to use some equipment at the gym and help you with the weights. Working out is the easy part but seeing you in your gym gear? That was a different level. Your leggings clung to your every curve and it took every ounce of Bucky’s willpower not to stare at you - he did however notice other men in the gym didn’t have the same consideration so he made a point to stare back until they averted their gaze. 

You’d found you enjoyed boxing more than you’d anticipated. Bucky had suggested it after you’d had a difficult day at work and wanted to relieve stress. He never engaged in fighting with you but he did help with your form and footwork.

Rather selfishly though, he saw it as an opportunity to touch you at every chance he got. Whether it was how to grip your hand for a punch, moving your hips to help your footwork or blocking your attacks. He couldn’t get enough. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” You asked, trying to tape your hands up. 

Walking over to you, Bucky took one of your hands in his and began taping your hand up correctly. It had become a common routine which neither of you were interested in stopping. 

You tried your best to not sigh as he gently stroked your palm before taking your other hand, repeating the process. 

“What do you mean?” He asked, his eyes not meeting yours. 

“We don’t have to, but I know what it meant to you - the shield-” 

“He never should’ve given it up.” He replied, interrupting you, holding onto your hand which was now taped up. He gently rubbed his thumb over your palm, almost hypnotized by the tape covering it. “I’m going to go see him, I might be gone for a while.” His eyes finally met yours as he gazed back at you. You couldn’t help but notice the sadness in his eyes. You’d become used to his usual broody resting bitch face, especially during the morning (safe to say Bucky definitely isn’t a morning person) but this broke your heart. You knew he had his demons, despite him being generally quiet on the subject and you also knew Steve’s departure had hit him hard. You were hoping one day he’d open up more to you but you didn’t push it. 

“I understand… I’ll miss you though.” You smiled at him although it didn’t quite meet your eyes. Having Bucky in your life filled a void that had been missing for as long as you could remember; he was the only constant you had. 

“Yeah?” He smirked back - inside he was gleaming. 

“Whether you like it or not Buck, you’re my friend” His smirk faltered at the mention of being your friend “plus I’ve only just started bulking up! All this hard work will go to waste” You flexed your arm, attempting to show off your progress, causing him to chuckle. 

“C’mon doll, show me what you’re working with” He let go of your free hand, not realising he’d been holding on all this time and reached for your boxing gloves, throwing them your way as he climbed into the ring. 

You spent the rest of the afternoon together, heading to your local coffee shop after finishing up at the gym. Although he’d quickly gotten to grips with modern technology, he was still a bit shaky on booking flights so you helped him make the reservation and booked a hotel room for him. 

On your walk back to your apartment building you chatted about what he could expect flying commercial - a first for him and took the time to reassure him he wouldn’t be recognised. 

“Can I text you whilst I’m away?” He asked, trying his best to sound as casual as possible. 

It was at that moment it dawned on you that you didn’t even have his number, you’d both gotten so used to your routine of popping by each other's apartment whenever you hung out. Although admittedly, you both always found yourself hanging out more at yours since he wasn’t big on owning furniture.

“Of course, here pass me your phone and I’ll put my number in” Bucky tried not to sigh in relief as he reached into his jeans pocket, retrieving his phone. Despite you both growing closer the past few months, he still felt nervous around you, scared of being rejected. 

“Oh god you’re one of those” You groaned, staring at his 15 unread notifications. “Can I get rid of them?” You asked as the little red icon taunted you. 

“Go for it doll” His metal arm snuck around your waist as you continued to walk through the busy streets of New York, Bucky doing his best to help you dodge the crowds of people ahead as you focused on his phone. Bucky justified his arm around you as purely helping you avoid being barged and walking into people but he knew deep down it was just another opportunity to hold you close. “Spiderling ….. Spiderling. ?You ignored Spider Man?! He’s messaged you a few times, can I read them?” You asked, staring up into his baby blues. He glanced down at you and nodded before focusing back on walking you through the streets of Brooklyn. 

There were a few more messages which had gone unread, a couple about picking his brain for a history paper and another about upgrading his arm. 

Hi Mr Barnes, it’s Peter Parker, do you have five minutes for a chat?

However, one caught your attention. 

Are you ignoring me because I beat you? It’s okay to admit a 16 year old bested you Mr Barnes :D 

“Bucky did you get your ass handed to you by a teenager?” You giggled, rereading the message as the man beside you held the lobby door open for you. 

“Okay first off he didn’t beat me, I let him win. And secondly -” His nose scrunched up as he tried to think of his second point, failing miserably. 

“Wow, James Buchanan Barnes got beaten up by a sixteen year old and yet he has the audacity to criticise my footwork.” You teased, pressing the button for the elevator. 

“In my defence, as soon as I knew how young he was I held back. By a lot” Gesturing towards the empty elevator that had arrived, he followed you inside and pressed the button for your floor. “And then he caught me off guard with his sticky web thing and it all went downhill from there.” 

You covered your mouth trying your best not to laugh, imagining the man in front of you getting caught in one of Spider Man’s webs, struggling to get free. 

“Whatever Buck, you lost to Spider Man.” You finished putting your number in his phone and handed it back, chuckling to yourself. “You should call him sometime though, it sounds like he’s going through it.” 

He gestured again for you to leave the elevator first as the doors opened in front of you, swiftly following on your heels. “I’m not his babysitter.” He responded, pulling out his keys. 

“And I’m not yours but I still listen to your shit.” You smirked at him, leaning against your door. 

He responded with that stupid tongue thing he did, licking his lower lip before smiling back at you. God what you’d love to do with that- You shook yourself out mid thought, knowing where your mind was leading would only end in another night of frustration. 

“How long do you think you’ll be gone for?” You asked, the conversation turning more somber. 

“Hopefully not too long doll… come here.” He held his arms open and you pushed yourself off your door without hesitation, falling into his waiting arms. Your face was pressed against his hard chest, your arms snaking around his waist as he held you against him, his biceps curling around your shoulders, gripping you tightly. Ever so gently, he placed a kiss in your hair, his lips lingering slightly longer than they should’ve. A few moments later, you both released one another, trying to avoid the cold feeling overcoming you as his warmth left your body. 

“I’m expecting a souvenir y’know” 

“Of course” He replied back, chuckling as he pondered just how he was going to cope without you.

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes x you #bucky fanfic #bucky x female reader #bucky x reader #bucky x y/n #bucky x you #tfawts

[rivers-rambles21]

The one where you’re both idiots

Part 8 of The one where Bucky has a cute neigbour series!

Pairing: Bucky Barnes X Reader (f)

Summary | Reader and Bucky become friends after he saves her from  a creep in their apartment building. Each chapter explores a different  point in their friendship - very slow burn!

Warnings | 18+ only, Smut in later chapters (this is a slow burn), swearing, unprotected sex, oral sex, (later chapters)

This is my favourite chapter so far as we’ll start seeing the events of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier impact the story more.

Chapter 8 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 1 | Masterlist

“How was your session with the world’s worst therapist?” You asked as you started unpacking your groceries. You’d run into Bucky on your way home from picking up a few things for your evening meal and had invited him inside with the offer of a home cooked meal. 

Taking the milk from you, he helped put your items away as he pondered his response. “Same as always, she asks about the nightmares, I lie to her and she starts writing on that damned notepad.” Taking a tomato from the bag, he snuck one into his mouth and put the rest away, giving him a second to think before continuing. He’d been at your apartment that many times by now he knew where everything lived.

Hoisting himself up onto the kitchen countertop, he sat in his usual spot as he watched you busy around, pulling your utensils out ready to cook. “She also brought up how alone I am.” Despite his efforts, his voice broke slightly, something that you didn’t fail to notice. 

“Well that’s a load of bull” You scoffed as you turned to face him, opening your arms wide. “You’ve got me!” 

He smiled back at you, his face lightening up. “That I do doll, that I do.” 

Satisfied, you turned your back on him once again and began washing the vegetables. 

“I had lunch with Yori,” He continued.

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah...  I’ve also got a… got a date tomorrow” Your hands froze as you felt your heart break, your stomach twisting into knots. A second later you composed yourself and continued with the task at hand, rubbing your hands over the mushrooms repeatedly. 

“Oh.” You remarked, not trusting your voice to say anything further. 

“Yeah, Yori kind of set it up. I tried to explain there was a bit of a dance to this sort of thing but he went ahead with it anyway.” Bucky had missed your reaction when he’d told you about the date and proceeded to pick up one of your kitchen knives, twirling it between his fingers as a distraction. 

Those seconds were all you needed to compose yourself as you shut off the water and began chopping the veg up, mentally preparing your response in your head. “Well it’s good to get out there, when was the last time you had a date?” 

“1942 Stark Expo” He replied with no hesitation. You turned on your heel and gestured towards the cupboard above Bucky's head. With a smile, instead of moving aside, he spread his legs for you to step into. For a second, his smile made you forget what he’d just told you and you were back to it just being you and him, no mystery woman who you feared would take him from you. 

“Lazy shit.” You muttered as you stepped between his open legs swinging the cupboard door open and reaching up for a can. 

For Bucky, he was enjoying the view. Your top had risen and he had a perfect view of your stomach, begging to be kissed. 

As you placed the can on the counter beside him and searched for the opener something suddenly dawned on you. “Does that mean you’ve not gotten laid since 1942?” Your eyes met his and he chuckled in response. 

Picking up the can, he jabbed his knife into it and expertly cut into the lid, opening it with ease. Handing it back to you he shot you another smile. 

“Believe it or not, courting women in the 1940’s was a bit different. Girls didn’t fuck outside of marriage as they do now, and if they did it was a rarity. But, that didn’t mean both of you couldn’t get off if you put other things to use.” He smirked back at you as your jaw dropped, mouth hanging open at his honesty. Not quite knowing what to do with that information you turned back to the stove, your cheeks flushed from not just the heat. 

“Well… I’m sure your date tomorrow will be a welcome relief.” 

“Eh… She's a nice girl and all but I don’t see it going anywhere. Beer?” 

“Oh, um yes please.” A few moments later you heard your fridge open and close and the sound of bottle lids going into the trash. Leaving your beer to the side, he resumed his previous position and continued watching you cook. 

“When was the last time you saw any action?” Bucky wasn’t sure why he asked in all honesty, he’d rather not know as just picturing you with anyone else drove him mad. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” You laughed. “No but seriously I think it’s been two years now?” Taking a swig of your beer you leant against the counter and faced him. “Oh god, it’s been seven. I forgot about the blip. Holy shit.” Grabbing your beer again, you took a few more gulps, enjoying the liquid running down your throat. 

Despite not really wanting to know the answer, Bucky found himself slightly pleased you’d not been with anyone in a while for purely selfish reasons. 

The rest of the evening was spent eating good food and watching TV, something which Bucky didn’t take for granted. He’d only told his therapist part of the truth. When he was alone with you, enjoying each other's company, talking about nothing and everything, he felt calm - content. 

The following day Bucky didn't hear from Y/N at all and his date went as he expected. The girl was nice, charming even but he didn’t feel a connection. He felt bad for lying about his gloves and even worse when she brushed off his comment around his age. Yori was the last straw and he had to get out of there. The guilt was overwhelming, suffocating and heavy. He’d rushed over to Yori’s place with the intention of confessing his sins but something held him back. It wasn’t the first time he’d hesitated, something about him just made him stop every time. Maybe it was the fact that Yori was a friend, someone who seemed to understand his odd quirks, put up with his grumpiness and still wanted to be around him. Then again, maybe he only did that as he got a free meal out of it.

He found himself back at his apartment building, banging on Y/N’s door, praying you were home. But he was met with silence.

He spent the rest of the night watching TV, drinking as many beers as he could before he eventually passed out, either out of boredom or tiredness, the mental battering he’d taken finally taking its toll. 

It wasn’t until the following evening he finally saw you. The sound of bags dropping to the floor as you muttered explicits under your breath whilst searching for your keys was undeniably you. 

Without a second thought, he opened his door, eager to see you. 

“Hey doll”

Turning your heel, you faced him. “Oh hey Buck”

“Lost your key again?” He remarked, smirking. 

“As usual” You muttered, finally finding them amongst the junk in your purse. 

“I was worried about you y’know.” Your head snapped up, eyes meeting his piercing blues as he stared back at you. “You didn’t come home last night, it’s not very…. You. Who is he?”

A laugh escaped your lips before you could stop it. “She is called Lauri and I just ended up staying over.” You tried to make yourself sound as convincing as possible, knowing deep down you hadn’t wanted to overhear any late night activities if his date had in fact gone well.

“Oh. Oh!” His eyes went wide when he thought he’d realised something but couldn’t have been further from the truth. “Well, I hope she’s treating you right.” 

And he truly meant it. Despite pining after you these past few months, your happiness was his priority, regardless of how desperately he wanted to be the one fulfilling that for you. 

You slowly opened your door with your back to him, trying to suppress a grin. “Way off the mark there Buck, although I’m pretty sure she would show me a great time, it’s not like that. We’re just friends.” 

The small sigh of relief that left his lips as he processed what you said, making you pause for a moment. Surely he wasn’t happy that you - ? No, impossible. 

“Fair enough.” He replied, coughing to hide a slight choke. 

“Do you want to come in?” You asked, opening your door wide for him to enter. With a gentle smile he nodded, closing his own door behind him he walked into your apartment. You tried your best to not notice the way his t-shirt hugged his body in all the best ways, tightening around his broad shoulders before delving down to his biceps, the metal of his arm reflecting the light from the hallway. You said a silent prayer before following him in, urging your eyes to stop flitting back to his body and the way his jeans fitted around his tight- no Y/N, no. 

You followed him further into your small apartment as he settled on the couch whilst you put your bag into your bedroom. Pulling the door, you gave yourself some privacy as you pulled some loungewear from your drawers before sliding your top off over your head. “How did your date go?” You asked. You’d prepared it over and over again in your head, testing your tone and delivery to avoid him picking up on the nervousness you felt asking the question. 

“Disaster, I let half way through.” 

Your eyes unintentionally lit up as you unfastened your bra, throwing it into the laundry basket in the corner of your room. “Jesus Buck, what did she do?”

You heard a shuffle coming from your living room, Bucky no doubt playing with the thread coming off your couch as he usually did when he was deep in thought. “It just didn’t feel natural y’know? I wasn’t comfortable with her, I couldn’t be myself, and then she brought up Yori and I-” He couldn’t quite finish his sentence and grunted as he struggled to find the words. Not needing to hear any more, you finished getting changed into your clothes and went back into the living room, plonking yourself down next to him. 

“Well first off, not cool leaving half way through. But… this is New York so I'm pretty sure she’ll have been on worse dates.” You joked, trying to lighten the mood. Bringing your sock clad feet up onto the couch, you stretched your leg out and prodded the man beside you, prompting him to turn and face you. “You’ll tell him whenever you’re ready. For now though, focus on the positive. You went on a date with a girl…. Regardless of how short said date was” You covered your mouth as you giggled, his eyes rollg only forcing more laughs from you. Taking enough of your teasing, Bucky took action and tossed one of your many cushions towards you, landing squarely in your face knocking you back.

“Dick!” you squealed.

“Brat”

#bucky #bucky barnes #bucky x female reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky fanfic #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky x y/n #tfawts

[rivers-rambles21]

The one with the marathon

Part 7 of The one where Bucky has a cute neigbour series!

Pairing: Bucky Barnes X Reader (f)

Summary | Reader and Bucky become friends after he saves her from  a creep in their apartment building. Each chapter explores a different  point in their friendship - very slow burn!

Warnings | 18+ only, Smut in later chapters (this is a slow burn), swearing, unprotected sex, oral sex, (later chapters)

Mentions of PMS in this chapter! I’ve also given Y/N a couple of interests to add a bit more to the story to help it progress

Will include elements of TFATWS in later chapters

Chapter 7 |Chapter 6 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 1 | Masterlist

You’d been doing your best to dodge Bucky as soon as you felt your body's usual symptoms start to develop. It started as it always did with feeling bloated before the short temperedness set in. Bucky was sweet and kind and he didn’t deserve to be on the receiving end of your temper so you opted out of your usual Friday night pizza with him, giving the excuse of being called into work which he accepted with disappointment. 

Saturday morning came and as usual, painkillers did nothing to soothe the ache in your lower gut. Traipsing into your kitchen, you filled the kettle up with water before putting it on the hob and started to root around for your hot water bottle whilst you waited for the water to boil. 

A knock on your door interrupted your hunt and rather reluctantly, you made your way over to the door, unbothered by your sleepwear attire. 

Swinging the door open, you instantly regretted not ignoring it. 

“Hey doll” 

It was upsetting seeing Bucky look so good on a morning when you felt so rotten. Even worse, you were fully aware of how you currently looked - unbrushed hair, no make up and Bucky’s t-shirt which only just covered the tops of your thighs. Self consciously, you eased the door closed a little bit and shielded your body from view. 

“Hi Bucky, what’s up?” You asked, trying to sound as casual as possible. 

“Can I come in?” He asked, tilting his head to the side as he tried to catch more of a glimpse of you. 

“Now’s not a great time…” You grumbled, feeling guilty as you saw the smile drop from his face. 

“Are you avoiding me?” The words rushed out of his mouth before he had time to stop them. 

Taken aback by his forwardness, you paused for a moment, your jaw opening and closing as you didn’t quite know how to respond. “I’m sorry, you don’t owe me an explanation. It’s just I heard you in your apartment last night crying but you said you were at work and I was worried-” 

He started to ramble as he panicked he’d overstepped the mark so you swiftly cut him off. “Don’t be, you’re right, I have been avoiding you.” 

“....oh” Bucky's eyes shot down to the floor as he nodded his head. Your admission cut deep and every insecurity Bucky felt rushed to the surface as he processed your words. “I thought-” he started but not quite knowing how to finish his sentence.

You cursed your inability to think before speaking as you reached out towards him, no longer caring about your appearance as you took his metal hand in yours. “It’s nothing you did, I’m just not myself at the moment, I’m not exactly great to be around when it's my time” You emphasised the last bit, hoping he’d get the hint without having to spell it out. 

You were wrong. 

Bucky lifted his head and looked back at you, confusion etched across his handsome features. “You’ve lost me” 

“Remember how you got that scar on the back of your head?” 

“Yeah my sister threw a book at me” 

“Uhuh, and do you remember why she did that?” 

“I ate the biscuits she saved for when she- oh!” It suddenly hit Bucky as to what you’d been hinting at and suddenly he felt like the world’s biggest idiot. 

“Safe to say me and your sister have the monthly mood swings in common” You joked, trying to lighten the mood.

“Well...um… if you need me, you know where I am” 

“Thanks Buck” You smiled up at him and tried not to swoon on the spot as he leant towards you, his lips pressing against your forehead, gently kissing you as he cradled the back of your head with his hand. 

His thumb stroked the back of your neck as his lips left your skin, sending shivers down your spine. 

“I’m sorry for avoiding you, I thought I was saving you” 

“Trust me, I’ve survived worse” He joked, tucking one of your many stray hairs behind your ear. It suddenly dawned on you what your current state of attire was and you hastily tried to flatten your hair and pull the t-shirt down to cover more of your bare legs. 

Bucky tried his best to avert his eyes from your state of undress, not having taking note of how you donned his t-shirt beforehand, too focused on your wellbeing but he found himself failing miserably. You were too cute with your bed head hair sticking up in random places and slightly dark eyes where you’d not completely removed yesterday's mascara. And then there was his t-shirt. Fuck - he’d nearly lost it when you’d warn it the night you’d gotten locked out of your apartment but thankfully your legs were covered. But now? It was driving him mad seeing inch upon inch of bare skin, his t-shirt barely covering your underwear. He wanted nothing more than to shove you against the wall and run his hands over your impossibly soft skin. 

The sound of your kettle boiling over snapped him out of it and he watched as you darted over to the kitchen, leaving him standing in the doorway, facing away from you as he was positive he’d be able to see your ass as you walked. 

“I’ll come back doll” 

Before you had a chance to respond, he’d already closed your door behind him. 

Hastily, you made up your hot water bottle and quickly jumped into the shower, unsure as to when he would return. 

Half an hour later, Bucky was back at your door, grocery bag in hand. “I’ve brought you a few things for... y’know.” 

Opening your door wide for him, you chuckled at his awkwardness and gestured for him to come in. “You really didn’t need to-are those Peanut Buttercups?!” Rushing towards him you grabbed the bag out of his hands and began rummaging through his purchases. 

Laughing at your response he left you to it as he hung up his jacket next to yours as he usually did and took up his spot on your couch. 

“I remember what Rebecca was like and figured you might appreciate a bit of sugar.” 

You could only moan in response as you devoured your chocolate treat. Grabbing your hot water bottle from the side table, you made your way over to the couch and sank into the seat next to Bucky, resting your head against his shoulder. 

“Any plans for today?” You asked, holding up the last bite of your candy bar. 

“Nope” Leaning forward, he took the chocolate from you using his teeth as he finished it off.

“Then you��re in for a treat” You sunk deeper into the sofa as he lifted his arm up, resting it along the top of the couch cushion, letting you lean further into him. Bucky also took the opportunity to pull the blanket from the couch down onto you, tucking you into his side. 

To say Bucky was excited when you told him there were sequels to The Hobbit would be an understatement. For him to then find out they were turned into movies was almost too much.

He was in heaven. He was watching Middle Earth come to life, just how he imagined it would be whilst cuddled up against his favourite girl. 

He wished it could be like this all the time, when he was with you the memories of who he was before subsided, along with all the guilt and shame. Even when he was in Wakanda, he hadn’t dared to dream of having any sort of normal life, he’d accepted it just wasn’t on the cards for him. That he’d always be alone. 

When Steve left, that only solidified his belief that he was destined to be alone. Part of him was okay with that, this way he wouldn’t hurt anyone ever again. But the other part of him, the part that even Hydra couldn’t wipe out, longed for a companion, whether it be platonic or romantic.

Finding you was a miracle. You were so carefree, so honest, open and kind. You put up with his old fashioned ways, you didn’t make fun of his odd quirks or question why sometimes he needed to just be on his own. You both also had a lot in common, you both enjoyed modern technology and sciences and often found yourselves watching documentaries and educational pieces on TV together. Bucky was also delighted to learn you were obsessed with motorcycles and was planning a road trip for you both for when you next had some time off work - a surprise he was having a hard time hiding from you. 

Half way through the first film he felt you nodding off, having come down from the sudden sugar intake. Pulling you tighter against him, he kissed your head and lowered the volume on the TV, not wanting to wake you. 

As the second film started, you stirred awake, the cramps returning with a vengeance. As you opened your eyes you realised you’d snuggled into Bucky, nuzzling into his chest, leaving a small amount of drool on his black t-shirt. Jolting backwards, you hastily wiped your mouth and tore yourself from his arms in embarrassment. 

Bucky’s eyes hadn’t strayed from the TV as he remained completely emerged in Middle Earth. 

“Sorry I didn’t realise-”

He quickly shushed you as he continued watching the film. However he did miss your warmth and spread his arms wide, inviting you back into your previous position. “C’mere” 

Trying not to read too much into it, you smiled and sank back into his arms, sighing as they wrapped around you, his right hand resting over your stomach, soothing your cramps. 

It was well into the night when you finished your movie marathon, both of you enjoying every minute. You knew friends didn’t cuddle - not like this. They didn’t make your heart race like Bucky did. They didn’t make butterflies erupt in your stomach every time they so much as looked at you. 

You were in trouble.

#bucky #bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes x you #romance #fluff #slow burn #bucky x female reader #bucky x you #bucky x reader #bucky x y/n #tfaws spoilers #tfawts #tfatws

[rivers-rambles21]

Flight Risk

summary: Bucky becomes a flight risk after a failed mission and is put in lockup under Steve’s orders. Even though Bucky won’t say a word of what happened, you camp outside the door to his cell so he knows he isn’t alone. (based on an anon request) pairing: bucky x reader word count: 8.8k warnings: descriptions of canon level violence and past torture, general angst and sad boi times, protective!bucky is also a takes-all-the-blame-that-doesn't-belong-to-him!bucky 😔

You thought you knew how it felt to have the carpet ripped out from under you – the familiar drop in your stomach, the skip of a heartbeat, the momentary flash of panic as you met the ground only seconds later. But this? This was worse. As if the Earth had drawn a fault line between your boots, a tangible crack in the pavement that gave way to an endless gap of paralyzing nothingness. Falling and falling and falling until there was nothing else. Never hitting the ground. No escape from the plunge.

Bucky Barnes was in handcuffs as Steve guided him off the ramp of the quinjet. Blood caked into the metallic creases of his left hand; red stained into his right. His shoulders were slumped; sweat dampened hair falling down into his face and obstructing your view of his eyes. He didn’t fight the restraints, didn’t so much as argue a defense as SHIELD agents stumbled away from their path. Sam limped a few steps behind, his hand resting uncharacteristically against the gun on his thigh.

Whatever excitement you held, whatever smile had made its way to your cheeks in anticipation of their return was quickly replaced by a dark, unsettling dread. So deep and agonizing, it rendered you near to stone, unable to tear your eyes away from the silver cuffs securing Bucky’s wrists and the edges of the metal digging into exposed skin.

“Bucky...?” you called, wincing at how shaken your voice was.

Despite his distance, Bucky faltered in his steps at the sound of his name, his shoulders visibly tensing, though he made no move to look for you. He kept his head down as Steve led him away from the crowd, hair falling down into his eyes to shield himself from the gathering agents’ pointed stares and the not-so-quiet murmurs of disapproval.

It wasn’t until they disappeared through the hall at the end of the landing bay that the rush of what you witnessed hit with the force of a freight train. Straight to your heart, nearly knocking the wind right out of you— the dream-like delirium clouding your senses shattered.

You took off running, sprinting through the landing bay and shoving aside agents that stepped into your path; gathering to watch Captain America lead away the Winter Soldier in chains. You nearly tripped when you heard a disgruntled agent mutter, ‘we knew it would happen eventually,’ but you forced yourself to keep going. You couldn’t lose them in favor of sending a rookie to the med bay.

You rounded the corner on a deserted hallway. The echo of your steps was excruciating as you sprinted towards them, chasing after the florescent reflection of Steve’s shield and closing the distance between you. Only steps away, you could have reached out and grabbed him by the shoulder if not for Sam blocking your path.

“Steve, stop!”

You collided into Sam, his arms caging around your waist. It forced you to pause, only for a minute as you glanced down to find his grip unforgiving as it clung to the fabric of your sweatshirt, his hands prodding into muscle hard enough to leave bruises. Something was wrong; so terribly wrong that Sam felt it necessary to restrain you by force to keep you from reaching Bucky. The realization did little to ease the rush of fear and fury coursing like ice through your veins.

“Get the hell off of me!” You kicked at Sam’s shins, scratched at his arms, made every desperate attempt you could to escape.

“Y/n, you need to calm down,” Sam said in a remarkably even tone as his partner was led away in restraints strong enough to subdue a wild animal.

Steve turned his head only slightly, just enough to catch a glimpse of you as you struggled to break free of Sam’s hold. There was a sadness in his eyes, an understanding, and still—he turned his back to you.

“Bucky! Bucky!” The break in your voice was amplified by the unsettling silence of the hall.

But Bucky didn’t turn around, didn’t spare a single glance in your direction, but you knew he could hear the panic etched into his name – the fear. It was written in his hands as they curled to fists, his nails digging into flesh, metal into metal.

A passage opened on their right – one that seamlessly blended into the wall – and Bucky stepped inside with little guidance from Steve. You froze, stilling in Sam’s arms as you watched Steve follow behind, his hand gripped tight to Bucky’s shoulder – not in warning or in restraint, but in comfort.

Before you could make sense of it, the door closed behind them. The panic ran like ice through your veins, adrenaline spiking straight into your heart and you broke free of Sam’s hold.

Sprinting after them, you came upon the stretch of hallway where the passage appeared. Shaking hands ran haphazardly along the wall, running over the bumps of old, dried paint, and nicks in the foundation.

“Come on, come on!” you begged, tears burning in your eyes. You slammed your hands against the wall in frustration, the sting of it burning against your palms. Sam slowly approached beside you, a frown etched to his lips, his eyes filled with remorse.

“Y/n–”

“Open the door, Sam.”

Sam clenched his jaw, though he did not move to follow your order. You wipe the tears from your eyes angrily with the sleeve of your sweatshirt. It was damp at the wrist.

“Open the door,” you said again, demanding your voice stronger than you felt.

“I can’t do that. Not yet,” Sam said softly. You could see the agony in his face, how the lines ran along his forehead in worry, how his eyes held a sort of guilt you hadn’t expected. Something about the way he was looking at you, crumbled every resolve you had left. Without the rush of adrenaline pumping through your veins, your body gave way to the exhaustion and you slumped against the wall for support.

“Was he triggered?” you asked, a lump burning in your throat. It shouldn’t be possible, not since Shuri removed Hydra’s programming, but you hadn’t seen Bucky treated like a prisoner since the aftermath of Vienna. It wasn’t supposed to happen again. He never should have been in chains again...

Sam sighed, his gaze down at the floor. “No.”

You clasped your hand over your left wrist, rubbing your thumb over the raised edges of a stubborn burn that never had the decency to heal properly – a habit you’d picked up to ground yourself. “I don’t understand. What happened to him?”

Sam set a hand on your shoulder and it was enough to bring you into his arms. This time, when he held you, it was a relief. He ran a hand along your spine as you rested your cheek to his collar.

“We’re trying to protect him, Y/n,” Sam said. “He’s a flight risk right now. We can’t let him hurt himself or anyone else.”

You pulled out of Sam’s embrace, a frown tugging at your lips. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Before Sam could answer, the wall slid open behind you and Steve stepped into the hallway. There was no time to slip around his frame and dart through the passage before the wall sealed again. Steve must have noticed your disappointment because his gaze darted to Sam, a silent conversation between them you didn’t appreciate.

“I want to see him.”

Steve looked at Sam again. Something like rage began to boil in your veins.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea right now,” Steve said, thumbs resting in the belt of his suit. His Captain stance. It had never felt so demeaning until this moment.

“I don’t care what you think is a good idea, Steven,” you spat, stepping into his space until he backed up against the wall. Even as he towered over you, he retreated under your icy stare. “I just watched my best friend get escorted around his own home in handcuffs and paraded like a fucking prisoner in front of dozens of SHIELD agents that already think the worst of him! I want to see him. Now.”

“I know what he means to you, but we didn’t have a choice, Y/n,” Steve retorted.

You scoffed at his implication – that your feelings for Bucky might be clouding your judgement, that you might not be able to see the danger in the decades old assassin because all you saw were the lines along his eyes when he smiled and the creases in his cheeks from the shoulder of your sweatshirt when he dozed off on movie nights and the shy smiles when he showed up in your room with Thai food after a long training day.

Maybe it allowed you to see him more clearly. It let you see past what everyone else expected him to be. It let you see the man behind the rumors and the trauma.

“You had him in chains, Steve. Chains.” The tears were starting again and you didn’t care if they saw. They should see. They should know what it meant to put Bucky back into a cell, to restrain him and treat him like he was an unstable killer. They should know you refused to see Bucky the same way.

“You don’t know what happened out there... How many people he—” Steve bit his tongue. His jaw muscle twitched as he swallowed the words you knew he would say. There was blood on Bucky’s hands for a reason.

You swallowed. “How bad?”

“Bad,” Sam replied. “We just need to give him time to cool off. If he had his way, he would still be out there taking shots at every Hydra agent who ever laid a hand on—”

“Sam,” Steve warned. Sam pressed his lips together, offering Steve a short, apologetic shrug. The burn on your wrist ached a little more and you pressed your thumb against it until it subsided. The two of them started to mutter quietly amongst themselves; half of a silent conversation you didn’t understand.

You stepped slowly around Steve, placing a hand on the wall as if it could act as an extension to the man held in a cage beyond the dark passage behind it. You rested your forehead against it, closing your eyes at the touch of the cold wall. Sam and Steve were quiet as you turned back to them.

“I’m not asking you to release him,” you started, staring up at Steve. “Not yet, anyway. I just... I want to see him. Please.”

Steve swallowed, glancing over at Sam who only gave a short nod in response. He sighed. “He didn’t say a word the whole flight home.”

“That’s okay,” you replied sincerely. “He’ll know I’m there— that I’m not afraid. He’ll know someone is there.”

A strange look crossed Steve’s features – something mixed of surprise and appreciation and a gentle kind of grief. He set his hand against the wall and a blue light glowed under his palm, scanning his prints. When the wall slid open, it revealed the sort of hallway you'd expect to find in a hospital wing – if the hospital were cold, colorless, and entirely empty. Abandoned and haunting.

Steve led you down the corridor while Sam stayed behind. It was a twisting maze of endless hallways, each filled with dozens of empty rooms with reinforced locks. There were no windows, no glass to be broken. Only steel guarded doors holding back the darkness inside.

Steve slowed at the end of the hall, nodding to a door on your left. It was away from the others, down a short stretch of the hall on its own. Your heart sank when you realized why – twice the amount of locks, twice the security measures. Another prison cell.

You watched Steve curiously as he tapped a series of codes on the screen, revealing a small monitor projecting against the wall. You swallowed, stepping closer to the image of Bucky as he paced back and forth inside the room. His hands were free of the cuffs, but he was still coated in blood despite the sink sitting a few steps away.

“Buck?” Steve called. “You’ve got a visitor.”

Bucky paused, his gaze shifting to the door. You hadn’t realized how loud your heart was beating.

“Hi, Bucky,” you said, offering a smile before you realized he couldn’t see you through the door. He tensed, his stare centering in on the monitor in the top corner of the room. His projection met your eye as if he could bypass the door itself to find you. Still – he didn’t say a word. Instead, he resumed his pacing, his gaze fixating on the wall.

“Give him some time,” Steve said apologetically. “I’ll have Tony add your print to the wall so you can come back tomorrow.”

“That’s not necessary,” you said, unable to tear your eyes away from Bucky’s projection. You hadn’t noticed the cuts on his face when you caught the short glimpse of him in the landing bay or the bruising along his jaw. Your stomach twisted. “I’m going to stay here.”

Steve narrowed his eyes. “Y/n, you know I can’t open the door for you.”

“I know.”

Steve sighed, following your gaze. You could feel him studying you as you watched Bucky’s movements and you wondered how much of your grief read on your face, if he could see how badly it hurt you to watch Bucky be thrown in a cell after everything that happened to him. A glimpse of a smile touched the corner of Steve’s cheeks, not nearly enough to notice, but it was still there.

“I’ll bring you some blankets, okay?”

You glanced up at him, relieved he didn’t intend to fight you on this. You squeezed his hand. “Thank you, Steve.”

He gave you a short nod before he disappeared down the hall. Once you were alone, you slid down against the wall, settling in on the cold tile floors and you leaned your head to the door.

“I’m still here, Bucky,” you told him, watching the projection for his reaction. His eyes flickered to the door for only a second before he resumed his pacing. He knew you were there, even if he refused to acknowledge it. He knew. That was all that mattered.

***

It had been almost a week since you last saw Bucky standing in the doorway to your bedroom, half leaning on the frame and hair falling into his face as he told you he’d been assigned to an intel mission at a Hydra facility. He still had lines from your sweatshirt imprinted on his cheeks; his clothes ruffled from hours lying on the couch. One of the most feared men in history and he was nothing but impossibly sweet as he fiddled nervously with the creases in his metal hand.

The mission meant he’d be gone for a while – a few weeks at most – but it was the longest you’d spent apart since he first came to the Avengers. You hadn’t realized how much you’d come to rely on him, on his presence, until you were confronted with the absence of it. But you’d pressed on a smile and told him to go anyway. Movie night could wait. Dismantling the organization that stole decades of his life couldn’t. You understood and you told him as much. He only seemed to relax when you crossed the room to him and set your hand against his forearm – every tension in his body slipping from the muscle like running water under your touch.

You didn’t tell him how badly you wished it wasn’t him, that he shouldn’t have to be the one to walk back into the heart of Hydra. You didn’t tell him how much you wanted him to stay, to crawl back on the couch, to hold him and pretend for a little while longer that he was yours. And maybe, if it was only his vengeance he was after, you could have convinced him.

It only took a single glimpse of the brand on the inside of your wrist to cement his stance – a burn mark in the shape of Hydra’s beast upon your skin. He turned your hand over, running a thumb along the burn that would not seem to heal, a brand they’d marked on you months earlier. Bucky may have allowed himself to move on from the horror Hydra had done against him, but he couldn’t let go of the pain they’d inflicted on you.

It had only been a few days – your time held prisoner by Hydra – but it had felt like years. Tied up and bound. Tortured for information you didn’t have. MIA from a solo mission on Brussels, you were lucky the team found you when they did. It was the first time you saw true fear in Bucky’s eyes. On his knees, his hands on your cheeks and wiping away the blood, soot, and tears, begging you to look at him.

You never spoke a word of it or what happened, but something shifted between you and Bucky after that. Casual movie nights on the couch in the living room ended up under blankets in your bedroom, close enough to share body heat, close enough to lean against his shoulder and for him not to shy away. Instead of flinching away from touch, Bucky began to seek it out – his thigh pressed against your hip, a hand on your shoulder, his fingertips brushing against yours. It carried an aura of protection, but it was more than that – between his words and within his movements, it held a crippling fear that you’d be ripped away in an instant, like he couldn’t quite convince himself that you were saved that night.

You hadn’t found the courage to go on a mission since. Instead, you found new ways to be helpful to the team. Coding, hacking, using your skillset behind a computer to assist from afar. They all understood, but no one more than Bucky. He never asked if you were ready for the field again or pushed you to resume training. He was content to watch movies all day and bake undercooked pancakes and sit on the bench down by the lake.

It was moments like that that made you wonder if he’d take you as you were – even if you never stepped back into the field again, even if you lost the identity you’d tied so much of your life to. Even if you weren’t an Avenger anymore. If he’d take you at all.

You supposed it didn’t matter. Not in this moment, anyway. Bucky had done everything he could to make sure you knew you were never alone after you’d been rescued from Hydra. He’d slept on the couch outside your bedroom, waiting for the inevitable screams that would disrupt your dreams. He held you and rocked you until your exhaustion wore you back to sleep. He dragged you outside on walks and made your meals and brought you water. He laid in your bed with you and put on your favorite movies until you finally cracked a smile.

He saved you long after he carried you out of that cell. You were determined to do the same for him.

“Steve brought me blankets,” you told Bucky through the door as you tugged the navy blue comforter up around your shoulders. “It’s actually pretty cold out here and the floor is not as comfortable as one would expect.”

You laughed to yourself, stealing a short glimpse at the projector though Bucky remained still as marble. He sat on the edge of the cot in the corner of the room in an angle that didn’t exactly look to be any more comfortable than you were on the floor. You stretched your back, cracking your spine.

You’d been making idle conversation with yourself for the last several hours after Steve came back with the pillow and blankets. Your watch was the only indicator that night had crept in beyond the windowless hallway. You caught a yawn before it escaped.

“You know that blood will be a nightmare to remove from your hand if you leave it there too long,” you said, sliding down onto the floor and resting your head against the pillow. Bucky examined his left hand, flicking off a spec of dried blood onto the floor. You smiled, glad for the confirmation that he could hear you. “I’m sure you’ll feel better with it gone, anyway.”

You didn’t dare imagine whose blood was stained upon his hands or how many people he barreled through to earn as much as he did. There was a fresh pair of clothes sitting on the edge of his bed he had yet to change into – sitting instead in favor of the stealth suit still drenched in red.

“You can keep up the silent brooding thing, Buck, but please just wash that blood off, okay?” you asked, your voice softening away from the lighthearted inflection you’d carried. You watched as Bucky’s shoulders slumped, how he took a single glance towards the sink, before he clenched his hands and refused to move.

“Don’t do Hydra a service by punishing yourself for whoever’s blood is on your hands. They don’t deserve that.”

You didn’t know if that was his intention for refusing to clean the blood from his skin and metal, but you knew he was doing it for a reason. Whether it was guilt, remorse, or a purposeful reminder of whatever set him off, you didn’t know. You were usually better at reading Bucky than this, but you usually didn’t have a three-foot thick steel wall between you.

Despite the chill of the floors, exhaustion crept in. You’d hope to stay awake with him longer, especially knowing he’d get little to no sleep himself, but it was hard to stay awake when you were talking to the walls. Your eyes began to flutter closed and it was only then you heard the faucet release behind the door and the sound of running water. You smiled into your pillow before you fell asleep.

***

“... so that’s why you always go for Sam’s knees,” you explained, detailing your combat strategy against Sam in the training ring, hoping it might elicit some sort of response from Bucky. You didn’t need to look at the projector to figure it hadn’t made a difference.

Bucky was sitting on the ground on the furthest wall of the cell; his legs bent, forearms resting against his knees. His expression was unreadable – cold and unemotive – though you knew it was a mask. Something darker was rumbling inside his head, even if he refused to let you in. He’d managed to wash the blood from his hands and clean the cuts on his face, at least. It was progress, even if the fresh set of clothes still sat untouched on the cot he hadn’t slept on.

You bounced the tennis ball Sam brought you against the wall and caught it effortlessly in your hand.

“I’m a disaster at tennis,” you told him. “The scoring system is unnecessarily complicated for one thing. I usually end up whacking it like a baseball and sent it flying over the courts. No strategy. No aim. Just full force intensity.”

Rounding on the second full day of sitting outside Bucky’s cell, you’d resorted to unfiltered stories of whatever happened to pop into your head at the time. As long as you kept talking, as long as Bucky still knew you were there with him. Whether he found it a comfort or if it annoyed him into oblivion, you supposed it didn’t matter. You needed to prove to him that you wouldn’t abandon him at the first sign of trouble.

“You ever play tennis, Buck?” you asked, knowing he wouldn’t answer. “Vision is unfairly good at it as he is with most things. Oh!” You sat up, bunching the blankets as a grin pushed at your cheeks. “What do you think about starting up a wiffleball team? Or kickball? Softball? Although, we’d have to split up you and Steve. Can’t be having two super soldiers on the same team. It would be a hell of a better than Stark’s idea of team building exercises. Pretty sure Parker’s still trying to recover from last year’s scavenger hunt.”

You grabbed the notebook from the bag Steve dropped off of your things and started to write down ideas. Pen scratched against the paper and you wondered whether Bucky could pick up on details like that, even muffled from a distance on the other side of a door. You stole a glance at the projector to find his head turned away from the camera; almost as if he had caught himself on the verge of a smile and made every effort to suppress it before it could be witnessed.

***

You spent your days sitting beside Bucky’s door. Steve and Sam brought you whatever snacks they could find in the pantry and a few hot meals every once in a while. Your collection of blankets started to pile enough that you didn’t feel the chill of the tiles anymore and you had enough pillows to resolve the kink in your neck you got on the first night.

Four total days on the other side of the door and Bucky had yet to say a word. Four days filled with mindless conversation, questions that went unanswered, silence you filled with humming as you doodled in your notebook. You never begged him to respond, never yelled or raised your voice, never so much as demanded answers from him for the blood he’d washed down the sink. You just wanted him to know he wasn’t alone – not in that cell, not ever again. You hoped he knew that, anyway.

It took until the end of the second day before you convinced him to change into the clothes left inside the cell. He’d done it overnight, long after you fell asleep as if to not raise attention to the fact that he was clearly listening to every word you said. Your cheeks ached from smiling when you saw him dressed in the clean clothes, his bloodied suit discarded in the corner of the room. He seemed to sit more comfortably in them, his body less restricted without the Kevlar and straps. You didn’t acknowledge it aloud, but it had felt like another step forward. A step closer to opening the door between you.

On the fifth day, you leaned against the wall, absentmindedly running your thumb along your burn mark. The raised edges of six tentacles, the skull at the center. Hydra’s brand upon your skin. You didn’t remember much about your time with Hydra – most of it blocked out from your memory or spent unconscious – but you remembered this. The searing pain of an iron rod fresh from the coals as it melted against your skin. A constant reminder of their ownership of you.

You’d only been their captive for a few days, but you often wondered whether you would ever free yourself of their chains. Months later and you had yet to get back in the field. Bucky had spent decades under their command and he was taking missions going right back in the belly of the beast. You couldn’t understand why your fear hadn’t subsided enough to do the same.

So you knew with absolute certainty, that you didn’t care whatever horrors Bucky had committed on the mission. You didn’t care how much of the blood he’d been drenched in was made of Hydra’s soldiers. Not after the hell they put both of you through.

But still—you knew he’d been cleared of the triggers. You knew Bucky had regained control of himself and his mind. He'd been on dozens of missions against Hydra in the years since he joined the Avengers. He was the one that led the team to rescue you from the Hydra base in Brussels.

You didn’t understand what could possibly set him off like this; to put him back into a state where he had such little control over his own actions that even Steve felt it was necessary to lock Bucky in a cell. A flight risk—that’s what Sam had called him. Did they think he would make a run for it? Would he actually leave you behind given the chance?

“They won’t tell me what happened,” you said quietly, unsure if Bucky could even hear you. You didn’t notice the slight shift in his movement on the projector, how his eyes turned to the door, his hair falling away from his face at the sudden shift in your tone.

“I don’t care what you did, Bucky. I’m not—” You sighed, pressing against the brand on your skin until it stung. “I’m not going to leave you, okay? I’ve already been a fugitive for you, Buck. I’ll do it again if I have to... if you’d let me.”

You swallowed back the lump in your throat. “Is that why they’re keeping you in here? Are you trying to run again?” You knew better than to expect a response, so you gave him little time to answer.

“I can’t figure it out, Bucky. I don’t know why Steve won’t just tell me what happened or why you’re a prisoner in your own home. I don’t-- I don’t understand what’s going on but I... but I just wanted you to know that I’m here and that I—” you exhaled a heavy breath, enough that it lifted a weight from your chest, “and that I care about you, Bucky. Fugitive or not. Winter Soldier or not.”

You bite back the words you’d almost confessed, the extent of just how far you'd go for him, how much you’d give to him if he asked. As you rested your temple against the door, blankets drawn up to your chest, you dared a glimpse at the monitor.

As still as Bucky was, his focus was entirely on the door. The carefully constructed mask he’d been wearing faltered, revealing a slight part in his lips, a furrow in his brows, hesitancy in the blue of his eyes; an expression somewhere between disbelief and longing. But he didn’t move. He didn’t speak. And you felt your heart fracture under the strain.

In your lap, your phone flashed a low battery light. Bright red in the corner of your screen for only a second longer before it died entirely despite the charging cable currently attached at the port. You groaned, plugging it back in a dozen times before you noticed the frayed wires at the end – Sam's faulty cable. If you were going to keep talking to the walls, you’d at least need the mindless games on your phone to keep you company. It wouldn’t take long. Four minutes at most to run up to your room and back.

You brushed the tears from your eyes, sniffling past the congestion that had formed, as you began to push the blankets away. You glanced to the projector, where you noticed Bucky’s stare fixated on the door, though he kept his distance on the other side of the room.

“Bucky?” you called. “I’ll be right back, okay? Sam gave me his shitty charger.”

In the rustle of blankets and gathering of empty chip bags, you hadn’t noticed the footsteps beyond the door.

“Don’t go.”

You froze with an armful of used Tupperware containers. Wide eyed, you stared at the door, then to the vague shift of light near the floor. Confirmation on the monitor showed Bucky was standing right behind the door, his hands settled on the thick steel between you.

“Please,” his voice cracked in the disuse, “don’t go.”

You dropped everything in your hands and rushed back to the door. You nearly collided against it, looking to the monitor to make sure he was still there.

“Bucky?” You knew there was no use to try to open the door on your own, but it didn’t stop you from sliding your hands along the wall in search of the palm scanner Steve had used. “I can’t open the door. I don’t know how to—”

“No, don’t.” He paused, taking a single step back. “You shouldn’t. Steve was right to put me here.”

You paused, leaning your forehead against the door. He must have heard the gentle thump of it because he took another step closer and did the same. You wondered if he knew exactly where your hands were along the door, as if he could push through the entirety of the steel to get to you.

“What does that mean?” you pleaded, tired of the vague answers from men with good intentions. “What happened on that mission, Bucky? I know you have control again, so—”

“I don’t,” he replied flatly.

“Shuri swore the words were erased. It can’t still be—”

“I don’t have control, Y/n,” Bucky repeated with a heaviness you didn’t have a chance to prepare for. He sighed and you could feel the ache in his voice, the desperation, the pain. "Not when it comes to you.”

Your eyes flickered to the projector and you watched as Bucky hung his head. He curled his fingers along the door as if he might be able to warp the metal itself in an effort to reach you. You crossed your arms over your chest.

“Tell me what happened,” you said slowly, a full step away from the door.

Bucky hesitated. “Not with the door between us.”

You flinched at the sound of footsteps as they began to echo from the end of the hall. Bucky sighed, taking a step back from the door because he understood what that meant: Steve was on his way with evening meals. You could smell the marinara sauce and oregano before you could make out the worry lines growing upon his face.

“Everything okay?” he asked slowly, studying your stance a few paces back from the door, your arms folded defensively. It only took a single glance to the projector to notice that something had shifted in Bucky.

“I need you to let him go,” you said as Steve placed Bucky’s meal in the small opening in the wall. He locked the slot behind it.

Steve shook his head. “I can’t do that, Y/n.”

“If you won’t release him, then at least lock me in there with him,” you argued, and even Bucky shot a concerned look at the door. “You know he isn’t a danger to me, Steve. I don’t care what he did on that mission... Bucky would never hurt me.”

“I know,” Steve sighed. He planted his hands against his hips as he turned to the projector. “Buck?”

Bucky gave a short nod to the camera, stepping back against the furthest wall in good faith that he would not make a run for it.

“I’ll be back in two hours,” Steve warned as he set his hand against the palm reader by the door. A blue light flared under his hand until several green lights flashed around the edges of the door, the locks slowly unclicking with each signal. When the door opened, Steve stepped back. “Two hours, Y/n.”

“Thank you,” you murmured, staring at the thin opening into the cell. Your heart was racing suddenly, pounding so terribly you knew Steve must be able to hear it. It echoed into your ears, pulsed down into your fingertips. You couldn’t place what was driving the adrenaline, but you knew for certain it wasn’t fear.

Holding your breath, you stepped inside the cell. Not daring to look at Bucky just yet, you could still feel his eyes on you.

When the door latched behind you, you flinched and stumbled forward a few paces into the room. You didn’t use to be so jumpy. Another one of Hydra’s gifts. Bucky was the only one who watched you with a level of understanding. He never carried pity within his gaze.

Bucky shifted at the edge of the room and you finally allowed yourself to meet his eye. The bruising along his jaw and the cuts on his face had almost healed completely in the days he spent in the cell, though his hair was untamed, his beard growing in a vague shadow along his cheeks. He held his left arm cautiously behind his back, as if he might be afraid it could act on its own accord.

There was something off in his eyes. The way he looked at you, you would have thought it had been months since he stood at the edge of your bedroom with that worried look on his face. The gentle shades of calming blue were storming over, filled with deep ocean currents and treacherous rainfall. It wasn’t until you stepped forward and Bucky retreated, that you recognized what it was – the same look in his eye when he crawled on his knees to you the day he rescued you from Hydra – fear.

“Bucky?” you called timidly, daring another step forward. His back was against the wall, his distance as far as he could manage, and still, he looked as though the act of withholding himself from you was an act of violence within itself.

“Buck? Are you—”

Two strides was all it took to reach you. His arms encased around your waist, lifting you into the air as he stumbled back against the wall for support. His face pressed into the crook of your neck, his breath hot to your skin. Your hands hovered helplessly over his shoulders, unsure of what to do. Until, you felt a slight tremor shake along his spine, slowly moving through his body until he wavered into a muffled cry against your collar.

His grip on you was so tight it almost hurt, but it was a gentle sort of ache you were more than willing to endure. Your hands settled along his shoulders – one massaging into the tense tissue of his right, the other rested tenderly over the fusion of metal to flesh. Your lips grazed along his hair and despite the days between, you could still smell the soft undertones of coconut in his shampoo.

“I’m sorry,” he whimpered and it damn near tore your heart in two.

“Sorry?” you repeated, rubbing circled along his spine. “Sorry for what, Bucky?”

“I should have found you sooner. I should have killed them before they—” Bucky bit his tongue, pressing his nose firmer into the crook of your neck. “I’m so sorry, Y/n.”

Flashes of the concrete room you’d been kept in covered your vision. Damp and dark, with blood stains in the corners and chains around your ankles. Flesh ruined and raw—burning under chaffing metal and iron rods. Blood and tears and fear and dread and the hollow consuming emptiness of acceptance.

Flashes of Bucky breaking through the door, of the stunned relief upon his face as he skidded on his knees to you. The contrast of temperature between his hands as he held your face. His lips as they touched your forehead, his thumbs as they brushed at the tears on your cheeks. Bucky carrying you away from that hell – holding you, chasing away your demons and nightmares. His constant presence beside you as a guardian, a protector.

“What happened on the mission, Bucky?” you asked again, tears swelling in your eyes.

Slowly, Bucky lowered you back to the floor, though he did not lose contact with you. He kept a hand at the base of your spine as he guided you to the cot and took a seat at the edge of the thin mattress. You sat down beside him, gathering his hand in your own and tracing along the lines in his palm until he found the strength to take in another breath.

“We infiltrated the Hydra base as planned,” Bucky started, his gaze fixated on the floor. “We were only there to extract intel from their mainframes. It wasn’t supposed to be a combat mission.” He shivered and you held onto his hand a little tighter. “We were in this room just... surrounded by monitors. Sam was trying to break through the firewall to download what we needed but the screens all went dark before he could finish.”

Bucky clenched his jaw, his face contorting as if the memory itself was causing him physical pain. “They clearly knew we were there. Hell, we expected to have to fight our way out but... this voice came over the intercom, promising that Hydra still had leverage over me even without the trigger words.”

You parted your lips to argue, but swallowed them back. Bucky still had yet to meet your eye, but you could see the devastation on his face, the agony it took to recall Hydra’s last thread of control they maintained over him.

“They had... footage of you,” Bucky said and he must have felt the jolt in your grip, because it was the only thing that allowed him to finally look at you. It was then that you saw how badly the strain of red had consumed the blue of his eyes, how worry lines seemed to etch into his features and his lips had been chewed near raw. He lowered his head as if in confession. “They must have taken it when they had you prisoner. There was so much blood and I’d... I’d never heard you scream like that before.”

You closed your eyes in an attempt to drown out the demons hiding within the shadows of your dreams, the memories of those days held under lock and key. Most nights, you could still hear beads of water dripping from the pipe in the corner of the cell, spilling into the pool of murky pink water. You fought against the memory before it had a chance to pull you back in.

Opening your eyes again, you focused on Bucky. You didn’t dare ask him for the details of what he saw on that tape. You could only imagine it mirrored the horrors in your dreams. You squeezed at his hand again, urging him to continue, and you held him tight as you brushed away tears from your eyes.

“They put it on every monitor in the room,” Bucky continued, desperately trying to swallow back the rock in his throat. “It was... everywhere and I... I just lost it. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t breathe. I just... attacked. I killed all of them, Y/n. Every Hydra agent I could get my hands on. As bloody and as violent as I could and even then, it wasn’t enough. I wanted them to suffer.”

His thumb grazed along the brand on your wrist. He turned to you, his focus entirely on the burn mark until he covered it with the palm of his hand.

“That’s why Steve put me here,” Bucky explained dejectedly, “because if it weren’t for that door, I would have tracked down every last one of them and gutted them in the streets. Rogue assassination isn’t exactly a good look on my pardon, even if it is against war criminals.”

“And now?” you asked, nearly afraid of his answer. Bucky shook his head, moving to turn away from you, but you held firm to his hands. It stilled him in his tracks. “You can’t stay in here forever, Bucky.”

He laughed at that, something dark and humorless, as if that might have been his intention all along.

“I spent days outside that door. You wouldn’t so much as say a word to me.” You released his hands, standing from your position on the bed and moving to pace around the room. You followed the path Bucky had taken within his first few hours inside the cell. It was as if tracks had been worn into the floors. You paused at the end of the room, turning over your shoulder. “Is this your idea of penance?”

Bucky didn’t respond.

“But it’s not for killing those Hydra agents, is it?”

He clenched his jaw, his eyes trailing down to the floor. “I knew it was bad, but when I saw that footage...”

“That was not your fault, Bucky,” you said firmly without so much as an ounce of hesitation.

“You spent five days like that, Y/n. Five days,” he shot back, shaking his head in disbelief. “Bloodied and bound. Tortured. Terrified out of your goddamn mind and—and alone!”

When he stood, he towered over you, his chest rising rapidly, his hands curling into fists, but you did not cower. Amongst all of your fears, Bucky Barnes was never one of them.

“I would have given anything... anything to get you back.” Bucky sank down to his knees, something fracturing in his resolve as he crumbled. “I would have given another seventy years to Hydra if they would have spared you even a second of the hell they put you though. Do you understand that? Because seeing you in that much pain...  I thought it was going to rip me to shreds. It almost did.”

His eyes were clouded over in tears as you slowly bent down to meet him on the floor. The tile was cold, even through the thin layer of leggings and you could feel every nick and stone in the surface as you crawled to him.

Tenderly, you pressed your hands against Bucky’s cheeks, guiding his gaze to yours. The muscle of his jaw clenched under your palms and it seemed as though he was preparing himself for the final blow, for your confirmation that he’d been too late that day to save you, that you damned him to hell alongside every one of the Hydra agents that dared to lay a hand upon you. Instead, you leaned forward and pressed your lips to his forehead.

You lingered there for a moment, holding him as he fought against tears threatening to pull him under. He started to shake, his arms circling at your waist, and you peppered your lips along his hairline, over the crown of his head, to his cheekbones, and between his eyes.

“You saved me, Bucky,” you told him with a sincerity you’d hoped he could hear, “that day from Hydra and long after. Again and again. Every night when I wake up screaming. Every morning making pancakes in the kitchen and afternoons watching movies. You saved me.”

Disbelief shown in his eyes, breaking through the cloud of tears. He held his breath as you pulled back, your thumbs brushing gingerly along his cheeks.

“Don’t keep yourself locked in here for me. Don’t ask me to blame you for the pain Hydra inflicted. Please, Bucky.”

Slowly, as if it took most of his energy to do so, he nodded. Eyes closing, tears slipping down his cheeks and against your palms, you pulled him into your arms. You didn’t know how long you laid on the floor with him, holding him, soothing him. All you knew was you were wrapped in his arms, you could feel his breath and the steady rise of his chest, and he wasn’t alone.

Steve came by two hours later as he promised. You could hear the scuffle of his shoes down the hall and how Bucky flinched at the sound. His grip on you squeezed a little tighter.

“You ready, Y/n?” Steve’s voice came through the speakers.

Bucky lifted his head from your chest, meeting your eye. He gave you a short nod, a clenched ache in his jaw as he slowly started to release you from his hold, but you didn’t let go. His brows narrowed, confused, and you held his gaze as you called back to Steve, “I'm not leaving until Bucky does.”

Steve sighed and you could hear the clicking of locks as he opened the door. He stood in the frame, hands on his hips. “How long is that going to be, Buck?”

Bucky swallowed, his gaze shifting from you to Steve. He hung his head in shame. “I’m okay, Steve. I promise.”

“He’s not a flight risk anymore,” you added, soothing a hand along Bucky’s hair. “It’s over.”

“You’re sure?” Steve asked, unconvinced. He’d seen the footage, too. He knew how it felt to watch your torture displayed on screen, to be surrounded by men who willingly inflicted that pain upon you. It didn’t matter whether it was their hand or not. You wondered if there was a guilt in punishing Bucky for avenging you, if under different circumstances and the absence of red tape and the burden of leadership, if Steve would have joined him.

“I’m not going to leave her, Steve. Not for anything,” Bucky muttered defeatedly. It was the only reason he agreed not to track down every Hydra agent he could get his hands on – because you asked him not to, because you needed to let this go and you needed him to absolved the misplaced guilt he carried for it.

“Okay,” Steve said, pushing the door open. There would be contingencies; guards monitoring the exits, FRIDAY tracking his whereabouts in the compound, a responsibility on your shoulders if he were to run. It said nothing of the SHIELD agents’ trust he would have to earn again, if he ever had it to be begin with.

“Come on,” you urged, tugging Bucky’s hands and bringing him to his feet. You didn’t let go as he stood and there must have been some relief in that because Bucky squeezed your hand.

“Take the freight elevator,” Steve suggested. “I’ll keep the SHIELD agents out of your way. Tony and I will sort out a cover for what they saw.”

You nodded and you followed Steve into the hallway. Bucky paused at the threshold, inhaling a heavy breath as if he were breathing fresh air for the first time in days. Steve pressed out a tight smile, setting his hand on Bucky’s shoulder. There was an apology in his glance, one Bucky seemed to understand well, because he gave him a short nod. It was all they needed.

With that, Steve disappeared down the hall where he came.

“Hey,” you nudged Bucky’s shoulder, forcing a smile out of him once you were alone. “We’re a few movies behind on our list, you know.”

Bucky laughed at that. You hadn’t realized how long it had been since you heard that kind of joy from him and you heart strained a little, enough that you curled up tighter against his side and leaned your head against his shoulder.

“Been a little occupied with other things, haven’t we?” Bucky chuckled, shaking his head. His gaze flickered back to the reinforced cell and before a frown could tug away his smile, you pulled him gently by the hand down the hall the way Steve suggested.

“Then we’ll just have to make up for the lost time,” you shrugged, squeezing his hand.

“Anything you want,” Bucky sighed. “As long as you’ll let me hold you.”

Your heart skipped a beat and you tried not to let it show on your face. But Bucky smiled to himself as if he could hear every thump inside your chest. It was nice to see him smile again, to see the blood washed from his hands and the guilt cleansed from his mind.

This was Bucky as you knew him, as he was at his core. Protective near to a fault. Capable of so much kindness and joy beyond the trauma he endured. Resilient enough to laugh moments after release from a cell he’d been locked in by his best friend.

You wondered if maybe, through all of it, if he might actually be yours. Because you were certainly his.

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