Chapter 1: Part 1 - Prologue + Chapter One: Steve Rogers
Summary:
You meet Steve Rogers for the first time.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
You stood outside the Catholic church, frozen, staring, contemplating going in. It was early — Sunday morning during service. It was cold enough outside that the wind bit at your cheeks, but not quite cold enough that you would have remembered to wear gloves. You stood there for a long time, your legs itching to move yet refusing to walk forward even one step.
This was the third time you had done this. The past two weeks, early Sunday morning, you would walk down the streets of Hell’s Kitchen to the first church you could find, then you would stand outside for an hour or so, never going in. Normally, you left before the service ended, and before its patrons could find you hovering outside their doors.
But this time, this time you stayed. You thought you might go in, that maybe there would be a better chance if someone struck up a conversation with you, asked you about yourself, your life. Maybe they would want to show you the ways of their God, introduce you to their — what? Priest? Pastor? What was the Catholic term? Father?
So you stayed as the people began trickling outside as the service ended. Nobody paid much attention to you, you who stared up at the church as if it could give you what you needed. The church was stoic and quiet and said nothing. How disappointing.
“Are you lost?”
The voice did not belong to the church but rather to the man who was now standing next to you. As you turned your head to face him, you registered the red-tinted shades he wore on that gloomy, cloudy morning, and the white cane in his hands. You gave him a gentle smile and a shake of your head.
“No,” you replied. Your voice was soft and quiet as you said next under your breath, “Not physically, anyway.” Your eyes returned to the church’s, begging for something .
The man must have had a great sense of hearing, because he responded to the addition in a kind tone. “Ah. You’re lost spiritually. Lost in life.”
Slightly bewildered, you turned to him again. He adjusted his glasses and shifted on his feet. “I didn’t mean to intrude on your. . .contemplation. Blindness happens to do wonders for one’s hearing, you know.”
You couldn’t help it. Your mind had a tendency to. . .wander. You slipped into his head like it was nothing.
His memories were strange. You had never been in the mind of someone who was blind before. It was filled with sounds and smells and tastes and touches. But thoughts are always the same. His name was Matt Murdock. He was a lawyer. Most interestingly, he was the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.
The intrusion only took a second before you forced yourself to pull away. “It’s okay,” you replied to his previous statement. “You’re not wrong.” Once again your attention found itself on the church. Tears stung your eyes but refrained from blurring your vision. “I don’t know what to do,” you whispered. “I thought I’d seek a higher power. I thought maybe I could find what I’m looking for here.” You knew from you trip inside his mind that he was a compassionate individual. If anyone could point you in the right direction, maybe he could.
“And what is it that you’re looking for?” he asked.
You searched for an answer before finally settling on one. “Forgiveness.”
A silence washed over you both as he seemed to be taking in your response, your tone, your reluctance to go inside. It didn’t take him long to come to a conclusion. “You don’t think you deserve it.” It wasn’t a question.
You didn’t bother to explain why. “No.”
He twisted his white cane in his hands. “You know, God gives forgiveness for those who ask for it. Seeking redemption is the first step to deserving it.”
This time you shifted your body to face him rather than turning just your head. “Do you really believe that? Do you really believe that anyone can be forgiven?”
He took a moment to answer. “Yes, I do.”
You gave him a small, sad smile. Your head shook to the side. “You’re lying.”
The corners of his lips pulled down slightly, his eyebrows knitting together. He opened his mouth, but you spoke first.
“It was nice meeting you, Matt.”
You left him standing in front of the church that you didn’t go in. You had the confirmation you needed. Now all you needed to do was live with the answer.
(He never told you his name.)
Two and a Half Years Ago
Desperately, you searched through your boxes of things, trying to find your pens and paper. It had been three days since you had moved to Washington, DC, and you were to start your new job tomorrow. Well, new wasn’t the right word for it. Your job had asked if you could transfer from New York to Washington, and you had been more than happy to agree. You needed a fresh start. New York was. . .well. . . .
You had moved from your home to New York. You thought that would be a fresh start, too. What you found instead was a breeding ground for enhanced people, mutants, superheroes, supervillains, and alien invasions. You needed a break. Washington seemed like the perfect place for that.
You worked for the government as a translator. As a telepath, language came easily to you; as soon as you were exposed to someone who spoke a different language, that language was adapted into your vocabulary. Your favourite thing was when people would ask you how many languages you spoke. You’d give them three guesses, and if they could guess the amount then you’d tell them the story behind it.
Not one person had been successful yet.
It was getting late and you still hadn’t found your work supplies. You had unpacked almost everything over the three days you had been in your new apartment and you had at least opened every box, but still nothing. There was a strong possibility that the box may have been left behind.
Sighing, you looked at the time: it was 9:00pm.
You needed a drink.
The bar you ended up at wasn’t the closest to your apartment — it wasn’t even the second closest, or the third. You found your feet carrying you farther and farther through the city, until they finally stopped in front of a place twenty minutes from where you now lived.
This happened sometimes, with your telepathy. It was a strange feeling you couldn’t explain, like there was a reason you needed to be here and not there, not somewhere else.
Walking in, it seemed to be an ordinary bar like any other. You sat on a stool and ordered a drink, nursing it silently as you contemplated where you could get work supplies early tomorrow morning.
“Hey.”
You glanced at the voice next to you. It was a man, black hair, average height, not unattractive. You gave him a polite smile. “Hi.”
“Can I buy you a drink?” he asked.
You shook your head. “No, thanks.” You held up your glass, the ice clinking softly inside. “I have one already.”
He leaned closer into your space, resting his arm on the bar. “I’ll buy you another one.”
Growing increasingly uncomfortable, you shook your head again. “I have to get up early tomorrow. Sorry.” It was half a lie — you could probably stay for longer but you really didn’t want to deal with a man trying to pick you up right now.
“Oh, come on, it’s only — what? Nine-thirty? You’ve got lots of time. One drink. What do you say?”
You were starting to get frustrated with his insistence. You tried to stay polite but your voice had developed a slight edge. “I really can’t. Sorry.”
He sat down in the seat next to you. His hand slid to your thigh. “I promise I’ll make it worth your while.”
Another person may have slapped him in your position, but you were never one to condone violence, so instead you took his hand and placed it on the table. “Please stop.”
His eyes began to narrow. “Look, sweetheart, I—” He stopped abruptly when a hand landed on his shoulder.
The hand belonged to a broad-shouldered, blond man with a stern look on his face. “She said no,” he said.
The first man gave him the briefest of glances, sweeping the second man’s hand off his shoulder, and keeping his attention mostly on you. “Mind your own business, man.”
The blond man fisted his hand in the first man’s shirt, not too roughly, just enough to get his full attention. “I’m not going to say it again.”
And did it ever get his attention. “Hey! You—” His eyes grew very wide as he suddenly took in the man holding on to him. “Ho-holy shit. You’re Captain America. Holy shit.”
The blond man — who you now knew was Steve Rogers — sighed and clapped the man on the shoulder. “Let’s leave the lady alone, huh?”
The dark-haired man was less confident now, but still ever persistent. “C’mon man, I was just—”
“You were just leaving.”
The first man finally conceded, and, with one last look at you, he stood. “Yeah. Alright.” He hesitated in front of Captain America, as if contemplating trying to ask for an autograph, but ultimately decided against it and walked over to the other side of the bar. Unsurprisingly, he began chatting up another woman, this one who seemed more than happy to invite him to sit.
You returned your attention to Captain America, giving him a soft smile. “Thank you,” you said, your tone genuine.
He nodded. “No problem, ma’am.” He gave you a small smile before turning to walk away.
“Hey — wait a minute.” You stopped him, touching his arm. He glanced back at you. “Stay. Have a drink with me.”
“You sure? I thought you had to get up early tomorrow?”
You swirled you drink and gave a slight shrug. “I can stay for a little while longer. Besides — I just moved to the city and I don’t know anyone. Might be nice to make a friend.”
What you said seemed to pull him over. He sat down in the stool next to you. “Yeah. I know what that’s like.” He signaled the bartender for a drink.
“The whole ‘Man Out of Time’ thing must be difficult, huh?” you said, not unkindly.
“Yeah,” he replied, and sipped his beer. He didn’t elaborate. He didn’t have to. “I didn’t get your name.”
“Y/N. L/N.”
He held out his hand. You smiled and shook it. “Nice to meet you, Y/N L/N.”
“Nice to meet you , Steve Rogers.”
He smiled in return and pulled his hand back. “So, where’re you from?”
“[Your hometown/home country]. But I moved to New York when I was eighteen. You’re from Brooklyn, right?”
He nodded. “Part of me wanted to stay, but. . . . I don’t know. Everything was different. S.H.I.E.L.D. needed me here, anyway.” He seemed like he didn’t really want to be talking about it with a stranger. “So eighteen, huh? That’s a bit young nowadays, isn’t it?”
You shifted uncomfortably. It was your turn to be tight-lipped. You suddenly found the contents of your glass to be very interesting. “Issues with family. Expectations. It was. . .too much.”
Thankfully, Steve took the hint and changed the subject. “Why did you move out of New York?”
You laughed softly under your breath. “It was just too chaotic there, I guess. Well, you know. Alien invasions and such.”
“Oh, trust me. I remember.” He paused and considered you. “Are super soldiers pushing it? Because I hear there’s one living here in Washington,” he said, the corners lifting at the side of his mouth as he took another sip of his drink.
You grinned. “As long as he doesn’t attract too much trouble, I’m sure I’ll be fine.” You rolled your glass between your hands, ice being the only thing remaining in your drink. “To be honest, I don’t know if I would have worked up the courage to leave if it hadn’t been for my job. They transferred me out here.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m a translator for the US government. I like the job. Flexible hours, always meeting new people. It’s nice.”
Steve’s eyebrows raised slightly. “Wow. A translator. You must speak a lot of languages then, huh?”
You laughed. “Yeah. Yeah I do.”
The two of you talked for about an hour more before both deciding to call it a night. You asked him if he owned a phone, and when he laughed you asked for his phone number. He seemed hesitant.
“You’d be the first person from Washington to go in my contact list,” you prompted. “First friend in the city.”
He smiled softly at that and nodded. “Okay.” The two of you exchanged phones briefly. “I will say it’s nice to know someone who isn’t a part of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” he said.
“Hopefully we can hang out again sometime,” you said.
“Hopefully.”
The two of you parted ways, walking in opposite directions. Steve had offered to walk you home, but you had politely declined, not wanting to bother him with the twenty minute walk to your apartment. Maybe you shouldn’t have said no.
You knew that there was something wrong the moment you stepped in your apartment building. Something just felt. . .off. The feeling grew as you ascended the stairs to your floor, up, up, worse and worse. You froze in the stairwell, finally understanding your growing dread.
There was someone in your apartment.
Notes:
A/N: Hey! Thanks for reading! I know that technically Bucky wasn’t really in this chapter, but this was mostly here to set up the story. I hope you’ll be patient with me as this moves forward!
Chapter 2: Part 1 - Chapter Two: The Man in Your Apartment
Summary:
There’s someone in your apartment. You call Steve for help.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The panic washed over you in a million different ways, as if waves of ice water were being poured in a steady stream. You were still three floors from your apartment, and yet you could feel them. The person who had invaded your home.
You couldn’t think straight. Your mind was being flooded with too much…noise. The stairwell was silent and yet you couldn’t hear anything.
There’s someone in my apartment.
There’s someone in my apartment.
There’s someone in my apartment.
When did you pull out your phone? You had it pressed to your ear, and there was ringing on the other end. You had dialed somebody. But you didn’t know anybody in Washington; you had just moved here.
You couldn’t think straight.
You couldn’t think straight.
You couldn’t think straight.
Steve. That’s who you were calling. Captain America. He could help you. He would help you. He had to. There could be no situation in which he doesn’t.
There’s someone in my apartment.
There’s someone in my apartment.
There’s someone in m
“Y/N?”
He picked up. He picked up the phone. He answered your call. He was on the other end now.
Say something.
Say something.
Say something.
A strangled gasp left your mouth. “Steve.” Did you say that? It was your voice.
“Y/N, what’s wrong? What happened?”
You couldn’t breathe. You couldn’t breathe. You couldn’t. Breathe.
There’s someone in my apartment.
“There’s someone in my apartment.”
There’s someone in my apartment.
“Y/N, take a deep breath for me. Can you do that?” Steve’s voice was gentle, but worried. It did nothing to calm your intensifying panic.
You stuttered. “Can’t-can’t-can’t-can’t-” When did you end up on the floor? Your hand was pulling your hair.
Telepaths have excellent memory. They’re able to access different parts of their mind and bring bits and pieces to the forefront. You wished you didn’t. You wished you could forget.
Don’t let it happen again.
Don’t let it happen again.
Don’t let it happen again.
“Steve, there’s a man in my apartment.” Your laboured breaths turned to hiccuping sobs.
“I’m coming over.” You vaguely registered the sound of movement. “What’s your address?”
Don’t let it happen again.
Don’t let it happen again.
Don’t le
“Y/N! Where do you live?” His insistent tone broke through the haze your mind now swam in. You must have told him your address, because he said, “I’m on my way. It’s okay. Don’t worry. Just hold on.”
There was water on your cheeks. Where was that coming from? Was the ceiling leeking? It blurred your vision. Oh. You were crying.
“Keep talking to me, okay?” Steve said. “Where are you right now?”
“I’m-I’m-I’m-” Words words words. “The-the stairwell.” Lie lie lie. “I went to my door. I heard footsteps.” You took a deep, shuddering breath. “No one in this city knows me, Steve. No one except you. I have the only key. Nobody else could have gotten in. I locked it before leaving. I know I did. I know I did. I know I did.” Did you? Yes, of course you did. You did you did you did you did. You never forget to lock your door.
“Was the door broken into?” he asked. You could hear his slightly laboured breathing, the footsteps. It sounded like he was running. “Was it open when you got there?”
You didn’t know. You didn’t see. “I-I don’t remember. I don’t remember.”
“He could have come in through the fire escape. Stay where you are, alright? I’m almost there. Keep talking to me. Tell me something.”
“What?” you managed. Your body was shaking.
“Anything. Tell me about New York.”
No.
No.
No.
Don’t let it happen again.
Don’t let it happen again.
Don’t let it happen again.
“Y/N. Talk to me.”
You spoke in almost incoherent sentences. “Messy. New York was messy. I left, I left. Different. Washington was supposed to be different.”
“Try to slow your breathing, Y/N. I think I’m here, I’m outside of the building. Can you come down and open the door for me?”
“I can’t - move -”
“Focus on my voice, Y/N. Come downstairs, open the door. Then I can help you. We can figure out what’s going on, together. Please, can you do that for me? Just come and open the door. Then you can stay downstairs.” You could hear him jiggling the locked door of the building entrance. “Y/N-” Another voice, in the background. You couldn’t make out words; you couldn’t focus. “Okay, someone let me in, I’m inside now. What floor are you on?”
“Four. But my apartment’s on seven.” Lie lie lie. “I went down a few floors after I heard him.”
You could feel Steve now. He was climbing stairs two at a time. “You’re sure it’s a man?”
Your voice quivered. It was small. A whisper. “Isn’t it always?”
You could hear Steve sighing on the other end. You had your answer.
He startled you when he finally appeared, hand gentle on your arm. Ice water flushed your system again, and you found yourself standing.
“I’ll go up, alright?” he said softly. “You don’t have to come.”
But there was something wrong. Besides the man in your apartment. Besides the implications that came with that. You found your feet moving up the stairs, following Steve as he glanced over his shoulder at you with a concerned look.
You came to the seventh floor. Your apartment was just across from the stairwell. You could see the door hadn’t been broken into. Steve was right, he had gone through the fire escape.
You handed Steve your keys, and he unlocked the door. “Stay in the hall, alright?” But you weren’t listening to his words. You were focused on the man inside.
How strange.
How strange.
Steve opened the door slowly, carefully stepping into your apartment. You walked forward until you were at the door frame, where you stopped.
He turned on the light.
What happened next was quick. The man, whose appearance you barely had time to register, stood, took out a pocket knife, and threw it. It met your sleeve where your hand was placed on the frame and stuck into the wall, deep.
Steve immediately went for him, throwing punches and blocking hits where he could. You desperately began pulling at the handle of the knife; when that didn’t work, you pulled at your arm, trying to tear the fabric of your sleeve.
You glanced back at Steve, only to find the man advancing on you. You would have screamed, except.
Except.
How strange.
How strange.
Empty.
Empty.
Can’t see.
Can’t see.
Steve tackled the man from behind and you refocused you attention to your sleeve. You managed to rip the fabric and you ran out the door and down the hall, tripping on your feet in the process. You breathed, hard. You stared at the floor, not moving.
You could hear Steve’s footsteps coming down the hall. You didn’t look at him.
“He ran off through the fire escape,” he said. His entire tone had shifted. “Do you know who that was?”
Your eyes were wide, confused. “I couldn’t…I couldn’t see…I couldn’t see… .”
How strange.
How strange.
His mind was almost a blank slate. You’d never seen that before. You didn’t even know that that was possible.
“Y/N.” Steve’s voice was firm, cutting through the haze your mind had previously returned to. “Do you know why he was there? Do you know why he was after you?”
Lie.
Lie.
Lie.
“No,” you said. Of course you knew. But you couldn’t tell him that. You couldn’t tell anyone. “No.”
You wanted Washington to be different. It wasn’t.
“We have to go.” Steve helped you to your feet. “Your apartment’s been compromised, we can’t stay here anymore.” He led you down the stairs and out of the building. You stood on the side of the curb as Steve tried to hail a taxi.
“I saw him before,” he said, his eyes searching for a cab. “Earlier tonight. He shot someone I know. The paramedics were carrying him off when you called me. We have to go to the hospital to make sure he’s okay.”
Your mind was beginning to clear. The panic that had once overwhelmed you was washing away, like water circling down a drain. “Who is he? The man in my apartment, the man who shot your friend?”
A taxi finally slowed down in front of the two of you. “I don’t know,” Steve said. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
Notes:
A/N: I promise you’ll get to see Bucky more in later chapters. If you haven’t noticed, this story is being separated in parts, Part 1 being sort of the set up to the Bucky x Reader. So, depending on the pacing of the story and how much is put into each chapter, he might be in the next one or the one after that. I hope you’re enjoying the story! Thanks for reading!
Chapter 3: Part 1 - Chapter Three: Broken Promises
Summary:
Steve asks you about your past. The man in your apartment finally catches up to you.
Notes:
A/N: So I’m changing a small part of the movie that’s going to be in this chapter. I’m removing the character Agent Sitwell just because it makes the story flow better without his interrogation scene (the one where Natasha kicks him off the roof, as badass as that is), and so he’s not in the car with Steve, Nat, and Sam when they get attacked by the Winter Soldier (which leaves room for YOU to sit in the back with them). Anyway this is just here in case anyone was wondering why I skipped over that part. ALSO I'm gonna shorten the Winter Soldier fight scene just because I don’t want to be just summarizing it instead of actually getting to the story part.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
- dvoyd
You sat in the waiting room of the hospital for a very long time. Although the intense panic you experienced earlier was ebbing away, you couldn’t help but be worried. You weren’t stupid, you knew that the man in your apartment would come back for you — you just didn’t know when, or where, or how.
Steve was with a red-headed woman when he came back. They spoke in hushed tones as they walked over, but ceased their talk as they approached you.
You stood. “How’s your friend?” you asked. Steve put his hands on his hips; he shook his head. You didn’t need to ask what that meant.
“This is Natasha,” he said instead. “We work together.”
The red-headed woman — Natasha — regarded you somewhat suspiciously. You offered her a similar sentiment.
“That means she’s part of S.H.I.E.L.D., right?” you asked, but it wasn’t really a question. Everyone was acting uneasy and it was starting to affect you. It wasn’t just that a man was waiting for you in your apartment, or that the same man had shot and killed Steve’s friend. There was something else going on, and you weren’t even sure if Steve or Natasha really knew what that was.
Natasha’s head tilted slightly. “I am part of S.H.I.E.L.D., yes. And what is it that you do? Steve didn’t say.” Her tone was almost friendly, but the attitude didn’t match her eyes.
Steve mumbled something to her under his breath. It sounded like “Nat”. If you had been someone else, maybe you wouldn’t have heard, or understood. But Steve’s mind was chastising her. Don’t start interrogating her, he thought. We don’t need that right now.
Getting lost in people’s thoughts happened sometimes; you had to train yourself to focus on what people were saying out loud, that way you could answer without pause and none would be the wiser to the brief intrusion.
But this time, you unfortunately took a few seconds longer than necessary to speak. “I’m a translator,” you said. You knew the delay would make you sound guilty, and it did. You silently berated yourself for the slip-up. Natasha gave you a nod in return, her face a perfect blank slate, never showing her cards. But behind her eyes, within her mind, her thoughts were whirring.
Steve took a step closer to you, giving a brief glance back at Natasha before speaking. “We have to go.”
Natasha uncrossed her arms, her facade cracking slightly, although her voice remained steady. “She’s coming with us?” It sounded like a trivial inquiry, but there was surprise there. Don’t be stupid, Steve, she thought.
“No,” he said to Natasha. Your eyebrows rose and Steve returned his attention to you almost immediately. “I’m taking you somewhere safe, so don’t worry, okay? Natasha and I won’t be long. We’ll come back.”
You were surprised by the smallness of your voice when you finally spoke. “Steve, what’s going on?”
He sighed. He seemed to do that a lot. Steve moved as close as he could to put his hands on your upper arms. His head tilted down to meet your eyes. “I don’t know,” he said truthfully. “But that’s what me and Natasha are going to go figure out. Y/N, do you trust me?”
Trust was difficult for you. You understood that Steve was trustworthy, but whether or not that meant that you trusted him was something else entirely. You decided to be honest. “I don’t know.”
His eyes flickered downwards in fleeting disappointment before plastering on a reassuring smile. “That’s okay. Either way, I promise I’m gonna be straight with you when I figure all this out, alright? But I need you to be straight with me, too. Can you do that? Can you promise you’ll me honest with me?”
Your stomach twisted. If you had been in a movie, maybe you would have crossed your fingers behind your back.
“I promise,” you lied.
Steve dropped you off at the house of a man named Sam Wilson. He was very kind to you, funny, offered to make you food. Steve and Natasha left and didn’t say where they were going, only that they would be back as soon as they could.
You couldn’t eat anything, as good as the food that Sam made smelled. You were all up in knots, ever since Steve left. Suddenly you had time to worry again, about the man who was after you, how he found you, why he was after you. The lie you told. Lies, plural.
Your growing sense of dread only increased when Steve and Natasha returned hours later, looking absolutely awful, covered in soot and small cuts. But it wasn’t their physical appearance so much as the looks on their faces that concerned you the most. It took a great deal of restraint to keep from peaking inside their minds — Steve promised he would be straight with you, that he would tell you the truth about what was going on. And from what you could tell, they found it.
Sam had a couple different spare rooms in his home. He told you he would take in homeless veterans from time-to-time, people who came back from war to find that they had nothing. Some of them weren’t even homeless, they were just lost, lost in life. He’d help them, then send them on their way when they were stable enough. This simple tidbit of information told you everything you needed to know about Sam Wilson, without even looking into his head.
You decided you were going to let Steve tell you everything he’d discovered in the morning. He and Natasha needed to clean up, and it was obvious that they’d had a hard day. It was likely they were exhausted.
But instead of being in the bed that Sam had so generously offered to you, you were in his kitchen sitting on one of the stools. Head resting on your hands, you thought about everything that had happened in the past 48 hours. Yesterday you needed paper and pens. Today you were hiding from a man who either wanted to capture or kill you. Oh, God, you hadn’t even considered which one it was. No, no, it was capture. The knife he threw at you pierced your sleeve, and he didn’t strike you as someone who had bad aim.
You rubbed your eyes. Fuck. Paper and pens. You completely forgot you were supposed to start your job today. You didn’t even think to call. Your cellphone was new so you had only given your apartment phone number to your work. No doubt they had called with no response. Maybe it was for the best. You doubted you’d be able to stay in Washington after this. Wouldn’t be safe.
“Hey.”
You put your hands down and looked to your side where Steve was inching forward. His voice was soft, as if he didn’t want to startle you.
“Can I sit?” he asked. You nodded, and he took the stool next to you. “I wanted to talk to you earlier, but Sam said you went to bed.”
“I thought it’d be better to talk to you in the morning. It seems like you two went through a lot.”
That’s a understatement, his expression seemed to say. There was a pause of silence. He leaned on the table and looked at you. “So, can’t sleep?” he asked, not unkindly.
“No,” you said.
“Are you worried?” he asked in a gentle voice. “About the man who came after you?”
“Yes.” You thought about how you promised to tell him the truth. You decided to be honest, in that moment. “Also…I get nightmares, sometimes.”
“About what?” he prompted, his eyes searching yours as if he was looking for something.
“Nothing you should worry about,” you said, you lied.
Steve was quiet for a beat before sighing and folding his hands on the table. “I promised you I would be straight with you. I know you said it could wait until morning, but… .”
Your eyebrows knitted together. “So what is it?”
“How much do you know about what the Howling Commandos and I did in World War Two?” he asked.
You gave him a strange look. “…There were some high school history lessons I remember. And I visited the Smithsonian the day before…the day before I met you. Why?”
“What do you remember about Hydra?”
“Hydra?” you repeated. An image of a Grecian mythical creature briefly came to mind. “That was the Nazi organization that you fought against, right? What does that have to do with the man who came after me?”
Steve sighed, again. “As it turns out, Hydra infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. They did it when S.H.I.E.L.D. was first being created and they’ve been hiding inside ever since.”
You blinked rapidly, processing this. “Hydra…within S.H.I.E.L.D.? Do they know? What happened to you and Natasha when you were gone?”
“S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn’t know,” he said. “Well, Nick Fury knew. Or suspected. He was the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.; the man we went to the hospital for. They killed him and they tried to kill us with a missle when we went looking for information. But as for the agents working for S.H.I.E.L.D.? No, they don’t know. We’re not sure how heavily its been compromised so we can’t exactly broadcast what we know right now.”
You were starting to put the pieces together. “The man in my apartment,” you said slowly, “he was sent by Hydra, wasn’t he? That’s how I fit in all of this?”
“Yes, he was sent by Hydra. They call him the Winter Soldier. According to Natasha, he’s a ghost story; we don’t know a whole lot about him.” Steve looked at you steadily. “But as for how you fit into all of this… .Y/N, you promised you’d be straight with me. Do you know anything? Do you have any idea why Hydra might be after you? Anything at all, even if you think it’s not important.”
You were going to Hell for lying to Captain America, the most honest man alive, you knew. But it didn’t matter. It couldn’t. You couldn’t tell him the truth. Not him. Not anyone. It was too dangerous. For you, and for him. So you lied, and not for the last time. “I told you, I don’t know.”
Steve’s mouth twisted slightly, as if he was disappointed with the answer. Then he seemed uncomfortable. Your eyes narrowing, you tilted your head as you surveyed him. He took a breath. “Look, don’t be angry with Natasha, alright? She’s a spy, she’s naturally suspicious of people.”
You weren’t following, but you were sure whatever it was he was talking about it wasn’t good. He registered the confused look on your face and continued.
“She went digging through your file. Anything that has your name on it, it’s somewhere she can find online. Getting information…it’s what she does. I don’t know how she gets it, it’s not exactly public domain, but she finds a way. Things like parking tickets, adoption papers…”
Your eyes flickered down at that, but he continued all the same.
“…police reports.”
You didn’t look at him. You didn’t want to hear what you knew he would tell you about the report Natasha found.
You wished you could forget.
You wished you could forget.
You wished you could forget.
“I don’t remember the date she said, but I remember thinking you probably would’ve been in your early twenties, right?”
You didn’t say anything. You didn’t look at him.
He hesitated briefly before going on. “Natasha said the report said someone called 9-1-1 when they saw you walk out of an abandoned building on the outskirts of the city, covered in blood…not wearing much. The medical report from the hospital you were sent to said there were small to large lacerations over your body, ranging from old to new; the report concluded that it was likely due to torture over a roughly two week period.”
Stop.
Please stop.
“The police checked the basement of the building you came out of,” Steve went on. You could tell he was trying to be gentle, but he was also making a point. There was a reason he was telling you that he knew about this. You had a feeling the reason had to do with how you promised to tell him the truth and then didn’t. “There were about six men down there, all with fatal injuries. Some gunshot wounds to the head, some knife wounds. But all self-inflicted.”
You couldn’t breathe.
You couldn’t breathe.
“They found chains that were attached to the wall, strange symbols… .The report concluded that it was most likely some kind of cult ritual that you narrowly escaped.” You could tell he was trying to get you to look at him, but you were covering your face with your hands now. “Y/N…why didn’t you tell me about that?”
You had a nervous tick. You removed your hands from your face and scratched your wrists instead, the tattoo that was there, the black double bands that circled each. You scratched as if you could rip them off, free yourself of your burden.
“You didn’t need to know.” The words came out a broken sob, but angry, too. You scrubbed at the hot tears escaping your eyes. You scratched at your wrists, what they symbolized.
“You were kidnapped and tortured for a reason,” he said, not unkindly, but certainly bordering on strained. “And now Hydra wants you. I can’t help but think that it’s connected.”
“What are you asking me?” you said, wanting to get to the point as quickly as possible and end the havoc that the flashbacks were wreaking on your mind.
He gave you a hard look, but his eyes were soft. “What do you know about the men who kidnapped you before?”
“Nothing.” A lie. They told you who they were. An organization who wanted to use you. Steve was right. They weren’t Hydra but they had wanted the same things.
“Why were they torturing you?”
Words were becoming difficult. “They kept asking me questions I couldn’t answer.” That wasn’t a lie. They wanted you to confirm what you were. You couldn’t do that. They hurt you instead.
You wished you could forget.
You wished you could forget.
You wished you could forget.
“What kind of questions?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember.” Lie. You stood abruptly, a strangled sob leaving your mouth. “They were hurting me. Forgive me if there are things I chose to forget.” Truth. The one thing you couldn’t remember was your escape — only the blood afterwards. The blood that wasn’t yours.
Steve stood up with you and gently took your hands in his, stopping you from scratching your wrists raw. Slowly, he wrapped his arms around you. You cried into his shoulder, your tears staining his shirt.
“You can’t let them take me,” you whispered into the crook of his neck. “Please. You can’t let it happen again.”
His hand moved up and down your back, in a motion meant to be soothing. “I won’t,” he said. “I promise.”
Steve and Natasha told Sam everything about what was going on. Apparently there was something else even more pressing — something that had to do with the helicarriers that were meant to go online in less than 16 hours, something about an algorithm meant to calculate dangerous or potentially dangerous people and eliminate them. This bit of information was just a cherry on top of everything else. You wondered if the algorithm would be able to single you out, to figure out what you could do and what you were capable of.
Cars whooshed by on the freeway as Sam drove at a speed that was probably over the speed limit, passing other vehicles left and right as you made your way to Washington’s S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, where the helicarriers were. Steve sat in the passenger’s side as you and Natasha sat in the back. They would have left you at Sam’s, but ultimately they decided it was probably safer to keep you close.
It wasn’t.
The roof of the car was dented as someone landed on top, and you shrieked in surprised. You saw Natasha looking out the window and followed her gaze, barely glimpsing the hand wrapped around the gun before it disappeared up, and Natasha threw herself forward in the car; she used her body to pull Steve out of the path of bullets that came from the ceiling. Sam slammed on the breaks and a body flew off the top.
It was the man from your apartment.
He used his metal arm — he had a metal arm, did you not notice that before? — to stop himself, his hand digging into the concrete of the road.
The four of you stared at him in shock for a moment as he straightened up. You saw Natasha pull a gun on him —
Your body was jolted forward as a black van rammed into the back of the car, propelling it on until the car hit the Soldier and he flew up on to it. Sam desperately hit the brakes but the van was stronger. You made yourself small in the backseat, you mind going into overdrive.
You screamed when the Soldier smashed his arm into the windshield and pulled the steering wheel right out of Sam’s hands. Natasha shot at him and he jumped onto the van behind you. The car, without a steering wheel, began spinning out of control.
Steve grabbed you from the backseat. “Hang on!” he yelled, and the four of you huddled together as the car flipped and Steve used his shield to detach the door from the car. You all slid on his shield down the road.
Your head was spinning. Natasha was the one who pulled you up and pushed you to the side as suddenly a rocket launcher was being shot in your direction. It hit Steve’s shield, who went flying off the highway bridge. You scrambled on the ground, looking up to find the Soldier was the one with the rocket launcher in his hands.
Other men with guns started shooting in Natasha and Sam’s direction as they hid behind a car. You were watching him instead of hiding, instead of doing what any sane person would do.
How strange.
How strange.
You saw one of the men turn his gun in your direction, but the Soldier caught the barrel of it before he could shoot. Of course. Hydra wanted you alive. You were no use to them dead.
You felt someone catch your arm and pull you up and across the bridge. It was Natasha. “Hold onto me!” she yelled at you, and before you could understand what she was doing, she grabbed you and jumped off the bridge as an explosion followed. You wrapped your arms around her as she shot a grappling hook that allowed you to swing to the ground.
The landing was a rough one. You would have more than a few bruises from today. But Natasha barely let you catch your breath before pulling you up again and tugging you along. “Run!” she shouted at you, propelling you forward.
You didn’t look back. You didn’t look to see where Steve had landed. You had tunnel vision, only seeing what was in front of you, barely hearing the screams and gunfire and explosions that were on your heels. You ran, as fast as your feet could take you, your lungs begging you to stop and take a proper breath.
You ran until you came to a street where you finally stopped and hid behind a car, your breathing heavy and desperate. Your head felt dizzy. You put your hand over your mouth, trying to be quiet.
You could tell the fighting was getting closer, but you couldn’t move. Your body was going into a state of shock.
You could feel Steve was close. You could hear the sound of him fighting someone else, hand-to-hand. Suddenly, a body was flung into the car you were hiding behind, and it jolted. You weren’t hurt, but you let out an involuntary cry. You covered your mouth again, praying no one heard you.
The grip that yanked on your arm was answer enough. You shrieked as the Winter Soldier pulled you to him, locking you in place against his chest with his metal arm and began dragging you down the street. He must have found a gun on the ground by the car because he began shooting at —
“STEVE!” you cried, absolutely desperate. Tears were blurring your vision and you fought the Soldier’s hold. “STEVE — PLEASE—H E L P” you screamed at the top of your lungs.
Don’t let it happen again.
Don’t let it happen again.
Don’t let it happen again.
“Y/N!” you heard Steve yell, but he was holding up his shield, blocking the Soldier’s gunfire. He couldn’t help you. He couldn’t help you.
You needed to do something.
Before you could even think about what you were doing, the arm that wasn’t pinned in the Soldier’s grasp reached up and you pressed your hand to his head.
The both of you froze, eyes glazing over. You thought you heard the sound of his gun clattering to the ground.
Before, you couldn’t see anything. You thought his mind was empty. But it wasn’t, it was just…broken. In pieces. Fragmented.
The Soldier released his grip on you and you fell to the ground, blinking as you returned to the world. You gazed up at him, mouth open, a curious look on your face.
“What did they do to you?” you whispered as he stared back at you, his eyes…his blue eyes…confused.
“Y/N!” you heard Steve shout. You had just turned your head to see him running toward you when you felt a sharp poke in your neck, and the world went black.
Notes:
A/N: Reminder that this story updates on tumblr first and then I upload it on AO3 when I get the chance, which could be hours or a day later depending on how busy I am. If you have a tumblr and want to be added to the tag list, message me here: pandalandalopalis.tumblr.com
Chapter 4: Part 1 - Chapter Four: Purple and Red
Summary:
You've been captured by Hydra. You ask the Soldier for help.
Notes:
Graphic violence warning for this chapter. The rating of the story has been changed to Mature.
Chapter Text
The world was fuzzy when you finally came to consciousness. Like washing up onto shore, desperate to dispel water from your lungs, you were desperate to clean the noise from your head. You could hear voices but they were hard to understand as you woke from your drug-induced sleep.
You were in some sort of containment room, that much you could tell. Three of the walls were concrete, but the fourth wall, the one in front of you, was glass — or, or hard plastic, maybe? Either way, you could see through it to the other side, where blurs and shapes were beginning to clear.
A group of people were standing in the centre of the room, around what appeared to be some sort of technological contraption with screens and buttons — in the middle was a chair, and in that chair was a man.
You. It’s you.
Your mind seemed to find him before your eyes did. The metal arm was a dead giveaway, but this was your first time seeing his face without any sort of covering. He looked… .
Sad. Confused. Unsure.
He was sitting profile to your direction, so you doubted he or any of the other people in the room were aware of your consciousness. Not yet, anyway. There was a part of you that knew you should be panicking, that knew that as soon as their attention left the Soldier, it would turn to you. But you weren’t thinking about that; your focus was on him.
“But I knew him,” were the first clear words you heard, and they came from the Soldier. Slowly, you reached your mind out to him, sifting through void and darkness until you came to a memory, solid and complete.
A blond man stood in front of you, a look of utter shock and disbelief written over his face. His mouth hung open, his shield at his side.
“Bucky?” he said, confusion dripping off the name.
You took a step forward, unfazed by the man’s seemingly random outburst. “Who the hell is Bucky?”
It lasted only a second, but you were left feeling like you were missing something. The blond man in his memory, it was Steve Rogers, and the location was from today (Today? Yesterday? You weren’t sure how long you’d been unconscious.) where the Soldier had taken you hostage. The way Steve had said that name…Bucky…it was like he knew the Soldier, like he was calling his name.
Bucky. Why was that familiar? Your mind was still recovering from the drug; you couldn’t think hard enough.
You swam out of your thoughts and returned to the present. “Wipe him,” the man standing in front of the Soldier was saying. Wipe him? You pressed your hand to the glass (it was glass, it was cold under your fingers) and watched with narrowing eyes.
One of the people in the room stuck something into the Soldier’s mouth and they leaned him back in the chair. A piece of technology rested on his head, followed by the buzzing of a machine starting up.
The pain was excruciating.
You could feel it, you could feel what they were doing to him. Your hands pressed to your mouth to keep from screaming and drawing attention to yourself. His memories of the past day flitted in your mind before being decimated, splintered into a thousand pieces and scattered to the farthest reaches of the empty that was the inside of his head.
Wipe him. They were wiping away his memories.
He was as much a hostage here as you were.
You didn’t see them take him away, you were curled into the corner of your room, your eyes squeezed shut. But when you finally opened them, he was gone.
Instead, the man who had been talking to him earlier, the man who gave the order to erase his memories, was standing outside of your room. He was looking at you, his hands clasped behind his back. He smiled when he saw that your eyes were no longer closed.
“Good to see you’re finally awake,” he said.
You scowled at him, saying nothing. The man leaned his arm on the glass, drumming his fingers on the surface. “Do you know why you’re here?”
Yes. “No.”
He hummed at that. “Do you know who I am?”
You didn’t, but it didn’t take much to slip inside his mind and find out. His name was Alexander Pierce. He was a senior officer at S.H.I.E.L.D. He was also a Hydra double-agent. Not surprising considering what you had seen earlier. “No,” you said, despite the information you had just learned.
He hummed again. The sound was beginning to annoy you. “You know, that’s interesting. I expected a telepath to be more aware of everything going on around her.”
Panic curled within you but you forced your mouth to open and your eyebrows to knit together, both in confusion. You made your eyes blink several times before speaking. “A telepath? Is that what you think I am?”
Pierce’s smile became strained. “That’s what I know you are. It’s what my intel tells me. I’ve been tracking you for some time, now. It took while to put a name to your face, but eventually everything comes to light.”
Like how Hydra has been hiding within S.H.I.E.L.D. since its founding? you thought briefly, but it was difficult to think clearly when your breathing was becoming increasingly shallow. “Look,” you started, swallowing, “I don’t know who you are, or what you want from me, but I am not who you think I am. Please. Just—”
Pierce hit his fist against the glass, silencing you. “What I want, Miss L/N, is what you were chosen for. And you were chosen to be a weapon. Your choice is whether or not you’re going to be a willing participant, helping us with our work.”
You shook your head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you said desperately.
Pierce sighed, then motioned to a couple men behind him. They moved forward to the door, unlocking it.
You stood immediately, pressing your back to the wall. “What are you doing?”
Another man brought in a chair as the first two men grabbed your arms on either side. You struggled as he put down the chair in the middle of the small room and they forced you down into it.
“Stop, please,” you begged them, although you knew it wouldn’t do any good. They cuffed your hands and feet to the chair. You twisted and turned your wrists, trying to free yourself to no avail. “You don’t have to do this, I’m not the person you want!”
Pierce strolled inside the room as the other men left. He leaned down to level his face with yours, not unlike the way he was speaking to the Soldier before he wiped his memories. “You’ve made your choice now, Miss L/N. I had hoped you might have chosen to be a willingparticipant, it certainly would have made things less…” he rested his hand on one of the restraints, “…messy, but I’ve dealt with unwilling persons before.” He straightened and turned his head slightly to the side. One of the men waiting outside the room entered and stood at attention at the gesture. “Call one of our jets and tell them they’ll be flying to Sokovia tomorrow with a very important passenger.” The man nodded and left. Pierce returned his attention back to you. “Perhaps our asset there will be able to convince you to be more compliant.”
Sokovia? You couldn’t go to Sokovia. If you went to Sokovia you were done, there would be no escaping them then. You pulled at the restraints. Your tone became more panicked by the second. “Please! You have to listen to me! I’m not who you think I am — I am not a telepath!”
Pierce ignored your pleas and left the room, one of the men locking it behind him. You kept on your begging until he left your field of vision, and even then you continued with screaming your (feigned) innocence.
Exhaustion seeped into your bones, your throat raw, and eventually you were left with hiccuping sobs. You couldn’t breathe. You didn’t know what to do.
Soon, you were too tired to even cry. You looked down at your bound wrists. The tattooed bands were covered, but you could still see the orange ink design that ran from the outside edges of the tips of your pinky fingers, down your hands, and under the black bands on your wrists, where you knew it continued up your arms, over your shoulders, spreading like wildfire as it finished across your back. This is your fault, you thought as you stared down at the tattoo, at your hands, flexing them. I didn’t want this. We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you.
Your contemplation was broken suddenly by the sound of footsteps.
No, not a sound. A feeling. A feeling that went with the sound.
The Winter Soldier himself was walking across the outer room, right in front of your cell.
“Hey,” you called, but your voice was hoarse and it was quiet. He didn’t even look at you. “Hey!” you repeated, louder this time. He continued without a single change in expression.
You struggled in your seat.
HEY!
His stride stuttered, and he stopped. He looked at you, his expression cracking slightly, his eyes narrowed. The two of you stared at each other for what seemed like a long time.
“Do you remember me?” you finally asked in a small voice, although you knew the answer.
He paused before answering. “No.”
Your eyes glanced to the machine, the machine that broke his mind — how many times, you couldn’t say. “You don’t remember me because they used that on you. Because they erased your memories. Probably not for the first time, either.”
He gave you a look like the information was of no consequence to him, but you could feel that he was becoming uneasy. You made a decision.
You pushed the image of Steve into his head. The memory.
“Bucky?”
“Who the hell is Bucky?”
The Soldier came striding up to the glass, placing his flesh hand on the surface. “What was that? What did you do?”
“I can help you,” you breathed. “They took your memories away from you but I can give them back. I can help you figure out who you were before. I can help you; all I ask in return is that you help me out of here. Please. I don’t know what they’re planning to do with me, but I know it won’t be good. We can help each other. Neither of us have to work for Hydra, not anymore. Please, help me, and I can help you.”
He almost seemed to consider it for a moment, his eyes searching yours through the glass. But then, wordlessly, he removed his hand from the surface and kept walking on.
It would be hours before you saw another person. The place they held you didn’t have windows, so you had no idea whether it was day or night, or exactly how much time had passed.
At some point several men came in holding large guns, waiting outside of the cell as one of them unlocked it and entered.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he said. The tone brought bile into your mouth. “Ready to go?”
“Listen to me,” you tried to keep your voice steady but it was desperate, “I am not—”
“—The person we’re looking for, yeah, yeah, I heard,” he interrupted. “Unfortunately, the boss seems to think that you are, so my hands are kind of tied over here.” He wandered over to you, placing his hands over your wrists and leaning into your space. “You know, I can make this ride a whole lot smoother for you.”
Your stomach twisted. You felt like you were going to throw up. “Please let me go.”
“I’m starting to think that you might be telling the truth, sweetheart,” he said, but you knew better than to feel hopeful about the statement. “I mean, if you were really what they say you are, wouldn’t you have escaped by now?” He hummed. You could feel his breath on your face. “I don’t think you’ll hurt me, honey; I don’t think you could.” His hand was on your thigh now.
There was no Steve Rogers to save you this time.
“Stop,” you whispered. You wished your voice was bigger. Another hand reached under your shirt, to the bareness of your stomach. You struggled against the restraints. The hand on your thigh moved to the buttons on your pants, while the other hand skimmed your bra and rested on your shoulder, splaying across the tattoo there.
“STOP!” A purple colour filled the irises of your eyes, like poison seeping into your veins. A different sort of haze replaced the panic, and the man removed his hands and stood.
A drunkenness, a high, numbed your body and mind. “Remove the restraints,” you told him, your voice dripping with the same poison that coloured your irises. He took out his keys, his eyes glazed over, and unlocked the cuffs around your hands and feet.
Once you were free, you stood and rubbed your wrists. The men outside of the cell were none the wiser, facing away from the glass wall and ignoring what was happening inside.
The man within the cell blinked as if he was waking up. His face twisted and he reached for you. You raised your hand. He stopped. His hand went to the knife at his hip. He lifted the blade and pressed it to his throat without hesitation, dragging a steady line across it. Thick, hot blood sprayed your face. You blinked.
There was a part of you, a small part of you drowning under the purple haze that was beggingyou to stop. But you didn’t want to stop. You wanted to continue.
The men outside were paying attention now. They were yelling and holding up their guns and pointing them at you as you stepped closer to the entrance of the cell. Instead of walking out, you pressed your hand flat on the glass.
Some of the men shot themselves; some shot each other. They died either way, bleeding pools onto the smooth floor. You stepped out of the cell. Blood seeped into your shoes as you walked over the bodies and made your way out.
Waking up from your power-drunk high always left behind a hangover of depression and guilt, insomnia or nightmare-filled sleep, hopelessness and anger. It was bad when you had woken up in the hospital all those years ago, after you had escaped the people who had kidnapped you off the street and tortured you; and it was bad now.
But this was different. You had killed the population of one Hydra building. You didn’t know how many undercover Hydra agents there were, but you knew there were many more where that came from.
You weren’t sure how or why you ended up at the Smithsonian, but there you were. You half-remembered cleaning the blood from your face, scrubbing as if you belonged within a particular Shakespeare play. You half-remembered putting on a coat to cover the blood on your clothes, although you don’t remember where you got the coat. You think you ordered a taxi, but you don’t remember getting in, you don’t remember the ride, and you don’t remember getting out.
What you know now is that you’re walking through the museum, with no idea the destination. You walked for a long time; you walked until your feet ached. You still didn’t see the point of where you were.
But then.
But then.
Oh.
Like the first instance you came into contact with him, and almost every time after that, you felt him before you saw him. You were in the Captain America exhibit of the museum now. He had his hair tied back and he was wearing a hat. He was looking at the section on Bucky Barnes.
Oh. Oh.
Steve called him Bucky. Bucky like Bucky Barnes. Bucky like Steve Roger’s best friend. Captain America’s right hand man. Oh.
He didn’t look at you when you stood next to him, but you knew he had acknowledged your presence.
“Looks like you didn’t need my help after all,” he said.
“I did.” You felt like you were breaking. You scratched at your wrists. “I shouldn’t’ve had to do that. Now Hydra knows for sure what I am. Now they’ll never stop chasing me.”
He continued to stare ahead as he spoke. “What do you think would’ve happened if they haddecided that you weren’t who they thought you were? I know you’re not naive enough to think that they would’ve let you go.”
You crossed your arms over your body, hugging yourself. “If it meant that they wouldn’t have made me hurt anyone, then I could’ve lived with that.”
“No, you wouldn’t have.” His eyes — blue, so, so blue — were on you now. “Because they would have killed you. Because Hydra doesn’t leave loose ends.”
His eyes went back to the exhibit when you looked at him. You followed his gaze to the picture of Bucky Barnes. There was a brief silence between the two of you.
“My second day in the city I visited the Smithsonian,” you said. “I visited this exhibit.” You glanced at him. “I knew you looked familiar somehow.”
“What do you want from me?”
You turned your body to him. “Let me help you. I can fix your memories, put them back together. I’m not saying it would be easy, or quick, but I could do it.”
He turned his head to you, his eyes narrowed. “Why would you help me?”
You shrugged. “Would you believe me if I said I’m doing it out of the goodness of my heart?”
His expression didn’t change, but you got the point.
You sighed. “Fine. If you need a reason so badly then how about this: Hydra knows what I am now. I can’t afford to let them catch me again; I won’t let them catch me again. I need you to help me run from them. Don’t forget, Hydra is probably looking for you, too. We go on the run together; you keep Hydra from capturing me and I piece your memories back together.”
He glanced back at the exhibit. He was quiet for a long time.
“Okay.”
End Part 1
Chapter 5: Part 2 - Chapter Five: Bruises
Summary:
Steve makes a discovery. Your first memory session with Bucky doesn’t go so well.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Steve shifted in his hospital bed for the sixth time in five minutes. The bed wasn’t exactly uncomfortable, but being bedridden was making his limbs antsy. He needed to get up; he needed to move. Only he couldn’t. Because he was in the hospital.
He had been conscious for about a day and a half, but it already felt a day and a half too long. Sam was there when he woke up, which helped, but he needed out. He needed to find his best friend, he needed to help fix the mess with Hydra.
As he was contemplating signing himself out against doctor’s orders, Natasha strolled into his hospital room, a casual smile on her face. Steve knew better. Her smile was tight; it didn’t reach her eyes. She had a laptop in her hand.
“Hey old man,” she said easily, teasing. “Hip surgery go alright?”
“Nat,” Steve said, devoid of amusement, “what is it?”
Natasha set her expression into something more serious, and she took a seat on his bed. She opened the laptop. “There’s something you need to see.”
It was a video, specifically a security tape. Steve squinted at the black and white. It took him a moment to realize he was seeing Y/N, locked to a chair in a small cell. He sat up, his eyebrows knitting together.
“Listen to me,” Y/N was saying as a man was standing in front of her, “I am not—”
“The person we’re looking for, yeah, yeah, I heard,” the man interrupted her. “Unfortunately, the boss seems to think that you are, so my hands are kind of tied over here. You know, I can make this ride a whole lot smoother for you.”
Bile rose to Steve’s throat as the man advanced closer on her.
“ Please let me go. ”
“I’m starting to think that you might be telling the truth, sweetheart. I mean, if you were really what they say you are, wouldn’t you have escaped by now? I don’t think you’ll hurt me, honey; I don’t think you could.”
“ Stop. ”
Steve looked away as the man began roaming his hands. “Stop the video, I don’t need to see anymore. Just tell me what happened.”
“No,” Natasha said instead. “You need to see this, Steve.”
He gave her a confused look, but forced himself to return his attention to the security tape.
“ STOP! ”
Steve watched with surprise as the man took a step back.
“Remove the restraints.”
The man did exactly so. Steve’s mouth parted slightly. He didn’t understand what was happening. It wasn’t clicking. It didn’t click — not until the man slit his own throat.
“Shit,” Steve hissed. Natasha closed the laptop as the other agents began to shoot each other and themselves. Steve ran a hand down his face. “She lied to us.”
“Yes.”
“She lied to us. She looked me in the eye and told me she didn’t know why Hydra was after her.”
“I know.”
Steve sighed. “Where is she now?”
Natasha put the laptop next to her on the bed. “I don’t know. There are a few more tapes like this from the rest of the building — to summarize, anyone who came in contact with her ends up dead. We have her on tape leaving the building and I was able to track her for a few hours through traffic cams, but Steve…we found this Hydra building days after this happened. If I had seen the security tape a couple hours after, even a day after, I might have been able to track her to her current location. But for now, I don’t know where she ended up. Steve, I’m sorry. I know you were trying to help her.”
Steve sighed, again. “She’s out of Hydra’s hands now, that’s the important thing. Keep looking for her. There’s a chance that she didn’t know what she was doing when she killed those Hydra agents.”
Natasha nodded and got up, taking the laptop with her. She made it to the door when Steve stopped her.
“And Nat? Erase the security tape from the Hydra building. Hydra may be after her, but I don’t want the United States government to be after her, too.”
A Few Days Earlier
“Okay. Fine.” The Soldier finally broke his attention from the exhibit to look at you. “How do we do this?”
To be honest, you didn’t think you’d get this far. You had showed up at the Smithsonian without any idea why, and you had found the Winter Soldier standing in the middle of the Captain America exhibit. At this point, everything you were doing was improvisation. You thought for a second, licking your lips, your mouth parted as you grasped for what to do next. “… .We need to go somewhere quiet. Somewhere we won’t be interrupted — or found, especially not by Hydra.”
The Soldier took a moment to think, then his eyes began scanning the room, his head moving subtly. It was as if he was looking for something, or…trying to memorize the layout. But before you could ask him what he was doing, he grabbed your arm — not exactly gently — and began pulling you down the hall. He did it in a way that was almost inconspicuous: he had you attached to his side, making it look like he was leading you rather than forcing you along. It was almost inconspicuous, given your struggle against his strong grip. He was wearing a glove, but you could tell from the lack of warmth that it was his metal hand.
“What the hell,” you hissed under your breath as you walked.
“Cameras,” was all he offered. Your eyebrows knitted together and you turned your head to look around. As soon as you looked upwards, the Soldier’s hand reached over and grabbed your jaw, turning your head back. Your eyes grew wide in surprise as you gaped at him, his flesh hand warm on your face. “Don’t. Look.”
You kept staring at him even as he pulled his hand back and the two of you stopped outside a gift shop. “You need something to cover your face,” he said finally. Oh. Of course. Cameras. There were cameras everywhere.
His eyes scanned the shop. “There.” You followed his gaze to a hat rack, with hats like the one he was wearing. He glanced at you. “You’re a telepath. Have the cashier give it to you. Make it look like you’re buying it.”
No.
No.
No.
“I can’t do that,” you whispered. The image of a man pulling a knife across his own throat began to swirl within your mind.
The Soldier’s eyes narrowed at you. “If you can’t make people do what you want, then I’m starting to wonder why Hydra wanted you in the first place.”
You pressed your lips together. “I can, I just won’t. I won’t make someone do something against their will.” Not again.
“How exactly is it that you escaped Hydra? You asked nicely?”
You were barely keeping yourself together. He wasn’t helping. You gritted your teeth together. “I didn’t want to do that. If I had my way, I would’ve stayed there.” Your nails dug into your palms. “I wouldn’t have hurt anyone.”
You could feel his eyes on you but you were staring at the floor, using every bit of strength you had not to fall apart. He opened his mouth, but you beat him to it.
“I have money on me. I’ll pay for the hat.” You walked forward, but the Soldier caught your arm.
“Cash only.”
You pulled your arm back, probably more roughly than you should have in a public situation. “Fine.”
You moved into the shop, picking a black hat from the rack. It had the Captain America symbol on it, but so did all of them. You were anxious as you waited in line to pay. The Soldier was right — if Hydra recognized you on any of the cameras if wouldn’t take long to find you. And there was no telling how many cameras you had passed on the way here, how many you had passed as you were leaving the Hydra building.
Keep it together.
Your whole body was shaking by the time you got back to the Soldier, the Captain America hat worn nicely on your head, shadowing your identity. A headache was forming in the centre of your forehead, a pit of pain that was steadily intensifying.
Did I remember to lock the door?
This exhibit is so boring.
Steve Rogers was born July 4th, 1918, in Brooklyn, New York. His home life was—
Wow, the Howling Commandos were so cool!
Should I buy this keychain? I have so many already.
I’m gonna quit my job. I’m gonna do it tomorrow.
Boom, clap, the sound of my heart, the beat goes on and on and on and on and—
Wouldn’t it be cool if Captain America was in this exhibit right now?
The Howling Commandos were Captain America’s elite team of—
I’m all about that bass, ‘bout that bass— Fuck, why won’t that song get out of my—
What exhibit should we visit next?
The thoughts bombarded you as you read the minds of everyone, all at once, without your own consent. You squeezed your eyes shut and pressed your hand to your head, as if you were attempting to staunch blood-flow from a wound.
“Hey.”
A hand gripped your upper arm, tight — but flesh. You opened your eyes. You hadn’t realized you had leaned against the wall to keep your balance. The Soldier was giving you a steel gaze; it said, Keep it together.
The breath you took was far from steady, but the voices began to fade until they were a quiet whisper at the back of your mind.
“We have to go,” he said. You nodded.
“Okay. Okay.”
“How much cash do you have on you?”
“I-I don’t know. Fifty dollars maybe?”
His eyes flicked back and forth, as if he was calculating options. He seemed to settle on one, because he took your arm and once again began leading you down the hall. This time, you let him.
The motel the Soldier found for the two of you was incredibly cheap: in expense, looks, and atmosphere. But it was $40 for the night, meaning tomorrow would be a very different story. For now you at least had hot running water.
You took a shower first. There was still blood on your skin that you hadn’t washed off before. There wasn’t any complementary shampoo, but there was a bar of soap, and that was good enough. The steady stream of water was a white noise that blocked out everything else. A single solitary moment of peace.
You had to put back on your blood-stained clothes when you got out of the shower. The thought was horrifying, but you had nothing else.
The Soldier gave you a once-over when you came out of the bathroom, having not seen what was under your coat earlier. It felt like he was sizing you up, like he was assessing a threat. Thankfully, he said nothing.
You sat down cross-legged in the space in front of the beds. You gestured for the Soldier to sit down in front of you. He did.
“Okay.” You were trying to figure out how to begin. The Soldier’s mind was a void, filled with scattered and broken pieces of memories. Putting that all back together…putting over ninety years worth of memories back together… .It was going to take some time.
You finally settled on a starting point. “What’s the first thing that you can remember? Your earliest coherent memory?”
His eyebrows knitted together in thought, and you let your mind wander to his. You thought you would find something that was in the Hydra building, like a memory that had to do with him being dragged away after his memory was wiped. But the mind is a funny thing, and it has a tendency to flip around when making associations. You saw the tail-end of a memory with Alexander Pierce, the name “Steve Rogers” coming out of his mouth — and the thought changed.
Steve Rogers was pinned underneath you, his face a mosaic of cuts and bruises. Your metal fist was raised, almost hesitating. Debris fell around you, metal creaking and foundations breaking.
“Then finish it,” Steve said, his breathing harsh. “‘Cause I’m with you ‘till the end of the line.”
Tears sprung to your eyes as the words washed over you, a feeling of familiarity beginning to—
Sudden pain bloomed in your wrist as the Soldier grabbed it harshly with his metal hand, ripping you from his memory. A noise left your mouth as the grip tightened.
“You were in my head,” he growled, tugging your arm and therefore your upper body forward, leveling his gaze with yours. “I could feel you in my head.”
You didn’t understand. He felt you in his head? That didn’t happen. That never happened. People didn’t know when you intruded inside their mind. They couldn’t.
You thought they couldn’t.
You gaped at him, not knowing what to say. “I’m trying to put your mind back together,” you said when you collected your thoughts. It was hard not to focus on the pain he was inflicting on you. “I need to go inside your head to do that — Ah.” Your breath hissed through your teeth and your eyes shut for a moment before returning them to his. “You’re hurting me.”
His lips were pressed in a tight line; his eyes were narrowed. He didn’t ease up. Tears pricked at the corners of your eyes.
“Please. Bucky.”
He blinked and released your wrist at the mention of his name. You took a deep breath and cradled your wrist to your chest, inspecting it. It was definitely going to be bruised tomorrow.
“I’m sorry,” you heard him say quietly, and you were about to snap back something cruel in response, but then you looked up at him and your words failed you.
He was avoiding your gaze. His jaw was clenched, his mouth pulled into a frown. His metal hand was clenched tightly at his side, his eyes…sad.
It occurred to you for the first time since coming in contact with him that maybe he didn’t know his own strength. The time that he had actually spent conscious and not frozen in ice was a delicate combination of hurting, killing, and having his mind erased. To go into his mind without telling him… .He was lashing out in the only way he knew how.
“I shouldn’t have gone inside your head without asking you,” you said in a small voice. “I promise I won’t do it again without letting you know first. Okay?” You tried to catch his eyes, but his jaw just kept clenching and unclenching. “Bucky?”
His head snapped back to you. “Don’t call me that.” His words weren’t harsh. They sounded tired.
“But that’s your name,” you said softly. He shook his head.
“That’s…his name. The man from the 40s. It’s not…me.”
“But it is you,” you insisted gently. “You’re Bucky Barnes. Howling Commando, Captain America’s best friend.”
“No,” he said firmly. His eyes travelled down to your wrist. “Not anymore.”
The amount of guilt that he must have been feeling in that moment…the way he talked about who he used to be…as if he didn’t deserve his name… .It reminded you of your own guilt. It reminded you of the way you felt different from who you used to be.
There would be bruises over your tattoo.
“Then what do you want me to call you?” you asked after a long time.
“I don’t know.”
You thought about it for a moment. “How about James? It’s still your name, but it’s not…it’s not him. He didn’t go by that name.”
He seemed unsure, but after a few seconds he agreed. “Fine. James.”
“Good. Okay.” You took a breath. “Okay.”
This was going to take longer than you thought.
Notes:
A/N: And so we begin Part 2. You’re going to see a lot more of Bucky Barnes in these next chapters! This chapter was kind of a set up for Part 2, so hopefully there will be more content in the next one. I hope you guys are still liking the story! Thanks for reading!
~Comments make the world go round~ ~You never know when I have the next chapter written and I'm waiting for feedback to post it~
Chapter 6: Part 2 - Chapter Six: The Corridor
Summary:
You show the Soldier the memories that you have of him.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“Do you want to stop or do you want to keep going?”
You were trying to catch his eye, but he just kept staring at your wrist, his jaw clenching and unclenching over and over. You were about to call it a night after absolutely zero progress when he finally opened his mouth.
“We can keep going.”
You gave him a small smile that you hoped was reassuring. “Okay.” You took a breath, thinking. “Okay, we’re going to try something different. Instead of going into your mind, I’m going to show you what I know. They won’t be your memories, but you’ll be in them, and it’ll give your mind something to build off of.”
He said nothing in response, only nodding silently.
“I’m going to show you something now. Is that okay?”
He hesitated, swallowing. Then he took one last glance at your wrist, and nodded again.
“Alright. Here we go.” You pressed the pads of your pointer and middle finger to your temple. You closed your eyes and thought of the memory.
The small hotel room began blurring like paint under water. The colours of the wall, the beds, the floor, all began dripping into each other. Reality washed away, running down and revealing a darker room, not slow and not fast, from top to bottom.
You opened your eyes and found yourself in the small prison room, the room with the glass wall, the room in the Hydra building with the machine that erases memories. The two of you stood on either side of the chair in the middle of the room, the chair that was currently being filled by a past version of yourself.
The Soldier scanned his surroundings, obviously momentarily stunned by the change in scenery. He looked down at you, the past you, for a moment before his head snapped up at the sound of footsteps.
He watched his past self as he crossed the room in front of you.
“Hey,” your past self said to his past self. “Hey!”
“Do you remember this?” you asked him, the current version of him.
“Do you remember me?”
“No.”
“Yeah,” he answered.
“This is my last memory of you, before…I escaped,” you explained over your past self as she continued to speak. “But this must be your first memory of me, right?”
He stiffened as his past self advanced on the glass wall, instinct likely preparing him for a possible fight.
“What was that? What did you do?”
The Soldier turned his attention to you, the current you, as the past you talked. “You put a memory into my head,” he stated. “My memory, not yours.”
Suddenly, the truth of what you had done, that you had gone inside his head and taken that memory…made you feel shameful. “I…I saw that memory before they wiped you. It’s the only one I have that’s yours.”
“… .He was in it. Captain America.”
“I think it’s the first time he recognized you,” you explained.
He nodded, seemingly lost in thought.
“Please, help me, and I can help you,” your past self was saying. His past self stayed for a moment before leaving you behind.
Both you and your past self shared a similar look as you watched the Soldier’s past self walk away: your past self anxious with what’s to come, your current self horrified at what had passed.
You could feel the Soldier’s eyes on you. “… .What happened after I left?” he asked after a moment.
You avoided looking back at him for what felt like a long time. You turned back to meet his gaze. “We’re going to go back to my first memory of you, now.” You inclined your head. “Come on.”
You walked to the entrance of the small prison room and placed your hand on the handle. Instead of being locked, the door opened at your touch — just not out into the room through the glass. Rather, it opened into a seemingly endless corridor, with doors on each wall that extended on and on and on.
The Soldier, confused, looked through the glass plane to the room on the other side (seeing no evidence of a corridor behind the wall), then through the door again. “What is that?”
You gestured for him to step through, waiting for him to enter before explaining. He hesitated for a second, then stepped around the chair where your past self was bound and walked into the corridor.
You went in after him and closed the door behind you. The corridor was quiet and dimly lit, although it wasn’t difficult to see. The corridor — walls, ceiling, floor, doors — were a deep purple. “This is the visual representation of my subconscious,” you said as he looked around. “It makes it easier to organize memories, find things I’d thought I’d forgotten.”
His attention found you again. “Is this what you’re going to do for my mind?”
“I was considering it. Right now your mind is…well, to put it simply, disorganized. It might be better to create something like this, that way we can start fixing your memories in a structured way. It’ll help your mind help itself, too. If you’re okay with that,” you added, trying to discern his feelings on the matter. He hummed in a sort of non-commital way, his attention no longer on you, but rather on the door next to the one you had just left.
“Why is this door covered in red paint?” he asked, and he pressed his hand to the surface. It came back scarlet.
You could feel the spray of hot liquid on your face as you remembered the man who pulled a knife across his throat. You could hear the gunshots as they men shot each other, shot themselves.
You wished it was red paint.
“This is a visual representation of my mind,” you repeated. “Some of the doors are different.” You swiped the pads of your fingers across the door, looking at the red that came off on your skin. “This reminds me not to go in.” You balled your hand into a fist, and when you opened it, the scarlet was gone.
He looked down at his own hand and did the same. You began leading him down the hall as you looked for the next memory to show him.
“Why?” he asked as he caught up to you.
“I thought a skeleton on the closet would be too on the nose,” you said, giving him a small amused smile.
“Not…why the red paint. Why won’t you go in?” he clarified.
You hugged yourself, staring at the floor as you walked. “We all have things we wish we could forget.”
He was quiet as the two of you continued down the corridor. It wasn’t long before you came to the door that held the next memory.
“Why don’t you?” he asked.
You gave him a strange look. “Why don’t I what?”
“Forget. You created…all of this. Why not create a place to put things you don’t want to remember anymore?”
You felt like you were grasping for an answer. “I can’t.”
His eyebrows raised. “You can’t?”
You sighed. “I won’t. I’m not saying there aren’t times where I’ve thought about it, but… .It’s something that I was taught when I was younger. The more you want to erase something, the more you’ll try to get that memory back once it’s gone. It’s…human nature. Nobody wants to be told, ‘It’s better if you don’t know’. As much as I want to forget, it’s just…” you took a breath, “not a good idea.”
He didn’t have a response to that, his eyes glancing downwards. He pursed his lips as if he was thinking, then looked up at the door you brought him to. You took that as a sign to continue.
You placed your hand on the door handle, and turned it.
The door opened into a hallway of an apartment complex, specifically your apartment complex. Ahead of you was the door to your apartment, along with your past self and Steve Rogers. Steve was in the process of unlocking the door.
“That’s him,” the Soldier said, referring to Steve. He turned to look at you. “You know him?”
“This memory is from a few days ago. I had met him in a bar that night. This night. I called him when I felt that there was someone in my apartment. You,” you specified.
He gave you a strange look. “I was in your apartment?”
You gestured to the memory ahead of you. The two of you watched as Steve and your past self walked through the door, then your past self was trapped by a knife in her sleeve as Steve went after the man who threw it. The Winter Soldier.
It felt like it was over as soon as it began. Your past self was able to free her hand from the knife and ran out the door, stumbling and tripping between your current self and the Soldier, the current Soldier.
“He ran off through the fire escape,” Steve was saying as he approached you, the past you. “Do you know who that was?”
You thought the Soldier would have his attention on Captain America, as he often did, but he didn’t; his attention was on you. He was looking at you like he was confused, like there was something he wasn’t putting together.
“It’s not the greatest memory,” you said. “I couldn’t see your face, not really. It was kind of hard to focus in that moment.” You began walking back to the door, the door that would normally be the door to the stairwell, but in this case was the door to your subconscious. The Soldier didn’t follow. He was staring through to your apartment.
“… .James?” you said hesitantly, still unsure about using the name.
Without saying anything, he turned and walked over to you. You opened the door and the two of you walked through to the corridor, then began going back the way you came to a more recent memory. You were surprised at his silence, but didn’t ask any questions.
The next door you went through opened onto the street of Washington city. To your right was your past self, hiding behind a car as Steve and the past Winter Soldier fought on the road.
The two of you observed silently as the Winter Soldier, the past Winter Soldier, grabbed you from behind and began pulling you down the street as you screamed for help. You could feel the Soldier, the current Soldier, stiffen next to you as he watched the scene play out.
You watched as your past self pressed her hand to his head. You watched him drop you.
“What did they do to you?”
The Soldier, the past Soldier, only hesitated a moment before being snapped out of his trance by Steve yelling your name. He punched a hole in your neck with a needle, and you fell unconscious.
The memory stuttered, then flashed forward to the Winter Soldier falling onto the ground, his mask falling off.
“Wait, what is this?” the Soldier, the current Soldier, asked you. “You’re unconscious. You couldn’t have remembered this.”
That shameful feeling creeped up on you again. “… .It’s called Story-Building, it’s a telepathic technique. I took your memory and added it to mine; it helps to see the bigger picture of things.”
“… .Bucky?”
“Who the hell is Bucky?”
The memory paused there, with nothing more to go off of. “That’s all I have of that,” you said. “I don’t know what happened after, but I know that I ended up in the hands of Hydra, so you must have won that fight against Steve and brought me to them.”
It was like taking a breath after being underwater for a long time. Suddenly, you were back in reality, in the small hotel room sitting across from the Soldier. Only, he wasn’t sitting anymore. He was standing, pacing, in front of you.
Disorientated by the switch, you gave him a confused look. “What just happened? What’s wrong?”
“Why are you helping me?” he asked you in a accusatory tone.
You blinked at him, still a bit stunned. “What? I told you, you help me and I help—”
“I was the one who kidnapped you. I was the one who took you to Hydra. It’s my fault that you’re in this mess, and you want me to believe that you’re just going to help the person who did this to you?”
Oh. He didn’t know. He didn’t know that he was the one that Hydra sent to collect you. He didn’t know that he completed his mission. But you showed him everything.
“James, listen to me.” You stood up to face him. “This isn’t your fault. Hydra was always going to find me, okay? If it wasn’t you, it would’ve been someone else. I wasn’t careful enough, and they found me, and they took me. They did this, not you. They made you do this.”
“But I still did it,” he insisted. “I’m still the person who kidnapped you. You should be terrified of me: you were, I felt it in your memories. So why are you helping me?”
Your teeth were clenched together so hard you thought they might break. You did all you could to keep your breathing steady, to keep tears from leaving your eyes. Your throat felt tight; your body was shaking. You dug your nails into the tattooed bands around your non-bruised wrist.
Keep it together.
“If I can help you,” you began, your words barely a whisper, “then maybe I can make up for what I’ve done, okay?”
He looked at you for a long time, his blue eyes studying you. Then, silently, he nodded.
You breathed and broke your gaze from his. “We should get some sleep,” you murmured, heading over to your bed. You were about to get under the covers when you realized the Soldier was still standing there, looking hesitant.
“I don’t know if I can,” he said after a moment.
You raised your eyebrows at him.
“Sleep,” he clarified.
You hadn’t thought about that. You wondered if he even remembered a time where he had slept. “Just…lay down, close your eyes. Sleep is good for memory building; it’s the time where your mind files away the memories from the day.”
He considered this for a moment, then laid down on the bed, on top of the covers, crossing his arms over his chest. He shifted and closed his eyes.
Not even five seconds later he opened them and got back up, going to sit in the chair at the small table by the window. He peeked through the curtains.
“Hey,” you said, a question in your tone.
“I should keep watch,” he replied.
“You have to sleep,” you told him. “You need to sleep.”
“I’ll sleep later,” was all he said, and you were too tired to try to get him to do anything else.
With a final stretch, you slipped off your blood-splattered shirt and pulled the covers over you, slowly falling into unconsciousness.
Notes:
A/N: I really really like this chapter and I hope you like it to! Might I remind you that feedback is always appreciated! (I still have two additional chapters already written and just waiting to be posted!)
Chapter 7: Part 2 - Chapter Seven: Fly Away Birdie
Summary:
The Soldier asks you about your tattoo. The two of you attempt to leave the country.
Notes:
Thank you to the people who commented on Chapter Five and Chapter Six, this chapter would've have been posted without them. And don't forget, I still have a whole other chapter written that I haven't posted yet, so don't be shy, leave a comment!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
You woke with a start and sat up, your breathing heavy, the nightmare still clouding the corners of your mind. A cold sweat covered your back and neck and chest, making you feel hot and uncomfortable. The blankets were pooled at your waist, letting the air cool your skin.
You looked around, a bit frantically, and found your eyes on the Soldier, who was still sitting at the table by the window. He was staring at you.
Trying to calm your breathing, you glanced at the time. It was 5:00am. You gave the Soldier a pointed look. “Please don’t tell me you’ve been sitting there all night.”
“Okay. I haven’t been sitting here all night.”
You made an annoyed noise. “You know I don’t have to read your mind to know when you’re lying, right?” He ignored the comment. “Do you remember what I said about needing sleep?”
“I had to make sure Hydra wasn’t tracking us.”
You sighed. “If they haven’t caught up to us by now then they don’t know where we are. We have a few hours before we need to get going. Lie down. Sleep.”
He glanced out the window. “I should—”
“Please don’t make me get up and drag you into bed, it’s too early for that.” You blinked at him, your eyelids heavy.
He pressed his lips together and looked at you for a moment. Then he got up and laid down on the bed.
“Thank you,” you breathed, and curled back down under the covers.
You woke up again a few hours later, this time naturally. The first thing you did was look at the clock. 8:30am — that was probably a good time to get up and start figuring out what you were going to do next.
You turned over to look at the bed next to you, only to find it empty. The Soldier, who was sitting by the window again, turned his attention to you when he heard you shifting. You sat up and opened your mouth to chastise him again, but he spoke before you could.
“I slept,” he said.
“How long?”
“A couple hours.”
Well, it was something, at least. You nodded, then turned your back to him as you shifted your body to touch your feet to the floor. You stretched your arms out, rolling your head as you tried to get out the kinks left by the uncomfortable motel bed.
“Your tattoo.” You froze at the sound of the Soldier’s voice. “The fire-bird. What’s it for?”
Shit. You slipped up. You couldn’t stand the idea of sleeping with your blood-stained shirt on and so you slept in your bra. Except for under the straps, he could see the entire expanse of your tattoo — from the body of the bird made flame that stretched over your back, the head that rested at the base of your neck, to the wings that expanded over your shoulders and down your arms, growing narrower and narrower until the tips reached the outer edges of your pinkies.
You grabbed the blood-stained shirt and quickly pulled it over your head, covering the majority of the orange ink. You stood and walked over to him.
“Let me make this very clear,” you started as you stood above him where he sat in the chair by the window, “If you want my help, then you can’t ask me about my tattoo.”
He seemed stunned by the sudden change in tone. “What?”
“You ask any more questions, and I walk out that door, right now, and I’m not taking you with me. Do you understand?”
The Soldier slowly stood, towering over you. “Hydra’s still after you. You need my help.”
You held your ground. “I don’t.” You were bluffing. Mostly. “I could be doing this on my own; I don’t need you.” You could probably stay out of Hydra’s hands for a little while, but not forever. It definitely helped to have a highly trained assassin watch your back. “I’m helping you to save your soul, and mine. But compromising the safety of myself? Compromising your safety? Isn’t worth that redemption.”
His eyes narrowed, and he took a step closer. “What could be so dangerous about a tattoo?”
You held his gaze for a steady few seconds before turning sharply on your heel. You put on your shoes, grabbed your coat, and walked toward the door.
Stop me. Stop me. Stop me.
Please.
Your hand was on the door handle when he finally spoke. “Okay.” You stilled your movements. “Fine. I won’t ask questions. Just — don’t leave.”
You took a breath, then turned back around. “Thank you.”
He nodded, looking slightly distressed. You put down your coat and walked back over to him. You sat down on his bed.
“Okay,” you said. “Now we have to talk about what comes next. What now? Where do we go from here?”
He sat back down in the chair. “We need to get out of the country. Far out of the country. Somewhere it’ll take Hydra a long time to track us.”
You folded your arms over your chest. “And how do we do that? I have nowhere near enough money on me for a flight for both of us. I barely have enough for breakfast. And I’ve seen enough TV to know that it probably isn’t a good idea to take out money from my bank account, right?”
“Buying tickets for a flight wouldn’t work, anyway,” he replied. “Airports have too many cameras. And there’s the issue with passports. It wouldn’t take long for Hydra to I.D. you that way.”
You sighed, shaking your head. “You don’t even own a passport, do you? I guess you wouldn’t need one, Hydra probably has their own form of transportation.”
He looked at you at that.
“What?” you asked.
“I can fly a plane,” he responded. It took you a second to catch on.
“No,” you said firmly. “No, no, no, no, no — we are not stealing a plane from a Hydra base!” You stood.
“We don’t have much of a choice.”
“Yes we do. We can choose not to go on a suicide mission!” Your words were becoming increasingly panicked. “Do you even know where Hydra has an air-force base in Washington?”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “There’s one not far from where they took you to. Where I took you to.” You didn’t miss the way he corrected himself, his mouth twitching downwards.
“Do you know the layout?”
“No.”
“Well, there we go, we can’t go rushing in there without—”
“—But you do.”
You were momentarily stunned, your mouth left open. You closed it, your jaw clenching. He was talking about your telepathy. It wouldn’t take you long to find the layout from the mind of an unsuspecting Hydra agent. You rubbed your arm, avoiding his gaze. You didn’t have any more arguments.
He stood up from his chair to match your level. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” he said. “… .I need you.”
You looked back at him, searching his blue eyes.
“I need my memories back,” he added, “and I’m not going to do anything to jeopardize that. I’m not asking you to trust me, but I am asking you to trust how much I need you not to be dead, or captured. Okay?”
Eyes wide and eyebrows knitted together in concern, you took a deep breath. “You’re sure this is our only option?”
He held your gaze, and nodded.
Fuck. Hydra base it is.
First stop was a laundromat. The Soldier had made a point that you couldn’t keep walking around wearing blood-stained clothing, especially if you were planning on sneaking onto a Hydra base. Which meant, as much as you didn’t like the idea of it, stealing clothes.
There was a laundromat walking distance from the motel. There were only a couple people inside when the two of you walked in. Neither of them paid any attention to you.
Lucky for you (and unlucky for someone else), someone had left their clothes unattended in the dryer. There was a small chance that the clothes would even fit you, so you couldn’t afford to be picky with what did.
Miraculously, the dryer had women’s clothes inside — it was a load of darks, mostly with jeans and shorts and only one shirt, dark grey in colour.
Making sure no one was looking (and within what the Soldier told you was a camera blindspot), you quickly changed into a pair of pants and the grey long-sleeve. You scowled as you assessed the outfit you now wore. The jeans were fine, a little bit long on you, but otherwise they fit. It was the shirt. What seemed like a normal long-sleeved shirt was actually a long-sleeved crop-top, exposing the skin of your stomach and lower back.
If you didn’t have the tattoo, maybe you would have liked it. But you did have the tattoo, and given that it put a target literally on your back, you hated wearing shirts that showed it off. Short sleeves (summers were hell), backless dresses, crop-tops: they were never an option for you.
Except now. Now it was your only option.
You tapped on the Soldier’s shoulder and he turned around to face you. He gave you a once over, his expression unreadable.
You rested your hands on your bare stomach. “It’s the only shirt there was.”
He considered this for a moment, then shrugged off his jacket. Wordlessly, he held it out for you. Your mouth parting slightly, slowly you reached out and took it from him.
“Thank you,” you said, your tone somewhat surprised but no less sincere. You slipped your arms through the sleeves and over your shoulders. It didn’t zip up, so you could still see your stomach, but at least it covered your back.
The two of you left the laundromat, and you followed the Soldier as he led you into an alleyway. Then he punched his elbow through the driver’s side of a car window.
You jumped at the sound it made. “Hey,” you hissed, joining him at the side of the car as he unlocked the door from within and his upper body disappeared inside. “Someone could have heard that.”
He was hot-wiring the car. In a few seconds, the engine was purring. He slid into the driver’s seat. “Get in.”
You sighed in exasperation, but walked to the other side of the car anyway.
You left the car behind as you walked onto the Hydra base. Your stomach churned with nervousness; at some point during the drive, you realized that this was the base you would’ve been taken to had Hydra succeeded in putting you on a plane to Sokovia. Just the thought of how close you’d been to the point of no return… .You were starting to panic.
You don’t know if the Soldier noticed or not, but either way he pulled you aside. “Repeat back to me what I told you.”
You took a shaky breath. “Find someone. Pull the layout of the base from their mind and figure out where the airplane hanger is. Don’t be seen.”
He nodded, then gestured for you to follow him. Your hats covered your faces, keeping your identity hidden from the cameras you knew you would encounter eventually. (Thankfully, the Soldier had ripped the Captain America logo off of yours — less conspicuous that way.) The two of you paused outside the entrance, hidden as someone walked inside. The Soldier caught the door before it could close and you both snuck in behind them.
You stretched out your mind and searched the person’s head for the layout plans, careful not to be seen.
“Well?” the Soldier prompted.
“Give me a second.”
He was impatient. “Do you have it or not?”
“Hang on.”
The farther away the person walked, the more you were slipping on your grip. Come on, come on —
THERE!
“Okay, got it,” you said, and you started down the hall, following the memory you had taken. You were so focused that you couldn’t even tell if the Soldier was behind you or not. You turned left, then right, then right again. You continued down the hall —
— and suddenly you were being pulled into a side corridor. Your small cry of surprise was muffled by a hand over your mouth; something cold pressed onto your bare stomach and pinned you against a warm body behind you.
“Quiet. Listen,” the Soldier’s voice hissed into your ear. It sent an involuntary shiver down your spine. You breathed through your nose; you realized the cold you were feeling was his metal hand splayed over your skin.
The Soldier moved his flesh hand from your mouth and rested his arm across your collarbone, hand now gripping your shoulder. You could hear footsteps now, and talking. You held your breath as two Hydra agents walked down the hall you were previously on. You would’ve walked right into them had the Soldier not pulled you aside.
You waited for a good minute and a half after you couldn’t hear them anymore before he whispered, “Okay.”
You continued following the memory down the hall, this time always making sure the Soldier was right behind you in case he heard something you didn’t.
You walked for another five minutes before turning a corner — and smacking right into someone else.
You bumped back into the Soldier, who steadied you. The person you had ran into caught the wall with his hand, then narrowed his eyes at you.
“Who are you?” he asked. “Where’s your I.D.?”
The Soldier slowly moved in front of you, using his flesh hand to push you behind him. The man’s eyes caught the Soldier’s metal hand, and his eyes grew wide.
“Shit—” He reached for the gun at his hip, but the Soldier was quicker. He wrestled the man’s hand for possession of the gun — and it went off, hitting neither of them but creating a hole in the wall.
Neither TV nor movies had prepared you for how loud the sound of a gun was. Sure, you had heard gunfire on the bridge the day the Winter Soldier kidnapped you, but that was different, you were on a highway. This was a quiet hallway at close range.
Your ears were ringing.
The Soldier smashed his elbow into the man’s nose; he fell, blood spurting down his face, and the Soldier held the gun up to his head.
“No!” you shouted, moving his arm just in time as he pulled the trigger and the bullet nicked the man’s ear. The man made a noise of pain, but didn’t move as the gun was still technically trained on him.
The Soldier narrowed his eyes at you and opened his mouth, probably to ask you what the hell you were doing, when you spoke first.
“Please don’t kill him,” you said, frantic.
“What?”
Suddenly, a loud alarm went off overhead, the hallway being washed in pulsating red light. The gunshots must have tipped them off. You rushed your sentences. “Look, this isn’t about your morality right now, okay, it’s about mine. Please, for me, don’t kill him.”
The Soldier looked back at the man, gun pointed at his head. He scowled, his teeth grinding together. He made a noise of frustration, then smashed the butt of the gun into the man’s forehead. He fell over, unconscious.
You gaped at the Soldier as he tucked the gun into the waistline of his pants. “We need to hurry,” was all he said, and you nodded, continuing to lead him down the hall.
This time the two of you ran, knowing there would be Hydra agents on your tail any second now.
“How much farther?”
“Almost there!”
You came to the door of the hanger. You pressed the large red button that you knew would open it. It moved up slowly.
“Come on come on come on,” you said, agitated.
“They’re almost here,” the Soldier told you, “Crawl under.”
You knelt and rolled under the small space the door had opened. You waited for the Soldier to follow. Instead, the door began to close again.
“Hey!” You pressed your hands to the metal, as if you could keep it from moving downwards. It met the floor.
“James?” you asked, panicking. The sound of gunfire rang on the other side of the door. You hit the wall of metal. “JAMES!”
More gunfire. The sound of fighting. Shouting. It went on for a while until it stopped, and the only thing you could hear was the alarm going off. It might as well have been silence.
The door began opening again. You backed up slowly, fear creeping in and spreading through your entire body. What if this was it? What if this was the moment Hydra finally got you, for good this time?
You couldn’t let that happen.
You wouldn’t let that happen.
You saw a rack of handguns attached to a nearby wall. You grabbed one, the weight of it heavy in your hand. You watched the door as it moved up, slowly, slowly. You lifted the gun—
—and dropped it as the Soldier ducked out from under the door. He reached his arm under to press the button, then pulled it back as it began closing again.
He passed you on the way to one of the planes. “Come on.”
You got into one of the jets — small, but one of those fancy ones that had nice seats and an open space in the middle. The Soldier went for the cockpit and sat, quickly pressing buttons and flipping switches.
You sat in the co-pilot’s seat. Your voice was small. It was a whisper. “… .Did you kill them?”
The plane began moving forward and out of the hanger. As soon as you were far enough out, the Soldier sped up and the jet began to fly.
“I closed the door,” he finally answered. He didn’t explain what he meant. He didn’t need to.
He closed the door. For you. He closed the door for you.
Your ears were ringing.
Notes:
I am so absolutely proud of this chapter, so I hope you liked it!
Chapter 8: Part 2 - Chapter Eight: Responsibility (To Them, To You)
Summary:
A familiar face comes to talk with you. You worry about your future.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
You looked around the pitch black room you suddenly found yourself in, an endless void with no walls or structures of any kind. Despite the blackness, you could still see. There was silence, no noise — until you took a step, and your shoes made an echo that went on and on and on into the vastness.
“You don’t make it easy to find you, do you, Y/N?”
You closed your eyes, jaw clenching at the voice. You turned, your steps making echos where voices did not.
“Emma,” you said curtly to the pale blonde woman who now stood before you, “What are you doing? How are you here?” Even the strongest telepaths had a finite range when it came to telepathic conversations.
“A asked a favour of a friend,” she replied. “They allowed me to use their telepathic amplifier to find you.”
You ground your teeth together. There was only one place that had an amplifier like that. “What the hell are you doing in New York, Emma?”
“It’s been a while since I last visited, so I came to see you — only to find that you were no longer living there. Tell me, when exactly were you planning on telling us you had moved?”
You crossed your arms over your chest. “I left New York barely a week ago, I was going to call you eventually.”
She hummed. “And where are you off to now? I can tell you’re over the Atlantic. Taking a trip so soon after moving?”
You gave her a fake smile. “None of your business, Emma.”
“It absolutely is my business, Y/N,” she said. “Might I remind you that you have an important responsibility to uphold. You have been chosen for something…absolutely incredible, incomparable to anything else. This is your reason for being, Y/N; the good that we will be able to do—”
“I don’t want it,” you interrupted, your breathing becoming shallow.
“Y/N,” she said calmly, comfortingly, “I know this can be scary—”
“No,” you said firmly. “Fuck your responsibility.”
She gave you a look, half concerned, half scolding. “Y/N—”
“Do you have any idea what I’ve been through the past few days?” you yelled at her, tears stinging the corners of your eyes. “Do you have any idea what this—” you held up your arm and wrapped your hand around part of your tattoo “—has put me through?! You put a target on my back! You chose this for me but I don’t want it! Give it to someone else!”
You knew she was worried now; your mentor had always showed more concern for your personal well-being than the others did (sometimes you thought even more than your own parents). “You know that we can’t do that; you know it can’t be anyone else, that’s what Irene showed you.”
You scratched at your wrists, your mind going into overdrive at the mention of the seer. Emma stepped forward and grabbed your hands, holding them in her own.
“What happened, Y/N? What did you mean when you said there’s a target on your back? Are you in danger?”
You pushed her away, your hands balling up into fists at your side. “You should be careful who you let into your Circle, Emma. Someone’s been divulging secrets they shouldn’t be.”
“What are you talking about — what happened?”
“Go to Hell.”
She touched her hand to her head, her face pinching together in pain. She gave you a desperate look. “Please don’t shut me out, Y/N.” Her words began to feel far away. “You need us! This is going to happen, and when it does, you’ll need our help. Otherwise, you won’t be able to… .”
You woke with a start, Emma’s last words before you shut her out completely echoing in the edges of your mind.
You had fallen asleep in the co-pilot’s seat next to the Soldier as he flew the jet. You don’t remember falling asleep. You had been watching the open expanse of the sky for so long… .The blue and white… .
You felt sick.
You could feel the Soldier’s attention on you as you unbuckled your seat and got up, rather abruptly, and left the cockpit.
You didn’t even get the chance to take a good look at the fancy interior as you rushed to the plane bathroom and retched into the toilet.
There wasn’t much to throw up. You didn’t remember the last time you had eaten something. Wait, no, you got a protein bar from the vending machine at the motel. When was that? Last night? This morning?
Your head was spinning.
You started dry-heaving instead.
You know it can’t be anyone else, that’s what Irene showed you.
You sat on the floor of the small, cramped bathroom. It was twice the size of a normal plane bathroom, but that’s not really saying anything. You covered your mouth as panicked breaths came out in short bursts; sobs were choking your throat.
It can’t be anyone else.
Why did it have to be you? There were other telepaths just dying to take your place.
That’s what Irene showed you.
There was a locked box in your mind. It held only one memory.
This is your reason for being.
You were so tired.
It was a while before you re-joined the Soldier in the cockpit, sliding into the co-pilot’s chair without a word and continuing your observation of the sky, and the sea below.
It was ten minutes before you spoke.
“Where are we going?” You hated how hoarse your voice sounded.
“Whichever land-mass comes first,” he replied.
“Which would be…?”
“Spain, most likely.”
You nodded and said nothing else. There was another long silence — this time, broken by the Soldier.
“Can I ask you a question?”
You looked over at him, your eyes sad and exhausted. You raised your eyebrows at him, waiting for him to speak.
“Why didn’t you want me to kill that man?” he asked. Your eyebrows knitted together. “He was a Hydra agent. He wouldn’t have hesitated to kill you. And you said it had nothing to do with mymorality, so…what?”
Your shoulders moved up in a weak attempt at a shrug, and you shook your head. “I… .” your voice came out hollow, a whisper. You tried again. “I don’t like violence.”
“He deserved to die.”
Your eyes narrowed and you shook your head again, this time more meaningfully. “No one deserves to die. Not even him.” You stared back into the blue vastness. “It just continues the cycle of violence. I won’t be responsible for… .” Your throat felt swollen, and you couldn’t finish your sentence. You swallowed, and tried again. “I don’t want to hurt people. Doesn’t matter who they are. I don’t want to…I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
He was quiet for a moment, but not as long as before.
“What about the gun?”
You looked at him at that. “What?”
“When I came into the hanger, you were holding a gun.”
You pulled your knees up to your chest and hugged them. You avoided his gaze. “I wasn’t going to let Hydra take me again.”
“I thought you didn’t like violence.”
“I don’t.”
“So what was the gun for?”
You closed your eyes. “… .I wasn’t going to let Hydra take me again,” you repeated.
You felt his eyes on you. He looked at you for a long time. You knew at this point he understood. The gun wasn’t for them.
“I don’t want to die,” you said in a small voice. A tear escaped your eye and you quickly swiped it away. “But I couldn’t live with myself if Hydra made me hurt people.”
Out of the corner of your eye, you saw the Soldier’s jaw clench and his lips pull together; he refocused his attention out the window. It took you a few seconds to notice your mistake.
“James,” you breathed, “I didn’t mean—”
“Yeah, you did.”
And suddenly, as you looked at him, you felt a renewed sense of purpose, of being.
“I’m going to fix you,” you said, and you were surprised by how strong your voice had become. “I promise.”
“What if you can’t?” he asked, and he sounded distressed all of the sudden, like it was a question he had been waiting to get out. “How do you know that my memories aren’t gone, permanently?”
You thought about this. “I know because you can fly a plane.”
He gave you a strange look. “What?”
“You can fly a plane. You can fight, drive a car. You told me things about Hydra, small details, but you told me them. These are all things you couldn’t have learned in the time between your last memory wipe and now. This is how I know your memories are still there. Hydra left cracks on purpose so they wouldn’t have to re-teach you everything — and that means that they didn’t erase everything. Your memories are there, I just have to find a way to get them out.”
You could see the tension leaving his shoulders. He looked back over at you with a different sort of intensity, like he was studying you, analyzing you.
“There’s food in the back,” he finally said. “You should eat something.”
Taking a deep breath, you nodded, then got up and left the cockpit.
This is your reason for being.
Bullshit.
You were going to fix Bucky Barnes.
And you weren’t going to think about Irene’s vision of your future.
Notes:
A/N: So this was a chapter that was very heavy on the Reader’s backstory. There are some clues I’ve thrown in there about what the hell exactly is going on, but it’s gonna take a dedicated detective to sort that out!
Chapter 9: Part 2 - Chapter Nine: Staircases
Summary:
You go over what happened between the time the Soldier left you and the time you met him in the Smithsonian. You get a better handle on the structure of his mind. Nightmares continue to plague you.
Notes:
Dedicated to my friend friendly-neighborhood-lich-queen <3
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
You were wide awake when you finally landed somewhere in Spain, despite it being pitch black outside. You were on a remote piece of land the Soldier told you would probably be safe. Probably.
“We’ll stay in the plane for tonight,” the Soldier said, shortly after landing, as he got up and moved out of the cockpit. You followed him.
“And tomorrow?” you asked.
He gave you a noncommittal gesture, his shoulders moving up slightly. You sighed.
“Well, I know I won’t be going to sleep any time soon because of the jetlag, so…maybe I can take a look at what I’m working with?” You were referring to the current state of his mind.
He pressed his lips together, hesitant. But then he nodded, and sat down in the open space of the plane’s middle area. Now it was your turn to be tentative.
“What?” he asked, his eyebrows raising at you as you remained standing.
“I… .It’ll be difficult to sort out your mind without physical contact,” you explained, and briefly touched your pointer and middle finger to your temple as an example. “It’s just…easier that way. I should probably sit behind you.”
As usual, he paused before giving you a nod of consent. You walked around him and sat. You held your hand near the side of his head, not yet touching it.
“I want you to go over the memories you have right now. Show me what happened after you left the Hydra building. Can you do that?”
“…Okay.”
You closed your eyes and gently pressed your hand to the side of his head, one finger on his temple. The scenery of the plane began to bleed away…and you began the descent into his memories… .
You weren’t sure how to describe where you were. It had levels and a glass exterior, with some kind of technology in the middle. There was blue sky out the windows…you must of been in some kind of aircraft.
You recognized Steve. He was opening the door to the technology in the center…there was some kind of chip in his hand.
The Winter Soldier was behind him. You watched the memory play out, watched Steve try to talk to his friend, try to convince him of who he was. They ended up fighting, and at some point Steve managed to place the chip into the technology in the middle.
The aircraft shook, suddenly unstable, and you struggled to keep your balance as you observed. Steve and the Soldier were still fighting.
“You know me,” Steve said.
“No, I don’t!” The Soldier lashed out and hit him. You winced as his fist made contact.
“Bucky, you’ve known me your whole life,” Steve was still trying to convince him. The Soldier hit him again but he didn’t fight back. “Your name is James Buchanan Barnes.”
Another hit. “Shut up!”
You watched as Steve took off his helmet. He let it and his shield drop through the cracked glass, down into the water below. “I’m not going to fight you,” he said. “You’re my friend.”
The Soldier tackled Steve to the ground. “You’re my mission.” He began repeatedly punching him in the face. “You’re my mission!”
You remembered this part suddenly. The location, the debris falling everywhere, the Soldier on top of Captain America, Steve’s face a mosaic of cuts and bruises… .
“Then finish it.” The Soldier’s fist hesitated in the air as Steve spoke. “‘Cause I’m with you ‘till the end of the line.”
This was the memory you had taken from the Soldier during your first session… .You still had a ring of bruises around your wrist… .
It occurred to you suddenly, as you watched the memory — the Soldier’s hesitation and his eyes…wide and confused and almost horrified as recognition sparked somewhere — that maybe you shouldn’t be referring to him as ‘The Soldier’, anymore. It was something you called him in your head, something you associated him with, this name that at some point someone had come up with to describe the dangerous ghost assassin, the winter soldier. But continuing to call him that now…calling him by the name that was associated with the person who kidnapped you, who hurt you…seemed wrong.
Bucky. His name was Bucky.
In the next second, the bottom of the aircraft fell out, along with Steve Rogers, who fell down, down into the water below. Horrified, you turned to Bucky, the current Bucky, your mouth hanging open. He had been quiet during the whole ordeal, his mouth pulled into a tight line.
“What happened to Steve, is he okay?” you asked in a panicked voice. That dropping feeling was pulling at the core of your stomach as the aircraft continued to fall. “James!”
“Just…wait,” he told you, and you returned your attention down.
His past self was struggling with something as he stared down where Steve Rogers once was. His fists were closed tightly at his sides, his jaw clenching and unclenching over and over. He pursed his lips, and jumped.
It was like the floor was being pulled out from under you, and a more intense feeling of falling pulled at your core, feeling what he felt as he fell and hit the water.
The shock of the cold hit you suddenly as your scenery changed abruptly from aircraft to underwater. Your vision was limited in the dark river, but you felt your hand — Bucky’s hand — grab something, body struggling as you — he — swam up while pulling a heavy weight.
Your scenery changed again, this time to the beach of the river, and you sucked in a breath of air. You watched as Bucky’s past self walked onto the shore, dragging Steve Rogers onto dry land. He paused for a moment.
Steve coughed up water, and Bucky’s past self finally walked away.
Hugging your arms around your soaked self, you looked at Bucky, the current Bucky, with wide eyes.
“You…you saved his life.” Disbelief coated your words. “…Why did you do that?”
His lips pulled into a tight line, and he blinked a couple of times. “I don’t know.”
“Do you…” you were hesitant to finish the sentence, “do you think you…remember—”
“No,” he said firmly, then faltered. “Maybe. I don’t…I don’t know.”
There was a silence as you watched Bucky’s past self walk down the beach, farther and farther from the unconscious, but thankfully alive, Steve Rogers.
“Is there anything else that happened between this and the Smithsonian?” you asked after a few moments.
“Nothing important,” he replied.
“Okay.” You were trying to think of the best way to proceed. “Okay, I need to see how your memories are arranged, so take me to the memory of the Smithsonian.”
He gave you a look. “How do I do that?”
“Just…think about the memory. Close your eyes if you have to.”
He remained looking at you for a moment before sighing and shutting his eyes. “… .Nothing’s happening.”
“Give it a second.”
In the next moment, the sand from the beach began building itself into the shape of a staircase, going up, up, over the river and into the sky. It simultaneously seemed to disappear and go on forever as it reached the very top.
Bucky blinked several times as the sand built itself together into a solid structure. “Huh.”
You gestured for him to go first. “This is your mind. Lead the way.”
Hesitantly, he looked at you, then walked to the sand staircase. He tested the first step, and when he found that his foot didn’t go straight through it, he continued onto the second step, then the third, the fourth, and on.
You followed behind him, glancing briefly over your shoulder at the soaked and bruised Captain America laying on the riverside.
“Can you promise you’ll be honest with me?”
“I promise.”
It hit you, suddenly, as you sat in the plane sifting through Bucky Barnes’s memories, the plane he landed somewhere in Spain, if you would ever see Steve Rogers again. If you were being honest with yourself, part of you hoped you wouldn’t. You didn’t want to have to face him again, not after you had lied to his face.
You scratched at your wrist. God, you were horrible.
The shift in staircases was so seamless that you couldn’t tell when you had left the sand staircase in the sky and when you had entered the concrete steps of the Smithsonian.
You arrived on the floor of the Captain America exhibit; you could see the back of past Bucky’s head, with his hair tied up and his hat on, not far from where you were.
“Floors,” you murmured as you looked back at the staircase you had came from, a hint of awe in your voice. “You organized your memories into floors.”
He studied you, seeming unsure. “What does that mean?”
“It’s just a metaphor that you chose to represent your mind,” you said quickly, trying to reassure him. “Everyone’s mind is different. I was raised with telepaths, and they taught me to organize my memories in the simplest way, with doors and a hall. But I can work with floors.” You crossed your arms across your chest, thinking. “Although… .”
“Although what?” His eyebrows furrowed together at you.
“Building floors for your mind to fill your old memories with shouldn’t be too difficult, it’s just going to take time. What I’m more worried about is…the basement metaphor.”
His face shifted from worried to confused. “Basement metaphor?”
“You organized your mind into floors, which means it’s like a building, right?” you explained. You began making gestures with your hands. “You have your newer memories at the top, and your older memories at the bottom. That’s why the staircase we took went up and not down, because this memory is more recent than the last one. This is a chronological order, and it would make sense to assume that in this order the basement serves as a cut-off point: all the underground floors would hold your memories from the ‘40s — directly above that would be the moment Hydra made you into their weapon. And then…everything else, going up.”
He nodded thoughtfully, his face pinched as he was trying to understand. “Okay, I think that makes sense. So what’s the problem?”
You took a breath. “The problem is that it might not be that easy. The mind is complicated and…it doesn’t always organize memories chronologically. Sometimes, memories get organized by association. Y’know, when you think of something and that makes you think of something else, and something else, and so on and so on.”
His eyes were narrowed at you. “Get to the point.”
You sighed. “You chose a building as a metaphor for the structure of your mind. A building has a basement, and people often associate basements with a place where you…hide things. Bad things. In the case of organization of association, there’s a chance that your mind may sort the memories that…you want to suppress, into the lower levels of the metaphor you created. Probably sorted from…bad to worse.” He was starting to look at you worriedly again. “Look, we don’t have to worry about that right now. It might not even be organized that way. Alright?”
He said nothing in response, nodding only once.
“Okay. Let’s work on building on the memories I have of you, so your mind can rebuild your point of view.”
You spent a couple more hours building new floors of his mind; by the end, he remembered every moment the two of you shared, from the night he was waiting for you in your apartment, to the day he kidnapped you and took you to Hydra, all the way to the exact moment Pierce put him in that chair and erased his memories in the first (100th) place.
You weren’t naive, you knew the fact that you were building off of your own memories gave you an almost impossible advantage. Rebuilding his other memories would be nowhere near as easy, or quick, as this had been.
The two of you decided to call it a night and attempt to sleep, despite the jetlag hanging over you like a caffeine shot. Luckily, the chairs in the fancy private jet were incredibly comfortable and reclined all the way back; somehow, you were able to drift off into unconsciousness.
Hot, thick liquid poured into the room, filling it inch by inch, the red seeping into your shoes and moving past your ankles, your knees, your waist.
You desperately searched for a solution, panic clogging every nerve and pore and thought.
There were bodies hanging on the wall. Different bodies for each of the four sides — six men with a red hand-print on each of their chests, five men with the red symbol of an octopus painted in the same place —
The third wall hung the body of a familiar face. When Steve Rogers spoke, blood poured from his mouth. It stained red the rope that was tied around his throat.
“You lied to me.”
The hot liquid was at your collarbone now. “I’m sorry!” you cried, and water obscured your vision.
“Just look what you’ve done.”
You turned to the wall across from him, red liquid almost at your jaw, only to find the body hanging there to be you. It wasn’t strung up like the others — your feet were bound together, but your arms were spread out, like wings.
The eyes opened.
They were the colour of fire.
You woke, gasping, trying to catch your breath. You muffled your panicked response with your hand; you didn’t want to wake Bucky. The sobs stuck in your throat.
You laid back down as tears dripped from your eyes; you tried not to hyperventilate; you tried not to let your sobbing be audible.
What you didn’t know was that Bucky was awake, and he had no idea how to help you.
Notes:
A/N: So bit of a shorter chapter, I had to add some obligatory explanation and stuff. Hope you still enjoyed it!
Chapter 10: Part 2 - Chapter Ten: Feels Like Blue
Summary:
Maybe if things were different, you could have drowned in the blue of his eyes.
Notes:
A/N: Whenever someone is speaking in a language other than English, it will be shown [like this].
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“I remembered something last night.”
You were sorting through what was left of the non-perishable food in the back of the plane when you heard Bucky speak. The two of you wouldn’t be able to survive much longer on what amounted to mostly packaged peanuts and pretzels: any real meals would have had to have been brought onto the plane right before boarding, and obviously your flight wasn’t exactly scheduled.
You tossed him a pack of pretzels and a water bottle as you walked back to the middle of the plane and sat across from him.
“There’s a safehouse, in Romania,” he continued, “There should be enough resources to live there for a while. Money, weapons, food. Also…there’s information stored there.”
“Do you think there’ll be something there about you?” you asked in a gentle tone.
“Maybe,” he replied.
“A Hydra safehouse… .” you mused, “Is that even…safe? Couldn’t they find us there?”
He shook his head. “Hydra has safehouses all over the world. They won’t search through every one. We’ll be fine.”
You were still unsure, but you let it go. You crumpled up the empty package of your ‘breakfast’ and sighed. “Well, we can’t leave without getting some real food.” The fear and adrenaline rushes had worn off and you were hungry. The last proper meal you had was at Sam’s house, and even then you didn’t eat much. You couldn’t keep going like this.
“There should be a town nearby,” he said, standing up. “But we can’t stay long. It’s still not safe to be out in the open.”
“Don’t you think if Hydra was still tracking us they would have found us by now?” you asked, trying to quell his paranoia.
His lips pulled into a tight line. “Not necessarily.”
You crossed your arms over your chest, your eyebrows knitting together. You sighed. “Okay. We get some supplies and we get out.”
It was an hour’s walk to the closest town. By the time you reached it, you felt dizzy and weak, all your energy completely zapped. You hated the idea of having to steal food, but…you didn’t exactly have a choice at this point.
It was Bucky who did the actual stealing, expertly nicking things off carts as you walked through the marketplace and putting them into a bag you had taken from the plane. He even pickpocketed a couple of wallets, and with the money you bought some non-perishables to take back to the plane.
The two of you sat at a cafe table after, and you tried to be as inconspicuous as possible as you ate some of the food Bucky had stolen. You had already finished a sandwich and an apple when you realized he hadn’t touched any of it.
“Aren’t you going to eat anything?” you asked him, giving him a concerned look.
He shook his head, once. “Whatever Hydra did to me…I can go a while without food.”
You held the other sandwich out to him. “Are you sure?”
“You need it more than I do,” he said. You were still concerned, but you could tell he wasn’t lying about it so you began eating the sandwich yourself.
Bucky wanted to leave as soon as you were done, but you convinced him that it would look less suspicious if you ordered something at the cafe you sat outside of, using the leftover Spanish money that wouldn’t be worth anything once you got to Romania.
You both got a coffee and you ordered some extra food to-go for the walk back. Bucky’s finger tapped on the edge of his mug as you sipped your own, his eyes scanning your surroundings, his head tipped down to keep his hat covering his identity.
The waiter came back a couple minutes later with your food in to-go bags. “[Anything else]?” he asked in Spanish, giving you a kind smile. You smiled back at him.
“[Just the bill],” Bucky replied in a clipped tone. The waiter’s smile wavered for a second before he nodded and left.
Your lips parted and you blinked at Bucky. “You speak Spanish?”
He blinked back at you a few times, then glanced down. “Uh…yeah.”
You leaned forward, trying to meet his eyes. “… .Did you know that you could speak Spanish?”
He took a breath. “Must have been one of the things Hydra didn’t erase.”
You shook your head and sighed, rolling your mug in your hands. “I’m sorry.”
His eyebrows knitted together at you. “For what?”
“Just…” you crossed your arms and looked up at him, “all of this. I can’t even imagine…how this is for you.”
He looked at you for a long time, his blue eyes searching yours. His gaze felt intense, like most of him was, but you held it anyway. You wondered what he was thinking, but for once you kept yourself from reaching out to his mind. The one person who could feel you inside their head… .
His lips parted and his mouth opened as if he was going to speak, but then he faltered, and turned his head, his eyebrows knitting together.
The next second his eyes widened and he lunged across the table, knocking it over as he grabbed your body and pulled you to the ground. You could hear the sound of gunshots and registered screaming as Bucky landed on top of you, shielding your body with his own. He covered your head with his metal arm, and braced his flesh hand on your waist.
Fear washing over you in sudden waves, you gripped onto his biceps, trying to hold onto anything that would keep you from falling into a panicked oblivion. You tried to focus on anything else besides the horrifying shrieking coming from all over.
You instead fixed your attention to Bucky’s hand, the way it felt pressed to your bare skin. (You were still wearing that damn crop top.) Unlike before, when it was his metal hand cold and smooth against your stomach, his flesh hand was…warm, and calloused and…real.
When the sounds of gunshots stopped, Bucky searched the surroundings as you struggled to keep your breathing even. He looked down at you, and there was a moment. A moment where you shared breath, a moment of calm despite the adrenaline spiking your veins.
Maybe if things were different, you could have drowned in the blue of his eyes.
Bucky stood and pulled you up, and the two of you began running down the street, trying to put as much distance between you and the person with the gun as you could. You ran until Bucky pulled you into an alleyway, and you tried to catch your breath as he looked around the corner.
“What the hell happened to wanting us alive?” you asked, your breathing harsh.
“They were trying to take me out to get to you,” he said, and you gave him a worried look. He shook his head. “They know I can take a hit; they weren’t trying to kill me.”
“If they were going after you, then maybe I should have been the one laying on top of you, shielding you with my body,” you halfheartedly joked, trying on a smile.
He didn’t respond to the comment, only looked back around the corner to see if anyone was coming.
“How did they even find us?” you asked instead.
“The jet could have had a tracker in it,” Bucky replied.
“The jet, that’s an hour away from here,” you said, and he looked at you at that. “We picked a direction and started walking. Who knows how many other cities are closer to the jet than this one was, just the other way. How did they track us here?”
His eyes narrowed; they moved back and forth as he thought about this. Then he began rolling up the sleeve of the shirt over his flesh arm, and used his metal hand to feel up and down the skin — stopping at the inside of his forearm, right before his elbow.
Your eyes grew wide and your mouth fell open as he pulled out a switchblade and dug into his skin in an unbroken stride, with no hesitation. His expression twitched with pain as blood ran down his arm.
“What are you doing?” you asked him in a panicked voice. He continued without answering, instead pulling a small silver disk from deep under his skin. You blinked at him, slightly stunned. “What is that?”
He dropped the disk and crushed it under his heel, then tore a strip off of his shirt and tied it above the bleeding hole in his arm. He gestured to the broken pieces on the ground. “Embedded tracker.”
Shit. You should have known better. You should have known that Hydra wouldn’t have just let their strongest weapon go out into the world without having ways to get him back.
“Check your arms.”
You looked up at him, and your eyebrows furrowed together. “What?”
“Check. Your arms,” he repeated. Slowly, you rolled up your sleeves, wincing only once when you had to use your hand with the bruised wrist. You ran your hands up and down each arm.
You stopped when you felt something. A bump in the same place he had just pulled a tracker from, just on the opposite arm.
“They put one in you, too,” he mused. Of course they did. Of course they did. Hydra took every precaution when it came to you and him.
Bucky took a step toward you and you recoiled, using your hand with the bruised wrist to cover the patch of skin you now knew housed a small piece of technology.
“I have to take it out,” he said, and reached for your hand. The second he attempted to pull it off, you made a small noise of pain — he let go immediately, his jaw clenching as his eyes caught sight of the bruised flesh.
You looked at him for a moment, your heart pounding, then removed your hand and held out your arm. “Just…” you squeezed your eyes shut, “be careful.”
You felt the cold of his metal hand brace the underneath of your arm, holding it in place. The next feeling was pain, pain as he dug the knife into your skin, deeper and deeper. You could feel the blood running over your skin and you covered your mouth to keep from screaming. Tears collected in your eyes and squeezed through the lids, despite being shut. You bit down on your tongue; you tasted blood in your mouth.
And then it was over. The throbbing continued, but when you opened your eyes, Bucky was crushing the tracker into the pavement.
You pressed your hand to the wound, trying to staunch the blood-flow. Bucky put away his knife, then tore another strip off of his shirt. In a surprisingly gentle manner, he took your arm and wrapped the piece of fabric just above the cut, tying it tight.
Your eyes caught his for a fleeting moment as his hands were pressed to your skin. Then he took a step back.
“We need to get back to the jet.” He looked around the corner of the alleyway again before starting down the street. You followed him as closely as you could.
“They’re going to catch up to us — James, we can’t make that walk again,” you said, your words laced with bubbling panic.
“That’s why we’re not going to walk.” He had stopped in front of a car. You briefly experienced some deja vu as he used his elbow to smash the window in.
The drive took twenty minutes. It was a miracle that Hydra hadn’t found you before then, or followed you out to the jet.
Blood from your wound stained your clothes, stained the jacket that Bucky had given you. It reminded you too much of before, of what you had done.
At least this time the blood was yours.
The two of you boarded the plane, and Bucky started the engines. As you sat in the co-pilot’s seat, a wave of exhaustion hit you, the other side of jetlag catching up to your body and mind. You eyes stared out the window as the ground began moving away, and then down, sky replacing earth…the jet flying in the sky as you closed your eyes to sleep… .
Notes:
A/N: This chapter is a bit shorter than what I normally put out, but I had to add in the obligatory “Bucky shields the Reader from danger by laying on top of her” scene. This whole chapter was just fanservice and eye contact I hope you liked it
Chapter 11: Part 2 - Chapter Eleven: The Basement
Summary:
You find one of Bucky’s memories from the 1940s.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
As soon as you were flying at the optimal level, Bucky put the plane on autopilot in order to stitch up his arm and yours.
It amazed you the way Bucky processed pain, threading the needle in and out of his skin with barely a wince. The jet had a first aid kit, so you didn’t need to improvise when it came to a needle and stitching, but you didn’t doubt that Bucky could use a random sharp object and the thread of his own shirt if he had to.
You had your own fair share of painful experiences and many, many stitches that came with those that experience, but that didn’t mean that you processed pain any better than the average person.
The wound wasn’t very big, so it didn’t need a lot of stitches, but it still hurt almost as much as it did when Bucky cut into you, maybe more. It was hard to focus on a pain-scale when you were in pain and couldn’t focus on much of anything.
Like before, you squeezed your eyes shut as Bucky held your arm in place with his metal hand, and used his flesh hand to thread the needle and stitching in and out of your skin. It was awful, but over quickly, and you wiped away your tears as he cut the hanging thread of the stitch.
“Thank you,” you whispered when he was done and got up. He gave you a nod, then returned back to the cockpit.
The flight was only a few hours. You used that time to sleep, and thankfully no nightmares came to haunt you.
Like in Spain, Bucky landed the jet in a remote area to avoid any attention. The walk to the closest town was about the same as before, and since you had to leave the food that you had accumulated back in Spain behind, it meant getting some more for the long car ride Bucky told you was ahead.
A few nicked wallets later and you had a bag of snacks to last a few hours. Luckily, the car that Bucky hotwired for the ride had a GPS system, which would make things easier as you made your way to Bucharest.
The car ride took about five hours, and by the time you reached the city it was still light out but the sun was hanging low in the sky. The two of you abandoned the car near the edge of the city, and you followed Bucky as he led you to the safehouse.
The safehouse, as it turned out, was a small apartment on the top floor of an apartment building not on the city edges but not in the city centre either. It had a kitchen with a fridge and stove and oven and sink; there were non-perishable food items in the cabinets, plus pots and pans and such; there was even a dining table with a couple of chairs.
There was only one bed (twin sized), which was a generous term because it was essentially just a mattress with a blanket and pillow.
“I can sleep on the floor,” Bucky said, just as you opened your mouth to say the same thing.
“You don’t have to do that, I can—”
“Mattress’s too soft. Floor’s fine,” he insisted, and that was the end of that. He turned and found a closet with some extra blankets and pillows, pulled a couple out, then set them up on the floor next to the mattress.
There were only two other doors in the apartment besides the entrance, closet, and exit to the balcony. One door went to the bathroom, which was small but had all the essentials: a toilet, sink, and a bath/shower combo. The other door, the two of you discovered, was a tiny room only a little bit bigger than the closet: there was a rack of guns and knives inside (not very many, but enough), and a table with stacks of files. The Hydra symbol was stamped on top of each of them, along with a stamped “CONFIDENTIAL” in red.
You looked at Bucky as he stared at the contents of the table, watched him blink several times and swallow once.
“We need groceries,” you murmured to him as you spied the bag of Romanian money. You took some out and put it in the backpack that was also from the small room. “I’ll go out; you stay here and look over these files.”
Bucky looked over at you and took a breath as if he was going to protest, then glanced back at the files, and nodded. “Okay.”
There was a grocery store not far from the apartment. Shopping didn’t take you very long, and you were going to go pay when you noticed something on the rack near the cashier’s till. It was a journal, medium sized, with a brown cover. You considered it for a moment, then picked it up.
Bucky was sitting at the dining table when you got back, having gone through a decent amount of files. He looked up at you as you entered and set down the bags of groceries.
“Find anything yet?” you asked him as you began putting things away.
“No,” he replied. He went back to reading as you continued with the groceries. Once you had unloaded everything, you tentatively picked up the last item and held it in your hands.
You looked at it for a moment before putting it down on the table in front of Bucky. “Here,” you said.
He looked at the journal, then back up at you. “What’s this?”
You shrugged. “I thought…maybe when you start getting your memories back, you could write them down. Try to make sense of everything.”
He picked it up, considering it for a moment. His blue eyes returned to yours. “Thanks.” Despite the one-worded response, you could tell he was genuinely grateful for it. He flipped through the pages in a quick succession, then closed it and put it down.
“So,” you began, “Should we continue where we left off?”
Over the next two months, you and Bucky worked out a well-oiled system of daily living. Bucky always got up at 5am to work out (he somehow did it quietly enough not to wake you) and to go for a run, getting back by the time you got up at 8am. You would eat breakfast and have coffee and then start a telepathy session at 9. At 12 o’clock you’d take a break to eat lunch, then read a book for a couple of hours while Bucky wrote in his journal or went over the files left behind by Hydra. At 2pm you’d continue with another telepathy session, then stop for the day at 6, when you’d have dinner.
You hadn’t left the apartment much in the two months you had been there, besides going to the grocery shop or to the bookstore. Sometimes, on weekends, you went out to the park to sit in the sun and enjoy the peace. But other than that, you hadn’t done much more than work on Bucky’s memories and finish several books and honestly, it was starting to drive you a little crazy.
Things between you and Bucky were…fine. He wasn’t one to talk much, and despite technically spending almost every waking hour with him, the two of you hadn’t gotten any closer. And this mostly stemmed from the fact that you hadn’t gotten anywhere with his memories.
You had spent the past two months rebuilding floors for his mind, literally (or figuratively depending on your point of view when it came to the metaphor of the mind) building it brick by brick to make floors and walls and stairs so that his mind could fill them with old memories. But not a single memory had surfaced since you started; and the longer this went on, the more frustrated you could tell Bucky was beginning to become.
You were an hour into your second session of the day when he finally snapped. His mind building bled away and you were forced back into reality as Bucky pulled himself out of the telepathic field.
“We’re not getting anywhere with this,” he said, turning around to face you and rubbing his flesh hand over his face.
“I told you this would take time,” you said in a gentle tone, although you were just as frustrated as he was. Being cooped up in the apartment for this long was not doing any good for your mental health, and neither was the sleep deprivation that occurred every once and a while due to nightmares.
“It’s been two months. Nothing. Not a single memory. How much longer before I start remembering?”
You rubbed your eyes. “I don’t know.”
“Another month? Six? A year?”
“I am practically rebuilding your memory by scratch, James!” you blurted out at him. “I told you when we made this deal back in the Smithsonian that this would not be easy and it would not be quick. I am rebuilding sections of your mind. It takes. Time.” You hadn’t slept the night before. Your head was pounding.
Bucky’s jaw clenched. “I just want my memories back.”
You sighed. He was worried; he was worried you couldn’t get his memories back. “I know,” you said. “And I promise I’ll get them back for you, but I need you to be patient, at least for a little while longer. Please.”
He took a deep breath, then nodded.
“Now do you want to stop for the day or do you want to keep going?”
He paused. “… .Let’s keep going.”
You had just finished the next floor of his mind and had opened the door to start the next staircase down, when you found that there was a staircase already there. It was old and wooden, and you could hear the sound of music and laughter floating up from the bottom.
“James, look.”
Bucky blinked as he looked down the stairs, his mouth parting slightly. A huge smile spread over your face as you looked at him, and you gestured down.
“It’s your mind, you go first.”
He paused for a second, then began the descent down the stairs. You followed behind him, and the music and laughter grew louder with every step.
Bucky was looking around when you met him at the bottom, and you were amazed by what you had found. It was a bar, or a club, you weren’t sure, but you knew it wasn’t modern. It was distinctly from the 1940s.
It was everything: the music, the clothes the people wore, the atmosphere. You felt like you had just stepped into a movie.
A memory. You had finally found a memory. And it was a 1940s memory. You could barely believe your luck. Honestly, for the first resurfaced memory you thought it would be more…Winter Soldier. But this was, wow, it was more than you could ever hope for.
And then you saw him.
His hair was neatly cut, short and perfect. There was a grin on his face and he was laughing, next to some men you didn’t recognize. He was wearing a uniform and tie and holding a drink in his hand. And, God, for the first time you looked at him for how he was — a handsome young man who could steal your heart with a single glance.
“It’s you,” you said to Bucky, the Bucky standing next to you, who followed your gaze to his past self. His eyebrows raised and his mouth parted, and the two of you just watched for a moment.
A sudden realization washed over you. “You’re smiling,” you said in a tone laced with awe, “I…I’ve never seen you smile before.”
He looked over at you at that.
“You look so happy,” you added as you watched his past self, and you couldn’t stop the smile that kept returning to your lips. You glanced back at your companion, and even the current Bucky had the ghost of a smile on his face as he watched the memory.
“Hey, Stevie! Get over here!” the past Bucky called to the other side of the room. A blond man came over with an arm-full of drinks to pass out to their compatriots. Your mouth dropped open as you looked at him.
“That’s him,” the Bucky beside you said, “That’s Steve Rogers.”
“He looks so…young,” you murmured. His whole demeanour was different; he looked lighter, brighter, not so weighed down by the world. It made you feel…sad.
The next man to join Bucky and Steve and their companions had a familiar look to you. He had dark hair, darker than Bucky’s, more black than brown, and a moustache; he had an air of confidence and swagger, and eyed a couple of woman as they walked past.
“You’re late,” Steve said to the man, handing him a drink.
The past Bucky put his finished glass on the table. “Didn’t think you were gonna show, Stark.”
Your mouth gaped open. “Stark. That’s Tony Stark’s father.” Your mind was drawing a blank. “What was his name again?”
“Howard Stark,” Bucky answered, and there was a tinge of surprise to his voice, like he didn’t expect to remember.
And as soon as the name was out of his mouth,
something
horrible
happened.
The
floor
was
pulled
out
from
under
you,
and
you
fell,
down,
down,
down,
into
a
black
abyss
of
nothingness.
You
couldn’t
even
scream,
the
feeling
of
falling
taking
over
your
entire
body
and
soul;
you
knew
even
if
you
tried
to
shout,
your
voice
would
be
swallowed
up.
You
desperately
tried
to
reach
out
to
Bucky,
but
you
couldn’t
see
anything
through
the
dark
void.
Stars.
There were stars.
You landed on pavement, the force of the fall knocking the wind out of you. Had you not been in the telepathic plane, you would have broken a lot of bones from a fall like that, maybe even gotten yourself killed.
This didn’t help the fear that was beginning to seep into your unbroken bones as you sat up on the road, staring up at the night sky. The fall, however telepathic, left you disoriented, and your mind was convincing you that you felt pain from the landing. You searched your surroundings, almost blindly reaching out.
“James?”
Bucky came up from behind you and helped you to your feet. “What happened?” he asked you, his voice with an edge, like he was trying to mask panic.
Your breathing was becoming heavier. “Your mind…made an association.”
His eyes narrowed at you. “What do you mean my mind made an association? To what? Where are we?”
You looked back up at the sky, at the stars. “We fell for a long time,” you whispered.
Bucky’s mouth opened but he was interrupted by the sound of a car coming down the road from up ahead. A motorcycle followed behind.
You could only watch in horror as the motorcycle ran the car off the road and into a tree. You could only watch in horror as you realized the man on the motorcycle was the Winter Soldier.
“What is this?” Bucky asked. You didn’t have an answer.
The man who was driving the car crawled out of the wreck and onto the pavement. The Winter Soldier approached him and grabbed the back of his head.
“Sergeant Barnes?” the man said weakly as he looked up at the Soldier’s face.
“Howard? Howard!” the woman in the passenger’s seat was crying. With agonizing realization you suddenly understood the association Bucky’s mind had made.
You covered your mouth to keep from screaming in terror as the Soldier used his metal arm to dash Howard Stark’s face in. You watched, paralyzed, as he dragged Stark’s limb body back into the car, then walked slowly to the other side. His expression didn’t shift as he used his flesh hand to choke the life from Maria Stark’s throat.
You could barely speak. Your voice came out in half a sob. “Howard and Maria Stark died in a car crash… .”
The
next
second
you
were
falling
again.
Down,
down,
down.
This time the sky was blue, but you were still near a road. There was some sort of parade or something going on…a black car driving down the road with a man wearing an American flag on his lapel… .
You watched the Winter Soldier shoot 35th President of the United States John F. Kennedy in the head; you heard the sounds of Jackie Kennedy’s shouts, was a bystander to the panic that ensued.
Down,
down,
down,
again.
The Winter Soldier dragged a woman kicking and screaming into an alleyway where he shot her several times. A frightened child screamed in terror.
Down,
down,
down.
The Winter Soldier stood in the middle of a circle of barely adolescent girls.
“[Pay attention now, girls],” a woman said in Russian as the Soldier pointed a gun to the head of a person with a burlap sack over their head.
Suddenly Bucky, your Bucky, was the one holding the gun, and you were the one on the ground, bound and helpless, staring down the barrel.
B
A
N
G
.
The two of you recoiled out of the memories, returning to the reality of the small apartment, with its floors and walls, solid and real around you.
You had your hands over your mouth, choking back sobs, choking back bile, tears springing from your eyes in an unending stream. Bucky was standing, pacing, his hands threaded in his hair.
“I killed them,” he said angrily. “I killed my friend, someone I knew, someone who trusted me.” His face twisted in anguish. “That man, that was the president.” He breathed, hard.
“James—” you tried to say.
“That woman had a kid!” he continued. “That room — those girls — what was I — how could I have—” He shouted out in anger, and grabbed a chair from the dining table, throwing it across the room.
You flinched, a waterfall in your eyes, a sob escaping your throat. “James, listen to me, I understand what you’re going through. This is not your fault — Hydra made you do those things—”
“You understand?” he yelled at you suddenly. “You understand? How the hell could you understand what I’m going through, what I’ve done?”
You forced yourself to breathe, and you stood. “I know what it is to be afraid that you’re going to hurt someone. I know what it is to feel like your life is being controlled by someone else.” Your voice was steadily rising. “I know what it is to be forced into something you don’t want to do—” you held up your arm, your hand wrapped around the black bands over your orange tattoo, “I know what it is to have your own autonomy taken away from you!”
Your grabbed the wrist of his metal arm and held it up next to your own tattooed one. “I know what it is to be afraid of what you are.” You breathed hard as you locked your eyes with his, unwavering, staring him down despite his height over you. “Don’t you get it? We’re the same. We’re the same.”
He paused as he looked at you, his jaw clenching so hard you thought his teeth might break. He breathed through his nose, the anger and grief still palpable around him. When he spoke, his voice was low and cold, colder than you had ever heard him speak. “I know you live inside your own little pacifistic bubble, so I’ll explain something to you. Hurting someone,” he gently pried your once bruised but now healed wrist from his metal arm and glanced at it before returning his cold blue eyes to yours, “and slaughtering them in cold blood, is not the same.” He shook his head. “We, are not the same.”
No words came to your mouth as he turned and walked to the door, slamming it behind him.
He didn’t know.
He didn’t know that you knew what it felt like to feel the spray of someone else’s blood across your face.
He didn’t know that you knew what it felt to have someone else’s blood on your hands, figuratively and literally.
He didn’t know that you knew what it felt like to listen to someone scream in agony as you twisted a telepathic knife through their mind.
He didn’t know that you didn’t just know what it was like to hurt someone,
you knew what it was like to kill someone in cold blood,
to have them kill themselves in cold blood.
You fell to the floor, hugging your body as your forehead pressed to the ground, a silent wail escaping your mouth.
You wished he was right.
Notes:
A/N: I’ve been looking forward to doing this chapter for a while. I love experimenting with formatting and how it can affect how the story is told and what emotions it can convey. I did it in the second chapter, and I’m so glad I was able to do it again in this one. Hope you enjoyed the angst, it was a lot.
Chapter 12: Part 2 - Chapter Twelve: You Don't Scare Me (But I Should Scare You)
Summary:
You try to wake Bucky when he’s having a nightmare; Bucky sees some things he shouldn’t.
Chapter Text
You didn’t speak to each other for a week.
Bucky came home that night when you were in bed, as you were trying to sleep but failing absolutely. The next day he didn’t come back from his run until lunch, and gave you no explanation. He didn’t need to. After the horrors of yesterday you could understand his hesitancy to continue.
That didn’t make you any less angry with him.
It was easy for Bucky to keep his silence; he didn’t tend to speak most of the day even when things were normal. For you, it was more difficult. You had to find things to do to keep yourself busy.
You found yourself spending more time in the bookstore or at the park. You’d sit and read at either and dread the time when you’d have to return to the apartment, where it felt like the silence would break you.
Part of you said, It’s not his fault. He doesn’t know what you’ve done.
The other part said, That didn’t give him the right to say what he did to me.
The extra free time gave you a chance to explore the city a little bit. You found a market with fresh fruit and wonderful little nick nacks. You found a theatre and went to go see a movie. (You don’t remember the plot; you don’t remember the characters.) You picked up a new book to read. (Your eyes kept skipping off the pages.)
The worst part was that the stress was starting to affect your telepathy. You’d walk by people and pick up their thoughts without meaning to. You started getting headaches within large crowds, where it felt like everyone was shouting at you all at once.
You started dreamwalking again.
It was something you did when you were younger, something your mentors begged you to get control over. It’s dangerous to use your telepathy when you’re unconscious, they’d tell you, You could do something you don’t mean to. You could leave your mind open to others.
You didn’t mean to step into Bucky’s dream that night, seven days after you went through his memories, after your argument. You were thinking about him and…as soon as you were unconscious you just sort of…slipped into him.
The dream wasn’t anything concrete, but there was blood and pain and anguish and guilt, and soon you were awake and not asleep and you were watching Bucky toss and turn, sweat beading on his forehead.
As angry as you were with him, you couldn’t just sit there and let him suffer through the nightmare, so you crawled off your mattress and over to his makeshift bed of blankets and put your hand on his flesh arm. You shook him gently.
“James,” you whispered. “Wake up.” He mumbled something in Russian that you didn’t catch. You shook him again, this time with a little more force. “James.”
In the next second Bucky had you flipped over on the blanket, pinned with his metal hand wrapped around your neck. He wasn’t squeezing, but you could still feel the pressure of it, understood what little force it would take to break you.
Panic thrummed under your chest. You took shallow breaths. “James,” you said, in a voice that was struggling to be calm, “You’re dreaming.”
His blue eyes were dead as they looked at you. You wrapped your hands around his wrist.
“James,” you repeated, “You’re having a nightmare. You need to let go.”
His metal hand squeezed slightly. It was becoming hard to breathe.
“James,” you squeaked, tears stinging the corners of your eyes. You hit his arm but he didn’t let go.
BUCKY!
His eyes blinked as realization washed into them, and his hand released your neck. He quickly got up and off of you, walking to the kitchen and gripping his hands on the edge of one of the chairs, back turned toward you.
You coughed and touched your hand to your neck. He hadn’t applied enough pressure to leaving bruising, but he had been very close to doing so.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and his voice was very small. It was the first thing he had said to you in a week.
You tucked your knees to your chest. “It’s not your fault,” you whispered.
“Stop saying that,” he snapped, his knuckles turning white as he held onto the chair, his head tilted to look over his shoulder at you. “I did it; it’s my fault.”
“You can’t take the blame for something you have no control over,” you told him, trying to keep your voice steady.
He whipped around to face you, blue eyes cold. “I could’ve killed you, just now, and you’re just going to pretend that it didn’t happen? You’re just going to pretend you’re not sleeping next to a murder? Someone who could take your life without a single thought?”
I could be saying the same thing to you, you thought, but pushed it away. You stood and walked over to him. You could feel him recoiling from you, so you kept a fair distance in between.
“Trust me when I say you couldn’t kill me if you tried,” you whispered. “That makes me the perfect person to help you.”
You could tell he was struggling to control his breathing. “I’ve done a lot of bad things.”
“I’ve seen worse.”
There was surprise in his eyes as he looked at you. Then he breathed through his nose, like a self-deprecating laugh. “I doubt that.”
Anger bubbled up within you, making your skin feel hot and prickly. “What the fuck do you even know about me, huh?” you snarled at him, your hands balling up into fists. “Do you know that not once in the two months that we’ve known each other you’ve even used my name? You never asked about it. Do you even know what it is?”
His mouth parted and he blinked at you; you cried out in anger and rubbed your hands over your face.
“God, I can’t fucking do this anymore, okay? I can’t—” You trailed off instead of finishing the sentence, too frustrated to come up with any more words. You stormed past him to the door, struggling to put on your shoes in your angry and exhausted state. You fumbled with the key to unlock the locks on the door, and gave up on the second one, throwing the keys across the room with as much force you could muster.
You slid down against the wall, closing your eyes and pressing your face into your hands. You were so tired.
“Y/N.”
You looked up at Bucky in surprise as he spoke.
“Y/N,” he repeated. “That’s your name.”
You sighed and rubbed your eyes with the heels of your hands. The two of you were quiet for a long time.
“What was your nightmare about?” you asked after a while, turning your gaze over to him.
He didn’t meet your eyes. “Does it matter?”
“Yes,” you said. “If it was an old memory, like the ones we found, then your mind is just rehashing what you already know into dreams. But if it’s new, if it’s one you haven’t seen before, it means your mind is starting to fix itself.”
He paused. “… .It was new.”
“That’s—” You hesitated and stopped yourself before saying the next word.
“That’s what? Good?” he asked, an edge to his tone.
You sighed again, too tired to start up another argument. “Yes, for lack of a better word, it’s good.” You stood up and headed back to your mattress. “I’m going back to sleep.”
Bucky didn’t sleep for the rest of the night. Instead, he poured over his journal, writing down the memories that had manifested themselves into nightmares. He glanced over at Y/N every once in a while, watching her sleep fitfully.
He wondered what she had nightmares about, what scared her more than he did.
“I’m not afraid of you.”
He thought she should be.
He wondered what she meant when she said he couldn’t kill her if he tried. The words made it sound like a threat, but her tone of voice…was tired, sad.
Bucky still made an effort to avoid her come the next day. He just wasn’t ready to continue going through his memories, afraid of what they would find next. The nightmares were enough already.
He spent most of the day running through the city, running until his lungs burned and his limps ached, and then running some more.
He came back late, and Y/N was asleep when he walked in. He considered her for a moment before taking off his shoes and crawling into his makeshift bed on the floor.
He closed his eyes and wished for a dreamless sleep.
“Don’t you get it? We’re the same. We’re the same.”
“I know you live inside your own little pacifistic bubble, so I’ll explain something to you. Hurting someone, and slaughtering them in cold blood, is not the same. We, are not the same.”
Bucky stood in front of the memory, watching himself address Y/N coldly, watched himself walk out and slam the door.
Then he watched as Y/N fell to her knees, arms wrapped around herself as she hunched over and pressed her head to the floor; her mouth was open and tears were pouring from her eyes.
Guilt washed over Bucky. He didn’t understand why his words had such an effect on her, but it was obvious that they did have an effect. He was so angry in that moment…at himself, at Hydra…even at Y/N, even though he knew she didn’t deserve it.
He stepped forward, to do what he wasn’t sure, when he heard voices coming from behind him.
“Stop fidgeting, Y/N.”
“It hurts!”
Bucky turned around to find the door behind him, the door that was normally the closet, open and leading to a corridor. Across the hall, through the door on the other side, was where the voices were coming from.
Hesitantly, Bucky stepped out into the hall. He automatically recognized it to be Y/N’s mind corridor — but he had no idea how he ended up there. He crossed to the other side of the hall and stood in the doorway of the other memory.
A teenage girl, probably no older than fifteen, was lying face-down on a table as a woman with a tattoo gun was drawing a pattern on the skin of her back. The girl looked oddly familiar, but it took about a few seconds of observing before he realized it was Y/N.
There were tears in her eyes. “Why do I have to do this? Can’t I just get a necklace or bracelet or something?”
“You know how important this is, Y/N.” In terms of appearance, the woman next to her might as well have been her opposite. “You’re the [].” The word she said was…muffled somehow, as if the memory had been tampered with. “You can’t be taking this lightly.”
Teenage Y/N paused for a moment to squeeze her eyes shut as the tattoo artist continued. “… .Okay, Mom.”
“You shouldn’t be here, y’know.”
Bucky was startled by the voice that suddenly came from behind him, and he turned around. Standing in the hall, arms crossed in a defiant manner, was a little girl. She looked up at him with a pout, her eyes narrowed, staring him down as if she wasn’t over a foot shorter than he was.
He raised his eyebrows at her. “I don’t know how to leave,” he said. It was a poor explanation given he was just caught snooping, but he didn’t know what else to say.
She considered this, then grabbed his metal hand, “I can show you!” and began pulling him down the corridor.
Obediently, he followed. He looked through different doors as they passed them; unlike when Y/N had taken him through her memories, these doors were all open.
“Why am I here?” he asked the Little Girl. She made a shrugging motion.
“I dunno. Y/N sometimes dreamwalks when she’s stressed. Works both ways, you leave your mind open and ta-da! Even a non telepath can walk in when they’re in the dream realm. She probably sucked you in by accident.”
“And who are you?”
She snorted instead of answering, continuing to tow him along. He got bits and pieces of things as they passed different doors, but he saw enough to notice that the memories weren’t in order.
“I thought Y/N organizes things chronologically? This seems…random,” he commented. “And why are all of the doors open? Last time I was here they were all closed.”
“Things are more jumble-y when you’re sleeping,” was the only explanation she gave.
The two of them walked for a little while longer, where they passed a door that was only open slightly, just ajar instead of all the way. He wouldn’t have noticed it, except the sound coming from inside caught his attention. Someone was screaming.
The door had red paint on it.
Having long-since let go of his hand, the Little Girl had to retrace her steps when she found that Bucky had stopped following her. He swiped his fingers down the door’s surface, looking at the red that came back on his skin when he pulled away, just like he did the last time he was in Y/N’s mind corridor.
The Little Girl gave him a hesitant look. “We’re not supposed to go in there,” she said. But Bucky ignored her words, and pushed the door all the way open.
Not a lot of things scare Bucky, not that he can remember, anyway. He was a highly trained assassin, fear didn’t have a place in the job description.
But this.
This scared him.
She was barely conscious, strung up by her wrists so the rest of her body hung limply, her feet, but not her knees, touching the ground. There were cuts and wounds ranging from small to large on every bit of visible skin — which was most of it. With the exception of her face and major arteries, her arms and legs and stomach and sides and chest and shoulders were bleeding. A string of blood mixed with saliva ran from her mouth; there were bruises on her face instead of lacerations.
I’ve seen worse.
There were other details — her clothes, for example, were almost ritualistic the way that they were designed, showing enough skin but not showing everything; there was a symbol painted on the wall that matched her tattoo — but Bucky wasn’t paying attention to them. He was focused on Y/N, trying to figure out why this memory was having such an effect on him.
Maybe it was the fact that he promised he’d protect her. Maybe it was the fact that she was the only person in the world right now who could help him, who would help him.
Maybe he cared more than he realized.
He turned his head to look back when he felt hands bunching up his shirt. His eyes found the Little Girl, who was now pressed to his side. She was afraid.
“The bad men did this to her,” she whispered.
Bucky’s eyebrows knitted together. “The ‘bad men’?”
She nodded. “Like the Octopus Men.”
“‘Octopus Men’?” He thought about her wording for a moment. “Hydra? Hydra did this to her?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head, “the other men.” She held up her hand and stretched it big, then tapped her open palm.
He gave her a confused look. “What does that mean?”
The Little Girl suddenly whimpered and buried her face into his side. Bucky looked back up at the memory, watching as a man approached the tortured and strung up Y/N with a knife.
Wanting to know more but understanding the Little Girl’s fear, he ushered her out the door and shut it behind the both of them. She took his hand again and tugged him along.
“You have to leave now,” she said as she pulled him.
He sighed as he followed her. “Yeah, I know.”
It didn’t take long before they seemed to reach the end of the hallway. The door that the Little Girl pointed to had a bright, white light coming out of it. “There. That’s the way out,” she told him. “You’ll probably wake up after you leave.”
“Thanks,” he said. And he had every intention of leaving, he did, it’s just… .
He saw something out of the corner of his eye. It was a separate hallway that branched off the corridor they were in, a hallway that had only one door.
The door was closed.
More than just closed, it was locked.
And it had the symbol of Y/N’s tattoo painted in bright orange on its surface.
“What’s that?” he asked, pointing to down the adjacent hallway.
The Little Girl, following his hand, blanched. She seemed to shrink into herself, make herself small. “Bad,” was all she said in response to his question.
Bucky’s eyes narrowed. “What’s in there?”
“Bad,” she repeated, more forcefully this time.
Deciding that she wasn’t going to tell him anything, he turned and began walking toward the door at the end of the other hallway. The Little Girl ran after him. She pulled at his arm, tugging him in the opposite direction. Bucky was stronger. He kept walking until he reached it, and put his hand on the handle.
The Little Girl was persistent. “You can’t! Go! In! It’s locked! Y/N locked it!”
“All the doors are open when she dreams, right?” Bucky mused. “Then why wouldn’t the locked door be unlocked?”
He twisted his wrist. The handle turned. The door opened.
“NO!” the Little Girl screamed at him, and suddenly Bucky was thrown back, his head feeling like someone was ramming a jackhammer into it.
He was barely able to lift his head, but he managed to watch as behind the door the teenage version of Y/N stood next to a blind woman.
“Let me show you what I’ve seen, Y/N. Let me show you your future.”
Abruptly, the scene changed into something less clear, like it was underwater. A grown Y/N on her knees in the middle of a golden field; she was laying on top of something, crying out in anguish. A glint and gleam of something metal twinkled beneath her in the sunlight.
Then her face, it twisted. She stopped crying. Her eyes turned violet, then inexplicably filled with gold.
The door shut with a SLAM before Bucky could see anything more.
“GET OUT!” the Little Girl shrieked at him, and he flew backwards through the exit.
Bucky’s head was pounding when he blinked awake, returning to reality. Beside him, he heard Y/N breathing hard. He kept still as she got up and walked to the bathroom. He watched her splash water onto her face, then stare at herself in the mirror for a long time.
She was right.
He knew nothing about her.
Notes:
A/N: First chapter that had a Bucky POV. Thoughts? Feelings? Tell me what you think!
Chapter 13: Part 2 - Chapter Thirteen: Breathe
Summary:
You and Bucky take a break and go swimming.
Notes:
A/N: Bucky and Y/N leave the city in this chapter. None of what happens is geographically true, so don’t try to look it up on Google Maps lmao
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
It was July and it was hot: hot enough that sleeping became even more difficult than it normally was, hot enough that sleeping with blankets on, sleeping with a shirt on, was out of the question.
Which is why you were in your bra and pajama shorts when you woke up that morning, expecting Bucky to be out and being surprised when he was sitting at the dining table instead.
You hesitated before speaking. The last time you had spoken to him was the night before last’s, and that hadn’t exactly gone so well. “Hi.” Surprise coloured your tone.
Instead of greeting you back, he stared at you. He looked at you in a way that he hadn’t before, almost as if he was seeing you for the first time.
(You didn’t think about the raised lines that criss-crossed small and large across your body; it didn’t even occur to you the fact that your scars were clearly on display as you wore only a bra and shorts.)
“What?” you asked him, and his eyes met yours. His answer surprised you.
“I want to keep going,” he said. “With my memories.”
Your eyebrows raised and the start of a smile made its way onto your lips. “Really?”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
A full blown smile replaced the small one. “I’m really glad, James. It’ll be good to get back into things.” You walked over and sat across from him at the table. “But before we start everything up again, we need to take a break.”
His eyebrows knitted together. “Isn’t that what we’ve been doing?”
“No, what we’ve been doing is sitting around not speaking to each other for a week. I need a real break, James,” you said, rubbing your hand over your face. “I need to get out of this apartment, get out of this city. I feel like — like I can’t breathe, I just—”
“Okay.”
You blinked at Bucky. “I — what?”
“Taking a break is a good idea. What were you thinking?” he asked. You were momentarily stunned. For some reason, you thought he’d fight you on this. But instead his head was slightly tilted, waiting for you to speak.
Your smile returned shyly. “Well, I was thinking maybe we could check the building’s storage space and see if Hydra provided us with any camping gear. That could be fun, right?”
He nodded. “If you want.”
Luckily, the storage room for the Hydra safehouse did, in fact, have camping gear with a tent and a couple of sleeping bags. You found a bus that would take you out of the city, and you rode it for an hour until you reached a campground.
Given that you had never been camping before in your life, you let Bucky set up the tent. You sat with the backpacks and supplies at the picnic table by the firepit, alternating between reading your book and watching him work.
“We should go exploring after we’re done setting up,” you said.
“Yeah, okay.”
The Romanian forest was beautiful. Your whole life, you’d lived in cities; it made you appreciate walking through nature just a little bit more.
The two of you were quiet as you walked, but it was a peaceful sort of quiet. The fresh air felt cleansing, like it was washing your soul of the hurt and pain of the past week, the stir-crazy of the past two months.
It wasn’t long before you could hear the sound of running water. The two of you came upon a waterfall, a real waterfall, that poured into a lake that ran out into a river. You were mesmerized. Then you started taking off your shoes.
Bucky’s eyes narrowed at you. “What are you doing?”
You took off your socks. “Going swimming,” you said with a grin.
He grasped your arm with his flesh hand. “It’s not safe.”
You locked eyes with him as you undid your button and zipper with one hand, then shimmied out of your shorts and stepped out of them. “I can swim.”
His jaw clenched as he looked at you, his eyes flicking down briefly to your bare legs. Your skin felt hot under his scrutiny. “Someone could see you.”
“We’re the only two people here,” you whispered, a playful smile on your face. “Relax, it’s not like I’m going skinny dipping. You’d have to buy me a drink first.”
He seemed surprised by your forwardness, and let go of your arm. You didn’t really mean to flirt with him, but you were in a good mood. Being out here, in the fresh air in the middle of a forest next to a freakin’ waterfall, was good. You felt good, happy, for the first time in a while.
You took off your shirt in a single motion and put it on the pile of clothes you had created. Then you gave Bucky a smile before diving into the pool of blue.
The water was cold, but the day was hot. You couldn’t remember the last time you had gone swimming; it felt nice. Your face broke the surface as you swam back up, and you saw Bucky staring at you as you treaded water below.
“Come swim with me!” you shouted up at him.
He gave you an unsure look.
“Please?” you added.
He sighed and you saw him survey the forest around you, checking for other people, for any dangers. “My clothes will get wet,” he said when his eyes found yours again.
“Then take them off,” you said in a teasing tone. “C’mon! It’s hot outside and you’re always wearing long sleeves and jeans. Come and cool down.”
He paused for a moment, his lips pursed. Then he pulled his shirt over his head.
It was strange, the sudden shift that you felt. Bucky had been a lot of things to you — kidnapper, stranger, someone who needed your help, protector, acquaintance, and maybe, maybe even friend — but there was one thing you had never saw him as. Not until now.
You recognized that he was attractive, that you knew, ever since you saw him in the 1940s. But you were never attracted to him — sure, there were those times when he was protecting you and his hands were on your stomach, on your side, and it affected you; but you chalked that up to being touch-starved. This was the first time you looked at him and your skin burned with something else.
He was an assassin, so of course he was going to be fit, but it just caught you off guard the way it made you feel as your eyes traced the muscles of his stomach, the planes of his chest. His shoulders and arms were practically bursting. You barely paid any attention to the metal of his left side, you were so distracted by everything else. Even the line of his jaw seemed sharper.
He unbuttoned his jeans and took them off, then jumped into the water in his boxers. His head surfaced soon after and he swam over to you.
Even the cold water couldn’t cool your skin now.
“It looks worse than it is,” he said when he reached you.
“What?” You didn’t realize you had still been staring until you had to lift your eyes to meet his. You blinked, then glanced back down at his chest. “Oh.” He thought you had been looking at his arm, his metal arm. For the first time you noticed the scars there, where the arm met his shoulder.
You looked back up at him. “Does it hurt?” you whispered.
“Chafes sometimes,” he answered. A silence followed his words. You needed to break it; you needed to get him to think about something other than what Hydra did to him. (You needed to think about something else than his bare chest and close proximity.)
“We had an indoor pool in the house I grew up in,” you said suddenly, and you weren’t exactly sure where it came from. “Some of my happiest memories come from that pool.”
He considered this. “Sounds nice.” A pause. “Must’ve been a big house.”
“Well, you have to be rich to be in the Club,” you said bitterly, dipping your mouth under the water and breathing through your nose.
“What club?”
You re-surfaced the bottom of your face. “The He— y’know what? Doesn’t matter. It’s just some dumb thing my parents are apart of.”
His eyebrows knitted together. “You never talk about your family.”
You stared down at the water, your arms making ripples as you kept yourself up. “… .Do you know what it’s like to believe in something, to work toward something, and then realize it’s all a lie? To think you’re doing something…good, and then realize that maybe it’s not? That it’s…bad?” You chewed on your lip. You found Bucky looking at you when you lifted your eyes from the water. Your lips parted. “Of course you do. Stupid question.”
He looked like he was going to say something, but you beat him to it. “Hey! Watch me jump off that ledge!” You swam to the side of the pool and got out before he could protest. You could feel his eyes watching your movements carefully as you climbed a ledge on the side of the waterfall. When you turned back, you could see that Bucky had gotten out of the water and was now sitting on the edge. His metal arm glinted and gleamed, twinkling in the sunlight. For once, he seemed content.
You tucked your knees to your chest as you jumped, creating a wave of water as your cannonball dive hit the surface. You stayed underneath the water, stealthily swimming toward the edge of the pool.
Then in one swift motion you resurfaced and grabbed Bucky’s arm, pulling him back in with you.
It didn’t take the two of you very long to come back up — Bucky pushing his wet hair away from his face, and you giving him a mischievous look with your eyes, the bottom half of your head still submerged under the water. Ever the silent type, Bucky only gave you a look as he now treaded water.
You filled your mouth with water and spat it out at him.
Then you laughed.
It was more like a giggle, playful and lighthearted. You were being juvenile and stupid and you loved it. It felt like it had been a long time since you got to act like you were young. (You had to grow up so fast.)
Bucky blinked and wiped his face, and—
You gaped at him.
“What?” he said.
A full blown grin set onto your face. “You smiled,” you answered. “I made you smile.” It was true. A smile had pulled at the corners of his mouth at your antics, possibly for the first time in a very, very long time.
He did it again, tentatively, almost shyly, as if he’d forgot how. Your heart filled with warmth.
He looked away, but the smile didn’t disappear. “Is it really that big of a deal?”
You splashed him with your hand. “Yes!”
His eyes narrowed at you, and he splashed you back. You splashed him back. He splashed you. You him. Him you. Then you spat out water at him again.
He paused, and then a more devious form of a smile replaced the innocent one. You squeaked and swam away as he lunged for you, and you climbed out of the pool and onto the grass.
He easily caught up with you and threw you over his shoulder. You squealed in response, and you thought you felt him hesitate until you started laughing, laughing so hard your stomach hurt. He walked you toward the water and you shrieked when he threw you in.
He had climbed back into the water by the time you resurfaced. You splashed him again for good measure.
“So you do know how to have fun,” you commented.
“Guess so,” he said, the small smile still on his lips.
You looked over at the waterfall. “C’mon,” you said, gesturing for him to follow as you swam toward the rushing water.
You sat against the rock wall, closing your eyes as the water washed over your head and shoulders. You could feel Bucky join you at your side.
“See?” you said as you opened your eyes to look at him, the volume of your voice just over the roar of the waterfall. “This is nice. You worry too much, you know.”
“I worry about you.”
He didn’t mean to say it. But he couldn’t stop thinking about his trip into her memories, the way she was practically bleeding out onto the floor — his visceral reaction to it, the fear he felt for her. He still didn’t completely understand his feelings behind it.
Your lips parted as you looked at him, surprised by his comment. Your relationship with him was…tentative at best. You helped him with his memories, and he kept you from landing in the hands of Hydra again. But you never thought… .
He worried about you. He gave a damn past the whole telepathy thing. He gave a damn about you, just you.
You couldn’t stop the shy smile that made its way onto your face, and you so desperately tried to stay afloat in the intense blue of his eyes. You swam out from under the waterfall so you could face him.
“Want to see me jump off the top?”
He smiled at you, small and crooked, and nodded. You began swimming to the edge so you could get out.
“Just be careful, Y/N.”
The sound of your name coming off his tongue was foreign and sent a shiver up your spine. You climbed out of the water and pretended the goosebumps that covered your flesh was from the cold of the pool.
Surprisingly, it wasn’t that difficult to climb to the top of the waterfall. When you got up there, you slowly stepped into the river, careful not to get swept up into the current.
As it turned out, you didn’t have to worry about the current, because the hand that was suddenly tangled in your hair was enough to pull you down under the water. You coughed and sputtered when you surfaced, and looked up to find a man attached to the hand in your hair.
“Found you.”
Notes:
A/N: Fanservice chapter. With angsty ending. Thoughts?
Chapter 14: Part 2 - Chapter Fourteen: Silence, Violence (Sometimes It's The Same)
Summary:
You and Bucky go up against the Hydra soldiers that ambushed you.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
You felt so alone in your apartment in Hell’s Kitchen.
You sat on the windowsill, listening to the rain, watching it drip and slide down the glass. You watched the people on the street below, some with umbrellas, some without. All going somewhere. Home. Work. Some kind of recreational activity. A loved one.
You couldn’t get used to the concept. Being alone. There was a time where you loved it — relished the feeling of living by yourself. No one to judge you, tell you what to do. No expectations. Sure, you felt lonely from time-to-time, but you never had a problem with living alone. You liked the silence. It was peaceful.
People often equate peace with silence. But there’s a difference; peace and silence can exist together, but not always. Because now?
Now you were suffocating.
You had spent practically every second of every minute of every hour of every day of two years with the same person — living with him, working with him, breathing with him. He was your ally, your friend, your partner. And now he was gone.
And you were here. Back in New York. Where you shouldn’t be. Where you really shouldn’t be.
You never thought you could feel worse than when you were literally on the run from Hydra, but somehow you did. Somehow, things were simpler back then.
Two Years and Four Months Ago
You swallowed a mouthful of water as the man plunged your head back down under the river, panic flooding your system in a violent rush, your adrenaline spiking. You felt a stab of pain in the back of your head as you must have hit a rock at the bottom.
Your vision was swimming by the time the man brought you back up, and you were practically vomiting up water as he lifted you to a more vertical position, his hand still pulling your hair.
“James,” you croaked out, your hands reaching to grasp the wrist of the man. “James!”
The man dragged and held you against him, putting his hand over your mouth as he pulled you out of the water and onto the grass. You struggled against him, but your head was spinning.
You breathed harshly through your nose, vaguely registering another man in the vicinity.
“Yeah we got her,” Man 2 was speaking into his radio.
“Want me to call it in?” the radio crackled back.
“Hold off for now. Hydra wants the Soldier, too. We can’t leave without him.”
The Soldier. Hydra wants the Soldier.
Bucky.
The back of your head was throbbing; you were trying to reach out telepathically, but it was weak.
Bucky, your mind whispered to his, blindly grasping for him. You were barely pushing through. Bucky. Help.
“You got eyes on him?” the second man asked his radio.
“Not yet. But he’s gotta be around here somewhere.”
No.
No.
No.
This couldn’t happen. You couldn’t be taken by Hydra again. You couldn’t be.
And Bucky. You had just started to get close to him. Things had just gotten better between you. He was making progress. You couldn’t let Hydra just erase all of that.
Your struggles against Man 1 were becoming more feeble by the minute. Soon, he was holding you up more than he was holding you in place; you were pretty sure the back of your head was bleeding.
You heard a twig snap.
Suddenly, Man 2 was being put into a headlock by your metal-armed protector. Bucky was clothed, the fabric sticking to his skin and his hair dripping wet. He was giving Man 1 a death glare, his blue eyes icy.
Man 1 removed his hand from your mouth, and something metal pressed under your jaw. You weren’t quite out of it enough not to recognize that it was a gun.
“There you are, Sergeant Barnes,” Man 1 said with an amused lit to his tone. “Why don’t you let go of my friend there, huh? This doesn’t have to get messy.”
You could see Bucky looking between you and the man — you could feel his hesitation.
“Accidents happen when dealing with a dangerous mutant.” The mouth of the gun pressed more harshly to the underside of your jaw, to the point where it was almost painful. “Hydra would forgive us if there was a casualty.”
They wouldn’t. You knew that — but you weren’t sure Bucky did. He was still under the impression that you had never killed anyone, so how could he ever see through the man’s bluff?
Bucky was panicking. He was the Winter Soldier — an expert combatant, marksman, killer. But he found himself unable to think straight as he looked over Y/N, barely clothed with a gun to her head; she was stumbling in the man’s grip, her eyes slightly glazed. At some point over the two months that he’d known her, Y/N had become more than just the person who could give him back his memories. She became someone he gave a shit about. Someone he really didn’t want to see dead.
(A friend.)
Bucky let go of the man he had in a chokehold. The first man gave him a grin and removed the gun from Y/N’s jaw. The second man, the one now on the ground trying to catch his breath, took out his radio.
“Do it now,” he said quickly, and Bucky barely heard a crackling “Confirmed” before a bullet tore through his right shoulder.
BUCKY!
He heard the cry ring through his mind as he fell, bleeding and disorientated, to the ground. He pressed his hand to his shoulder as he attempted to get up. He was on his knees when the second man put a gun to his head. He watched Y/N’s renewed sense of panic and fear as she struggled against the first man, tears in her eyes as she looked at him.
The second man dug his hand into Bucky’s wounded shoulder, and he let out an involuntary shout of pain.
The next thing he knew, his face was being splattered with blood and matter as the second man was shot through the head. When Bucky looked back to the source of the fatality, he found the first man with his arm outstretched, smoking gun pointed in the second man’s direction. Y/N had her hand pressed to the first man’s head, her eyes a violent purple colour like he had never seen before.
It was like all her pacificistic beliefs had gone out the window, her face completely devoid of emotion as she watched the second man fall into the river. His head coloured the water red with blood and brain matter.
Y/N looked to the first man, her violet eyes piercing into his. With a blank stare, the man turned to the river and stepped inside.
Then he pressed his gun to his own head and pulled the trigger.
If Bucky had continued watching, he would’ve seen the man fall down, would have seen his body float lifeless to the edge of the cliff. But he wasn’t watching the man anymore; he was watching Y/N. He was watching as the purple in her eyes faded, watching as she watched the dead man go over the waterfall.
Horror flooded her expression, and her eyes, panicked, darted to the other man lying half in the water, a crater where his face once was.
Her mouth dropped open and a small cry of anguish escaped. She covered her mouth, frozen, shaking.
Don’t you get it? We’re the same.
Bucky swayed on his knees. He pressed his metal hand to his shoulder; he had lost a lot of blood. His vision was becoming blurry as he looked at her.
“Y/N.”
Her head snapped to him as if she had forgotten he was there. “Oh, God, Bucky—” She darted over to him, wrapping her arms around his middle on his left side; she struggled to help him up, his metal arm around her shoulders and her hand firmly pressed to his bleeding wound.
When you got to the bottom of the waterfall, you haphazardly threw your clothes and shoes back on. It took you a long time to get Bucky back to your campsite. You had half supported, half dragged him the entire way, and he was not light. Between the amount of muscle he was packing, and the legitimate metal arm attached to his side, it took an enormous effort to get him back.
You couldn’t think about anything else besides Bucky right now. You wouldn’t. If you did you would see the image of the two men you had killed; you would remember the sniper you had found telepathically, the sniper who you had made hang himself in the tree from where he had shot your friend.
You set Bucky down at the picnic table, then rushed to grab the first-aid kit you had packed. You pulled it out of your bag and sat next to him.
Your hands shook as you opened the box. “What do I… .” Your head was spinning. The adrenaline rush that had overridden your head injury was wearing off. You took shallow breaths as you looked over his bleeding shoulder.
His eyes were glazed. “Bullet is through-and-through,” he said, words slightly slurred. “There’s nothing to take out. Just have to stitch it up.”
“Okay.” You helped him take off his shirt. You took out the needle and stitching, and then blinked back involuntary tears as you wiped away the excess blood first.
You thought of something. “Hang on—” You pulled a flask out of your bag, unscrewed the top, then poured it over Bucky’s wound. He hissed and you winced.
“I-I saw that in a movie once. And a TV shows. Show. Several movies actually — Should I not have done that?” you asked, rambling nervously, your whole body still shaking.
“Alcohol’s a disinfectant,” he said. “That was right.”
You put down the flask and picked up the needle and stitching. You gripped his shoulder, trying to be gentle, and began threading the needle into his skin.
You felt sick.
As always, Bucky was taking the pain better than anyone you had ever seen. You hoped you were doing an okay job, what with your shaking hands and blurry vision.
About halfway through the front side, you noticed him staring at you.
“Please don’t tell me ‘I told you so’,” you said with a choked-back sob, “I really can’t take that right now.”
“I’m sorry.”
Your eyes snapped up to his, surprised. “What?” You thought for a second, pressing your hand to his shoulder to staunch the bleeding as you paused. “Bucky — James — if you’re going to take the blame for what happened, this is not your fau—”
“I’m sorry about what I said, before. That you didn’t understand what it is to be afraid of what you are.”
You froze, staring at him, eyes wide and mouth parted. When you didn’t say anything, he continued.
“Why did you let me say those things to you?” he asked quietly. “When you knew it wasn’t true?”
Your throat constricted; your lip quivered and you willed back any more tears. “… .Because I wished it was. Because as horrible as what you said to me was, it…it was nice, to live in that bubble. To pretend.” Unable to keep his gaze any longer, you went back to stitching up his shoulder. You had him turn on the bench to face the forest so you could start on his back.
“That’s not the first time something like that has happened to you, is it?” he asked, and you knew he was referring to the men, the dead men, and the carelessness in which you had taken them out.
“No,” you replied simply.
“How you escaped Hydra?”
“… .Yeah.”
He was quiet for a few moments as you worked, then,
“You saved my life. Thank you.”
You breathed through your nose, your teeth clenching together. You swallowed, thinking about the casualties you had caused. “Don’t,” you said, your voice a broken, desperate whisper, “Don’t thank me. Please.”
He said nothing in response, and you were grateful.
When you were done stitching up his wounds, you taped some gauze on top for extra security (which was also something you had seen in several movies and TV shows. Honestly, your entire medical knowledge at this point was coming straight from Grey’s Anatomy). You packed the needle and the rest of the stitching back into the first-aid kit, and stood up to put it back where you had found it.
Bad idea.
You immediately swooned — the head injury finally catching up with you. Luckily, you had barely made it a step from the bench before your vision went black for a moment, and Bucky was able to catch you before you hit the ground.
His metal arm, which had been in the sun and heat, was comfortingly warm around your back. You felt his flesh hand gently feel the back of your head, and you felt a slight stab of pain as he found the source of your sudden swooning. He set you down on the bench and picked up the first-aid kit where you had dropped it.
“Does it need stitches?” you asked blearily.
“No,” he said. He pressed some gauze to the wound. “Could’ve been worse.” He took your hand and replaced his with yours at the back of your head. “Keep the pressure. Don’t get up for a little while.”
You sighed and did what he said, leaning your back against the picnic table. The two of you were quiet for a few moments. You listened to the sound of birds chirping, listened to the trees rustling in the wind. You listened to his breathing, slow and steady next to you.
“I have to tell you something,” he said after a while, and you turned to look at him, your eyebrows raised for him to continue. “Last night, when I was sleeping, I…I was in your head. I don’t know how I got there, but—”
“I know.”
He gave you a surprised look. “You know?”
You gave him a small smile. “I’d be a pretty shitty telepath if I couldn’t tell when someone was poking around in my head, looking at things they shouldn’t.”
He exhaled. “I’m sorry.”
You shook your head. “It’s not your fault. I kind of sucked you in by accident.” You searched his eyes, nervous now. “What did you see?”
“I…I looked behind one of your red rooms,” he said slowly, and you held your breath as to which one he was talking about. “The one where you were being tortured.”
You nodded, your eyes not meeting his anymore.
“I asked the little girl in your head who did that to you, but she wouldn’t tell me,” he said. “She just did this—” He held out his hand, palm-up, and rested his pointer finger on top.
Your eyes narrowed at the gesture, then cleared with realization. “Do you mean she did this—” You held your hand straight up, opened wide, and briefly took your other hand away from the back of your head to tap your palm several times before putting it back.
He studied the gesture. “Yeah, that. What does it mean?”
You chuckled darkly. “Leave it to my subconscious to tell you exactly what you need to know without telling you at all.”
He searched your eyes, waiting for an answer. You sighed and decided you might as well tell him.
“How much do you know about an organization called the Hand?” you asked him. His eyebrows pulled together and his eyes flitted back and forth, thinking.
“That sounds familiar,” he said, “But a lot of things sound familiar to someone whose memories are stored in the back of their mind where they can’t reach.”
“The Hand is like Hydra,” you began to explain, “Except older. Much older. But they’re both secret organizations that like pulling strings behind the scenes. Like Hydra, the Hand wanted me. They literally pulled me off the street. But…they didn’t know for sure what I was. They wanted me to…confirm that I was what they were looking for. I wouldn’t. It was two weeks before I escaped.” You swallowed. “Before I escaped like we escaped today.”
You could see in his eyes that he understood your phrasing.
“Anyway, it must have been a small branch of the Hand that wanted me,” you continued, “because nobody ever came back to get me. I should have left New York after that, but I was young and scared and I didn’t know what to do. I was lucky that whoever was running the Hand, they…either didn’t know about me, or they were disinterested.”
“Why did they want you?” he asked, grasping for something. “Why does Hydra want you? I’ve seen what you can do, but… .All of this? There’s something you’re not telling me.”
“It’s safer if you don’t know,” you said quietly. You would have scratched at your wrists, but your one hand was preoccupied at the back of your head, so instead your free hand scratched the bottom of your palm, as close as you could get to the black bands.
Bucky watched your movements. “The other memory I saw,” he began, “It was when you got your tattoo.”
You stopped scratching and looked up at him.
“I…know I’m not supposed to ask about it,” he continued, “but I saw the original design. The double bands around your wrists weren’t part of it.”
You shook your head. “I added those. Later. To remind myself that I am bound to…what I am. To what I’m going to be,” you added in a smaller voice. “That I can’t change it.”
He looked like he was restraining himself from asking certain questions. Instead, he mentioned, “I saw your mom.”
“Oh, right,” you said. “She was there when I got the tattoo.”
“She doesn’t look anything like you,” he commented.
“No, she wouldn’t,” you said. “I’m adopted.”
He didn’t seem surprised, and he waited quietly, as if for you to continue. You fidgeted in your seat.
“Adopted isn’t really the right word,” you began. “I mean, it is that way on paper, but it’s not like my parents went to an orphanage looking for a kid. They found me…in a basket, floating in the river — like some goddamn Bible story. Guess I can tell from that the kind of people my real parents were.” You rested your one arm over your stomach and exhaled through your nose. “My mom always said she could tell I had telepathic potential from the moment she laid eyes on me, even though I was just a baby. Y’know…sometimes I wonder. If she would’ve even taken me in if I hadn’t been. If I hadn’t been…useful. God knows they’re too busy with their fucking Hellfire Club to give a shit about a kid.”
Bucky, who had been watching you carefully since the beginning of your story, leaned closer, his eyes narrowed. “Hellfire Club?”
You sort of snapped out of your trip down memory lane, acknowledging what you had just said in front of him. “Oh — right. It’s a…it’s like a gentlemen’s club, for mutants. My parents are part of the telepathic branch.”
He seemed to be going over what you said. “Mutants. The Hydra soldier back there…he called you that. What does it mean?”
Wow, he really was out of the loop. You hesitated with your answer, trying to figure out the best way to explain it. “Mutant is another term for an evolved species of man. It’s like enhanced, but mutants weren’t born human, they weren’t made into what they are. They just are. You used to be human, before Hydra changed you, but I never was. An argument could be made that you’re still technically human, but I’m not. I’m not human, Bucky. James,” you corrected yourself with a wince. You didn’t meet his eyes anymore. “Maybe that’s why my real parents didn’t want me.” It was added as a quiet afterthought, but Bucky, with his enhanced hearing, heard it just fine.
“I want you.”
You looked back up at him, eyebrows knitted together. He seemed to stumble a bit over his choice of words, his cheeks tinting with colour.
“I mean, I don’t care that you’re not human. That doesn’t matter. And I…care about what happens to you. Not just because of the telepathy thing, but because…I don’t have anyone else.”
Your heart seized up and melted at the same time. You couldn’t stop the tears that leaked silently from your eyes, but you didn’t want to, either.
“We are the same,” he added. “And I need you.”
A gentle smile pulled at your lips, and your hand found his flesh one on the table top. You squeezed it lightly.
“Also,” he said. “You can call me Bucky, if you want to.”
And suddenly, you didn’t feel so alone anymore.
Notes:
Some more backstory on the Reader, and a glimpse into the future. Did u catch the comic book reference? Don’t forget to leave behind your thoughts!
Chapter 15: Part 2 - Chapter Fifteen: Nightmares
Summary:
You find a way to help Bucky with his nightmares.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Over the next months, you and Bucky fell into a well-oiled routine. Things between you two had gotten better ever since the camping trip — you talked more, you felt more comfortable around each other. You smiled more. He smiled more. You didn’t feel as trapped in that little apartment as you used to be.
Bucky’s memories came back slowly. You would find at least one per week, two if you were lucky, but that didn’t happen often. Honestly, you were grateful that you were getting anything at all. Unfortunately, most of the memories were, to put it gently: not from the ‘40s.
There were things from his life as James Buchanan Barnes, but often times they were small things, little moments. But it didn’t matter to Bucky how insignificant a fact about himself from the 1940s was, he was always happy when one of them showed up. Especially when it was better than the alternative.
His…not ‘40s memories ranged from short to long, from indiscernible moments to things that were more…explicit. And every time an explicit memory came up, you would have to take a break for a few days before continuing, just to ensure both your sanity.
It didn’t stop the nightmares, though. Every once in a while, you’d be woken up by a nightmare that Bucky was having, either through accidentally entering it telepathically, or by hearing his cries. There were even a few times he screamed. But since the whole fiasco with you trying to wake him up the first time and him almost choking you to death, Bucky had kept his distance every time you attempted to comfort him. It was frustrating for you, but you understood.
It’s not like you seeked him out when you had your own nightmares.
One night, you were lying awake in bed, unable to sleep, when you heard Bucky twitch awake on the floor adjacent to you. Looking over, you shifted on your side to watch him get up and walk into the kitchen. He grabbed a glass out of the cabinet and held it under the tap for some water. He turned and leaned against the sink, drinking the water down in large gulps. When he was finished, he put the glass in the sink; he rubbed the back of his neck, adjusting the collar of his t-shirt in an uncomfortable fashion, likely due to a cold sweat. He sighed and ran his hand through his hair. He stilled when he found your eyes on him, and slowly lowered his arm.
“Nightmare?” you asked, half-sitting up. He nodded.
“Yeah.”
“New or old?” Bucky sometimes developed memories at night when he was sleeping, so your question was asking whether or not he had seen it before.
“Old,” he replied. He pulled out a chair and sat at the dining table. “JFK.”
You bit your lip as you observed him, toying with an idea. It’s something that you thought of a while ago, but that you hadn’t brought up because you weren’t sure how Bucky would react to it. But looking at him now, seeing how exhausted he was…you decided it was time to suggest it.
“Y’know, if you want, there’s, uh…there’s a way I could help you,” you started, and Bucky rested his elbows on his knees, leaning forward to listen. “Keep away your nightmares,” you clarified. “If you let me.”
His eyebrows knitted together. “You can do that?”
You shifted slightly in bed, moving some of your hair away from your face. A curious nervousness took over you, and you practically had to force yourself to meet his eyes again. “Yeah. Wouldn’t be too difficult.”
He considered it. “I thought you said dreaming was good for memory building,” he said. “Even when they’re nightmares.”
You shook your head. “It’s not worth watching you go through this. We develop your memories during the day; at night you need to sleep, or it’ll drive you insane.”
His head tilted slightly to the side. “How come you haven’t mentioned this before?”
“Well…” you shifted again, “it would involve me being in your head all night. And…” your skin felt very hot all of the sudden, and your eyes avoided him, “the only way that I can do that while I’m unconscious is if I keep physical contact. We’d have to sleep in the same bed together.” Your gaze flicked back to him. He had sat up, considering you, the wheels in his head turning. Your eyes returned down. “And I know that you have a hard time with intimacy, and with me being in your head more than I already need to be. I just didn’t…want to make you feel uncomfortable.”
He was quiet for a moment. “… .But you could stop the nightmares?”
You looked up at him again, a bit surprised. It wasn’t the reaction you were expecting. You nodded.
“Then it’s worth it.”
A hot flush spread throughout your body. For some reason, the idea of Bucky sleeping with you on the small twin mattress that only had so much space was getting a more intense reaction out of you than you thought it would.
It seemed like it was having an effect on him as well. He rubbed the back of his neck. “As long as you’re okay with it, too.”
“Yeah,” you said, your tone one octave higher than you would’ve liked it. You cleared your throat. “Yeah, of course.”
He stood, and you took a moment to observe him. As always, he wore a soft t-shirt and pajama pants to bed (the pajama pants which you had bought for him, after being sick of watching him go to bed in jeans every night). Compared to him you felt…extremely under-dressed, what with your very short sleep shorts and tight tank top that didn’t completely cover all of your stomach.
Bucky padded over to where your beds were. “So, do you want to sleep on the mattress or the floor?” he asked, and you could hear the joking tone in his voice.
“Mattress,” you replied anyway, and you shifted yourself and your pillow to one side as he grabbed his and put it next to yours. He lifted the covers and slowly slipped under.
It’s not a secret that Bucky was a big guy. Six feet tall and wide with muscle, the bed became very small with him in it with you. There wasn’t any room left to go anywhere.
Carefully, you rested your hand on the place where his neck and the back of his head met. “Is this okay?” you asked, wanting to be sure. He swallowed, his eyes flicking down over you and your proximity to him.
“Yeah,” he breathed, his voice barely a whisper.
“Close your eyes,” you told him. You were close enough to feel his breath on your face. He blinked a couple of times before keeping them shut.
You waited for his breathing to steady and match yours, then you closed your own eyes and slipped into his mind.
He seemed to resist you a bit at first; you tried to make the transition as smooth as possible, just leaning on the edges as he lingered in the place between consciousness and unconsciousness. You couldn’t tell how long it took, but at some point he was asleep and so were you, and you dived into his subconscious.
It’s difficult to explain how you could keep away his nightmares while being unconscious yourself. It’s like daydreaming while you’re driving — you don’t have to be 100% focused on what you’re doing when your body does it for you. Through your telepathy, your mind worked on autopilot as you slept, helping Bucky while still being able to dream yourself. Somehow, your mind was able to work out which of his dreams were harmless and which of his memories would become nightmares.
It wasn’t like the movies.
The first morning you woke with Bucky in your bed, you weren’t any closer to each other; he didn’t have his arms around you, you didn’t end up accidentally spooning. In fact, the two of you hadn’t moved a single inch, lying stiffly in the exact same positions you had fallen asleep in.
It was strange to wake up with someone else in your bed. It had been a long time since you’d slept with someone (just sleeping or…otherwise). Your last relationship ended a little over a year ago, and even that had only lasted a few months. Being what you were, a mutant with dangerous powers and an even more dangerous future, made it difficult to become close to people. Relationships didn’t last. You broke it off or they did. You’d never actually been in a serious relationship before. And falling in love? You never let yourself get close enough.
Despite not getting any closer during the night, your hand was still on the base of his head, your thumb on the edge of his face. You could feel his stumble under your skin.
He wasn’t awake yet. You found yourself studying his face as he slept, and your face heated when you realized you were staring at his lips.
You were out of the bed in two seconds.
The two of you got more comfortable with the whole sleeping in the same bed thing the longer you did it. Weeks passed and you became less stiff and more relaxed as you slept. There was still no accidental spooning, but there was one morning where the hand that was usually placed on his head had slipped forward, so your arm was around his neck, your faces inches apart. His metal hand had been placed on your hip, in what you thought was probably an attempt to keep his distance.
Suffice it to say, waking up to that had been awkward.
But you moved past it. You continued to work on his memories during the day, and then keep his nightmares away during the night. All in all, you were spending a lot of time in his head. And this was reflected in what happened this morning.
It started out like any other. Bucky was up before you as usual, doing his exercises for a few hours before you woke.
You had had a particularly sleepless night. One nightmare and you were done, unable to get back to sleep. You spent hours listening to Bucky’s breathing, your mind intertwined with his, watching his jumbled, senseless dreams and filtering out anything bad that came along. At some point it lulled you back to unconsciousness, but you didn’t sleep for long before your alarm went off and it was time to get up.
Still half-sleep, you dragged yourself out of bed and padded to the kitchen. You grabbed a mug to make yourself a cup of coffee. Bucky was making breakfast.
You shook out the rest of the coffee grains left in the tin, then tossed it in the trash when it was empty.
Hey, remind me when I go shopping that we need more coffee.
Bucky stopped what he was doing to turn and stare at you in surprise. You rubbed your eyes as you watched the coffee drip into the pot, then you poured it into your mug. You glanced at him as you reached for the sugar, taking in his expression.
What?
You woke up completely as you realized what you had done, covering your mouth with your hand. “Oh, fuck,” you blurted. “Oh, my God, Bucky, I’m sorry, I didn’t—” You closed your eyes for a moment and took a breath. “I didn’t mean to. I… .”
You had projected thoughts into his head. You had spoken to him telepathically instead of verbally. You had been in his head without his permission.
You rubbed your hand over your face. “I grew up with telepaths, we used to talk non-verbally to each other, I-I’ve been spending so much time in your head, during the day and hours at night, I — it’s not an excuse, but — shit, I’m sorry.”
Bucky nodded, then went back to making breakfast. “’S’okay.”
“No, it’s not,” you said firmly. “I shouldn’t’ve—”
“Y/N,” he interrupted. “It’s okay.” He shrugged. “I don’t mind so much.”
“You don’t…” You blinked at him. “You don’t mind? You don’t mind what?”
He began scooping out eggs and bacon onto two plates. “I don’t mind you in my head. I can still feel you — feel it, but I’m used to it by now.” He handed you one of the plates of food. “Might be good to work on the non-verbal speaking thing, anyway. You never know when we might be in a situation where we have to use it.”
You took the plate from him, your mouth slightly parted. You weren’t expecting that reaction, especially not when you remembered the way he had reacted the first time you had gone into his mind without his permission. You two had come a long way from him bruising your wrist in that motel room back in America.
“Okay,” you said, nodding. “Yeah. Sure.”
A few nights later, you had one of the worst nightmares you’d had in a while. It was a combination of all the horrible things you’d done, all the things that had been done to you, and by the end you were drowning in waves of blood, helplessly watching as a bird of fire burned the sky and the world underneath it.
You woke, screaming, covering your mouth to muffle the sound and to stifle the sobs that wracked your body. Tears poured from your eyes and your other hand grasped the sheets, trying to hold on to something, anything.
Bucky, who had woken up the moment he heard you scream, was sitting up and giving you a panicked, worried look.
You desperately tried to stop your hiccuping sobs. “I’m sorry,” you managed to say to him. “Please, please go back to sleep.” You breathed through your nose, harsh and choppy. You hugged your arm around your middle, your other hand still over your mouth. “I’m-I’m fine, okay?”
Bucky watched you closely, searching you, as if he was trying to figure out what to do.
“Go back to sleep,” you repeated. “Please.”
But he didn’t. Instead, he wrapped his arms around your shoulders in a tight embrace.
You were stunned for a moment. You had never been this close to him before. You had spent months with him and had never hugged him before. Slowly, your hands fisted into the front of his shirt, holding onto him like a lifeline, and you pressed your face into the crook of his neck. His arms squeezed you closer as you let out a cry, prompting you to continue with your shaking sobs.
Slowly he leaned back onto the bed, gently pulling you with him. His flesh arm moved down to the middle of your back, supporting you against his chest as you laid down together. Your head was tucked under his chin; your tears stained his shirt as your sobs slowed and you sniffled quietly. You closed your eyes. He was warm.
“I got you,” you heard him whisper.
Since that night, neither of you kept your distance anymore.
Notes:
A/N: Yes boys it’s the OBLIGATORY BED-SHARING CHAPTER. Introducing some new intimacy into their relationship wink wonk. Also introducing telepathic conversations, which is gonna become a Thing. As always, don’t forget to leave behind your thoughts!!
Chapter 16: Part 2 - Chapter Sixteen: Teach Me Something You Shouldn't // I'll Tell You Something I Shouldn't
Summary:
Bucky tries to teach you self-defense.
Notes:
A/N: So um this was way more angsty than it was supposed to be?? I don’t know what to say?? Aaaaaa???
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Getting up the next morning was more difficult than he thought it would be.
She was practically wrapped around him, her arms around his waist, her head on his chest. Even her legs were inter-tangled with his.
Despite this, physically getting up wasn’t the problem (granted, it was a bit harder for Bucky not to wake her up when they were so intertwined). The problem was he didn’t realize just how much he missed the feel of intimacy until she was laying on top of him, soft and warm and real. He was so touch-starved that he remembered the first time they slept in the same bed together, her hand on his head, he felt like he was going to spontaneously combust. But this?
He didn’t want to leave her. And the realization of that terrified him.
Eventually, he did have to get up to start his morning routine. He did his best not to move her, and by some miracle she didn’t wake up. Instead, she curled into the space he left, as if she was trying to conserve the leftover warmth.
Nothing changed between them when she got up a few hours later (although practically everything was different now). He made her breakfast and they talked. The only thing out of place was the small, “Thank you,” she whispered to him when there was a lull in the conversation. He didn’t need to ask what she was talking about.
“You’ve been doing the same thing for me,” he said simply, and that was the end of that.
God, he hoped that wasn’t the end of that.
He didn’t want to give up his newfound craving for intimacy — which made him feel guilty and selfish. He wasn’t sure what her feelings were on the matter but the last thing he wanted to do was make her feel uncomfortable. And he felt like if he brought it up he’d do exactly that.
So he didn’t. Him and Y/N went about their daily routine of memory building (no new memories today, unfortunately), and when night came, he sat in bed writing in his notebook, waiting for her to finish her nighttime routine.
Fuck.
Bucky looked up from his notebook in surprise. The voice that spoke inside his head was not his own.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. Just ask him. It’s not that big of a deal.
He stuck his pen in his journal and put it on the ground next to the mattress, his eyes on the door of the bathroom, where Y/N was currently residing.
She was projecting thoughts into his head again; but from the content he was hearing it seemed like she didn’t even realize she was doing it.
Oh, yeah? What are you going to say? ‘I need you to hold me like you did last night because I don’t think I can sleep without it?’ Yeah. Yeah, that won’t freak him out. Perfect, Y/N.
Bucky blinked a couple of times, surprised. She…she wanted him to hold her. She wanted him to hold her like he wanted to hold her. He crossed his arms, his skin hot. Hearing her thoughts like this…it felt like a complete invasion of her privacy. Craving her closeness felt invasive enough already.
But wasn’t she currently having the same internal conflict?
Y/N came out of the bathroom and his thought-process ceased momentarily. She padded over to the bed, lifted the covers, and slipped underneath. But, instead of laying down, she paused, biting her bottom lip. She moved her hair away from her face and looked at him.
“Hey…do you mind if—”
He relieved her from finishing her sentence by putting his arm around her waist and pulling her to him. Her eyes went wide and her mouth parted as she looked at him.
“Is this okay?” he asked her, his voice low. She blinked a few times before nodding and laying down next to him; she rested her head on his chest and put her hand on his collarbone where his shirt didn’t cover his skin. Her hand was over his heart. He hoped she couldn’t feel it pounding.
(Your own heart was beating erratically and you could barely remember how to breathe properly.)
Bucky suddenly remembered the reason he took such initiative and felt an obligation to tell her why. “You were, uh, projecting your internal monologue, before,” he said slowly. He could feel her head shift on his chest.
“Shit,” she breathed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to.”
“I know. It’s okay.”
The silence that followed felt thick; he was starting to wonder if he should have kept his mouth shut when she said—
“To be honest, I’ve been starting to…I’m starting to have a hard time telling the difference anymore.” Her voice was very small.
His eyebrows knitted together. “The difference between what?”
“My mind and yours,” she confessed quietly. “The space between…it’s blurry now. I’ve been spending so much time in your head…it’s starting to feel like my own.”
He didn’t know what to say to that. She swallowed.
“Jesus, I can’t even imagine what you must feel about this. I’m spending all this time in your head already and now I’m telling you that I can’t tell the difference between your mind and mine anymore?” She lifted his arm and shimmed to the edge of the mattress and out of his grasp, putting her feet on the floor and her head in her hands. “That’s so unbelievably invasive, I… .” She trailed off, instead taking a breath. “How do you do this? How do you deal with all of this?”
He sat up. “How do you deal with all of this?”
She turned back around to face him, her eyebrows knitted together.
“I mean,” he continued, “you’re the one who’s having a hard time telling the difference between your mind and mine. Doesn’t that scare you?”
She glanced down. “Of course it does, but this isn’t about me—”
“Of course it is,” he interrupted in a small voice. “You’re not the only one who feels guilty about things they can’t control.” She looked back up at him and her eyes searched his. He hesitated for a moment. “I liked…being close to you. Like last night. And I thought that that made me selfish.”
“Human beings need intimacy. You haven’t had that in seventy years, I would never blame you for feeling that way.”
“Exactly,” he said. “So why won’t you believe that I don’t blame you for being in my head? If anything, it’s my fault; you wouldn’t be in my head this much if it wasn’t for me and my nightmares.”
She shook her head. “It is not your fault, Bucky.”
“Okay,” he said, as if a point had been made. “So don’t worry about it.”
She looked like she wanted to say something else, but her mouth just hung open, like she wasn’t sure where to go from there. Eventually, she crawled back under the covers. So did he.
She still seemed upset, keeping her distance with him (as much as she could in that tiny bed). Bucky put his elbow on his pillow, resting his head in his hand.
“… .I like having you in my head,” he confessed, his eyes flicking down. “It makes me feel less alone.”
When he looked back at her, she seemed surprised by his words. Something like relief flitted through her, and she exhaled.
Then she inched closer to him, tucking her head under his chin and slowly wrapping her arms around his waist. He moved his arm from where it was resting on his pillow and put it around her shoulders.
You make me feel less alone, too, her mind whispered to his, and it was the last thing he remembered before falling asleep.
“Let me teach you how to fight.”
“What?”
Bucky thought of it one morning after they had finished breakfast, when Y/N was drinking her coffee. She stared at him in disbelief.
“Or at least let me teach you how to defend yourself,” he clarified. He was surprised he hadn’t thought about it sooner, especially with what happened with Hydra on the camping trip.
She let out a nervous laugh, which was more of a short burst of air. “No.”
He leaned forward in his seat, his eyes narrowing. “Why not?”
She held his gaze. “You know why not.”
“What if something happened?” he asked her. “What if someone got to you?”
“Good thing I have my knight in shining metal arm to come rescue me,” she said with a barely-withheld smile, pointing at his appendage for emphasis.
As adorable as her reaction to her own joke was, he managed to keep a straight face. “What if I can’t get to you? What if I’m not there? What are you going to do then?”
“Bucky,” she said as she got up to put her mug in the sink, “I can’t. It goes against what I believe in.”
“Which is what? Not protecting yourself?”
She rinsed her mug, then turned back around to face him. “I can’t incite violence, Bucky, you know that.”
“What if someone incites violence on you first?”
Doesn’t. Matter. The words were non-verbal, something she sometimes did when she wanted to emphasize a point.
Bucky stood from his chair and walked over to where she was leaning. There was a time where he would have been afraid he was intimidating her; there was a time where he was afraid that she would see him as the Winter Soldier, scary and threatening. But now he knew her, and he knew that towering over her in the way that he was doing now had no effect as she stared him down, unflinching.
“I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you,” he said, his voice low. “And if Hydra got you…” he touched her wrist, the gesture they agreed upon to signal he wanted to speak non-verbally to her, your solution can’t just be to kill yourself.
You blinked at him as you read his mind, swallowing harshly. You finally had to break your gaze from his, looking down and at his shoes (he was very close to you). You exhaled, moving your eyes from the ground but still not looking at him. You closed your eyes, bit your lip, then finally found his steel-blues again, looking up at him through your lashes. “Fine. I’ll let you teach me self-defense.”
He nodded, looking relieved. “Good.”
You told him he could teach you. But that didn’t mean you would ever use it.
Bucky left you to go to the middle of the room, then slid off his shirt and gestured for you to come over.
“What, now?” you asked, and you mentally chastised yourself for the small thrill seeing him half naked sent through you.
Stop. I need you to stop. I need you to chill.
Bucky cleared his throat and he tapped his temple. “Y/N, turn off your inner monologue.”
Heat rose to your cheeks and you prayed he didn’t hear anything he shouldn’t have. “Sorry.” You walked over to where you kept your clothes and pulled out your sports bra and stretchy pants. “Just give me a sec.”
About a minute later, you came out of the bathroom in more appropriate attire for learning self-defense.
Bucky’s jaw clenched as he gave you a once-over, and your skin felt hot and prickly all of the sudden.
“Okay, so where do we start?” you asked, your voice an octave higher than usual.
He held up his flesh hand, palm open. “Hit me.”
You gave him an unsure look.
The look he gave you was bordering on amused. “You’re not going to hurt me. Hit my hand.”
You rolled your eyes, then focused on his open palm, throwing your body at an attempt at a punch toward him. As soon as your fist connected with his hand he caught it, using the momentum to pull you against him in a tight hold.
You could feel his breath on the back of your neck. “If something like this happens,” he said into your ear, and a tingling sensation shot through you, “there are a few ways you can get out of it. Heel to foot, elbow to the solar plexus — here—” He pressed the fingers of his metal hand to the middle of your body, just under the bottom edge of your sports bra, below your breast bone.
You were having a hard time breathing. Damn him.
“—then knee to groin. Got it?”
You took a breath. “Yeah.”
Bastard.
“Are you going to insult me or are you going to try it?” he asked, and you had to close your mind off to him again, cursing yourself as you did so.
The two of you did a few slow-motion run-throughs of the technique he taught you before you moved on to something else (thank God). He taught you the proper way to punch; he taught you a few simple blocks and different hits.
You worked on self-defense for hours. Finally, Bucky wanted to do a random run-through to test what he had taught you.
You looked up at him from where you were standing with your hands on your knees, feeling sweaty and breathing harder than usual. “Can’t we stop for the day?”
He shook his head. “Show me what you got.”
You sighed and stood straight. You had had enough of this. When Bucky went to grab you, you surprised him by turning and vaulting him over your shoulder and onto the ground, something he hadn’t taught you. He landed on his back and you placed your foot on his chest.
Stunned, he blinked up at you, looking like the wind got knocked out of him.
You shrugged, still holding his arm that you used to throw him down. “My parents were rich assholes who wanted to protect their investment. Of course I was taught self-defense.” Although, you knew it wouldn’t have worked so well if you hadn’t had the element of surprise on your back. Something like that would never work on a trained professional. But it made your point well enough.
He used the fact that you were still holding his arm to grab your hand and pull you down, flipping you in the process so you were underneath him; he used his metal hand to pin your arms above your head.
“You knew self-defense this whole time?” he asked, a little bit out of breath. You turned your head, avoiding his eyes. You could feel his breath on your face. You turned your gaze back to him and nodded. “Then why haven’t you been using it?”
“You know I can’t do that,” you whispered. His jaw clenched.
“Promise me you’ll use it in the future,” he said, his blue eyes searching yours.
“Bucky… .”
He tapped your wrist twice.
Promise me.
His eyes were pleading with you; his mind begged with you in a way that that verbal words couldn’t.
You swallowed and took a deep breath. “I promise.”
You wished to God you didn’t have to lie to him.
But you did.
Bucky lingered on top of her for longer than he probably should have, taking a moment to listen to the sound of her breathing mixed with his own. Then he finally got up, holding out his hand for her; she took it and he pulled her to her feet.
“I’m getting alcohol,” she said, heading to the kitchen. “You want alcohol?” She looked over her shoulder at him.
He considered it, then nodded. She pulled out a bottle from the back of one of the cabinets, and set it on the table with two glasses. She poured each of them a shot, sitting and swallowing it down. Bucky sat next to her, downing his own.
This went on for a little bit.
Bucky, being the Winter Soldier and having a superhuman high metabolism, couldn’t get drunk. But despite being part of the species known as homo superior, this same high metabolism did not apply to Y/N.
“Liss’n to me,” she began, her voice slurring, “y’know what your problem is? Y’ jus’ need t’ relax. We all jus’ need t’ relaaaaaaaaaaaaax.” She giggled. Then she frowned at him. “Why aren’t you drunk? Is this alcohol not working?” She grabbed the bottle and stared at it, blinking. “Words’are fuzzy.”
He gently took the bottle from her hands. “I can’t get drunk, remember?” he reminded her as he got up and put the bottle away.
“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, tha’s right. Wow, tha’ suuuuuuuuucks, man.”
He nodded, watching her closely in case she decided to do something stupid. Like try to stand.
She leaned back in her seat, staring right back at him. “You have such pretty eyes,” she said, her head resting on her palm.
He blinked at her a few times. “Thanks.”
“‘Nd put a shirt on, ‘ts distracting.”
He didn’t know whether to be amused or embarrassed by her words, but either way he got up and grabbed his shirt, putting it on before sitting back down. (His face was a bit warmer than before.)
She was leaning on the table, drumming her fingers on the surface when he got back. Her eyes seemed to catch on the orange ink that adorned her skin. “Hey, you wanna know what my tattoo means?”
Bucky stilled. If she didn’t have his full attention before, she certainly had it now. He remembered the first time he asked her about it, about her tattoo, and her reaction.
“Your tattoo. The fire-bird. What’s it for?”
“Let me make this very clear. If you want my help, then you can’t ask me about my tattoo.”
“What?”
“You ask any more questions, and I walk out that door, right now, and I’m not taking you with me. Do you understand?”
Her reaction was so extreme, so finite.
“What could be so dangerous about a tattoo?”
Maybe he was about to find out. He leaned forward in his seat, waiting patiently for her to continue. She drank the rest of the liquid in her glass in one gulp. She giggled. “Is’a—” She giggled some more. “It’s a death sentence.”
Bucky’s blood chilled as he listened to her continued giggles, not understanding her meaning, but suddenly not wanting to understand her meaning. He swallowed, then took a drink of the alcohol in his own glass, as if it could help. “Well,” he said, “you’re not dead yet.”
She laughed at that. Not giggled, laughed. For some reason, what he said might as well have been the funniest thing anyone had ever said in the history of the world.
“I never—” she attempted to get out words in between her bouts of laughter, “I never said— I never said—” she tried to catch her breath, “I never said it was my death sentence.”
She stopped laughing.
Bucky’s jaw clenched as her demeanor flipped entirely. Suddenly, it looked like she was having a hard time breathing, her breaths coming out in short bursts. Tears filled her eyes and she covered her mouth.
He got up swiftly and took the empty glass from her hand, putting it on the table. Then he hooked his arm around her waist and pulled her to her feet, supporting her as he led her to bed, and laid her down.
“Something really bad’s gonna happen, Bucky,” she whispered through her tears. “And it’s gonna be my fault.”
He crouched down next to her. “What do you mean?” he asked softly. She took a couple of deep breaths, opened her mouth—
Then she stood abruptly and stumbled to the bathroom. He could hear her retching from where he was.
He exhaled slowly, then made his way over to her so he could hold her hair back.
When she was done retching, she rested her cheek on the toilet seat and stared up at him.
“Hey Bucky?”
“Yeah?”
“Knight in shining metal arm.” She giggled her way through the entire sentence, and somehow, he was able to crack a smile, too.
(The next morning, she didn’t talk about what she had said the night before.)
(Neither did he.)
Notes:
A/N: I can’t stop stupidly laughing over knight in shining metal arm
Chapter 17: Part 2 - Chapter Seventeen: Christmas Special
Summary:
You and Bucky celebrate Christmas.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No. We don’t need one.”
“How could you say that?”
“We don’t have room!”
“Alright, Scrooge,” you emphasized the nickname in Bucky’s direction, crossing your arms, “I’ll give you a deal. You can stay here and I’ll go out and bring back the biggest Christmas tree you’ve ever seen in your goddamn life — or you can help me bring back a small tree that’ll fit better in the apartment.”
Bucky raised his eyebrows at you. “You’re going to bring back the biggest Christmas tree I’ve ever seen in my goddamn life by yourself? How?”
You gave him a defiant look. “Determination.” Although he did have a point and you had no idea how you were going to do it if he said no.
Bucky sighed through his nose, his eyes trailing over the apartment. He wetted his lips then looked back at you. He stood.
He gestured to the door. A huge smile spread across your face and you clapped your hands together excitedly, practically bouncing. The corners of Bucky’s mouth pulled up slightly as he followed you out.
Bucky ended up caving on a medium-sized tree. It wasn’t too big but it definitely took up a decent amount of space at the side of the room. He would’ve fought harder on it, but seeing her face…how she pleaded for it, her eyes wide and blinking, begging him to let her take “the prettiest tree at the market — it’s my favourite one, Bucky, please, c’mon it’s Christmas” — he just couldn’t have said no. It meant so much to her to be celebrating Christmas, and honestly, with everything they’d be through and the fact that they were here and not in America, it was the least he could do for her.
She told him to take the tree back to the apartment without her. Said she had to “run some errands” or something like that. Bucky knew she was acting suspicious but let her go anyway. By the time he managed to lug the tree back, she was sitting at the table, reading, definitely not acting like she was up to something.
“Finish your errands?” he asked as he set up the tree.
She didn’t look up from her book. “Yep.”
“What did you get?”
“Stuff.”
“Stuff?”
“Yeah. Stuff.” Her eyes were still on her book but they weren’t moving, weren’t reading the words below. Yeah. She was definitely up to something.
As it turns out, the “stuff” she had gotten were Christmas decorations.
When he got back from his run at 8:00am that morning, the apartment was completely transformed. There were decorations everywhere — red and green and silver adorning the walls, tiny figurines on the table and countertop and window sill, boxes of chocolate and candy canes not yet opened sitting under the cabinets. The only thing left bare was the tree, although a box rested next to it.
Y/N, wearing a red Santa Claus hat, grinned at him as he entered, her arms full of Christmas lights that she was attempting to untangle. He blinked at her, trying to process what he had just walked in to.
He looked around, then back at her. “Where did you get the money to pay for all of this?”
She fiddled with the lights in her hands, shifting her weight to the other foot. “The Hellfire Club has a bank account in Romania. It was created to be untraceable, so don’t worry too much about it. My parents owe me, anyway.” She swiped her nails over her wrist, over her tattoo. “I just thought…It’s our first Christmas together, and, well — well it’s Christmas. Do you like it?”
She was looking at him so expectantly… .He couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah. I like it.”
Her own smile only widened, and she strolled over to the tree. “I thought we could decorate it together. Oh! Hang on!” She excitedly crossed the apartment to the radio; she put a disc in and pressed play.
“~I don’t want a lot for Christmas, there is just one thing I need, and IIIII~” the radio sang the Christmas tune. Y/N practically beamed happiness. It was infectious.
“Just let me take a shower first, okay? Then we can decorate the tree.”
She nodded furiously, and he headed to the bathroom as All I Want For Christmas Is You continued on in the background.
He had forgotten to bring a clean shirt into the bathroom with him, so he walked out post-shower clad in just his jeans, using his towel to dry his hair. Rockin’ Around the Christmas Treeplayed through the apartment; Y/N was arranging some Christmas lights on the wall, a candy cane hanging out of her mouth as she bopped along to the rhythm.
“~Everyone dancin’ merrily in a new old happy—” she turned and stopped singing as her eyes found him, her candy cane held in hand, mouth parting. Her line of sight was definitely not on his face.
He felt very self-conscious suddenly, his jaw clenching. He shouldn’t have come out without a shirt — shouldn’t have caught her off guard with what he knew were the gruesome scars embedded in the flesh around his metal arm.
She blinked and put the candy cane back in her mouth, moving her eyes and attention away from him as she went over to one of the boxes of Christmas stuff.
As soon as her eyes left him, Bucky strode over to where he kept his clothes and pulled on a shirt. When he looked back, Y/N had taken something out of the box and was walking over to him. Her eyes flicked down briefly to his now fabric-covered chest before sticking something on his head.
It was a hairband of some kind, a semi-circle spanning over the top of his head from ear-to-ear. It jingled when he moved.
“What is this?” he asked, his eyes looking up even though he knew he wouldn’t be able to see it.
Her hands were clasped together behind her back, a barely suppressed grin on her face that was equal parts mischievous and adorable. “Antlers,” she answered in a tone bordering on sing-song-y. She searched his eyes as if she was waiting to see if he would protest against them.
Instead he sighed. “Are we going to decorate this tree or what?”
He swore to God that in that moment her eyes sparkled.
And so they began decorating the tree with the decorations that she had bought, things like pretty spheres and bells and tinsel and ribbons and figures like Santa or snowmen, all the while listening to the Christmas CD that Y/N had put on. She mouthed along to the words, knowing each song while Bucky had never heard any of them. His memories of Christmases in the ‘40s were few, but any Christmas songs he did remember resembled none of these.
“~I put a tack on teacher’s chair; somebody snitched on me. I tied a knot in Sarah’s hair; somebody snitched on me. I did a dance on Grandma’s plants; climbed a tree and tore my pants; I filled that sugar bowl with ants; and somebody snitched on me. I’m gettin’ nuttin’ for Christmas; Mommy and Daddy are mad. I’m gettin’ nuttin’ for Christmas; ‘cause I ain’t been nuttin’ but bad~”
“What is this song?” Bucky asked after listening for a while, the lyrics baffling him. Y/N, who had been mouthing the words and bopping to the song thus far, gave him a sheepish look.
“Nuttin’ for Christmas? Smash Mouth?”
“Am I supposed to know what those words mean?”
“You don’t—?” She seemed to remember his lack of knowledge when it came to pop culture, and said, “Okay, tomorrow I’m making you watch Shrek.” He gave her an increasingly confused look, but she continued on anyway. “This CD is Another Rosie Christmas. My parents used to play it when we would decorate the tree. Despite what I’ve said before…my childhood wasn’t really all that bad. It was nice, actually. I have a lot of great memories. Listening to this CD around Christmas was one of them. All the bad stuff, that came…later.” She paused, in thought, then took a breath. “I’m surprised I actually managed to find it. The CD. I’m glad I did, though.” She gave him a wicked smile. “You can hear all of the classics on this one.”
“‘Nutting for Christmas’ is a classic?”
She snorted. “‘Nuttin’’, not nutting. Like nothing? Getting nothing for Christmas?” She waved her hand in the air. “Nevermind. Pass me those candy canes, would you?”
Christmas Eve you had turned off the overhead lights and let the strings of Christmas bulbs glow, illuminating the apartment in soft light. The two of you sat at the dining table, sipping glasses of spiked eggnog. There was a fuzziness in your head and a warmth in your chest.
“Every year I’d go to my parents’ ridiculously extravagant Christmas Eve party,” you were telling him. “Fancy food, fancy people, fancy party favours.”
“You wish you were there now?” Bucky asked you casually, but there was something prying underneath. His blue eyes, dark in the softly-lit room, searched yours.
You shook your head. “No. I don’t. Those parties always made me feel…lonely, I guess.” It’s hard to explain, you whispered non-verbally.
He nodded. “You don’t have to. I get it.”
You laughed bitterly to yourself, looking down into your glass. “Look at me. Here I am complaining about the horrors of being forced to attend fancy parties when you haven’t celebrated Christmas in seventy years.” You took a swig of your eggnog, the alcohol burning your throat a bit more than you had anticipated.
“You don’t have to do that, you know.”
You looked up at him, confusion crossing your features. “Do what?”
“Act like your feelings don’t matter just because my circumstances might have been worse,” he said. “You do it a lot.”
Something like shame prickled under your skin. “You were a slave to Hydra for seventy years. You lost your memories. You lost your arm.”
He shook his head. “It’s not a contest.”
Your eyes flicked back to his. “I just…don’t want you to think that I feel like anything you went through is trivial.”
His eyebrows furrowed together and he leaned forward. “Do you think that I feel like anything you went through is trivial?”
“I know you live inside your own little pacifistic bubble, so let me explain something to you.
“We, are not the same.”
You felt very, very small in that moment. Your voice was barely a whisper; you couldn’t look at him. “… .Maybe.”
You felt his hand, his flesh hand, grasp your wrist gently. Your head tilted slightly, tuning in to his thoughts.
I’m sorry I’m so shit at this.
You glanced at him. “At what?”
You watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he swallowed.
Being a friend.
Your mouth parted. You blinked at him a couple of times.
Being your friend, he added.
You wrapped your hand around his wrist. You know when you asked me if I wished I was there now, at my parents’ Christmas party, and I said no…I didn’t just mean the stupid fancy extravaganza. I meant America, too. I meant home in general. I’ve never had someone to spend Christmas Eve with, and…even though we’re in this…shitty situation, for once I’m not by myself. “And I’ve got pretty Christmas lights and strong eggnog and…a friend. And that’s all I need.”
“I don’t think any of what you went through is trivial,” he whispered, squeezing your wrist.
Tears filled your eyes but you didn’t let them fall. You gave him a watery smile. “Thank you.”
You felt Bucky trying to untangle himself from you early the next morning. You hung onto his form, tightening your arms around his middle. “Where do you think you’re going?” you asked him sleepily, your eyes still closed.
“I—”
“No,” you interrupted him. “It’s Christmas. You sleep in on Christmas.”
“Y/N—”
“Christmas,” you repeated. “Sleep.” You could feel him start to hesitate, and you moved your arms around his neck, shifting your body so you were completely on top of him.
Get up. I dare you.
You heard him sigh and felt his hands rest on your back; your head was tucked under his chin.
Bucky didn’t go back to sleep; his routine wouldn’t allow for that. Instead he listened to her breathing, felt her chest rise and fall, listened to her incoherent mumbling and felt the vibrations through his body.
She shifted and her lips brushed his neck. He felt like he was going to combust.
Your eyes blinked slowly as you woke up. The first thing you noticed was the clear lack of another person in your bed — the second thing you noticed was the sweet smell of pancakes.
“Merry Christmas,” Bucky said over his shoulder to you as he watched you sit up. You rubbed the sleep from your eyes and stood. A bubbling feeling of something warm (…happiness?) sprung up in your chest as you walked over.
“Merry Christmas,” you said back, your eyes on the plate of pancakes next to the stove. Bucky followed your gaze and handed you the platter with a small smile. You couldn’t stop the wide smile spreading across your face as you took it from him gratefully and sat down at the table.
It didn’t take Bucky long to make a couple more pancakes to add to his own plate. He sat across from you as you took your first bite.
“There are blueberries in here,” you said, pleasantly surprised.
“You like it?”
You nodded enthusiastically and watched him smile shyly to himself. You gobbled up a couple of pancakes before excitedly leaving the table and grabbing something from the closet. You hid it (poorly) behind your back as you faced Bucky again.
“Now I know we didn’t say anything about getting each other gifts, but…” you walked closer to him and placed the wrapped package on his lap, “here.”
He blinked at the package, then looked up at you. His eyes seemed especially blue today. “You got me a gift?”
“Yeah,” you said, shrugging. “It’s Christmas.” You sat in the chair next to him and clasped your hands together, bringing them to your chest. “Open it!”
He ripped into the paper, then opened the box. He paused for a moment, then lifted up the blue winter jacket.
“I saw it at the market a couple of weeks ago, and I thought it looked just like the one you used to wear in the ‘40s. Or at least it looks like the one they have in the Smithsonian.” You played with your fingers nervously as you watched him. His hands tightened around the fabric.
“I remember that jacket,” he murmured.
A memory briefly flitted through Bucky’s mind.
“Remember when I made you ride the Cyclone on Coney Island?”
“Yeah, and I threw up?”
“This isn’t payback, is it?”
“Now why would I do that?”
A crooked smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. “I love it. Thank you.”
Your heart felt like it skipped a beat at his smile, and you beamed at him. “Merry Christmas, Bucky.”
He put the jacket back in the box and gently set it down on the floor. “Hang on just a second.” You watched him stand up and grab something from where he kept his clothes. It was a small box, nothing fancy; he placed it in front of you on the table.
You gaped at him.
“You didn’t think I wouldn’t get you anything, did you?” he said, although he rubbed the back of his neck in a nervous fashion not unlike how you were acting just moments before.
You smiled shyly at him, and opened the box. You exhaled, your heart fluttering.
It was a necklace. It was made of string — but the star was made of metal. You held the piece in your hand, the metal cold and solid, the star not too big and not too little. It was simple but it was beautiful.
“Bucky…” you started, not knowing what to say, “Where did you get this?”
“I made it.” He shifted in his seat at your wide eyes in response to his words. “It’s not a big deal.”
“You made it,” you repeated, awe in your voice.
“It was really easy to do, it’s just a star, it’s pretty simple.”
“You made me something.”
“… .Yeah.”
You looked back down at the necklace, then gingerly put it around your neck. You fingered the metal of the star for a second, then stood and wrapped your arms around Bucky’s shoulders.
Gently, a bit hesitant, he hugged you back.
“Merry Christmas, Y/N.”
Notes:
A/N: By the way, when Bucky thinks that you’re staring at his scars you’re actually checking him out because you’re Thirsty for This Boi
Chapter 18: Part 2 - Chapter Eighteen: Domesticity
Summary:
Three short scenes of every day life: You cut Bucky’s hair, you get sick, you celebrate Bucky’s birthday.
Notes:
So, for those who weren’t aware, the hiatus of this story was because my keyboard was broken! But now it’s fixed!!! This means there will hopefully be more regular updates! Thanks for being patient with me!
Chapter Text
I . Haircut
Bucky was eating lunch when he noticed her staring at him, her jaw chewing thoughtfully. He swallowed and looked back, although she wasn’t meeting his eyes, her attention on something else.
“What?” he asked.
She set her sandwich down and brushed the crumbs off of her hands. “Can I cut your hair?”
Bucky’s eyebrows raised, surprised. “What?”
“Nothing too drastic — I just thought I’d trim it,” she replied, resting her chin into her hand. He felt a little hot under her gaze. You probably haven’t had a decent haircut in seventy years, her voice rang within his head.
Whether or not she meant to project that thought into his mind, she did have a point. “Do you even know how to cut hair?”
“How hard could it be?”
He sighed and hesitated for a moment. “…Okay.”
Her eyes lit up. “Really?”
He scratched the back of his head and nodded. Y/N stuffed the rest of her sandwich in her mouth and stood up, walking past him. He turned in his chair and watched her grab a towel from the closet. “What, now?”
She swallowed her food. “Sorry, did you want to finish your lunch first?”
He fought down an amused smile and shook his head. Y/N grabbed a pair of scissors. She walked back over to him and he pushed his chair away from the table to give Y/N some more room. She set the towel around his shoulders.
Y/N stood behind him and clicked the scissors a couple times. “Okay, ready?”
“Yeah.”
He heard snipping as she began cutting the ends of his hair; he watched as dark strands floated down to the floor in bunches.
She ran her hand through his hair.
She did it again.
It felt…nice.
As promised, she had only cut off a little bit — just enough to clean it up. When she was done, she moved so she was in front of him and inspected the ends to make sure they were even.
He took this moment to study her face: pensive, concentrating, serious. The slope of her jaw, her cheeks, her eyebrows. The shape of her mouth; the colour of her eyes. They squinted at him.
“Hang on, can I just—?” She finished the sentence by placing her hands on his shoulders and sitting on his lap.
He froze in his surprise. He wasn’t even sure if he was breathing anymore.
Y/N ran the tips of her fingers over his scalp, then down his hair to check the length. He resisted the urge to put his hands on her hips.
He felt like he was going to burst into flames.
Y/N reached over and grabbed the scissors again, cutting off just a little bit more where it seemed she found it uneven. She put the scissors back on the table and ran her hands through his hair again.
“Okay,” she said as her hands rested on the line of his jaw, “I think it’s good now.” Her eyes finally met his, and she seemed to realize for the first time their proximity as she blinked at him, lips parting slightly. She stood. She took a step away.
“So, do you want to see what it looks like?” Her voice was an octave higher.
He cleared his throat and nodded, standing up and heading to the bathroom to look in the mirror. He ran his hand through his newly trimmed hair. He had to admit, she did a good job.
“Well?” he heard her call. He stepped out of the room.
“Better. Thank you.”
II. Sick
It was inevitable that you were going to get sick. Colds and the flu, as inconvenient as they were, were just a part of life. In fact, you had been sick a few times before; your immune system was weaker abroad where there was different bacteria and germs. It had never been too unbearable. A sore throat here, a little bit of delirium there. If Bucky had noticed, he didn’t say anything; it was before the two of you really talked.
But this time your head was cotton; your skin was fire; you were ice. When you woke your throat was broken glass, and it hurt to swallow.
You stumbled out of bed and to the kitchen with the blanket around your shoulders. You heard the click of the bathroom door shutting as you sat down, and a voice that accompanied the padding sound of bare footsteps.
“Have you eaten breakfast yet?” Bucky asked casually as he dried his hair and joined you at the table.
You hummed in response. “Not hungry.”
His expression changed as he got a better look at you — you with your blanket and shivering and what was most likely a dreary complexion. “Are you okay?”
“It’s just a little cold,” you said. “I’m fine. So, do you want to start our session right now or do you want to eat something first?” Your sentence was concluded with a weak-sounding cough.
“You’re sick.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re shivering.” Bucky stood and walked over to where you were sitting.
“I’ve handled much worse,” you said stubbornly. He put a hand on your forehead, and his lips pulled into a tight line.
“You’re burning up.” His hand moved from your forehead to cradle your cheek, and you closed your eyes, leaning into his touch. You felt his thumb absently stroke your hot skin before it disappeared. You opened your eyes to find him looking through cabinets.
“What are you doing?” you asked blearily.
He finally stood when he seemed to find what he was looking for, and placed a box with a red cross on the top down on the table.
“Open your mouth.”
“I told you, I’m fi—” Your words were cut off as Bucky shoved a thermometer under your tongue. He took it out when it beeped, but not before an attempt was made to give him the most scathing look you could muster.
(It wasn’t that scathing. You were sick.)
“You have a fever,” he said, and put the thermometer back in the first-aid box. “Not high enough that you need to see a doctor, but high enough that you should be resting.”
You shook your head. “I can still work on your memories, it’s not like I’ll be doing anything physical.”
Bucky handed you some aspirin and a cup of water. You didn’t even process him get it. “You’re sick,” he said as you popped the pills into your mouth and drank, “meaning you’re probably delirious and can’t think straight.” He kneeled so he could meet you at eye-level. “Meaning no memory-building for today.”
A shiver ran through you and you pulled the blanket tighter around your body as you considered what he was saying. Sleep did sound really nice right about now. You sighed and nodded.
You padded your way back to the mattress and flopped down onto it. Your absence left it cold; your body vibrated and you squeezed your eyes shut, trying to rest despite the uncomfortable feeling.
You heard Bucky walk over to the bed and you opened your eyes at him, watching him sit next to the mattress.
“Sit up for a second,” he told you.
You didn’t want to sit up. Sitting up was bad. Sitting up was cold.
“I know you’re cold, I’m trying to help with that,” he responded.
Oops. Projecting thoughts again.
Against your own muddled judgement, you sat up, the blanket twisted around your waist. You had forgotten you were wearing your clothes; you had fallen asleep in them the night before. You couldn’t remember the reason why.
“Do you remember the memory about first aid in the army?” he asked you.
Vaguely.
“Extra body heat can help you when you’re cold,” he said slowly.
“I don’t need extra body heat. Extra body heat is my problem, that’s what a fever is.”
“Extra like sharing,” he specified, hooking his hair behind his ear. If you had been thinking more clearly, you might have taken the gesture to be a nervous one. “Sharing body heat.”
You hummed, “Okay,” and leaned into him, resting your head on his shoulder and closing your eyes. You felt his flesh arm habitually wrap around you.
Warm.
He sighed. “Do you remember how sharing body heat works?”
You did. If I have to take off my clothes, you thought to him, you have to take off your clothes, too.
“…That is how it works.”
You fisted your hand into his shirt and snuggled closer. “Buy me a drink, first.”
He tucked your head under his chin for a moment, then carefully untangled himself from you. Your body shook at the returning lack of warmth. You opened your eyes to find him in the kitchen.
He returned with a glass of water in hand. He offered it wordlessly to you; there was a shadow of amusement on his face.
You took the drink and considered it for a moment. “Thanks.” You set it down next to the bed, in case you needed it later — then you pulled off your shirt, the cold of the air hitting you immediately.
Bucky had seen you in your underwear before and you had seen him in his. At this point, sleeping together in the same bed was practically second nature for you. All of this meant that nothing about this situation made you uncomfortable or uneasy. (Nothing about Bucky made you uncomfortable or uneasy anymore.) The only discomfort came from your illness and the shivering that accompanied that.
You got back under the covers and closed your eyes, curling your knees to your chest in a effort to conserve warmth.
Bucky came back a moment later, sans shirt and pants, and crawled into bed. He wrapped his arms around you; his skin was hot against yours and you let out a sigh of contentment.
But the cold metal of his arm was suspiciously absent. It was replaced instead by something that felt soft and insulated, like…like… .
“You wrapped your metal arm in blankets?” you asked Bucky in a fit of giggles.
“Metal’s cold,” he mumbled as an explanation. “Go to sleep.”
Smiling, you curled further into him and closed your eyes.
III. Birthday
“This is going to sound strange, but I need you to leave the apartment for a couple hours.”
Bucky looked up at Y/N from where he was sitting, marking his place in his journal and closing it. He raised an eyebrow at her. “Why?”
“And you can’t ask why.”
He gave her a look. “Should I be worried?”
“No, of course not!” She walked over and took the journal from him. She put it on the table, then tugged on his hands with her own, prompting him to stand and move toward the door. “Two hours!” she told him before shoving him out and closing the door after him.
He sighed and began his way down the stairs.
Bucky came back a couple hours later, as instructed. He had just gotten to their floor when he spotted an elderly woman exiting his apartment and walking toward him.
“[Mrs. Miklos?]” Bucky asked in Romanian. Melita Miklos was their neighbour who lived a couple doors down from them.
She smiled wide when she saw him. “[Hello, Bucky! So good to see you!]”
“[Do you need help with your groceries, Mrs Miklos?]”
She laughed but shook her head. “[Such a good boy. No, no. I was only helping Y/N with something.]”
“[With what?]”
She chuckled and patted his stomach. “[You should come over for dinner some time. Let me cook for you and Y/N.]”
“[Okay, Mrs. Miklos, we will.]”
She pulled his arm so he would lean over, then patted his cheek before going on her way.
Bucky continued on to the apartment. It was dark when he entered; soft light flickered from the table, illuminating Y/N’s face.
Candles.
On a cake.
“Happy Birthday,” she said as he walked over.
“Birthday?” he repeated as he stopped in front of her, glancing briefly down at the cake.
“March tenth, nineteen-seventeen. You’re ninety-eight today, old man,” she said with an amused smile.
“You didn’t have to do this,” Bucky murmured.
“Of course I did,” she replied sincerely. “I even got Mrs. Miklos to help me. She did…most of it. I’m not the best baker.”
Bucky was at a loss for words. This was one of the kindest things anyone had ever done for him (that he could remember, anyway).
Everything that Y/N had ever done for him was kind.
“I… .Thank you,” he whispered.
“Blow out the candles,” Y/N insisted. She put her hand on his chest and stopped him before he could. “Oh, but make a wish first!”
Bucky looked over at Y/N for a moment. He didn’t even have to think about it.
Let her be okay.
He blew out the candles and in the dark of the apartment, Y/N kissed his cheek and spoke softly into his ear, “Happy Birthday, Bucky.”
Chapter 19: Part 2 - Chapter Nineteen: Chess Pieces
Summary:
One-year anniversary. You visit a carnival to celebrate.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Your head rested on Bucky’s back; your arm around his waist. You could feel the rise and fall of his breathing better this way. Usually it helped you sleep, but tonight your mind refused to shut itself off. Bucky wasn’t asleep yet either — you could feel his mind whirring with activity, although it was beginning to dwindle.
Bucky, you whispered telepathically, the thought quiet and hesitant.
He hummed in response and you could feel the vibration in your chest.
Are you awake?
“I am now,” he murmured in a sleep-filled voice.
“Tomorrow marks one year since we’ve been here,” you said aloud, and you had to shift when Bucky turned to face you.
“You’ve been keeping track?” The tone displayed curiosity, and surprise mixed with something you couldn’t place.
“I kept track so we’d have something to celebrate,” you explained. “A year without being captured. Almost a year since we’ve seen any Hydra agents.” One year without being their soldier, you added telepathically.
“One year since you’ve been home,” he spoke, his blue eyes dark.
You sighed and rolled onto your back, looking up at the ceiling. “‘Home’ is subjective.”
“Don’t you miss it?”
You thought about his question. “There are some things that I miss, I guess. Sleeping in a bed that’s not just a mattress. Chinese food. But it was never…home to me. I don’t miss it. Where I grew up; New York; Washington… .It’s like I was always looking behind my back, waiting for something bad to happen.”
“And hiding out from Hydra is somehow different?”
“It is different. I have you.”
Bucky blinked at you and you threaded your fingers through his.
“America was so…lonely for me,” you said, your voice barely above a whisper. “You know I didn’t exactly get along with my family. I could never seem to stay in a relationship or make any close friends. I always felt so detached from everything and everyone else — because I’m a mutant, because I’m…well. But here…I finally feel like…like things can be different. The two of us, we’ve both been through some fucked up shit, but we have each other. Everything I’m doing — it’s good, it means something. I know this situation isn’t exactly ideal, but…” …if I was going to label any place as home, it’d be here. “Also, you’re kind of permanently stuck with me now, so you’re just going to have to deal with that.”
Bucky wrapped his arm around you, somehow keeping his hand attached to yours. “I think you were stuck with me first.”
You smiled, a puff of laughter leaving your nose. You blinked in the darkness of the room, listening to Bucky’s breathing, him warm and solid next to you.
You thought about your future.
The one that was designated for you.
And you rejected it.
“I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” you whispered into the crook of his neck, and let sleep overtake you.
The city was holding a carnival the next day, the anniversary of you and Bucky living there. Bucky, who only had vague memories of carnivals, agreed to let you take him as a way to celebrate.
A thousand colours greeted you as you walked down the street, the shrieking sound of children’s laughter filling your ears. Smells of popcorn and cotton candy wafted into your noses and you tugged on Bucky’s hand upon seeing a woman start a sword-eating trick.
Fire performers, acrobats, curiosities — they had it all. There was even a Ferris wheel, one that was large and tall and took you up high into the sky when you were at the very top.
The two of you could see half the city as you sat in your Ferris wheel cart; you watched people mill about below and enjoy the festivities.
You were on your way to play those rigged carnival games that you were sure an expertly trained assassin could easily win when you passed a fortune teller’s booth.
The woman standing outside of the curtain, dressed in colourful cloth and an assortment of jewelry, beckoned to you as you passed.
“[Care to have your fortune told?]” she asked you, and you stopped.
“[That depends on whether or not this is a hoax],” you replied with an amused tone.
“[No hoax],” she said. [“Come. See what the cards have to tell you.]”
You considered it for a moment, looking to Bucky. He shrugged. “[Sure. Why not],” he said.
The two of you stepped toward her, but the Fortune Teller held up her hand. “[Her only, not you.]”
Bucky narrowed his eyes at the Fortune Teller, then at you.
“[It’s okay],” you told him. “[Go get us some popcorn. This probably won’t take very long.]”
He hesitated for a moment, then nodded at you and started making his way toward concessions.
You followed the Fortune Teller through the curtain and into her booth. It was dimly lit with the smell of incense burning. You half-expected there to be a large crystal ball in the middle of the table, but instead there was a pack of tarot cards. Intricate designs covered the backs.
“[Sit],” she told you, gesturing to the chair, and you complied. She began shuffling the cards. “[Have you ever had your fortune told for you before?]”
You smiled. “[Do Buzzfeed quizzes count?]” you joked.
She ignored the comment. “[Have you ever had your future told for you before?]”
Yes.
“[No],” you replied.
The Fortune Teller hummed in response. She spread out the cards before you, all faced down. “[You will pick three cards, and I will tell you what each of them mean.]”
Sounded easy enough. You chose your first card and flipped it over.
The front faces were beautifully painted, likely by hand. The image was of two figures, intertwined, embracing each other, their faces only inches apart from the other.
“[The Lovers],” the Fortune Teller told you, a knowing smile spreading across her face. “[The man that you were with…?]”
Your face grew hot despite yourself. “[No, we’re not together, he’s just…]” you struggled to find the right word, “[…a friend.]”
She chuckled. “[The Lovers card does not always mean a romantic relationship. It is a partnership.]” She picked up the card. “[And it is one that is important to you. Trust in this relationship. You are stronger together than you are alone.]”
She put the card down, then gestured for you to take another. You did.
The next card was of a robed woman in blue cloth sitting upon a throne. She held a scroll in her hand.
[“It’s upside-down],” you commented, confused.
“[The High Priestess, Reversed],” the Fortune Teller said. “[Upright, The High Priestess represents knowledge and intuition. But Reversed, she represents secrets, withdrawal, silence.]”
You stilled slightly, then shifted and leaned forward in your seat. “[And what does she say about secrets?]”
“[That you keep them],” she said, “[and that they are dangerous ones. But keeping secrets will not help you. You cannot keep them forever.]” She held up The Lovers card again. “[Trust your partner, remember?]”
Your lips pulled into a tight line, and you leaned back in your chair. You avoided the eyes of the Fortune Teller, afraid that she would be able to tell that you weren’t planning on taking her advice.
“[Pick your last card],” she spoke after a moment.
You sighed and reached across the table for your third fortune.
Your heart nearly stopped.
The image was a white skeleton starkly painted upon a black background. He held a scythe in his hand. You didn’t have to ask her what it was.
“[Death],” you said in a small voice.
The Fortune Teller gave you a sympathetic smile, then took the card from your hand. “[Death does not mean what most people believe it means. Death represents change, rebirth, transformation.]” She gave the card back to you, cupping her hands around yours so you would hold the card with all your fingers. “There is a transformation, a rebirth, in your future; I see that now. Change is an important part of life. And so is death.”
You felt uneasy as you looked upon the card, as you thought about the last time someone had told you your future. You didn’t want Death to be a part of it; you wouldn’t let Death be a part of it.
The Fortune Teller grasped your hands tightly. “If you cannot accept your rebirth, if you cannot accept the death that is inevitable upon your path, then it will consume you. It will consume everything.”
You blinked and looked up at her, an unsettling feeling filling you. “When did you start speaking English?”
The room spun and shifted like
S
M
O
K
E
, a tornado of energy wiping away the Fortune Teller
, the cards
, the table
, the room
, everything.
You held onto your chair and shut your eyes, feeling the wind tear at your body as if it was trying to erase you, too.
You opened your eyes when it stopped, and what you found was something you never would have expected.
Your mentor sat across from you, her nails immaculate as she examined a chess piece in her hand. The table in front of you held a strange chess board — black and white, like usual, pieces in its place, like usual, but there was an em tiness to it, like the game had already been played half-way through.
“Emma?” you spoke, disbelief colouring your tone. You shook your head, squeezing your eyes shut for just a moment. “No. You’re not real. This is an illusion.”
She hummed in response. “Illusions are powerful things, Y/N,” she said. “That’s what I taug t you. Anyone can be controlled with the right motivation. Even the most powerful piece on the board—” she looked at the White Queen she held, “—can be manipulated. Tell me, Y/N,” she set down her Queen, “which is the most imp rtant piece?”
You didn’t want to play this game with her. You wanted to leave this illusion, find Bucky, go home. But your teeth ground together as you reluctantly answered her. “The King.”
She linked her fingers together, observing you. “Why?”
You breathed harshly through your nose. “When the King dies the game ends. You can’t keep playing after that.”
Emma seemed unimpressed with your answer. “The King is the most important piece because he controls all the other pieces. The quiet manipulator. The game ends when he dies b cause he can no longer tell all the other pieces what to do.” She picked up the White Queen again. “If the Queen is so powerful, why doesn’t she just overthrow the King? Why doesn’t she fight back agai st his orders?”
You gave Emma a confused look. “She can’t.”
Her gaze was expecting. “Why not?”
The more the seconds ticked by, the more frustrated you were becoming. “You want to debate the philosophy of chess with me? I don’t know. That’s just how the game works.” You looked down at the chess board, finally realizing why it felt empty. “Why are we playing with only half a board anyway? Half the pieces are missing.” You looked closer, your eyebrows knitting together. “I don’t even have a King.” You leaned back and looked at her. “You win automatically.”
Emma played with the White Queen in her hand. “Then perhaps it’s time you sw tched sides.” She took the piece and placed it ne t to her other white pieces, then turned it half-way. The back of the Queen was painted black, black like the pieces on your side of the board.
(There was a pounding in your head. In your subconscious, there was a word. One word.)
You gaped at her. “That’s my Queen. You can’t play with my Queen, that’s not how the game works.”
She picked up the Black Queen. “It is now.” She set it down in the middle of the board, and flames erupted from it as soon as it touched, consuming the board and all of its pieces — spreading across the table and down onto the floor and up the curtains of the booth.
You stood, scrambling to escape the fire that was destroying everything. You fell backwards through the curtain,
and found the world to be normal on the other side. Chest heaving, you saw the booth was untouched, perfectly safe from what you had been convinced were very real flames just a second ago.
The only difference was the ‘Closed’ sign that had been placed on the curtain entrance. When you pulled it back, the Fortune Teller was gone.
“Hey.”
You whipped around to find Bucky behind you, holding two buckets of popcorn. He gave you a concerned look when he took in your flustered state. “Are you okay?”
You made an effort to slow your breathing, and you looked back behind you once before nodding. “Just…cryptic bullshit,” you told him.
Is it lying if it’s wishful thinking?
“Are you sure?” he asked, not seeming convinced. “You look…spooked.”
You hugged yourself, as if you could make yourself disappear. “Can we just go home?”
He looked like he wanted to ask more, but instead he nodded and handed you your popcorn. You walked next to him, closer than maybe you usually would. You didn’t eat any of the popcorn; you couldn’t stomach it.
When you arrived at the apartment, Bucky went over to the small TV you two owned. “Do you want to watch a movie?”
You gave him a small smile and nodded, some of your anxiety starting to dissipate.
You were watching him go through some choices when you realized that there was something in your pocket that wasn’t there before. Reaching down, you fished out a tarot card.
Words were scribbled on the back. Accept what you cannot control.
Your eyes narrowed at the sentence, then flipped over the card.
The Lovers.
Confusion spread across your face. You had expected the Death card; after all, that was the advice the Fortune Teller had given you that most resembled what she had written to you now. But The Lovers… .
You glanced up at Bucky, an uneasiness beginning to run through you — a sense of dread, a sense of foreboding.
You ripped up the card.
Notes:
I love cryptic bullshit. Also symbolism.
Chapter 20: Part 2 - Chapter Twenty: Guilty (You're Not You're Not You're Not)
Summary:
You and Bucky discuss what it means to be guilty.
Chapter Text
You thought you knew what war was like. You’d seen movies; you knew the things that happened during World War II.
Seeing it was different.
You and Bucky walked side-by-side next to the Howling Commandos through the city, led by Steve Rogers and Bucky’s own past self. You couldn’t even tell which city you were in — only that it was probably in Europe, and that it was crumbling.
“It’s so…quiet,” you whispered. The only noise came from the Commandos, with their steps and their voices and the sound of their weapons hanging off their sides.
Bucky, your Bucky, who had been observing a small fire that was burning within a window of smashed glass, glanced back over at you. “Everyone’s gone,” he murmured.
One of the Commandos said something to Bucky, past Bucky, that you didn’t catch. He grinned and laughed in response. The sound made your heart hurt. A lot of things about Bucky’s past self made your heart hurt.
He deserved so much more than what he got.
“I think about this a lot,” Bucky said to you in a small voice, as if speaking too loudly would somehow attract attention to the two of you in that silent, broken city. “I…miss it. As much as someone can miss something they only partly remember, anyway.” His mouth was pulled into a tight line.
You regarded him softly. “You make it sound like it’s a bad thing.”
“It is a bad thing.”
A melancholy sigh left your mouth. “Oh, Bucky…”
“Look at this, Y/N!” He gestured around you. “I’m missing a war.”
“You’re missing your friends,” you insisted. “Missing the life you used to have. Missing saving people instead of—” You hesitated, and Bucky saved you from having to finish your sentence.
“Yeah,” he said. “I know.” He stared at the ground as you continued to walk ahead next to the Commandos.
You looked at him for a long time, unsure what to say. Out of the corner of your eye, a certain red and blue shield caught your attention.
Steve Rogers, serious as you remembered, yet complete in a way he never was as you knew him — complete with his best friend at his side.
“Maybe,” you began, your attention slowly sliding back to Bucky, “…Maybe, one day, we’ll be able to go back to—”
A sudden gunshot rang through the city and you ducked instinctively. Bucky, your Bucky, moved to shield you with his body despite the lack of any real danger.
“What the fuck was that?!” one of the Commandos yelled as they took cover.
“Sniper!” another shouted. “The clocktower — you see him?”
You and Bucky joined his past self and Steve at the side of the street. You found yourself seeing through past Bucky’s eyes as he pulled out a sniper rifle and peered through the scope. There was indeed a shadow of a man with a gun in the place where the clock of the fractured clocktower was once whole.
You flinched again as another bullet hit the ground.
“Bucky!” Steve said, a question in his voice.
“Just a second — I got him.” Voice level and hands steady, Bucky’s past self lined up the shot, then pulled the trigger.
The next second the sniper was falling out of the clocktower. You closed your eyes to avoid watching the impact as he hit the ground.
Bucky, your Bucky, gently pulled your arm and the two of you followed his past self and Steve out from hiding.
“Take that ya Nazi bastard — oh, shit.”
The Commando that had gone to finish the German soldier off slowly lowered his gun, his face growing pale.
Something was wrong.
The two of you trailed behind Bucky’s past self as he approached the bleeding and broken mess that was the sniper.
It was just a kid. Fifteen years old, maybe. Tears poured from his eyes, his sobbing choked by blood spurting from his mouth.
“No, no, no, no, no—” Past Bucky knelt down and pressed his hands over the wound, the wound that he caused. “Fuck! They’re giving kids guns now? Fuck — c’mon kid—”
“Barnes.”
“Kid, don’t — you can’t just—”
“Bucky.” Steve put his hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “He’s gone, Buck.”
You were pulled out of the memory very suddenly and watched as Bucky stood, repeatedly rubbing at his eyes. He began pacing. You could feel the waves of guilt and sadness coming off from him, and your vision was blurred by tears of your own.
“I thought—” and his voice broke. I know what I’ve done, for Hydra, his mind spoke to yours. All the fucked up, horrible things — but I thought, I thought that at least I used to be a good man.
You stood. “You were a good man, Bucky. Are a good man. One death doesn’t change that.”
“It was a kid! I killed a kid. I did that — not Hydra giving me orders, me. Back before everything. Back before they made me a monster—” —I already was one.
“That wasn’t your fault! You couldn’t have known—”
He rubbed his hands over his face. “We can’t keep having this conversation, Y/N. At some point, you need to let me take responsibility for these things! I’m guilty!”
“No!” You faced him down, trying to meet his eyes. “Not when they’re not your fault — you’re not guilty and I won’t let you keep believing that!”
“Then let me ask you this—” He finally looked at you, really looked at you with emotions you could not describe. “Why am I allowed to be absolved of guilt and you’re not?”
You took a step back, surprised by the shift in the conversation, and Bucky took an immediate step forward to follow, as if the two of you had been moving in tandem from the start.
“You think I can’t feel it? Feel you, your guilt?” Another step back, another step forward. “How is that fair? That I’m somehow…innocent, while you’re guilty for these things that you’ve done — that you haven’t done yet?”
Step together. “What are you talking about?”
Step together (he stepped forward, you stepped back). “Remember the day I taught you self defense? You got really drunk and you…said some things. About you. About your tattoo. About what it means.”
Step together. (You couldn’t tell who was moving first anymore.) Now your back was pressed against the table and you had nowhere to go. “Bucky,” you said, a warning. “Don’t.”
“You told me it’s a death sentence. You said it wasn’t your death sentence.”
One rule, Bucky, you thought to him. We have one rule.
“You said something bad is going to happen, and that it’s going to be your fault,” he continued.
You could feel streams running down your cheeks. “Please. Stop.”
His fists clenched and his face twisted, the volume of his voice rising. “Well I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s going on! If you don’t tell me the truth!”
You could see in his mind a memory — the memory of his trip inside your mind, the vision you had locked away.
You matched his tone and level, your words bursting out from somewhere deep inside you. “I’m going to hurt a lot of people, Bucky, is that what you want to hear? A seer showed me my future and now I have to take responsibility for what I’m going to do!”
He paused, taking in your confession, but barely broke his stride. “Why? You haven’t done anything yet — why do you get to be guilty for something that hasn’t happened?”
“BECAUSE I COULD END MY LIFE RIGHT NOW AND STOP ALL OF IT!” you screamed at him, and the silence that followed your words was practically deafening. “If I was dead,” you continued in a quieter voice, “then the vision wouldn’t come true. I’m guilty because I know how to stop it from happening, but I can’t—” You couldn’t finish your sentence, your voice dissolving into broken sobbing that was choking your throat.
Bucky’s hands immediately went up to cradle your face. As soon as he touched you — you crumbled. Your knees gave out and the only thing holding you up was him. His grip was as fierce as it was gentle, with his metal arm supporting you and his flesh hand wiping tears from your face. Slowly, he lowered the both of you to the floor.
“You’re not guilty because you want to live, Y/N,” he whispered, but it might as well have been the loudest thing he had ever said.
“I don’t know how it starts,” you said between hiccups, “I don’t know how it happens — I-I don’t know how else to stop it.”
“We’re going to fix this,” he said. “We’re going to make sure there’s a third outcome, I promise you that.”
“How?”
He breathed through his nose. “We’ll…cross that bridge when we get to it.”
Despite the situation, a weak-sounding laugh escaped your mouth. Bucky wrapped both his arms around you in a tight hug and you closed your eyes.
“I…think we should keep going.”
You pulled back at his words, your face a mixture of surprise and concern. “With your memories? Are you sure?”
“We were close to something else, I could feel it,” he said. “Something important.” He found your hand and squeezed it. “Are you okay to keep going?”
You nodded and silently slipped your hand to cup the side of his face. Still embracing on the floor of the apartment, the two of you closed your eyes and let reality fall away.
“No, no, no, no, no — Fuck! They’re giving kids guns now? Fuck — c’mon kid—”
You didn’t need to watch this part of the memory again. Bucky paused a moment to look, to see the boy that had died as a result of war — then moved on, passing the boy to open the door of the clocktower.
The stairs behind the door went down, not up. Cold air wafted up from below, white flakes of snow blowing into your faces and causing you to momentarily block your face with your hand.
“Bucky,” you murmured as you listened to the sound of wind whistling, “I don’t know about this.”
He glanced over at you. “Y/N, you can’t protect me from all the things I’ve done, all the things that have happened to me.” This time he turned his body, fulling facing you and making sure to meet your eyes. “But you can help me through them.”
You hesitated, taking a deep breath. You looked down the stairs again, feeling, knowing where this was going — where the stairs would lead. Your eyes went back to his (his blue, blue eyes — but not cold, not anymore) and you bit your lip.
You reached out and took his hand, lacing your fingers with his. He took this as a sign to continue, and the two of you began your descent together.
The first thing you noticed was the crunch and wetness of snow beneath your feet. The second was a numbness in your left arm.
The frozen air hurt your lungs when you breathed, and your breath billowed into clouds in front of you.
“So this is it,” Bucky murmured as he stared down at the bleeding, frozen body that was his own self. He looked up, up above him. “You can’t even see the train tracks from down here.”
The ravine seemed to stretch on forever in both directions. The two of you waited, in the cold and in the snow, until the men came to take Bucky away.
You walked alongside them in silence as they pulled past Bucky’s barely conscious body along. You made sure you didn’t let go of his hand, your Bucky’s hand.
“Where would you rate this?” he asked you after a few minutes of walking. “In the building metaphor. Where would you put this memory? On the ground floor? Before all the shit that happens in the basement?”
“It goes on the bottom,” you whispered in a small, small voice. You looked at him. “It’s the inciting incident. It’s what causes…everything else. It goes on the bottom.”
Bucky’s jaw clenched and he swallowed, nodding slowly. His grip on your hand (your left hand) tightened.
You were having a hard time feeling it.
The memory stuttered as Bucky’s past self fell in and out of consciousness. The next thing you knew, you weren’t in the ravine anymore, but in a laboratory. Bucky’s past self was strapped to an operating table.
Next came the most excruciating pain you had ever experienced.
They were amputating his arm and you could feel it
every bit of
it
and it
you coul
dnt
think
SCREAMING
HI
S
AN
D
YO
URS
P
AI
N
H
IS
A
ND
Y
OUR
S
He
fe
ll
in
and
ou
t
of cons
ciou
snes
s.
Next was conditioning.
Conditioning.
Conditioning
Repeating
Again
Again.
Kill.
Kill.
For Hydra.
For Hydra.
No.
No.
NO.
You could feel his resistance, his refusal to be turned into a weapon, to comply. It was loud, it was insistent. It was the one thing he was holding onto.
You couldn’t tell how long they spent trying to change him. It feel like minutes, like months, like years, like forever.
Until they stopped trying to change him.
Until they started using his resistance to their own advantage.
They started conditioning him to associate being a monster with being a hero.
You saw through his eyes
saw him shoot an innocent person
but see him see himself saving an innocent person
and you finally understood how they turned a good man into a villain.
When the threshold of pain was met, you pulled Bucky and yourself out of the memory, the two of you left gasping.
Bucky’s hands went to your face; his eyes, filled with tears, scanned you frantically. “Are you okay?” he asked, unconcerned for his own well-being and instead focused on yours.
You didn’t answer his question; instead, you took Bucky’s hands in yours and stood. His eyes followed you up where he rested on his knees before you. “You are a good man, Bucky. Hydra didn’t change that.” His eyes narrowed and you continued. “Don’t you see? Hydra had to convince you that you were doing the right thing to get you to do what they wanted. They may have tried to turn you into a monster, Bucky, but you have always been a good man.” You took his metal hand and pressed a lingering kiss to his palm. “You don’t have to be guilty, anymore.”
Bucky took a deep breath and squeezed his eyes shut. He reached out for you and wrapped his arms around your waist. You hugged his head to your middle and rested your cheek on his hair.
We’re gonna be alright.
We’re gonna be alright.
Notes:
A/N: Only a few more chapters left in Part 2. Y’all ready for present-day Part 3?
Also some constructive feedback would be really nice! Tell me what parts you liked, what parts you're excited for, what parts you're curious about! I don't add symbolism and hidden messages just for myself, y'know ;)
Chapter 21: Part 2 - Chapter Twenty-One: Two One Night Stands
Summary:
You find an…interesting memory of Bucky that leads into an interesting conversation between the two of you.
Chapter Text
“Tell me the plan again.”
You were pulled out of the make-believe reality of your current book by Bucky’s voice. You blinked at him from across the table, where he sat with his journal and a pen. There was a frown on your face.
“Why?” you asked.
“It’s been a while since we’ve gone over it,” he replied. “I need to make sure you haven’t forgotten anything.”
With a deep sigh, you marked your place in your book and sat back in your chair. You spoke slowly. “In the event that we get separated…we head to the closest train station. We wait a maximum of half an hour for the other person, then buy a ticket to the third city listed on the board.”
Bucky’s head tilted slightly to the side. His left brow raised delicately. And? he asked.
Your eyes narrowed. And what?
“And you get on the train. With or without the other person.”
You leaned forward in your seat, your nails scraping lightly over your tattoo in a nervous fashion. “I don’t understand why we can’t just…choose a city with the same first letter as the current month or something like that. If we just pick the third city listed and then leave…how are we supposed to know where the other has gone? How are we supposed to find each other afterwards?”
Bucky leaned forward in his own seat, mirroring you. “You know why. If we know where the other is going, and one of us gets captured, then they could torture the information out of us.” Your eyes wandered away from him at the mention of torture, your nails digging into your skin. “We’ll find a way to find each other. Don’t worry.”
Your gaze found his again. “And if one of us does get captured? Where’s the rescue plan if the other has no idea?”
“I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” he said, slowly, steadily.
You gritted your teeth. I’m not talking about me, you said to his mind. “What do you expect me to do? Get on a train without you and don’t ever look back? Live my life on my own not knowing whether or not you’re alive? Captured? Looking for me?”
Bucky sat back in his chair. “If it comes to that.”
Your mouth twisted unhappily. “Why doesn’t the same apply to you?”
“Because I don’t have a particular pacifistic code of ethics.”
He was technically right, but that didn’t make you any less mad about it. Well, mad wasn’t exactly the right emotion. Upset was closer. So was panicked. Worried. Afraid.
You needed him. Your friend. You couldn’t date when exactly Bucky Barnes had become the most important person in your life, but you knew that losing him couldn’t be an option.
Bucky didn’t wait for you to respond, instead standing and going to put away his journal. You weren’t sure how many of those he had filled by now. “We should probably start a session before it gets too late.”
You crossed your arms as you leaned back in your chair, drumming your fingers on your arm. This conversation isn’t over, you projected as your eyes followed him.
He gave you a brief look as if to say “I know”, but declined to answer vocally or telepathically. He sat down on the floor in his usual spot, glancing at you over his shoulder, eyebrows raised slightly. Waiting.
You breathed through your nose and finally stood from your chair. He faced forward again when you settled down behind him, and you gently placed your hand at the side of his head.
The room bled out and was replaced by a different room: big and spacious, filled with tables and chairs and people. Laughter and voices rose from the silence, and you took a moment to survey what you could now tell was some kind of bar.
It was ‘40s themed, which was always a good sign. Honestly, you didn’t know if you could handle a Winter Soldier memory right now, not with the fragile feeling that your conversation with Bucky left in your heart.
It didn’t take long to find him — Bucky’s past self. He was smiling and drinking up at the bar, chatting with a blonde woman who kept touching his arm. Per the norm, you and Bucky, the present Bucky, were silent as you watched and listened to the memory as it played. At some point you had sat down at one of the tables.
After some time, your head tilted to the side where Bucky was sitting next to you, your eyes kept on his past self and the blonde woman. “You were good.”
You looked at him as his eyebrows knitting together. “What do you mean?”
“At flirting,” you clarified. “You were a good flirt.”
He didn’t respond to the comment, only looking back at his past self as if to confirm whether what you had said was true.
You leaned forward in your seat, resting your cheek into your hand. “Do you think you could do that now?” you asked simply.
He glanced at you, then back to himself and the woman. “I wouldn’t know what to say,” he replied after a time.
You sat back, grinning. “You don’t even need to worry about that. Your past self may have been charismatic, but you’re all dark and brooding,” you teased him. “Women love that.”
He looked like he was attempting to hold back an amused smile, or trying not to roll his eyes at your remark. You rested your arms back on the table, setting your chin back in your hand as you watched.
“If you could just remaster those bedroom eyes, then you’d be golden,” you teased further…only half joking.
It seemed like he was going to say something back,
when suddenly the world shifted and rippled, the memory changing into something else.
Heavy breathing met your ears as the well-lit bar became something dimmer. Smaller. Softer.
And there was Bucky. Lying on a bed. Lying on top of someone on a bed. Without any clothes.
You had never seen Bucky’s past self without a shirt. He was considerably leaner, and without the scars that currently marred what was remaining of his left arm.
That left hand, his past self’s still existing left hand, glided up the thigh of the blonde woman, disappearing under the fabric of her pushed-up dress. She mewled in response and writhed underneath him, her breath catching as his lips met the column of her throat. The top half of her dress was pulled down; her bra was missing, haphazardly thrown across the room somewhere. Bucky’s past self brushed his lips farther down, nipping her breast and soothing the sting with his tongue afterward. She said his name, breathy, sighing, and then said it again, and he brought his lips back up to hers.
His right hand reached for her other thigh and hooked her leg around his waist.
You could feel it when he entered her, as if you were in his place — her skin soft under your hands, the salty taste of her in your mouth, the smell of sweat, hers and Bucky’s, in your nose.
You didn’t know at exactly which point you had stopped breathing.
The blonde woman was loud, but all you could hear was the sound of Bucky’s own noises, and how much they — he was starting to affect you.
There was a pressure building between your thighs, and you honestly weren’t sure if it was Bucky’s or your own.
His breath stuttered and he swore softly, breathing what must have been the woman’s name. The feeling was becoming overwhelming; it was becoming harder and harder to focus. There was a sensation of nails running down your back, but it was nothing compared to the sharp and sudden explosion of everything reaching its very peak.
Waves of what was left still hit you as you pulled yourself out of Bucky’s head, your mind so immersed in his memory that your own body betrayed you. You did your best to steady your breathing, trying not to pant as your face heated hotter than ever.
Bucky, the Bucky sitting before you as you moved backwards and stood, also seemed somewhat out of breath.
You leaned against the table behind you and resisted the urge to cross your legs. You covered your face with your hand, your skin very warm under your fingers. “I’m sorry!” you said, you practically squeaked. “That was probably way more personal than you wanted me to see.”
“More personal than watching me commit horrifyingly gruesome murders?” he said after a time. When you lowered your hand from your eyes, he ran his flesh hand through his hair and scratched his neck. “Honestly, I’d rather you see that than some of the other things you’ve already seen. At least that’s…normal.”
You crossed your arms and licked your lips, avoiding his eyes. “I guess you have a point.”
(You missed the way Bucky’s eyes darted to your lips as you wetted them — his intake of breath and harsh swallow followed by his own avoidant gaze.)
You cleared your throat. “So, do you remember who she was?”
He looked up for a moment, as if he was searching the memory. “Uh…Her name was…Elizabeth? She was…nice. I think I liked her. I didn’t see her again after that, though.”
You pulled up a chair, your eyebrows raised. “I didn’t know one-night-stands were a thing in the ‘40s.” You thanked God that your voice could stay casual, that you got the chance to calm your body down.
“Well, yeah,” he said, looking like he was thinking about it. “I mean, it wasn’t as frequent as I guess it is now but…it happened sometimes.” He shook his head. “But that wasn’t a one-night-stand. At least, I don’t think it was supposed to be.”
Your head tilted to the side. “What do you mean?”
“I was gonna meet her again,” he clarified. He crossed his arms. “Why didn’t I… .?” His brow smoothed in realization, and the corners of his mouth pulled upwards slightly.
“What?”
“Steve,” Bucky said, not quite looking directly at you, as if he was lost in the memory. “He got himself into some kind of trouble the night I was supposed to go out with her again.” He chuckled a bit. “What a punk.”
Then his eyebrows pulled back together and his smile faded somewhat, as if he didn’t understand the term of endearment that had just left his mouth. Like it had been something he had long forgotten and just remembered.
His smile returned, a bit softer this time, and you could see the gears turning in his head as he replayed the memory for himself over and over again.
“Do you miss it?”
Bucky leaned his head into his hand as he sat on the floor across from you. “Miss what?”
“Sex.”
His eyebrows raised at first, then knitted together as he thought about it. “Well…I’m assuming the last sex I had was about seventy years ago…but I guess I haven’t really thought about it.”
Liar, you thought.
Bucky gave you a semi-surprised look and you inwardly cringed. He was not supposed to hear that one.
“Sorry,” you said.
“Alright, so I’ve thought about it,” he confessed. “But it’s not like…like I think about it all the time. It’s not like I’m actively wanting to… .” He gestured vaguely. “But…to answer your question — Yes. I miss sex.”
“Seventy years is a long time,” you mused. “It’s like your virginity all over again.”
He laughed through his nose, an amused smile gracing his features as he shook his head. “Yeah. I guess it is.” Bucky gave you a hard stare with those blue eyes of his. “What about you?”
You snorted. “I’m not a virgin.”
That blue was unwavering. “I didn’t think you were.” His response, his tone, served to heat your blood, just a tad. Bucky continued, “But that’s not what I was asking. Do you miss it? Sex?”
“Yeah,” you answered truthfully. “It has been a while.”
“Not a lot of opportunity when you’re running from Hydra,” he concluded. “Unless you’ve been having nightly escapades that you haven’t told me about…?”
You laughed. “Highly trained assassin, you would’ve noticed if I left in the middle of the night.”
“So that’s where you disappear off to sometimes after lunch. I always wondered.”
Your laughter turned into giggling as you shook your head. “No. No sex. But when I said it’s been a while…I didn’t just mean since this whole thing started. Before this, I hadn’t been in a relationship for a little more than half a year. Romantic or physical.”
His head tilted in question. You shrugged.
“It can be difficult to find a partner when you have so many secrets,” you said. “The political climate the way it is right now… .All the unease around mutants… .Sometimes it’s hard to find someone I can trust enough. Only one person I ever dated knew everything — and I mean everything, everything — but even then I…didn’t confide in…them. With how I was feeling. It’s why…it’s why they eventually left. It wasn’t fair to them.”
Bucky gave you a sympathetic look. “That must be hard for you.”
You shrugged again and scratched at your wrist. Comes with the territory. You weren’t sure whether or not you projected the thought to him; at this point, you weren’t sure it mattered. You attempted to shake off the souring mood. “Anyway, yes, I miss sex.” You leaned back until you were sprawled out, lying on the floor, looking up at the ceiling. “Sex was fun.”
Bucky lied back to join you. “Yeah.”
You pulled your bottom lip between your teeth, your mind wandering to the memory you had become wrapped up in earlier that day. Fuck, you missed sex. Wandering further, you wondered if Bucky would be the same in bed the way he was in the ‘40s, or if everything that happened to him would make a difference. Would he be rougher? More careful?
You chastised yourself for thinking about him that way. It wasn’t right, especially not with the chance that he could hear you—
Your face heated. “Bucky?” you ventured.
He cleared his throat. “Yeah?” he replied in a strained tone. Well, that wasn’t a good sign that you were in the clear.
“…Can I make a suggestion?” You weren’t sure where that came from. It wasn’t what you were going to say, which was more along the lines of, “I’m going to go take a cold shower now.”
“Sure,” he breathed.
You sat up, then stood, pacing slightly. “Well, this thing we’re doing here, hiding out from Hydra — it doesn’t look like it’s ending any time soon.” What are you saying? “And I’m not about to just go out and let a stranger take me home.” Oh my God. You’re actually going to do it, aren’t you? “And I…trust you.” You’re doing it; you’re asking him. “It might help us relax a bit more, get rid of some of the extra stress… .” You finally worked up the courage to look at him.
He swallowed. “Just so I’m getting this right… .You’re talking about sex.”
“Yes.”
“With me.”
Your whole body flushed with heat. “…Yes.”
He stood up to face you. His blue eyes, somewhat darker now, kept darting down to your lips. He licked his own. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Yes. But only if you are,” you added. “This is Your Virginity: The Sequel.”
He smiled amusedly and shook his head. “I’ll be fine.”
“Good. Take off your shirt, then.”
His eyes accepted the challenge in your own, and he pulled his shirt over his head. You followed suit, then removed your pants, watching as he removed his own.
His eyes were definitely darker as they roamed the curves of your body. You took your own time to observe him, although this in particular was nothing you hadn’t seen (or slightly objectified) before. Now that you thought about it, Bucky had at least seen you in your underwear before. This was nothing. Or it would be, if not for the connotation — if not for what you were about to do.
You took his hand and led him to the bed, lightly pressing down on his shoulders when you came to the edge so he would sit. Slowly, still standing, you slipped your underwear down your thighs, past your knees, letting them drop to your ankles. You stepped out of them as you watched Bucky do the same; his eyes were on you the entire time.
He must have been hearing your thoughts earlier — he was ready for you. You felt a pressure building in your core; you shivered as one cold and one warm hand brushed up the sides of your thighs and rested on your hips. He massaged your hip bone with his thumbs, and his hands urged you down.
You came to rest on your knees, one leg around each side of him. His callused flesh hand rubbed the outside of your thigh in long, swift strokes, wanting to touch you, feel you.
You braced your arms around his massive shoulders, bringing your body closer to his. His metal hand squeezed your hip while his flesh hand made circles into the inside of your thigh, closer and closer with each swipe to the place that so badly needed him.
He brushed the sensitive part of you and you involuntarily let out a small cry. He did it again, applying more pressure this time. You breathed heavily, your face practically inches from his own, his thumb still working circles around you. You think his name may have tumbled from your lips a couple times, an almost instinctive response to his movements.
“You said—” Fuck. Words were difficult. “You haven’t…had…” A noise erupting from you interrupting your train of thought momentarily. “…sex, in seventy years. We haven’t even — and you’re already—” You dug your nails into the skin of his shoulder, his back.
He put his lips next to your ear. “I still remember the basics, it’s not as hard as you might think.”
You closed your eyes, his breath in your ear leaving shivers behind. “Tell that to some of the men I’ve been with.”
The hand gripping your hip tightened, and his thumb worked faster, making you whimper in response.
You were sitting in his lap, inches away from what you needed, and yet he was already making you come undone.
You shimmied forward and he let out his own involuntary groan as you brushed the length of him, moving his flesh hand from your center to still your hips.
“Careful,” he practically growled into your ear. “It’s still been seventy years.”
“I’ll be gentle,” you promised, your mouth a breath away from his. Slowly, you lifted your hips, letting him guide you at his own pace.
Inch by agonizing inch, you slid down onto him, letting him fill you up. You bit the place between his neck and his metal shoulder, and you left angry red lines on his back. He swore when he was fully sheathed inside you, mumbling your name almost incoherently.
When you had both adjusted, you began moving, slowly, oh so slowly, up and back down again. When it seemed like he was comfortable enough, you began to pick up the pace of your hips, letting him meet you thrust for thrust.
He was probably leaving bruises on your skin from where he was gripping you, but all you could focus on was the feeling of Bucky intertwined with you, inside you, creating a friction that was building, building—
Your panting increased, and at some point you cried his name and he kept on, going faster, faster—
You were losing all coherency as the pressure inside of you built and built and built and finally—
You woke.
Your breathing was laboured as leftover sensations lingered — even as your dream began to recede to the edges of your mind.
You should not be having dreams like that.
You definitely should not be having dreams like that.
Bucky was your friend. More than that — right now, he was the only person existing in your life. You could never jeopardize that by bringing something like sex into the mix. You didn’t need it that bad.
The dream was a result of a rehashing of the memory you had seen earlier. There was nothing more to that. And nothing more that you were going to worry about.
Although…the dream was strangely vivid… .No. That didn’t mean anything.
A flourish of panic ran through you in the next second as you realized you were alone. You sat up quickly, searching the dark apartment until you saw light bleeding from under the bathroom door.
Sure enough, you could hear Bucky inside, the tap running briefly before turning off. The light switched off next, and you settled back down before the door could open.
Closing your eyes, you could hear Bucky padding over to the bed. He paused. Just for a moment.
Then he lifted the covers and laid down beside you, gently curving his cool metal fingers around your wrist to place your hand atop the curve of his jaw. His breathing slowed, and your nightly vigil to keep his nightmares away began once again.
Notes:
A/N: You didn’t really think I was going to have them have sex before they even realized their feelings for each other, did you? I wouldn’t do you guys like that, not after all this slow burn build up.
Ugh, gosh, this chapter took me so long to get to. I’ve never written smut before, and I wanted to make sure it was somewhat tasteful and not…cringey, I guess? I hope I did an okay job.
Now that I’m done this year of school I’m hoping to write more regularly. Thank you to those who were patiently waiting for the next chapter to be written! Love you guys.
Chapter 22: Part 2 - Chapter Twenty-Two: Somewhere in Europe, 1945
Summary:
You and Bucky plan to go to your neighbour’s New Year’s Eve party. In one of Bucky’s memories, he and Steve talk about marriage and Bucky meets someone special.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
You lounged on the old yellow couch you and Bucky had brought up a few weeks ago — you found it in the storage unit of the apartment complex. The super had told you the owner had moved away and left it behind, so you asked if you could take it. It was a nice addition to your small apartment, something else to sit on besides chairs or a bed that was really just a mattress.
“You still want to go to the neighbour’s for New Year’s?” Bucky asked you from the kitchen, where he was washing dishes from dinner. He turned to face you as he absentmindedly dried a plate.
He was wearing the shirt you had given him for Christmas — a black t-shirt with Captain America’s shield emblazoned on the front. Your own Christmas gift from him was sitting on the bed: a cute little Bucky Bear its namesake had found at the flea market.
Apparently, the Howling Commandos were somewhat of a PR stunt, and so a lot of merch was created to promote the war effort. It was sort of similar to all the Captain America stuff that was made popular around the same time. One particular form of merchandise were the bears — Captain America Bears and Bucky Bears and bears made of the various other Commandos. The Bucky Bears wore Bucky’s classic blue jacket and, for some reason, a black domino mask.
Bucky said that, for the life of him, he did not know where the domino mask came from. But he thought you might like a token of his life from the ‘40s and the war. He was right; you loved it.
“Yeah, I think it’ll be fun,” you replied. Last year, the two of you had stayed in for New Year’s Eve, talking and waiting for the clock to strike midnight and for 2015 to begin. Now that you had been living in Romania for longer, you thought it might be fun to go to a neighbour’s party and get to know them better.
It was things like this, long-term things, that you had started considering more and more. If you and Bucky were going to be potentially living here for five more years (Ten? Longer?), than creating ties with others was an important part of designing a life for the long-term.
Bucky put away the plate he was drying and grabbed a cup. “Do you think we have time for another quick session tonight before we go?” he asked.
“Why? Do you think we were close to something?”
He nodding, putting the cup away in the cupboard. “Yeah, I think so.”
You squinted at the time and gave a vague nod. “Yeah,“ you said, drawing out the word, "we have an hour or so to kill before we have to be there.”
You turned your body so your feet were resting on the ground, then waited for Bucky to finish drying and putting away the dishes. When he was done, he came around and settled in between your legs, resting his back against the bottom of the couch. You placed two hands on either side of his head, your fingers sliding into his hair, just a bit.
“Hey Stevie! Get over here!”
The setting was somewhat familiar as you watched Bucky’s past self gesture to a young Steve Rogers in a crowded bar. He brought over a few drinks, and a dark haired man with a mustache followed behind moments later.
“You’re late,” Steve said to the man.
“Didn’t think you were going to show, Stark,” Bucky added.
You turned to your Bucky, a slight look of concern making its way onto your face. “I remember this memory,” you said to him.
“I thought there was more we might be able to get out of it,” Bucky said as he began moving through the bar. You followed after him.
“The last time we were here it…it didn’t end well,” you said and he stopped, turning to you briefly.
“I know. That’s not going to happen this time.” His flesh hand squeezed your shoulder as a gesture of reassurance, then he continued until he found his way to the back of the place.
“Well?” you asked, eyebrows raised.
He gave you a smile, and pointed. “Stairs.”
Sure enough, when you followed his hand there was a staircase at the back of the bar, probably leading to a second level. Of course, within the realm of memories and telepathy, going up those stairs would lead to somewhere else entirely.
“Want to see where it goes?” Bucky asked, and you returned his smile.
“You first.”
Upstairs — Bucky’s next memory — was a larger, well-lit bar with more people. While the last place was filled with tables, this building had more of an open concept with a dance floor in the middle. Upbeat music played and people laughed and danced.
The first thing that you noticed upon making your way up was not Bucky, for once, but a calendar hanging on the wall. You tapped your Bucky’s shoulder excitedly and showed him what you had found.
“Finally,” you exclaimed as you looked closer at it, “an exact date.” A lot of the boxes had Xs over them, so you could tell which date was the current one. “January 22nd, 1945.” You tapped it for good measure, grinning. Most of the time, it was incredibly hard to tell what year any given memory of his took place, let alone month or specific day. It was a rare and small victory for the two of you.
But something about the date sat uneasily with you. You couldn’t remember anything about 1945 and January, but —
Oh.
It wasn’t about this day. It was about what would happen ten days later.
February 1st, 1945 was the day Bucky Barnes fell off a train into a ravine somewhere in the Austrian Alps.
You didn’t think mentioning this to him would be very helpful, so you instead took his hand and led him through the crowd, trying to find his past self.
Past Bucky was leaning his elbows on the bar next to Steve Rogers, sipping a pint of beer.
“So,” Bucky started, “two weeks and you get to see Peggy again. Are you excited?”
You mused that ‘Peggy’ must be Peggy Carter. You learned about her in school and read about her in the Smithsonian. There were a few things about her and Steve possibly having a relationship but it was a lot of hearsay. You supposed it must be true.
Steve gave a shy, almost bashful shrug. “Yeah.”
Bucky elbowed him with a grin. “You’re really serious about her, aren’t you?”
Steve tapped the side of his glass with his finger. “I think I’m in love with her, Buck.”
Bucky’s grin widened, if that was even possible. “You think you’re gonna marry her?”
Steve gave his friend a look that was almost panic. “Marry? I don’t know. We’re not even really officially together yet — Ugh, I’m so bad at this.”
“Do you want to marry her?”
“I don’t know. Yes. I don’t know.”
Bucky gripped Steve’s shoulder and looked him in the eye. “There’s no time to second-guess this stuff anymore, Stevie. The world’s gone to shit but you have something. Don’t let this chance go, huh?”
“Yeah. You’re right.” Steve took a swig of his drink.
Bucky did the same. When he swallowed, it was his turn to appear somewhat anxious. “You think…You think I’ll ever have that?”
Steve chuckled, mostly in surprise. “What, a girl? You’ve never had trouble before.”
“I don’t mean…just a girl. What you have, with Peggy. Something more.”
Steve tilted his head. “I never pegged you for commitment, Buck. What changed?”
“I don’t know,” he said, sounding very much like his star-spangled friend just moments earlier. “Seeing all the bad out here… .I guess it would be nice, y’know, to settle down. Have some kids. Grow…old…with someone.”
Steve smiled at him. “Look at you. All soft.”
“You’re a punk.”
Steve grinned and clinked his glass with Bucky’s. Bucky rolled his eyes and brought the drink to his lips as he turned and leaned his back against the bar.
The drink stopped at his mouth, his eyes catching on something in the middle of the room that you couldn’t see. Slowly, he put the drink down on the bar behind him, never breaking his gaze from whatever had suddenly become so interesting.
“What are you looking at?” you asked your Bucky. “I can’t see.”
Bucky crossed his arms. “Knowing him, it’s probably a girl,” he said with a hint of an amused smile. You didn’t miss the way he said ‘him’ instead of ‘me’, but you didn’t comment on it.
In the next second, Bucky, past Bucky, strode forward into the crowd, following whatever it was that he was staring at.
“Buck?” Steve called after him when he turned to find his friend was gone.
The memory
s
st
stu
stuttered for a moment, then
skipped — now Bucky was walking back to where Steve was still standing at the bar. Steve’s drink was empty, the only indicator of the time that had passed.
“What happened?” Bucky, your Bucky, asked you.
“The memory’s fragmented,” you explained. You pressed your pointer and middle finger to your temple. “Let me see if I can fix it, hang on.”
“So, what happened? Did you strike out?” Steve asked his friend, referencing whatever had just happened that you had missed.
Bucky, your Bucky, shook his head a little. “Told you,” he said. “It was a girl.”
But Bucky, past Bucky, just had this strange look on his face, like his head was up in the clouds somewhere. He sighed through his nose. “I’m gonna marry that girl.”
“What?” you exclaimed.
“What?” Steve exclaimed a second later. “You were gone fifteen minutes!”
“I know, I know,” Bucky said, shaking his head in disbelief. “But…I can’t stop thinking about her. She had to leave but she promised I was gonna see her again. And I just… .There’s something about her, Steve. Something different from any other girl I’ve ever met. I can’t explain it but…this is it, Steve.”
“Buck, are you sure you’re not just rushing into this because of what you said before…?”
“Maybe, but so what if I am?” Bucky asked. “The whole world is crazy right now, and…you should’ve seen the way she looked at me, Stevie.”
You were practically hanging on to every word as Bucky spoke about this mysterious woman. You turned to your Bucky then, to find him just as engrossed in what was happening as you were.
“Oh, my God!” you exclaimed, both surprised and pleased. “Who was this girl that you thought you were going to marry?”
Bucky’s eyebrows were knitted together in thought, and he shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Give me a second,” you said, “I’ll try to fix the memory.”
The setting whipped and whirled, stuttered and skipped as you attempted to recover the pieces between the fracture.
“Okay…Okay I think I got it,” you said eventually, and the two of you watched again as Bucky walked forward into the crowd.
“Buck!” you heard Steve say for the second time around. This time, when the memory stuttered, you kept it from skipping ahead.
You managed to trail after Bucky through the crowd this time, trying to follow his line of sight — when he suddenly bumped into someone.
Well, it was more like someone bumped into him, as a woman accidentally tripped over her feet and into Bucky’s arms. He caught her, an arm around her shoulders and one hand on her waist. He grinned down at her; you still couldn’t see her face.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” she breathed back to him, her voice fragile and soft.
Bucky brought her back on her feet, and you finally caught a glimpse of—
No.
It couldn’t be.
How—?
The woman—
It was…you.
You pulled yourself out of Bucky’s memory quite abruptly, inching backward on the couch in shock.
Bucky turned around immediately, confusion written on his own face. “Was that—?”
You met his eyes. “It couldn’t be. That’s impossible.”
He rested his hands on the place just above your knees, still sitting between your legs. You could see the thoughts whirling and turning like gears behind his eyes. “Is it possible you had a grandmother who looked just like you? The way genetics work, it’s entirely possible—”
“I don’t know,” you said. “I wouldn’t know; I didn’t know my birth parents.” You rested your elbows on your legs, just above Bucky’s hands, and covered your face.
He gently squeezed the place above your knees in a silent, comforting gesture. “So I met someone you were related to. Or I met someone who just looked a lot like you. What was that statistic — that there’s seven other people in the world who look just like you?”
“I just…” You uncovered your face and met his eyes again. “It feels like it’s too much of a coincidence.”
“You’re worried,” Bucky mused, and his thumbs made circles on the inside of your legs.
You closed your eyes, breathing in, breathing out. You focused on Bucky’s comforting movements, then you looked at him again. “You and I are no strangers to being manipulated and used. I’m just… .Can you remember anything else about her? About what happened?”
He paused for a moment, thinking. “We danced for a little while. Talked. She was — she seemed…sad. But a lot of people were during the war. She did promise that I would see her again, but…even though I can’t completely remember all the days leading up to falling off that train, I know I never saw her again.”
You let go of a breath you didn’t know you were holding. You leaned back into the couch. “I’m sorry I’m being paranoid.”
“You’re not being paranoid; you’re being careful. I don’t blame you for that.”
You focused on the feeling of his thumbs stroking your legs for a moment before sighing softly. “…I’m sorry you didn’t get to fall in love and get married and start a family like you wanted to. I’m sorry you didn’t get to grow old with someone.” Not in the ‘40s; not when you should have, is what you didn’t say, or project, to him.
He broke eye contact with you briefly, the only proof of his regret, before patting your knee and standing. He held out his hand.
“Come on. We should get going.”
To the party. Right. You almost forgot.
You took his hand and let him pull you up, and you tried to forget about the woman in the ‘40s who looked so much like you.
You and Bucky had exactly one nice outfit each — at least, as nice as you could manage on a budget.
Bucky wore dark jeans and a tightly fitted button down (that you very much appreciated), and he wore a glove over his metal hand to avoid any suspicions. You yourself wore a pretty, flowy dress you got at the flea market.
“You look nice,” Bucky said, genuine, as he held the door open for you.
You gave him a small, almost shy, smile. “Thanks. So do you.”
The two of you walked the few floors down to your neighbour’s apartment. When you got there, Bucky held out his arm for you before knocking on the door. “Ready?”
You nodded, taking his arm, and he tapped his knuckles a couple times against the wood. Your neighbour and the host of the party, Cristina, opened the door.
“Y/N!” she said with a smile. “[So glad you and your husband could make it! Come in, come in!]”
That was the other thing. Living together with the opposite sex out of wedlock was becoming more accepted, but it was still somewhat taboo. The two of you would rather not attract any unnecessary attention to yourselves. Besides — living platonically together in a small apartment with only one bed was something that would be hard to explain even in your own culture. Pretending to be married was just easier.
The two of you spent the night talking with your neighbours and other party-goers, chatting about the past year and what the new year would bring. A few people wore cute, tacky 2016 glasses or drank from plastic 2016 champagne glasses.
You had a few glasses of champagne yourself, and a warm, slightly fuzzy feeling settled within you. You spent a fair amount of time curled into Bucky’s side, his arm wrapped around your waist.
Before long, midnight was approaching, and the new year with it. You joined in with the countdown as the day was ending.
“[Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven! Six! Five! Four! Three! Two! One! HAPPY NEW YEAR!]” everyone cried. Some blew noise makers, but most kissed their significant other.
Happy and relaxed, you looked over at Bucky, who was watching the others with a content smile on his face.
Hey, you whispered to his mind, and he turned his face to you, raising an eyebrow slightly.
You twisted your body so you could look up at him, then slid your hand up his arm and shoulder to cup his jaw. Gently, tentatively, you pulled his mouth down to yours and pressed a soft kiss to his lips. His stubble tickled your face.
Bucky’s flesh arm tightened around your waist in response, his gloved hand smooth on your face as he brushed his thumb over your cheek.
You rested your head on his shoulder after pulling away, your lips still tingling. Happy New Year, Bucky, you said to him.
He pressed a kiss to your hair and murmured softly, “Happy New Year, Y/N.”
Notes:
A/N: I should mention (no spoilers) that the events of Endgame will not be taken account in the story. I had everything planned before the movie came out, so the story will continue the way I originally designed it.
Chapter 23: Part 2 - Chapter Twenty-Three: Record Players & Nicknames & Her Eyes
Summary:
It’s Valentine’s Day. You found an old record player at the flea market and decide to play old music to help Bucky remember.
Notes:
A/N: I listened to “Dream a Little Dream of Me” while writing this and holy shit you guys I’m so soft rn this chapter is so soft
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
— (x)
Bucky had stepped out of the apartment for some air after lunch, leaving Y/N to herself and whichever book she was reading at the moment. He was wandering down the street in no particular direction, just wanting to stretch his legs, when he walked past the florist shop on the corner.
Well, he almost walked past. He stopped when he noticed the sign ‘VALENTINE’S DAY SPECIAL’ in big, loopy letters, written in clear and plain Romanian.
He breathed out a puff of air that materialized into a white cloud in the cold. Was it really Valentine’s Day already? Bucky thought about last year’s Valentine’s Day — Y/N and him had completely skipped over it. Accidentally, of course; it happened to land the day after a particularly bad memory session. He didn’t even realize they’d missed it until suddenly it was February the 16th. He wondered if they would have done anything anyway even if they had remembered.
Before Bucky could contemplate what he was doing, he was entering the store.
There was music playing through the door as he walked up to the apartment. The song…it pulled on something deep down in his chest…a familiar feeling, almost melancholy but not quite.
When he walked into the apartment, he could hear Y/N humming along to the song, and he spotted the source of the music on the table.
A record player.
“Wait, wait, wait!” Y/N called out as she heard him enter, rushing to the record player to stop the music. She turned as she said, “It’s supposed to be a surprise—” and faltered, when she finally saw him. Her eyes blinked rapidly and her mouth parted slightly. A foreign feeling of…nervousness(?) washed over him as she looked at him with that mixture of surprise and…wonder.
He shut the door behind him, shifting the small bouquet of flowers in his hands as he walked over to her. “I remember you said these were your favourite,” he murmured, clearing his throat and mentally killing himself for the flush of heat he was feeling under his skin.
She shook her head, disbelief in her face as her eyes shuttered again, observing the bouquet. “Bucky,” she breathed, and the way she said his name felt like…like the song he had just heard playing.
(Pulling on something he didn’t know was still there.)
“You didn’t have to… .” she continued, searching for words, and he swallowed. He shrugged.
“I wanted to,” he said, his voice a bit stronger this time. “I was thinking about it, and…I don’t know if we’re getting out of here any time soon. It’ll be two years in May. The longer we stay here…the longer it is before we can go back to anything normal.” Before you can go back to your life, is what he didn’t say. “And…someone like you deserves to get flowers on Valentine’s Day.”
She looked at him like…like he didn’t even know how to describe how. A tentative smile was fitting her lips and she gently took the bouquet from his hands. “They’re beautiful,” she said in a voice filled with awe…quiet, and small. She breathed in, then looked at him again. Thank you.The voice in his head was louder than anything she could have said out loud.
She glanced down at the flowers once more and began walking into the kitchen. “I think we have a vase, somewhere.”
Bucky let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He scratched the back of his head and cleared his throat again. “So, the record player?”
“Oh, right!” She quickly filled up the vase she found with water and set the flowers in it before addressing the old piece of technology on the table. She beamed at him as she gestured to it and to the records that he hadn’t noticed before. “I found it at the flea market yesterday. Took me a little bit to figure out how it worked, but—” She picked up the pile of records off the table. “I found all these songs from the forties — well, they’re not all from the forties, but they’re, y’know, old, and I just — I thought maybe it would help you to remember. Just hearing the music, I thought — I just — um —” She seemed somewhat frazzled,
(having been caught off guard by buying you flowers of all things, God, when was the last time someone had done something that nice for you—)
so he stepped in to help her.
“What was that song? Playing earlier?” he asked.
She smiled wide in response. Y/N turned and placed the needle back down on the record so the song could play from the beginning.
It was just instrumental at first, so he couldn’t tell what the song was, only that…he knew it.
Y/N leaned against the table, closing her eyes, humming along. Her finger tapped to the beat.
She opened her eyes a few moments later and smiled at him again. “I love this song.”
Before he could think too hard about it, Bucky reached out and offered her his hand.
She stared at it, at him, for a moment. She blinked owlishly a couple times, then smiled shyly at him and took his hand. (He made sure it was the flesh one.)
Bucky pulled you into his chest and rested his metal hand lightly on your waist. Your other arm curled around his shoulder reflexively, your fingers digging into his shirt a little.
“Stars shining bright above you
Night breezes seem to whisper ‘I love you’
Birds singing in the sycamore tree
Dream a little dream of me”
Your heart felt like it was going to beat out of your chest. You had never felt this nervous around Bucky before. And you thought, not for the first time, that you might drown in the blue of his eyes.
Familiarity grew into recognition as Bucky swayed gently with Y/N to the melody. In slow steps, he spun her outward, letting go of her waist but still keeping contact with her hand. “I know this song,” he murmured, and tugged on her to pull her back.
She twirled into his arms, and as soon as her back hit his chest
“Say ‘Night-ie night’ and kiss me
Just hold me tight and tell me you’ll miss me
While I’m alone and blue as can be
Dream a little dream of me”
the music blared louder in the dance hall they found themselves in than their small apartment — there was a rush of some kind of feeling hitting him full force, deep within him — and the lights seemed brighter than ever.
When he turned Y/N to face him again, she was in ‘40s attire — a dress, pretty and soft on her.
“Stars fading, but I linger on, dear
Still craving your kiss
I’m longing to linger ‘till dawn, dear
Just saying this”
Bucky was…God, Bucky…He was in his uniform, complete with short haircut and the hat…clean-shaven, lean…but his expression was one you recognized. It was him, as he used to be, but also him as you knew him now.
“Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you
Sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you
But in your dreams whatever they be
Dream a little dream of me”
It didn’t matter to him what this memory was, when it took place, what the context was supposed to be or who the girl was that he was supposed to be dancing with. As far as he was concerned, it was just him and Y/N.
“Stars fading, but I linger on, dear
Still craving your kiss
I’m longing to linger till dawn, dear
Just saying this”
He dipped you slowly as the music interlude rang through the dance hall. When he brought you back up, you were even closer than before.
“Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you
Sweet dreams that leave all worries far behind you
But in your dreams whatever they be
Dream…a little dream…of me.”
The song faded out, replaced by something else, something he knew he probably knew but in the moment didn’t recognize. Bucky found himself leaning to place his mouth next to Y/N’s ear, as if she wouldn’t be able to hear him over the band playing.
“Play the song again,” he asked her, and she smiled at him.
As soon as she left his arms, the memory disappeared and they were back in the apartment.
Y/N reset the song, then rejoined him as the instrumental began. He pulled on her hand, spinning her and dipping her back into the memory.
She laughed softly and let him pull her back up. Then she rested her head on his chest, right over his heart, and he hoped she couldn’t hear it pounding.
A sudden stab of guilt went through him, causing the memory to stutter for a moment, then resume. She looked up at him, confusion written over her features.
He continued to sway with her to the melody of the song. “What would you be doing today? If you were back home?” A remnant from his old life, from the man he used to be, here in this memory, bubbled up for a moment to add, “Pretty girl like you. I bet you’d be on a hot date.”
Those words coming out of the mouth of Bucky who looked like ‘40s Bucky but whose mind was your Bucky caused a flush of heat to creep into your cheeks. But you could see him cringing every so slightly once the words had left his mouth; you knew he didn’t mean to say it like that. You smiled a bit to yourself, then shook your head. “No. Don’t get me wrong; I love Valentine’s Day. But I don’t like spending it with someone I’ve only been dating for a little while, and definitely not someone I just met. Valentine’s Day is supposed to be…special? I don’t know, I guess that’s cheesy. But…there was only ever one person that I dated that I was close enough to to celebrate with. So, to answer your question: If I was back home I’d probably be treating it like any other day. Except probably with more chocolate.” You lifted your head and gave him a teasing grin at that.
Bucky considered what she said for a moment. “The person that you celebrated Valentine’s Day with. Is this the same person that knew everything about you? The only person you said you trusted with everything?” he asked, in a tone meant to be curious and not passive-aggressive.
The memory stuttered again, this time on her end, before continuing. She was giving him a strange look. “Yeah… .” she said slowly, then blinked a couple times to remove her confused expression. “But, I mean…they only really knew everything everything because we grew up together. We were both telepaths, our parents were in the Hellfire Club together…there was no keeping secrets from…them. I didn’t voluntarily give up what I would have rather had stayed hidden.” The music was quieter, now. “It was easier, for a while, I guess…to be with someone who knew everything about me. Who I didn’t have to hide anything from.” She took a deep breath. “But that’s the thing, I still hid things from them. Not anything concrete, just…how I was feeling. How I felt about…all of it. I closed myself off.” She shrugged, her expression…sad.
Bucky continued to sway with her, even know the memory had been gone for a while now. “So you’ve never had anyone you’ve actually trusted enough to tell everything to?”
Her frown deepened somewhat, and he could feel her guilt leaking from her mind into his through their bond. “I trust you,” she said, in a voice that was very quiet— and very loud. “I just—”
“I know,” he interrupted her in a casual tone, hoping to lessen the pain he knew that she was feeling. “It’s okay.”
She rested her head back on his chest, letting him sway her. She closed her eyes for a moment, as if she was letting the music wash over her, wash away things she didn’t want to think about right now.
A smile crept onto Y/N’s face and she looked up at him. “Did you really call people ‘Doll’ in the forties? Was that really a thing?”
He chuckled and nodded. She lifted her head.
“Jeez. That sounds so condescending. ‘Doll’,” she repeated the word in a ‘40s-like accent, like she was tasting it in her mouth. “…Although,” she met his eyes, “I could see how you got away with it. If you called me that, I don’t think I’d mind as much. It’d be more like…a term of endearment.”
As he was listening to her talk, he was losing himself in her. In her voice, in her eyes, in the way her mind felt, wrapped around his. And suddenly he came to the most terrifying realization of his current life.
You blinked at Bucky as he stayed silent, just staring at you. You began to feel self-conscious as his eyes studied you.
“What?” you ventured.
The Winter Soldier: a man with over twelve confirmed assassinations, who knew how to kill in a myriad of ways and who had killed in a myriad of ways and who had hurt people…and yet… .His gaze was indescribably soft as he looked at you. His blue poured into you in a way it had never had before.
“I’m really glad I met you, Doll.”
Her lips parted and she breathed in, deep and slow. Then she smiled at him, tentatively, shyly. Her eyes were filling with tears, and he swallowed, wishing for a moment he could take it back —
But then her smile was like the sun, and Jesus Christ.
He was in love with her.
He was so, so in love with her.
He was so fucked.
Notes:
A/N: We finally get a love realization!! I loved writing this chapter so much, you have no idea. We haven’t seen a lot of Bucky’s side of things, so I hope this didn’t seem too rushed on his side. Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter!!! Two more chapters left until Part 3 and the present time!
Chapter 24: Part 2 - Chapter Twenty-Four: The Tattoo
Summary:
You were invited to have dinner with your neighbour and her husband, so you and Bucky attempt to make a cake. Later, Bucky asks to see your tattoo.
Notes:
A/N: Holy shit okay, this chapter got long. Like it’s almost twice as long as a regular chapter. This chapter is really important to me, because it contains some stuff that I literally planned nine months ago. That’s crazy. So I hope you enjoy this one, because I worked really hard on it and this particular one means a lot to me.
Chapter Text
“Don’t forget, we’re having dinner at Mrs. Miklos’s tonight,” you reminded Bucky as you rinsed dishes from lunch.
He looked up at you from where he was writing in his journal. “Did you want to bring something?”
You dried your hands and leaned your elbows on the table with your chin resting in your hands so you could face him. “I was thinking we could bring dessert. Make a cake?”
He closed his journal and mirrored you by resting his cheek into his flesh hand. “Do you have a recipe in mind?”
You shrugged and smiled. “Whatever cake mix I can find at the store, I guess.”
Bucky hummed and his eyes wandered in that way they did whenever he was thinking about something. It was a moment before he said, “You know my mom used to make cake from scratch.”
Your eyebrows rose and you blinked a couple times. Your voice took on a quality of wonder. “Really?”
He nodded, standing. Subconsciously, you mirrored his movements and stood up straight. He went to put his journal away. “Yeah. I used to help her make it, actually,” Bucky added as he leisurely made his way back over to you.
“I can’t believe you remember that. That’s amazing, Bucky.” You thought for a second, biting your bottom lip. “Do you remember the recipe?”
His eyes wandered away from you as he thought about it. “. . .Yeah, I think so.”
You smiled at him. “Then that’s what we should make.”
Bucky’s eyebrows rose. “You want to make a cake from scratch?”
“I want to make your cake from scratch,” you said. “The Barnes’ Family Secret Recipe.”
An amused smile made its way onto his face. “I don’t know if it was a secret, but. . .Alright, if you want to.”
(How the fuck was he supposed to say no when she smiled at him like that?)
It didn’t take long for the two of you to go to the store and amass the set of ingredients you’d need for the recipe.
It took longer than it would have if you had gotten pre-made cake mix, but eventually the two of you managed to make the batter, and the only step left was to put it in a cake pan and bake it.
You read and reread Bucky’s recipe that he had written down on a slip of paper, your eyes narrowing. “Did we miss a step? Hang on, try this—” You took the stirring spoon with residue batter and moved it in the direction of Bucky’s mouth for him to try. Only you were still looking at the instructions when you did so, and the batter was promptly smeared onto the corner of Bucky’s mouth and across his cheek.
As soon as you realized what you’d done, you put the spoon back in the bowl and covered your mouth. You stifled the smile that was pulling at your mouth. “Oh! Sorry!”
You pressed your lips together to keep from laughing as Bucky gave you a look. “You think that’s funny, do you?” he said with thinly veiled amusement.
You shook your head, your hand still over your mouth in an effort to conceal that yes, it was pretty funny. “No, not at all.”
“Mmmhmm,” was his response, and you watched as his flesh hand dipped into the bowl, then wiped a streak of batter down your face.
You gasped in disbelief and let your mouth hang open for a second before giving him a challenging look.
You flicked a handful of flour into his face and watched his eyes squint shut. He blew out a puff of the white powder, and a small, sly smile laced itself onto his lips.
Oh, it’s on now, Doll.
You shook your head, a gesture of warning, as he reached for the eggs. “No,” you said, inching backwards. “Bucky, no, no—” He ignored your protests as he caught your waist. “—NononononoNONONO!”
You shrieked as he splattered an egg onto your head, and you reached your hand into the batter, smearing more of the goop onto his face. He did the same, and as you were going for your second handful, your foot slipped on one of the various ingredients now littering the floor. As he was still holding your waist, you managed to pull Bucky down with you—
—and the bowl, which landed batter-first onto his head.
You couldn’t stop laughing, even as the batter managed to splatter you as well, even as you were covered in egg and flour and a metal-armed man, who laid on top of you.
Your laughing subsided into uncontrollable fits of giggling and you attempted to wipe away the mess on Bucky’s face. You swiped your fingers into his batter-coated hair and tasted the contents.
“Mmm, that’s really good,” you decided. “Too bad we’ll have to buy a cake from the store now.”
Despite the predicament, Bucky was grinning at you. “And whose fault is that, huh?”
You gaped at him in a mock look of anger. “I hope you’re not insinuating that I started this.”
He chuckled.
You gathered more of the batter from the side of his face onto your fingers, planning on tasting more of it, when Bucky gently caught your wrist. Carefully, he closed his mouth over one of your fingers. You could feel his tongue swirl over your skin, the slight scrape of teeth, and the pressure as he tasted the batter off of your finger. The inside of his mouth was warm and wet and the intimacy of it was honestly making your skin flush with heat.
What the fuck was he doing.
He knew he was crossing some sort of line right now and yet, somehow, he wasn’t stopping himself.
He was an idiot. He needed to be more careful than this; he needed to be more careful around her.
But ever since he realized a few months back that he was in love with her, it was like all common sense had gone out the window. He was just perpetually caught in a haze of her. Just her.
He pulled her finger from his mouth and cleared his throat after swallowing. “You’re right. Tastes good.”
He was not going to be the type of guy to force her into this; he was not going to be the guy to push her. He understood what kind of situation they were in right now. He understood that they didn’t have the kind of flexibility that lets one person leave if they want to. He wouldn’t trap her like this. He wouldn’t—
Bucky’s internal monologuing ceased as Y/N’s hand — the same hand he had just been holding on to — cupped his cheek and her thumb slowly, gently, swiped over his lips. Batter gathered onto her skin, then she pulled her hand back and tasted it off her thumb.
It was a soft gesture. Comfortable. Intimate, but in a different way than Bucky’s gesture was intimate.
Some of the tension in his shoulders released somewhat.
You could feel his mind whirring. You didn’t press to see what he was thinking about — you would never invade his privacy like that — but you could tell he was worried he’d done something wrong, for some reason.
Mimicking Bucky’s gesture had been natural, almost instinctual, and for a moment you wondered when you had become this comfortable with him. You wondered if it was a bad thing.
You decided it wasn’t.
You smiled and took the bowl off of his head, setting it down on the floor next to you. “You should probably get cleaned up before we leave. You’ve got a little. . .” You gestured to his hair, and he smiled back at you while shaking his head.
“Next time the cake doesn’t end up on the floor,” he declared, and you nodded in agreement.
Bucky somehow managed to stand, and he held out his hand for you. When you grasped his palm, he used barely any effort to pull you up.
“Go take a shower,” you told him, starting to wipe batter and egg yolk from your face, “and then you can go out and get a replacement cake.”
He began walking backwards toward the bathroom. “Why do I have to get the cake?”
“Because,” you drew out, “you started it.”
He grinned and shook his head again, finally turning around and disappearing into the bathroom.
“Bucky! Y/N! [Come in! Come in!]” Mrs. Mikalos greeted the two of you warmly at her door. She disappeared inside, and you followed her into her apartment. “Andrei!” she yelled her husband’s name. “[Bucky and Y/N are here!]”
Mr. Mikalos made his way into the front hall, grinning widely. He embraced Bucky and clapped him on the back, then gently took your hand and kissed your cheek.
“[How are you, Mr. Mikalos?]” you asked him.
“[Fantastic as always, my dear. Please, let me take that],” he said, gesturing to the cake in Bucky’s hands.
Bucky handed it over, and Mr. Mikalos took it to the kitchen. The two of you followed him and sat at the dining table across from each other. Dinner had been prepared and was set on the table.
“[Looks delicious, Mrs. Mikalos],” Bucky commented. She walked over and patted his cheek, smiling.
She took the cake from her husband and set it aside for later. “[Did you make this yourself?]”
“[Store-bought, I’m afraid],” you told her. “[There was a. . .mishap while we were baking.]” Your eyes slid to Bucky to find him already looking at you, amusement flitting from his mind to yours.
Mrs. Mikalos chuckled. She patted her husband’s shoulders as he sat down. “[Remember when we were that young and had our heads so far up in the sky? Too in love to get anything done.]”
Your cheeks heated slightly at her assumption, but as far as she was aware, you and Bucky were married, so you couldn’t exactly fault her for the comment.
“[As far as I am concerned, we are still young and in love], iubita mea,” Mr. Mikalos said, kissing the hand of his wife.
My beloved, your telepathy translated. You wondered for a brief moment if you would ever have something like that — growing old together with someone you loved.
And you wondered, not for the first time, how long you and Bucky would be staying together. And what that would mean for the two of you.
Mrs. Miklos huffed in exasperation, but a smile was on her face as she sat down. “[Delusional old man],” she lovingly chided him.
The four of you proceeded with idle chit-chat as you ate.
“[The food is delicious, Mrs. Mikalos],” Bucky commented and you nodded enthusiastically.
“[Thank you, Bucky],” she said, beaming. “[So],” she went on, “[I never asked how the two of you met.]”
You swallowed your food harshly, your eyes sliding over to where Bucky was sitting across from you.
He arched an eyebrow at you. How do you want to handle this?
Well. . .lying is always easiest when it has a base in reality. . . .Okay, okay, I think I’ve got something.
“[Kind of a crazy story, actually],” you began, setting down your fork. “[. . .I was in a car accident.]
Your body was jolted forward as a black van rammed into the back of the car, propelling it on until the car hit the Soldier and he flew up and onto it. Sam desperately hit the brakes but the van was stronger. You made yourself small in the backseat, you mind going into overdrive.
“[Bucky was. . .passing by when it happened.]
You screamed when the Soldier smashed his arm into the windshield and pulled the steering wheel right out of Sam’s hands. Natasha shot at him and he jumped onto the van behind you. The car, without a steering wheel, began spinning out of control.
“[He pulled me out of the car. . .]
You shrieked as the Winter Soldier pulled you to him, locking you in place against his chest with his metal arm and began dragging you down the street.
“[. . .practically saved my life.]
“STEVE!” you cried, absolutely desperate. Tears were blurring your vision and you fought the Soldier’s hold. “STEVE — PLEASE — H E L P” you screamed at the top of your lungs.
“[He took me to the hospital],
The world was fuzzy when you finally came to consciousness. . . .You were in some sort of containment room, that much you could tell. . . .A group of people were standing in the centre of the room, around what appeared to be some sort of technological contraption with screens and buttons — in the middle was a chair, and in that chair was a man.
“[and stayed with me until I woke up],
“Please, help me, and I can help you.”
He almost seemed to consider it for a moment, his eyes searching yours through the glass. But then, wordlessly, he removed his hand from the surface and kept walking on.
“[until the doctor said I could leave.]
His name was Alexander Pierce. He was a senior officer at S.H.I.E.L.D. He was also a Hydra double-agent. . . .
Some of the men shot themselves; some shot each other. They died either way, bleeding pools onto the smooth floor. You stepped out of the cell. Blood seeped into your shoes as you walked over the bodies and made your way out.
[“And we’ve been together ever since],” you finished. Hesitantly, you risked a glance over to Bucky. He looked. . .concerned. Guilty, even.
His hand grasped for yours under the table, giving it a gentle squeeze.
I’m sorry, his mind whispered to yours.
Don’t, you whispered back, putting weight into the thought.
“[Well, I would expect nothing less from the man who helped me carry up my groceries before he even knew my name],” Mrs. Mikalos said.
You still had your eyes on Bucky. You squeezed his hand back. Stop being sorry. I’m not sorry. “[He did more than save my life that day],” you started, turning your attention back to Mr. and Mrs. Mikalos. “[I’ve. . .never gotten along with my family. They’re not exactly the best of people. But. . .I don’t need them anymore.]” You looked at Bucky, met those blue eyes of his. “[Because he’s my family now.]”
He gave you a small smile, and you felt his hand tighten around yours. “[You’re my family, too], Doll.”
Her smile was like pure light as he said the nickname in English, the term of endearment that had come to mean three little words that he couldn’t say aloud.
“[You are very lucky to have this beautiful girl in your life, my boy],” Mr. Mikalos commented. Y/N looked down with a shy smile, but Bucky’s eyes didn’t leave her face.
“[Yeah],” he said. “[I am.]”
She glanced back up at him then, her smile gone but her eyes conveying a sort of meaningful emotion that he couldn’t explain, only feel, deep in his chest.
The conversation moved on to other things. Dinner ended and dessert began — the store-bought cake wasn’t half bad, but you honestly would have preferred Bucky’s mother’s recipe.
Next time, Bucky’s voice echoed in your mind as he nudged your foot with his.
As long as we can manage to keep the cake in the bowl and not, y’know, everywhere else, you thought to him with amusement.
Bucky gave you a sly smile. No promises.
Heat rose to your cheeks in surprise at the implication in his tone.
“[Y/N?]” Mrs. Mikalos said, and from her tone it sounded like she was repeating your name. You blinked and looked over at her, the heat under your skin deepening and spreading to the tips of your ears in embarrassment.
“[Sorry, Mrs. Mikalos],” you apologised. “[Can you repeat that?]”
You could see Bucky covering up a smile with his hand from the corner of your eye. Stop distracting me, you shot at him.
But it’s so fun to do.
Mr. Mikalos bellowed a laugh and clapped Bucky on the shoulder. “[She got lost in your eyes, my boy!]”
Sometimes you forgot how telepathic conversations looked to other people. As far as they were aware, you were staring at him without speaking for several moments and not paying any attention to the current conversation. There weren’t a lot of plausible excuses you could make up for this one.
“[Well],” you said, giving Bucky a smile, “[he does have the most beautiful blue eyes I’ve ever seen.”]
It was Bucky’s turn to blush, the slightest shade of pink tinting his cheeks as the muscle in his jaw flexed.
“[I was asking you if there is anything new in your life, Y/N],” Mrs. Mikalos repeated for you.
“[Well, actually. . . .]” You glanced back at Bucky. “[I was going to wait to tell you, but. . .I applied for a job yesterday.]”
Bucky’s eyebrows rose. “[You did?]”
You nodded. “[They were looking for a translator a few streets down. . .and I thought, well. . .]” It’ll be two years next week that we’ve been here, you told him silently. I’ve been starting to think about. . .the long term. “[. . .that it would be good.]”
Bucky nodded, slowly, his mind whirring behind his eyes.
“[I didn’t know you were a translator, Y/N],” Mr. Mikalos commented. “[How many languages do you speak?]”
You glanced at Bucky, giving him a secret smile before turning your attention back to your host. “[I’ll give you three guesses.]”
“You want to watch a movie?” you asked Bucky as you entered your apartment, taking off your shoes.
“Sure.”
You wanted to change into your pajamas first, though, and get out of the dress you were wearing. You looked at Bucky over your shoulder. “Can you unzip me?”
He nodded and walked over to you. You turned your head back and could feel the cool metal of his hand touch your shoulder through the fabric. He grasped the zipper with his flesh hand and pulled it down, slowly.
His thumb brushed the bare skin of your back, once, twice, and you found yourself lingering just a moment too long.
You pulled away and threw a “Thanks” over your shoulder to him. You gathered your pajamas in hand and was about to change in the bathroom when his voice stopped you.
“Can I see your tattoo?”
You froze, then turned around hesitantly.
“I’ve just never seen all of it before,” Bucky clarified. “Not up close. I won’t — I won’t ask any questions about it, I promise. I just want to see it.”
You swallowed, suddenly very nervous.
He took in your expression and began backtracking. “If you really don’t want to, it’s alright, I—”
“Okay.”
He blinked a couple times at you. You took a deep breath, then slipped the sleeves of the dress off your shoulders, letting the outfit fall and pool at your feet. You stepped out of it, walking a few paces closer to him, then you turned around.
Slowly, your heart pounding in your chest, you unclipped your bra and slid it off your arms, tossing it to the floor.
You heard Bucky take a few steps forward until you could feel him at your back. You could sense his own hesitation — then, very lightly, his flesh hand touched the skin of your tattoo.
You tensed, then relaxed. You trusted Bucky. You trusted him more than you had ever trusted anyone in your life.
His metal hand joined his other, tracing the edges and design of the firebird that adorned your back. His hands moved up to your shoulders, and you found yourself lifting your arms so he could experience the entire thing.
His fingers skimmed the wings that continued across the sides of your arms, the tattoo growing smaller and smaller until it reached the tips of your pinky fingers. He went on until the end, cupping your hands with his briefly before moving back to your wrists, to the double bands that encircled each. He stopped there for a moment, rubbing circles with his thumbs into the black ink.
“It’s beautiful,” Bucky murmured, his voice, although quiet, breaking the heavy silence of the room. His hands traveled back to your shoulders, the thumb of his flesh hand brushing over the bird’s head at the base of your neck.
“It’s more trouble than it’s worth,” you whispered back. “Trust me.”
You heard his swallow, and his hands continued down your back, then brushed your sides. You inhaled sharply at the sensitive sensation, then you realized what he was doing.
Bucky was tracing the scars on your sides, the lines ranging from short to long, small to large.
He brushed a few scars on your hips, then on the outside of your thighs, then traveled back up, tracing the raised lines on your abdomen.
With every scar, with every gentle touch and stroke, a memory appeared along with it. Memories of how you got each and every one of them, memories of pain and the torture you experienced — you projected the images to him, so he could see, so he could feel each of them as his hands moved carefully along your skin.
You’re not sure when you started crying, only that tears flowed down your cheeks in steady streams. He was quietly undoing you, undoing the pain and the violence and the horror that had been committed against you.
His flesh hand grazed the underside of your breast, while his metal hand traced the valley between, then went over your breastbone, your collarbone, your neck — the cool temperature of his fingers soothing the raised lines on your skin.
When his hands returned to your back, you used the arm of your nondominant hand to cover yourself up before turning to face him.
He had been crying, too, his face glistening with tear tracks and his eyes still half-full with liquid. In his face was a myriad of emotions — pain and anguish and concern and something like anger. Not anger directed at you, but for you; anger directed against the people who had done this to you.
You rested your dominant hand square in the middle of his chest, looking up at him. Your mind whispered to his, but not in any words.
Let me see.
Let me see.
Bucky raised his arms and pulled his shirt over his head, tossing it aside. Your eyes went over the expanse of his bare skin, and softly, gently, you reached out and touched him.
You traced the scars he had there, on his chest, on his abdomen.
Like you had done with him, Bucky showed you the story behind each and every one.
You ran your fingers over a circular scar on his right shoulder, a familiar memory running through your mind — the day the two of you had gone swimming, when Hydra soldiers had ambushed you and shot Bucky. You saw the event as he had seen it, what you had looked like, hanging half-conscious but struggling in the soldier’s arms, trying to get to him. You felt the event as he had felt it, the pain and the fear, not for himself but for you.
The entire time Bucky watched you, watched as your hand moved to the scars on his left shoulder where the metal met his skin.
More tears left your eyes as you re-experienced the memory and the pain that you had so intimately felt with him, the first time you had unearthed this part of his life.
You moved closer to him, pressing your body and the arm that covered your breasts against his chest as you let your hand travel around his side to his back. Blindly, you walked your fingers up and down in an attempt to find the torn flesh, the raised lines of the scars there.
And you felt your own version of pain and anguish and concern. You felt your own version of anger towards those who had hurt him, towards those who had made him hurt others.
You pulled your hand back to trace his collarbone, and you finally returned your eyes to his.
Bucky’s flesh hand cupped your cheek and his thumb gently wiped away the tears still flowing there.
You wouldn’t be able to describe to any normal person what this felt like. Your mind intertwined with his, both your body and your memories open and vulnerable to each other, it was nothing like anything you had ever experienced before. To show him the worst parts of you — the torture, the uncontrolled and unrestrained responses of blood and death toward people who had hurt you — to have him show you the worst parts of himself — the assassinations, the pain and murder he had caused — it was to give yourself over to him, to have him give himself over to you.
We’re the same.
We’re the same.
You and me.
You
and
me.
We’re the same.
He continued to stroke your cheek, his metal hand now resting on your hip, his thumb brushing over a scar just above the fabric of your underwear.
And in that moment, you wanted to tell him the truth. About everything, about all of it. All the things you couldn’t tell him before, because you were scared, because you were afraid of the consequences, because a part of you was afraid that it would change the way he looked at you — you want him to know all of that, now.
“Bucky—” you breathed, but he shushed you softly, as if he knew what you were going to say and he decided it could wait. His hand slid to cup the base of your head, and he began leaning down, slowly, hesitantly.
You found your eyes drifting down to his lips, and your breath hitched, waiting for him to—
There was a knock at the door.
Bucky inhaled sharply, straightening and looking to the source of the noise. His flesh hand fell to your shoulder, his thumb absentmindedly stroking your skin as he looked like he was trying to decide whether to answer it.
“Bucky! Y/N! [It’s Mrs. Mikalos! You forgot your leftovers!]” the voice called through the door.
Bucky sighed and turned his gaze back to you, the muscle in his jaw flexing. “You should probably. . .”
You nodded and stepped away from him, feeling the absence of his warmth, the absence of him, as soon as you did. You watched Bucky slide on his shirt as you picked up your clothes and headed to the bathroom.
You closed the door.
And exhaled.
Chapter 25: Part 2 - Chapter Twenty-Five: The Train Station
Summary:
The past finally catches up with you.
Notes:
*A couple of sentences have been added to this chapter because I forgot them originally and I thought they were important enough to include even after I’d already published this one. The additions are bolded.
Chapter Text
He could watch her sleep for the rest of his life.
It’s not the first time he’s thought that. Lying beside her, listening to her breathing and memorizing the lines of her face, Bucky had never felt more at peace. And not the temporary kind of peace — long-lasting peace, the kind of peace that you don’t have to worry about slipping through your fingers.
He had come so close to kissing her last night. The intimacy he felt with her…running his hands over her tattoos, over her scars…letting her do the same…feeling her pain and showing her his… .He had never felt that close to someone — had never felt that vulnerable.
Bucky gently traced the curve of her cheek with his metal hand. She hummed softly, but didn’t wake.
He was so goddamn in love with her.
As much as it pained him to do it, Bucky had to get up and ready for the day. He went through his normal routine of exercising and going for a run. But he cut the run short to take a shower and get dressed early — he wanted to go to the market before Y/N could wake up.
“[How much?]” Bucky asked the vendor, testing the firmness of the plums with his gloved metal hand.
She gave him a price and he swapped a few more words with her before handing her the money and taking the bag of plums. He thanked the vendor, then began heading back to the apartment. He was waiting to cross the street when his instincts began poking at him.
Look. Look. Something isn’t right, they said to him.
Across the street, a newspaper vendor made eye contact with him once, twice, three times. He looked down at the table after every glance.
Growing increasingly wary, Bucky watched for cars and walked across the street, hurrying over to the newspaper stand. When he got there, he grabbed the newspaper that the vendor had been looking at.
His heart leapt into his throat.
He had to get back to the apartment. Now.
Bucky was gone when you woke up, but that wasn’t unusual. Sometimes he took longer runs if he needed to think.
A nervous feeling fluttered in your chest. Did he need to think about last night?
What’s there to think about? Nothing happened.
You sat up in bed and bit your lip. Did you need to think about last night?
You attempted to rub the sleep from your eyes. It was too early for this. You got up and turned on the TV, letting the news drown out your thoughts as you brewed a cup of coffee.
“[…In other news, the King of Wakanda was killed in a terrorist attack in Vienna. Sources say the person responsible is—]”
You switched off the TV after finishing your coffee. You needed to take a shower, needed to let the hot water clear your head.
The shower squeaked as you turned it off. You took a towel to your skin, drying yourself, then paused.
You observed your clouded form in the steam-covered mirror. Using the towel, you wiped away the moisture so you could see yourself clearly.
Carefully, you ran your fingers over a few raised scars, then over the ink of your tattoo. You imagined Bucky’s hands, tracing where you were tracing, washing away violence with gentleness and…and… .
Oh, my God.
He was going to kiss you. You think he would have, had Mrs. Mikalos not interrupted.
He would’ve kissed you.
Bucky would’ve kissed you.
The memory stirred a feeling in your chest. A feeling you didn’t dare put a name to. After all, it was Bucky.
But…It was Bucky.
A noise outside the bathroom startled you out of your revelations. You reached for your clothes to get dressed and finally face him—
Shit. You had accidentally grabbed his shirt and pants instead of your own. You quickly put on your underwear, then slipped Bucky’s shirt over your head.
It smells like him.
That decided it. You needed to talk to him about what happened last night.
You opened the bathroom door and stepped out.
“Hey, Bucky, I—”
You froze.
Steve Rogers, or rather, Captain America, stood across the room in full attire, the shield at his side. Bucky was facing him. He turned to look at you when you spoke.
Steve’s surprise at seeing you was short lived, as he pressed his lips together and sighed through his nose. “So this is where you’ve been, huh?”
Your face heated, part in shame at the lies you told him — and partially because of how this must have looked to him.
(You were living with Bucky. And you were wearing his shirt. And you weren’t wearing any pants.)
Steve sighed again. “Well, at least now I know that you were okay.”
“They’re on the roof — I’m compromised,” a voice crackled from somewhere on Steve’s person.
You glanced to Bucky, your eyebrows knitting together. What’s going on?
The muscle in his jaw flexed. They think it was me. The terrorist attack in Vienna. They think I did it.
“What?” you said aloud, your eyes snapping to Steve. “Bucky wasn’t in Vienna — he didn’t do anything wrong; he doesn’t do that anymore. He’s been with me this entire time, he didn’t do it.”
Steve’s confusion over the silent portion of the conversation lasted only a moment. “But the people coming for him think that he did. And I don’t think they’re going to be open to a conversation right now.”
They’re not here to arrest me, Bucky added, letting you fill in the blanks for yourself.
Swallowing, you quickly found a pair of your own pants, pulled them on, then grabbed your emergency getaway bag. (You managed to snag the star necklace Bucky had given you for your first Christmas, too.)
“Tell us how we get out of this,” you said, directing the question to Steve.
“We don’t,” Bucky said, and your eyes found his again, brows furrowing.
“This doesn’t have to end in a fight, Buck,” Steve murmured.
You continued staring at Bucky, his eyes not meeting your anymore. He removed the glove from his metal hand.
“It always ends in a fight.”
He finally looked up at you, and you could see a conflict brewing behind his eyes. He swallowed, then closed the gap between the two of you.
“I’m not going to make you a part of this. I know you, and I know you’re not going to fight back. And I’m not going to put you in any situation where you might have to.” An image flitted from his mind to yours, an image of glowing violet eyes, and uncontrollable rage, and blood blood blood blood blood.
“Thirty seconds,” the voice crackled. (Sam Wilson, it was Sam Wilson’s voice.)
“They’re looking for me; they’re not looking for you,” Bucky continued, and you began to hear the hurt in his voice. “You stay here, you use your telepathy and you hide. You meet me at the train station—”
“No,” you interrupted, shaking your head. I’m not leaving you.
“You meet me at the train station,” Bucky repeated. He gripped your upper arms with his hands. He swallowed again, the muscle in his jaw working overtime. I may not understand why, but I understand how dangerous it is for you to get caught. “They are coming to kill me, do you understand? They may not think twice about killing an accomplice.”
You couldn’t stop the tears that were suddenly filling your eyes. “Don’t make me. Please,” you whispered, your voice broken.
His grip on you tightened. You will kill all of these men. And I’m not going to let that happen because I know it will kill you.
Tears poured down your cheeks and you looked away, the guilt and grief and fear beginning to consume you.
“Look at me,” he whispered, and his voice was just as broken as yours was. “I’m going to see you again, alright? I promise.”
“Five seconds.”
Bucky pressed a kiss to your forehead and you closed your eyes. Then he cupped your cheek and you looked into his blue once more.
(He wouldn’t say it. The words. He wouldn’t tell her the words that he had been harbouring so close to his heart these past months. Those three words that have ached and pleaded to be said. Because to say the words would be to admit that this might be his last chance. To say the words would be to admit that he might never see her again.
He would not say those words. Not here. Not now. So, instead, he whispered — )
“See you soon, Doll.”
“Three seconds.”
“Hide. Now.”
You cast out your telepathy, shielding your presence from any mind in the room.
“You pulled me from the river,” came Steve’s voice as you backed away to the edge of the apartment. “Why?”
Bucky breathed. “Because you’re my friend.”
You slipped into the bathroom and shut the door, sliding down against the wall and covering your ears. You pressed your hands harder against them as you began to hear crashes and explosions and gunfire.
The sob that escaped your throat would not be heard in the middle of all the commotion.
He’ll be okay. He’ll be okay. He’ll be okay.
You had to tell yourself that. Or you were going to lose control.
You felt Bucky stray further and further from where you could sense him. At some point your stomach leapt into your throat, as if you were falling from a height. You felt the impact in your joints, of a harsh landing after jumping.
(Of course Bucky jumped out a window instead of taking the stairs. Of course he did that.)
When you couldn’t feel him close any longer, you sprang from the bathroom and ran out the door (which had been completely knocked off its hinges), backpack in hand. You carefully maneuvered around debris and groaning, injured soldiers as you made your way down the stairs.
When you left the building, you ran a couple of blocks before letting your telepathic invisibility drop, the shield becoming more complicated to create as you raced through thick crowds of people.
You ran until your lungs burned. You ran until your lungs screamed for relief. You ran from your fear and you ran from the things you could not control and you ran—
You ran toward Bucky. You ran toward the train station.
He’ll be there.
He’ll be there.
He’s okay.
He’s an assassin, right? He knows how to take care of himself. He’ll be okay. He’ll be there.
You had to catch your breath before entering the train station; you needed to do everything you could to not attract suspicion.
You walked inside, as normal as you could manage, and sat down in the seats near the ticket booth and the schedule board. You ran your hand through your still-damp hair. You were still wearing Bucky’s shirt.
He wasn’t there yet. You couldn’t feel him.
You waited.
Half an hour passed.
Then an hour.
Then two.
Bucky asked a promise of you. He asked you to get on the train. With him, or without him.
You couldn’t stop the shaking sobs that hit you suddenly.
One minute you had been with him. Tracing his scars. Sleeping next to him. Looking into the blue of his eyes and seeing yourself reflected in them, in him. And now you weren’t. You had only just began putting a definition to the feelings you had for him. And now that seemed trivial at best.
Your hair was dry now. His shirt still smelled like him.
Bucky asked a promise of you.
He wanted you to be safe.
You bought a ticket.
You got on the train.
An Indeterminate Amount of Time In The Future
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Banging on the door behind you.
“Y/N! Please! You don’t have to do this!”
Bucky’s voice. Desperate. Pleading.
Tears in your eyes. Tears on your face.
Fear in your chest.
Fear in your chest
Fear in your chest.
He’s wrong. You don’t have a choice. You have to do this. You’re the only one who can.
Fear in your bones.
Fear in your bones.
Fear in your bones.
Banging again.
His voice is breaking.
His presence only serves to remind you why you’re doing this.
F e a r i n y o u r s o u l.
F e a r i n y o u r s o u l.
F e a r i n y o u r s o u l.
Finally facing the one thing you have been fearing for most of your life. Finally facing the thing that could save you all.
Or d e s t r o y y o u.
The thing in your nightmares. The thing in the seer’s vision. The inspiration for your tattoo. The Hellfire Club’s fixation.
Creation and ruin. Life and death.
Galaxy shaper; sun-eater.
The eternal flame.
The cosmic entity.
The Phoenix.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
End Part 2
Chapter 26: Part 3 - Chapter Twenty-Six: If I Love You Does It Mean I Have To Let You Go?
Summary:
You won’t give up on Bucky so easily. You’re going to find him, even if it means involving an old friend from the Hellfire Club. Oh, and the X-Men.
Notes:
A/N: So, uh, as much as I tried to figure out time zones for this one, some of it just doesn’t work so don’t think about it too hard and I’m sorry. Also, this chapter is the longest to date and it’s the bane of my existence. I’ve edited it so many times because I wasn’t happy with it. I think I finally got it right so whoopie here we go.
Shout-out to @mallory627627627627627 on tumblr for helping me on this chapter <3
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
You weren’t going to let James Buchanan Barnes slip through your fingers that easily.
You had a lot of time to think about what you were going to do. The train ride to the city you had bought a train ticket for, an old Transylvanian town called Brașov, was almost three hours away. But despite the amount of time you were given to think this through, it only took you ten minutes of staring out the window and watching the Romanian countryside fly by to know what you needed to do next. There was only one option.
You sighed. You were so going to get yelled at.
The train station in Brașov had a phone booth just outside. You groaned and knocked your head softly against the glass a couple of times.
Bucky. You were doing this for Bucky. You couldn’t afford to waste any more time, especially if he was in some kind of danger.
You picked up the phone and slotted some change into the machine, then dialed the number. You listened to it ring, beginning to feel more and more anxious with every one.
Then finally, finally, the phone was picked up.
“Listen, it’s seven AM and I know some people start their day that early, but I don’t tend to make a habit of it, so this better be important.”
“Alex?” you said, your tone hesitant. You pressed the phone to your forehead for a second before continuing in a quiet voice. “It’s Y/N.”
“Y/N?!” she shouted into your ear and you pulled the phone away, wincing. “Where the fuck are you?! It has been TWO YEARS — Do you have any idea what’s been happening while you’ve been gone?!” You closed your eyes and kept the phone a few inches away from your face. “The Inner Circle freaked the fuck out when you disappeared — except your mom, of course, who doesn’t seem to understand that Adler’s visions don’t always come true, no matter how many times I’ve tried to explain it to her — We thought you might be dead, Y/N! The only thing Frost told us was that you ran off with a Hydra assassin who turned out to be CAPTAIN FUCKING AMERICA’S best friend FROM THE FORTIES! And then nothing! FOR TWO YEARS! Do you know how goddamn worried I’ve been about you?! Would it have killed you to at least let me know that you were alive?! Pick up the fucking phone, babe!”
You waited a few seconds in case she had anything left to say. “Are you done?” you asked, not unkindly.
She huffed a sigh. “Where are you?”
“I’ll explain everything when you get here,” you said. You could practically hear Alex’s confused expression on the other end. And her simmering annoyance.
“When I—?”
“I’m in Romania without a passport.”
“Romania—!”
You continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “I need you to take one of the Hellfire Club’s private jets and come get me. And I need you to do it quietly.”
She was silent for a long time. You could tell she was annoyed with you.
“. . . .You’re a real piece of work, anybody ever tell you that?”
You smiled, just a little bit. “Yeah, you.”
She sighed. “Okay. I’ll take a red eye tonight and meet you tomorrow.”
“No, now,” you said, a bit forcefully. “ I can’t explain over the phone but this is time-sensitive, alright? We’re wasting time as it is and the flight will take you nearly ten hours.”
“Okay, okay, calm down. I’ll go now.” You could hear rustling on the other end, as if she was getting up and walking around. “So where are you, exactly?”
You met Alex just outside the city exactly nine hours and forty-nine minutes later, in an open field where the jet was able to land.
She rushed out of the plan to give you a crushing hug. “I’m so glad you’re okay,” she murmured, and you let the sweet smell of her shampoo and perfume wash over you for only a moment before pulling away.
Alex was your oldest friend, having grown up with you and the other telepath children who were raised by the members of the Inner Circle. When you left for New York at eighteen-years-old, she went with you. You lived together for a few years until your eventual separation.
You loved her, but Alex was too close to the Hellfire Club for your liking. She was always more involved with the Inner Circle than you were, and it made confiding in her difficult. After one too many arguments about it, she decided to leave, although things stayed civil between the two of you.
“We need to go to New York,” you said, not wasting any time getting to the point. “I’ll explain why on the way.”
You moved to walk past her to the jet, but she caught your arm and pulled you back to face her.
“Oh, no no no no no,” she said, shaking her head. “You’re going to explain first.” But then her eyebrows knitted together as she looked at you, and you could practically see the gears turning behind her eyes. Her head tilted, like she realized something. “This is about him, isn’t it? He isn’t here. Something happened to him.”
You sighed and Alex let go of your arm. You decided that the sooner you caught her up with everything the sooner you could leave. “Someone framed him for the terrorist attack in Vienna, and they came after him. We got separated. I went to our rendezvous point but he never made it there. So there are two possibilities: either he escaped or he was captured.”
She gave you a look. “I know you don’t want to hear it, but there’s a third option there.”
You shook your head. “He’s not dead. I would know if he was dead; I would feel it.”
You would know.
You would know.
. . . .Wouldn’t you?
Alex gave you a curious look. “You were that close to him?”
You shifted on your feet under her scrutiny. “Two years is a long time.”
Her head tilted to the side. “Were you—?”
“No,” you said before she could finish. “It wasn’t like that.”
“But you care about him.”
“Yes, which is why we need to go.” You grabbed her hand and pulled her in the direction of the jet. “If he’s captured he could be in trouble, and I don’t even know where he is so the faster we get to New York the better.”
“You always do this; you’re avoiding the subject, babe,” she said as she let you tug her along. “You wanna know what I think?”
You began walking up the stairs to the jet. “I don’t.”
“I think you love him and you don’t want to admit it because it scares you.”
“You know, now is really not the time for a lecture, Alex.” You couldn’t deal with this right now. You needed to find Bucky. A myriad of horrible, awful things were running through your head right now and you were beginning to panic—
“Ohhhhhh, no. Don’t shut down. What about when you let him see your tattoo, huh? I know you felt something then. You can’t just—”
You turned on her sharply. “Stay out of my head, Alex,” you snarled at her, piercing the words into her mind. She winced and took a step back down the stairs.
“Oh, did I hit a nerve, there?” she threw back. “Gotten used to just having him in your head, hm?”
You clenched your teeth and turned back around, continuing up the stairs. Alex caught up to you and caught your arm before you could enter the jet.
“Y/N,” she said, her voice softer this time. “Don’t ignore your feelings because you’re scared of losing him. Don’t disappear into yourself, babe. Tell him the truth, whatever that truth is — and if you can’t tell him the truth, the whole truth, then maybe he really isn’t the person you’re meant to be with.” Alex searched your eyes. She slid her hand down to squeeze your own. “You know that I just want you to be happy, right? That’s all I’ve ever wanted for you.”
You held her gaze for a few moments, guilt twisting inside you as you looked at her. You wanted to tell her that you were sorry, but you had done that when she left, and you knew she would tell you that that was enough. You gave her the smallest of nods before disappearing into the jet.
Alex followed close behind you. “So you want to go to New York to use Cerebro to find him. Assuming the X-Men are even going to let you use it, that’s almost ten hours to New York and then however long it’s gonna take to get to wherever he is. Are you sure this is the best way to do this?”
“Don’t you think I know all that? I went through all the options — this is the only way.”
It was rare for Alex to appear hesitant. You narrowed your eyes at her as she began her next sentence. “What about. . . .Has Adler’s vision come true yet? Are you—?”
“No,” you said firmly. “And even if I was, I wouldn’t use that power to project my telepathy across Europe; do you understand how many things could go wrong if I did? How many people I could hurt?”
“. . .It was just a suggestion, Y/N.”
Frustration and anger bubbled under your skin. “You know, you and the Inner Circle have never understood just how dangerous—” You cut yourself off, sucking in a breath. “I’m not going to have this argument again. Tell the pilot we’re going to New York.”
Mercifully, she did what you asked. You strapped into the fancy jet— and were reminded of the last time you were in a jet like this.
You got into one of the jets — small, but one of those fancy ones that had nice seats and an open space in the middle. The Soldier went for the cockpit and sat, quickly pressing buttons and flipping switches.
You gripped the arms of the chair as sudden anguish clawed at your chest. This was going to take too long. What if they hurt him? What if they kill him?
You didn’t know how you were going to survive ten hours to New York.
When the jet was flying steady and high in the air, Alex unbuckled her seat and went over to sit next to you.
“. . .The Hellfire Club is going to find out that we were in New York. You know I would never voluntarily tell them — but you also know that my telepathy isn’t strong enough to stand against one of their interrogations,” she said, slowly. “They’re going to find out.”
“Doesn’t matter,” you replied. “I’ll be back in Europe — or wherever Bucky is — by the time they find out, anyway. I kept under the radar for two years, I can do it again.”
She drummed her fingers on your armrest. “I could come with you. That way they’d never know—”
“They would,” you interrupted her. “You know they would. Especially if we’re dealing with the X-Men — you know they never stopped keeping tabs on Jean Grey.”
“What are you going to do if your man is captured? I’m guessing you haven’t gone back on your whole pacifist thing in the past two years.”
This recurring attitude toward pacifism was beginning to get on your nerves. “I’ll find a way.”
“Let me help you,” she insisted. “I can do the things you’re not willing to.”
The implication of your words made your skin crawl, but you weren’t going to start an argument. Instead, you shook your head. “It’ll be easier for them to find us if we stick together. Besides, I need you to stay in America and be ground control, deal with the Inner Circle. I’ll find a way to check in every few months — if the Hellfire Club knows I’m alive, maybe they’ll leave me alone.”
Alex’s eyebrows furrowed together, sympathy swirling in her eyes. “They will never. Leave you. Alone. Not when they think you’re going to be the next Phoenix. Not when they need you.”
Your eyes flickered downwards. “I know.” You swallowed thickly. “I know.”
But as much as you feared the Hellfire Club — as much as you feared the idea of becoming the Phoenix — your mind was preoccupied with other things.
You couldn’t stop going over every moment of the last 24 hours.
Forwards.
.sdrawkcaB
Every word and every touch and every breath of Bucky — desperately hoping that these would not be the last words or the last touches or the last breaths of your friend that you would ever experience.
You wondered what was happening to him right now, as the jet carried you farther and farther away from wherever he was. You wondered if he was safe, or in danger, or just as worried about you as you were worried about him.
You wondered if Steve was still with him. And you wondered if—
EXCRUCIATING PAIN SLUICED THROUGH YOUR
L
E
F
T
A
R
M
AND YOU CRIED OUT IN
A
G
O
N
Y
YOUR STOMACH ROSE INTO YOUR THROAT, AS IF YOU WERE FALLING
SOMEWHERE, SOMEWHERE FAR AWAY, YOU COULD HEAR SOMEONE YELLING YOUR NAME
FAR, FAR AWAY, AN ALARM RANG, LOUD AND INSISTENT
YOU FELT AS IF YOU HAD LOST YOUR ARM
ALL
OVER
A
G
A
I
N
“Y/N!”
THE VOICE WAS FAR A W A Y
FOR A MOMENT, YOU COULD FEEL HIM, YOU WERE A PART OF HIM AGAIN
“Y/N YOU KNOCKED OUT THE PILOT — THE PLANE IS GOING DOWN!”
Shooting pain still running up and down your left arm, you snapped from your telepathic link with Bucky, returning to your own reality.
The jet screeched an alarm as the plane was nosediving down toward the ocean. Alex was above you where you had been writhing on the floor.
She was right; the pilot was unconscious. Your telepathy must have exploded out in defense of your pain and fear — even Alex seemed like she had barely held on, her own telepathy being the only advantage she had.
Fighting through the lingering torment, you reached out your mind to the pilot to stir her awake. She snapped out of her unconsciousness and grabbed the controls, pulling the jet back up.
You resumed clutching your left arm once the plane reached the correct altitude.
“What the fuck just happened?!” Alex questioned you, although you could hear the fear and concern in her voice.
“It’s Bucky, something happened to him,” your voice came out in panicked breaths. “Something is happening to him. He’s in trouble, we have to — we have to—”
“We have to what, Y/N?” Alex interrupted you. “We can’t go back to Romania, we still don’t know where your man is. Unless you happened to catch a glimpse while you were rolling around on the floor screaming and scaring the fuck out of me?”
A dark place. Concrete walls.
. . .Iron Man?
None of it was specific enough. He could be anywhere. “No,” you finally said. “I still don’t know where he is. But we have to do something—”
“We are doing something,” Alex said. “We’re going to New York to use Cerebro to find him.”
More tears welled in your eyes to match the ones that had already fallen during your telepathic episode. “We’ve barely been in the air for half an hour. That’s over nine more hours to New York, and then however long it’s going to take to get to him— He’s in danger now, I can’t just — I can’t—”
“Hey.” Alex cupped your cheeks with her hands, wiping away tears with her thumbs. “Is he dying, right now?”
“I don’t know — I don’t know—”
“Yes, you do,” she insisted. “You said you would know if he was dead, now is he dying?”
You closed your eyes, desperately fighting down the rising panic. You could still feel the lingering pain in your left arm. If you could still feel pain, it meant you could still feel him.
You opened your eyes. “. . .No, he’s not dying. But he’s hurt—”
“And he’s just going to have to hold on a little bit longer, babe,” she murmured in a soothing tone. A sob clawed its way out of your throat, and Alex pulled you into a tight hug.
Hold on, Bucky.
Please, just hold on.
Every minute of the drive to Westchester was killing you, slowly. You had barely been able to get through the nine hours of flying — especially when every second brought you miles away from Bucky, Bucky who was in danger and pain and needed your help.
You weren’t sure how far your telepathic connection with him could stand. You told yourself you would feel it if he died, and yet, what if there was a limit? What if you were simply too far away to tell the difference?
Steve. Steve will protect him. He’s not going to let his best friend die, not again.
He’ll be okay.
It was strange, walking into a school full of people who were just like you. Seeing mutant children of various ages and looks, walking and running down the hall, chatting or laughing or smiling.
It was so. . .normal.
A large, furry, blue man approached you with a friendly and relaxed smile. He took off his glasses and wiped them briefly with the cloth he took from his suit jacket before returning them to his face.
“Hello. Can I help you?” he asked politely.
“We’re looking for Professor Xavier. We need his help, it’s urgent.” You didn’t try to downplay your situation like Alex suggested you do — there was no time. Barely restrained panic was thrumming under your chest like a caged bird.
“Ah, I see,” he said, nodding. “His office is this way, I’ll take you there.”
But you didn’t have to move a muscle, because the man in question was making his way over to you just as the gentleman who greeted you was turning in the direction of the office.
“Thank you, Hank, but there is no need,” Professor Charles Xavier said. He looked to you and Alex, giving you a gentle smile. “I’m Professor Xavier.”
“I’m—”
“I know who you are, Y/N L/N,” he said, interrupting you. “What is it that I can do to help you?”
Alex took a small step forward. “Maybe if we could speak somewhere more private—”
“I need to use Cerebro.” You weren’t planning on wasting any more time, no matter how many chastising looks Alex was going to give you. Every second spent dancing around the subject could be taking you a second closer to Bucky being hurt further. . .or worse.
A couple of students turned to look at you at the mention of Cerebro as they walked by. Professor Xavier’s head tilted slightly at your statement.
Your friend is right, his voice rang within your mind. (You didn’t know if you would ever get used to voices in your head that weren’t Bucky’s.) There are curious ears and eyes everywhere.
My friend is missing and in danger, you told him, getting right to the point. Please. I need to find him. Look into my mind if you want.
He hummed. You’ve come a long way.
So you know how desperate I am. I need your help.
Professor Xavier pressed a button on his chair and it swivelled. “Come with me. I’ll take you where you need to go.”
You and Alex both stepped forward, but he held out a hand.
“Only you, I’m afraid,” he said. “Your friend can wait here until we come back.”
Alex’s eyebrows knitted together and she opened her mouth to speak, but you stopped her before she could.
“It’s okay,” you said. She pressed her lips together, but nodded, and you continued on down the hall.
“Welcome, Professor,” an automated voice said as Professor Xavier scanned his retina. You were in the basement underneath the school, a place with halls of white light. It made sense that Cerebro would be in a secret basement of the school — easy access, while not being explicitly advertised.
Cerebro was a large spherical room with a bridge to the control board. Professor Xavier rolled down the bridge and you followed close behind.
He took the helmet in his hands, then offered it to you.
“You’re going to let me use it, just like that?” you asked.
“I happen to be a powerful telepath, Y/N, as I’m sure you well know,” he said. “I can easily tell the difference between a trustworthy person and an untrustworthy one.” He gestured to take the helmet again. “Lucky for you, Y/N, I can tell you are the former. Though I do warn you, Cerebro can be overwhelming. Remember to focus on one thing, and one thing only. Try not to let the others distract you.”
You hesitated, but then took the helmet, and carefully put it over your head.
“Are you ready?” he asked you. You swallowed, then nodded.
The room awoke in a sudden burst of light, with figures of white and figures of red flying past you. You could feel your telepathy being stretched to its full extent, past its full extent, and you were afraid that any moment it would overwhelm you and snap.
“Focus,” Professor Xavier told you. “Focus on the person you’re looking for. Picture them. What they look like, what they sound like, how they act. The way they make you feel.”
A headache brewing in your mind, you did what he said and pictured Bucky. You pictured him as the last time you saw him, in his red henley and brown hoodie and black jacket. You pictured his metal arm and the intense blue of his eyes.
The feeling of his hands on your skin, his flesh, his metal, warm and cool on your body. The last time his eyes looked into yours, his words, his whisper—
“See you soon, Doll.”
The nickname that gave you indescribable happiness, the promise that you would see him again, that you would see him again, that you would see him again.
You thought about the feeling that was distinctly him, and you chased it.
The image of the Earth swivelled and you dove down into Africa — specifically, the small country of Wakanda, past jungle and wide open plains, and technologically advanced civilization, until you were in a building and you found him.
He was sitting on a cot in an infirmary-type room. His left arm was gone, only the metal part of his shoulder was left. Something had happened.
But. . .He was safe. As far as you could tell, he was in a safe place, getting medical attention. Steve was with him, too.
“We’ve designed a new arm for you, made completely of vibranium. It should be ready by tomorrow.” Somewhere in your mind, you recognized the man to be Prince T’Challa of Wakanda — but you weren’t focusing on him. You couldn’t see anyone else besides Bucky, analysing him, watching his steady breaths, seeing him live—
He’s alive he’s alive he’s alive.
“Great,” Bucky responded.
Hearing his voice again practically threw you.
“Buck, I know you might not want to hear it,” Steve began, “but Y/N’s a telepath. If anyone could get rid of the trigger words in your head, she could.”
Trigger words? Trigger words?
What the fuck had Hydra done to him now? What is it that you had missed?
Trigger words. What happened?
“I’m not going to involve her, Steve,” Bucky said, and he sounded exhausted. The resignation in his voice was breaking your heart. “We’re going on the run and if she’s safe I’m not going to pull her into this.”
Bucky. Oh, Bucky.
He sighed through his nose, quiet for a moment. “. . .Have Natasha’s contacts found her yet?”
Steve shook his head. “They’re still looking. But she’s okay, Buck. Nobody was after her. She’ll be fine.”
You didn’t need to see any more. Bucky was in Wakanda; Bucky was safe. And he wasn’t going anywhere for at least the next fifteen hours. That would be just long enough to get to him.
You took another second to take him in — tired but safe — before taking the helmet off (it took two or three tries to get your body to move, not wanting to take your eyes off of Bucky for a second, let alone the next fourteen and a half hours) and letting Cerebro go blank again.
“Thank you so much, Professor, but I really have to go now,” you said, rushed, and you turned on your heel to walk a few steps down the bridge.
“If I could offer some advice.”
His voice stopped you. For a reason you could not explain, you knew whatever he was about to say would not be good.
You slowly turned around to face him.
“Are you certain that going to him now is the best thing for both of you?” he asked.
You gave him a confused look. “I. . . .Yes. Of course.” Of course.
“You wanted to use Cerebro to make sure that he was safe. He’s safe,” Professor Xavier said, slowly. “Would going to him now increase his safety? And what of your own?”
You didn’t understand. “He’s my friend. We need each other. We’re safest when we’re together.”
The Professor sighed. He began wheeling closer to you. “I did not lie when I said I know who you are, Y/N. We have been watching you for some time now, ever since the seer Irene Adler predicted that you would become the next host to the Phoenix.”
Your jaw clenched so tightly you thought your teeth might crack. You took a step back, fear rising like waves, lapping at your ankles, your knees, your waist, your chest, your chin—
Professor Xavier continued. “We’re aware of what the Hellfire Club has been doing, and what they want with you.” He stopped his chair from rolling forward any farther. “What do you think they would do, if they knew that all that stood between them and the power of the Phoenix was one man?”
You didn’t like where he was going with this. You really didn’t like where he was going with this. A sick feeling churned in your stomach. Fear up to your nose, drowning you, choking you— “I hid from them for two years, I can do it again.”
“And that is precisely why they will not be making those same mistakes,” he said in a gentle tone. “Perhaps you need to consider the potential danger you would be putting him and yourself by going to where he is.”
Fear up to your eyes. You couldn’t see, tears were blurring your vision.
Fear over your head.
Don’t make me, don’t make me, don’t make me.
Don’t make me make this choice.
“If you believe you would both be safer together, then go,” he said. “But if not. . . .” Professor Xavier paused a moment. “You care for him. I don’t have to be a telepath to see it in your eyes. And perhaps that has to be enough to find the courage to make the difficult decision. You need to ask yourself — Could going to him now put him in danger? If the answer is yes, even by a small percentage. . .then you need to stay.”
You looked back to the curved walls of Cerebro, as if you could still see the image of Bucky sitting there.
Safe.
You swallowed and tried to breathe. Failed.
Your heart was
b r e a k i n g.
“. . .Erase it,” you finally said in a fractured voice. “Erase the location of where he is from my mind. I can’t know where he is. If I know where he is, someone else could to.”
If I know where he is, I could change my mind and put him in danger.
If I know where he is, I won’t be strong enough to stay away.
“Are you sure?” Professor Xavier asked you patiently.
Your whole body was shaking.
No.
No.
No.
Of course you weren’t sure.
Tell him no. Tell him you’ll be safer together. Tell him you’ll deal with the consequences later.
Even if those consequences could include Bucky’s death?
Fuck.
Don’t make me. Don’t make me. Don’t make me make this choice.
“. . .I’m sure. Erase it.”
I’m so sorry, Bucky.
I’m so sorry.
Six Months Later, Present Day
You stayed in New York. You got your old job back. You tried to move on.
The Hellfire Club didn’t bother you, surprisingly. But you knew they were keeping tabs on you. They always had been before. And after you disappeared for two years, you knew they were never going to let you out of their sight again.
You kept yourself busy. You tried not to think about Bucky, where he was, what he was doing.
You tried to go to church a few times when you thought the grief and loneliness might overwhelm you. You met a lawyer vigilante and you watched for him in the news afterwards, like you watched for any news about Bucky and Steve and the others.
(You watched to make sure they weren’t dead.)
“Over the past six months, the Sokovia Accords and its sister document, which called for the registration of all mutants, has been slowly implemented across America,” your TV played through your apartment. “Mutant Rights Activists have been fighting against the registration, arguing that while it may work to keep humans safe, it also puts mutants in danger by outing them against their will. In related news, the mutant guerrilla group who have been calling themselves ‘The Brotherhood’ have been causing increasing instances of violence in retaliation to the document. Which begs the question — Is mutant registration right for America? Is it doing more harm than good, or are the instances perpetrated by mutant groups like the Brotherhood proof that we need it to keep us safe?”
You started tuning out the story. You knew all of this; you were living it. The political animosity toward mutants had gotten steadily worse since you had moved back to New York. Thankfully, you had stayed under the radar, but with the way things were going, if the wrong people found out that you were unregistered it could spell trouble for you.
“There are some that say that the creation of the Mutant Response Division is an extreme reaction,” the woman on the television said to her guest. “What do you say to that?”
“The Mutant Response Division was created to keep people safe,” the man emphasized. “There are a lot of dangerous mutants out there. The MRD is necessary to protect us all.”
“I’m told that you’ve also been overlooking the team that’s been sent to find the war-criminals and former Avengers Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, Sam Wilson, and the terrorist Bucky Barnes. Have you had any luck finding them in the past six months?”
You leaned forward in your seat. You weren’t breathing.
“Unfortunately, not yet. But we’ll find them.”
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
The sound coming from your door startled you. You breathed, and muted the TV so you could go and answer it.
You were surprised to see who was standing outside your apartment. It was an old friend of yours, someone you didn’t know super well but had become friends with because you were both mutants.
“Tereza?” you asked. She looked panicked.
“[Y/N, I need your help],” she said in her native Portugese. She knew some English, but you knew she was always more comfortable speaking her mother tongue, especially when she was stressed. “[I’m being deported back to Brazil, Y/N, they want to deport me!]”
“[What?]” you said, letting her step past you and into the apartment. You closed the door when she was inside. “[Why? Under what grounds? You’re here legally, they can’t do that.]”
“[It’s because they found out I’m a mutant],” she explained, her hands shaking. “[Someone — I don’t know, someone must have reported me. Now they have me on a list and they say that because I wasn’t honest with the government now they have the right to kick me out of the country!]”
“[Okay, okay calm down],” you said as soothingly as you could manage.
“[You have to help me. What do I do? What can I do?!]”
You licked your lips, thinking.
This was getting bad, the situation with mutants. Things were getting worse. Much worse. First, the Sokovia Accords claimed superheroes couldn’t act without permission — although many different vigilantes didn’t give a shit about that — and then with this mutant registration—
You stopped.
Vigilantes.
You turned back to Tereza. “[I have a plan. I think I know a lawyer who can help us.]”
Notes:
A/N: I’m gonna be real honest with you guys, Part 3 is gonna be a bitch for me to write. I have a lot of general ideas, but not a lot of specific ones, so I’m hoping you guys will be patient with me as I figure out exactly how I’m going to get from A to B.
Chapter 27: Part 3 - Chapter Twenty-Seven: Matt Murdock
Summary:
'No, I'm not okay. I lost my best friend.'
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“Please don’t be angry when I’m not there for you
Love me like I love you always and forever…”
- The Berlin Wall, Berlin, Germany (2017) [ Picture credit: pandalandalopalis]
You didn’t even need to Google where Matt Murdock’s law firm was located, as it was one of the things you had picked from his mind two weeks ago when you’d met him.
The law firm’s name was Nelson & Murdock — the name ‘Foggy Nelson’ was the only information you had about Murdock’s partner, besides the fact that they seemed to be good friends.
It was late when Tereza had called on you, in her panic and in her fear, so there wasn’t much you could do for the night except let her sleep in your bed while you slept on the couch.
She had protested somewhat, but you insisted, claiming you slept better on the couch, anyway.
It wasn’t a lie.
With Bucky gone and your bed empty, your nightmares returned with what you might call a vengeance. They were worse than they had ever been before, and much more frequent.
Along with the usual nightmares of the Hand, Hydra, and the Phoenix, you had new recurring nightmares, nightmares that involved Bucky.
Nightmares that involved Bucky being hurt.
Nightmares that involved Bucky in pain.
Nightmares that involved Bucky dying.
Nightmares that involved Bucky being dead.
When you woke, screaming or crying or just unable to breathe, you slept on the couch. The couch was singular. You couldn’t fit two people sleeping on a couch. You couldn’t feel the empty void that Bucky left behind.
The bed was too big without another person in it.
Your apartment was too big without another person in it.
So you let Tereza sleep in your bed, and you slept on the couch, and first thing in the morning the two of you got up and headed to Nelson & Murdock.
The door was open when you got there. It was a tiny law firm, with only two rooms and an open space in the middle where a strawberry-blonde woman sat at a desk. She was laughing at something another man was saying as he strode out of the room on the right.
“Look, all I’m saying is— Oh!” The man, who you assumed must have been Foggy Nelson, stopped what he was saying when he noticed you and Tereza enter. “Hi! I’m the Nelson in Nelson & Murdock, but you can just call me Foggy. What can I do you for?”
“Do you take immigration cases?” you asked. “Specifically, wrongful deportation?”
He gave you a sort of ‘eh’ gesture. “Yeah, we can take a look. I can— Oh, Matt, good.” Foggy stepped past you and you turned to face the man who had just walked in, a tray of three coffees in hand. Foggy gave you a grin as he took one of them. “Can’t start the day without coffee, am I right?”
You shook out the rest of the coffee grains left in the tin, then tossed it in the trash when it was empty.
Hey, remind me when I go shopping that we need more coffee.
Bucky stopped what he was doing to turn and stare at you in surprise. You rubbed your eyes as you watched the coffee drip into the pot, then you poured it into your mug. You glanced at him as you reached for the sugar, taking in his expression.
What?
“Right,” you murmured.
Foggy took a moment to give the strawberry-blonde woman a coffee before returning. “Oh, and this is the Murdock in Nelson & Murdock,” he added.
Murdock shifted the tray and his white cane so he could hold out his hand. “Just Matt is fine.”
You shook it. “We’ve met.”
His brows furrowed together, and although you couldn’t see his eyes behind his red-tinted glasses, you could feel his thoughts turning like gears in his mind.
He recognizes your voice, you mused. He knows who you are but he’s not going to say it because it would look suspicious. He is blind, after all.
You wondered briefly if he was as good a liar as you were.
“I promise,” you lied.
“Nothing you should worry about,” you said, you lied .
So you lied, and not for the last time. “I told you, I don’t know.”
“Nothing.” A lie. They told you who they were.
“I don’t know. I don’t remember.” Lie.
“I promise.”
You wished to God you didn’t have to lie to him.
But you did.
“I was at the church last week,” you explained, even though you knew it was only for the benefit of the others.
Apparently that was enough information for a plausible moment of recognition. “Right,” he said. “I remember.”
He’s suspicious of you.
(You were so focused on Matt that you didn’t notice the look Foggy was giving him, as if he had been told about that particular encounter.)
“What are you doing here?” he asked, although his tone was curious and not accusatory. But you weren’t fooled by his speaking voice. His mind told a different story.
“This is my friend, Tereza,” you said, and you paused as Matt held out his hand to shake hers. “The government’s trying to deport her back to Brazil. I’ve been told you guys are trustworthy when it comes to. . .special cases.”
“Define ‘special cases’,” Foggy asked, but Matt cut in as if he hadn’t spoken.
“You were recommended to us? By who?”
You searched his mind for a plausible name.
“Julieta Sancho,” you chose. Another immigrant case.
Matt hummed, nodding.
Fuck.
He knows you’re lying.
He doesn’t know why, but he can hear your heartbeat.
You need to be more careful in the future.
You could tell Foggy was aware of the change in atmosphere. He looked between you and Matt a couple of times before returning his attention to you and Tereza.
“So. . .your ‘special’ case?” he prompted.
Tereza gave you a nervous look. “[Are you sure we can trust them?]” she asked you in Portugese.
You looked from Matt, to Foggy, to the woman sitting at the desk behind you. You flitted through her mind briefly. Karen Page. Curious, but can keep a secret. You turned back to Tereza and nodded.
“[Okay],” she said. “[Tell them.]”
You nodded again, then took a breath before addressing the lawyers standing in front of you. “I’m sure you’re all aware of the current political climate right now. Tereza’s being deported because the government found out that she’s. . .unregistered.”
“She’s here illegally,” Matt mused. “Alright, we can look into her file and—”
“She’s here legally,” you clarified. “That’s not what I meant when I said she was unregistered.”
Both Matt and Foggy gave you confused looks.
“She’s a mutant.”
It was Karen who spoke. You and Tereza turned around to look at her and she hesitated, as if she had said something wrong. “Sorry, I just. . .That’s the reason, right? The government’s deporting her because they found out that she’s a mutant?”
“Yes,” Tereza answered for herself.
“Can they do that?” Foggy asked Matt.
Matt’s head tilted to the side. “They’ve been changing so many things in the last six months but I haven’t heard anything about this. . . .We might have a case. We’d have to look into it.”
“So you’ll take it?” you asked.
“We’re pretty swamped as it is, especially with this one particularly difficult case we’ve got. . . .” Foggy began,
(That’s right. The Punisher thing. You’d seen updates about it on the news.)
“but, we’ll take a look,” he finished. “Never let it be said that Nelson & Murdock turns away those in need!” He gave you a friendly grin and you could practically feel Tereza relaxing next to you.
“[I should go, I still have work],” she said to you. “[. . .At least for now.]” She gave you a resigned smile, then turned back to the men who were now acting as her lawyers. “Thank you,” she murmured sincerely, and moved past them to reach the door.
“She has work,” you explained as she left. “We’ll come back tomorrow with her information.”
You went to follow her out, but Matt’s voice stopped you.
“Hang on,” he said, and you turned around. “I never got your name.”
“Y/N.”
You looked up at Bucky in surprise as he spoke.
“Y/N,” he repeated. “That’s your name.”
“Just be careful, Y/N.”
The sound of your name coming off his tongue was foreign and sent a shiver up your spine. You climbed out of the water and pretended the goosebumps that covered your flesh was from the cold of the pool.
Bucky swayed on his knees. He pressed his metal hand to his shoulder; he had lost a lot of blood. His vision was becoming blurry as he looked at you.
“ Y/N .”
“Y/N,” he interrupted. “It’s okay.”
Bucky cleared his throat and he tapped his temple. “Y/N, turn off your inner monologue.”
“No,” you interrupted him. “It’s Christmas. You sleep in on Christmas.”
“Y/N—”
“Merry Christmas, Y/N.”
“Look at this, Y/N!” He gestured around you. “I’m missing a war.”
He rubbed his hands over his face. “We can’t keep having this conversation, Y/N. At some point, you need to let me take responsibility for these things! I’m guilty!”
“You’re not guilty because you want to live, Y/N,” he whispered, but it might as well have been the loudest thing he had ever said.
He glanced over at you. “Y/N, you can’t protect me from all the things I’ve done, all the things that have happened to me.”
He pressed a kiss to your hair and murmured softly, “Happy New Year, Y/N.”
“Y/N. L/N.” You were going to try to leave again but Matt continued.
“Do you speak any other languages besides Portugese?” he asked, adjusting his glasses and shifting his white cane from hand to hand.
What is he doing?
It seemed like he was. . .stalling?
“Yeah, I do,” you answered. “I’m a translator, actually.”
“A translator, huh?” Foggy said, sipping his coffee. He was sitting on the edge of Karen’s desk now. “That’s cool. How many languages do you speak?”
“[I didn’t know you were a translator, Y/N],” Mr. Mikalos commented. “[How many languages do you speak?]”
You glanced at Bucky, giving him a secret smile before turning your attention back to your host. “[I’ll give you three guesses.]”
Your chest tightened, but you did your best to ignore the feeling. Ignore the memory. Ignore the image of Bucky in your mind, with his blue eyes and shy smile staring at you from across the table.
“Enough,” was the clipped answer you gave to his question.
“Y’know, we could really use a translator around here,” Matt said, and your eyebrows began to knit together. “Sometimes we get clients who don’t speak the best English, and it would be great if we could understand them better.”
What was he doing? Was he trying to get close to you? Figure you out? Pry you open to get the truth? “I do have a job, but—”
Oh.
Oh.
He was trying to reach out to you.
He remembered your conversation outside the church. . . .
You had read him all wrong.
He was trying. . .to help you.
Emotion washed over you. You hadn’t had someone worrying over you since. . .
Well.
Bucky pressed a kiss to your forehead and you closed your eyes. Then he cupped your cheek and you looked into his blue once more.
A while.
You swallowed, and the sentence that was going to end with ‘but thanks’, instead ended with, “I have flexible hours. If you need me. . .I can make time.”
“Great!” Foggy exclaimed. “. . .As long as you’re okay with getting paid in baked goods, that is.”
You gave him a small smile. “Is there any other way I would want to get paid?”
He grinned. “Oh, I like you.”
“I should get going,” you said. You went to Karen’s desk and scribbled on a piece of loose paper. “Here’s my number. Call me if you need me. And I’ll, uh, see you tomorrow, I guess.”
“Nice meeting you!” Karen called as you reached the door, and you gave her a wave before leaving.
You were out of the building and on the sidewalk when you heard someone calling your name behind you.
For a brief moment, you imagined Bucky’s voice. Imagined him scooping you up as you turned, spinning you round and round and unable to let you go because you’re here and he’s here and things could be bad but it doesn’t matter anymore.
Holy shit, Y/N.
You needed to stop watching romantic comedies in your spare time.
You stopped and let Matt catch up to you, watching him twist his white cane in his hands.
“Listen,” he started. “I’ve been thinking a lot about our conversation outside the church and I just. . .wanted to make sure you were okay.”
You swallowed, suddenly finding it very difficult to speak.
No, I’m not okay.
I lost my best friend.
“Y’know, you said some things. . .” Matt continued. “. . .and I was just. . .worried.”
“See?” you said as you opened your eyes to look at Bucky, the volume of your voice just over the roar of the waterfall. “This is nice. You worry too much, you know.”
“I worry about you.”
“You don’t even know me,” you said in a small voice. You found your hand wandering to the metal star hanging around your neck, a remnant from another life.
“I know you feel alone,” Matt said, sincere. “I don’t think I have to know any more than that to want to help you.”
You probably shouldn’t have expected anything less from a vigilante who saved strangers on a nightly basis.
“You could come to church this week, if you want,” he added. “I’m not trying to convert you or anything, but I personally find it comforting to be there. Or, you could skip that bit and we could just go for coffee, afterwards. I’m no Catholic priest, but I can listen, if you want to talk.”
A memory of his flitted through your mind, one of a man called Father Lantom, offering Matt a similar deal. “Seal of confession still applies, even over lattes.”
“. . .Yeah,” you said after a moment. “Okay.”
He gave you a gentle smile. “Great. So I’ll see you again tomorrow?”
“Look at me,” Bucky whispered, and his voice was just as broken as yours was. “I’m going to see you again, alright? I promise.”
I promise.
I promise.
“Yeah,” you replied. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Notes:
A/N: Yes, that is every time Bucky says her name to her out loud. You can thank the movie "I’m Not Here" which inspired me to write this chapter.
Chapter 28: Part 3 - Chapter Twenty-Eight: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back
Summary:
You do your best to move on. When the MRD starts wrongfully arresting mutants, you need Daredevil’s help — which means telling Matt the truth.
Notes:
A/N: uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh this chapter kind of got away from me. i’m dying how did this get so fucking long. IT’S 6660 WORDS HOW DID THIS HAPPEN. IM SORRY???
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
You looked forward to your coffee outings with Matt after church on Sundays, although you never did take up his offer to actually attend the service. You talked, but you refrained from certain topics. The usual things: in depth details about your family, being a mutant, hiding from various crime organizations who wanted to use you.
Bucky.
Essentially, you avoided talking about your problems. But Matt never pushed you on any of it. He was patient as you went over mundane topics every week, although every once in a while you’d mention something small — you’re not very close with your parents, you’re adopted, you spent the past two years living abroad. You did your best to stick to the truth and not lie about anything, which meant heavily omitting certain things.
He asked why you moved back to New York.
You were very vague about the details.
“Things just. . .didn’t work out the way I wanted them to.”
Matt would tell you about himself, too. He talked about his father being a boxer, how he got into law, his friendship with Foggy and his blossoming relationship with Karen. Of course, there were his own topics he was avoiding. Namely, being a vigilante, dealing with the Yakuza, and the recent reappearance of his ex, Elektra Natchios.
Over the next month and a half, you bonded with not only Matt, but Foggy and Karen as well. Every once in a while, you’d translate for them, but you found yourself coming to the office more frequently, just to spend time with them.
Tereza’s case was going. . .well, it was going. Matt and Foggy had managed to delay her deportation, but they weren’t any closer to getting the case thrown out. Matt and Foggy agreed, however, that no news was better than bad news. For now, the delay was a good thing.
You hadn’t looked forward to Christmas this year, nor New Year’s. It was the first Christmas and New Year’s without Bucky. . .and you knew it was going to be difficult.
Matt had invited you to celebrate both holidays with him and Foggy and Karen. It made it. . .better, somehow. There was still a gaping hole in your chest, but they made it bearable.
You were surviving.
You were. . .moving on.
You walked into Nelson & Murdock with a tray of coffees in hand, planning on saying hello before heading off to work, when you stopped just outside the door.
There was music playing in the office.
It sounded like. . . .
When you finally stepped inside, Foggy and Karen were laughing as they danced to the ‘40s-era song. Matt was grinning as he listened.
There was a record player on the table.
“I found all these songs from the forties — well, they’re not all from the forties, but they’re, y’know, old, and I just — I thought maybe it would help you to remember. Just hearing the music, I thought — I just — um—”
“Hey, Y/N!” Foggy called out cheerfully as he dipped Karen. “You’ll never believe what Mrs. Clark paid us for helping her out! Is that coffee?”
You had a pretty good idea what it was Mrs. Clark paid them. “Yeah,” you said, and your voice came out funny. You cleared your throat and listed off each of their usual orders, handing it to them as you did.
You knew the song that was playing. It was from one of the records you had gotten for Bucky.
Matt noticed your tone and change in heart rate. You could tell because his eyebrows knitted together in that way they did when his other senses picked up on something out of the ordinary.
“Are you okay?”
You swallowed. Your hand went to your necklace and you toyed with it, a nervous tick that replaced your old one. You forced yourself to appear nonchalant. “I’m just not a big fan of forties music.”
Foggy stopped dancing with Karen and overdramatically gasped in disbelief. “You don’t like forties music? How could you not like forties music? It’s the best!”
You knew continuing down this path would only get Foggy to start some long, vaguely whimsical, lecture explaining why hating ‘40s music would be the literal end of the world, so you decided to make it quick. “I had this friend who loved forties music. And I don’t get to see him anymore. So.” You finished with a nod.
It surprised you, the way the words stuck in your throat. Every time you thought you were finally dealing with the separation, something like this would come up and it was like you were back in that train station all over again.
(Waiting for him, when he would never show up.)
“Oh,” Foggy said, his demeanor palpably dampened. “I’m sorry.”
You waved him off with your hand, not trusting yourself to speak.
“What happened to him?” Karen asked as she twisted her fingers together in a nervous manner.
You cleared your throat. “He’s not dead, if that’s what you’re asking.”
He’s not dead.
He’s not dead.
He’s not dead.
You would know.
“It’s just. . .” you continued. “. . .complicated.”
“Oof, I hear that,” Foggy commented. “‘It’s complicated’ is the worst.”
“Right, well—” You wanted this to be the end of this. “I have to get to work, so I’ll see you later.”
That was not the end of that.
Matt brought it up again a couple days later at the tail end of your coffee outing with him, just as the two of you were walking out.
“So, this guy who loved forties music.”
You sighed. You knew Matt was going to be patient for only so long before he’d start pushing for some answers.
“Does he have anything to do with what’s been going on with you?” he asked, the question vague because, well, you hadn’t really told him anything about what was going on with you.
“It’s complicated,” was all you gave him.
“So you said.” Matt paused, and for a moment you thought that was the end of it. It wasn’t. “Y’know, about ten years back I dated this girl. . .and when it ended, I was a wreck. For months.”
You stopped him. “We weren’t dating. He was just. . .a friend.”
Matt gave you eyebrows like he didn’t believe you. “So you weren’t in love with him?”
“No,” you said, after a pause that was just a second too long. “It wasn’t like that.”
Matt was quiet for a moment. Then he gave you something like a smile. “You’re lying.”
Disbelief flitted through you as he walked away, at your own words being echoed back to you.
You tried to ignore what he said on the way home.
Tried to.
Failed.
A couple weeks later, you were woken in the middle of the night by the sounds of voices and slamming. Sleep was startled out of you in your panic, and you got up from your couch to open the door.
As soon as you did, a man standing in the hall with the letters MRD emblazoned on his jacket turned to you. “Go back in your room, ma’am.”
Your eyes narrowed. “What’s going on?”
And then another MRD soldier was dragging a woman out of her apartment. There was a heavy-duty, metal collar around her neck and she was in cuffs. You didn’t know her all that well, but you recognized her from times you had passed each other in the hall, or seen each other in the laundry room. She always had a cheery “Hi!” for you, although she probably didn’t even know your name.
“Nothing to concern you, ma’am,” the first MRD soldier addressed you again. “We’re taking care of a few dangerous mutants in the building. But you have nothing to worry about, you’re perfectly safe.”
That’s funny, because you didn’t feel safe.
“Go back inside.”
You didn’t. You were watching the other MRD soldier take the woman down the hall and disappear around the corner. “I don’t understand. Was she unregistered?” The super had given you the list of mutants in your apartment building, as per the new rules set out by the Mutant Registration Act. You didn’t bother looking at it, you didn’t feel you needed to, especially when you felt like it was a huge breach of privacy. (The irony of the subject of privacy coming up when you were a telepath was not lost on you. But you knew how to keep a secret. A list for everyone to see was not keeping a secret.) But you had kept the list, just in case you were ever put in a situation where other mutants like yourself needed support. So, you hadn’t looked closely at the list but you did glance at it, and you remembered seeing the woman’s apartment number on it. She was registered. Question answered. “Did she do something wrong?” was the follow-up.
“Like I said before, ma’am,” the MRD soldier said, “this doesn’t concern you. Go back to bed.”
You weren’t going to get anywhere with him like this, standing in your doorway at three in the morning in your pajama shorts and tank-top. So you gave him a nod and backed into your apartment, closing the door.
The man was never the wiser to the intrusion into his mind that only took a second.
You catalogued the information for tomorrow. You didn’t trust your judgment this late at night. With a sigh, you locked your door and returned to your couch, letting fitful sleep overtake you.
(Your head was too fucking quiet.)
(Your mind was too fucking quiet without him.)
Your pencil drummed erratically on the file you were supposed to be translating. You hadn’t been able to focus the entire day — always looking at the clock, counting the hours, then minutes, before you could go home.
Understandably, you were worried.
If the MRD was conducting raids at three AM, it probably meant that they were doing something legally ambiguous — something that the Mutant Registration Act allowed “for the safety of America".
The minute you got home, you pulled out the folded list of registered mutants that you kept at the bottom of your junk drawer.
There were seven mutants living in your apartment building (that the government knew of). From what you had taken from the mind of that MRD soldier, they had arrested four of them during the raid.
Nicole Nelson. That was the woman you saw them arresting, the one who never failed to give you a friendly hello whenever she saw you. You found her name on the list and looked at the mutation description written next to it. Electricity manipulation.
Franklin Armstrong. The second mutant they arrested last night. Acid saliva.
Asavari Bhadu. The third mutant they arrested last night. Gravity manipulation.
And last but not least—
Fuck.
The last name you took from the MRD soldier was Isobel Delpratt. She was sixteen. You quickly checked her mutation. Fire manipulation.
You had met each one of these people at some point. All of them were well-meaning, none of them had any destructive tendencies, not even accidental ones like someone you knew.
(It was you.)
Izzy, the sixteen-year-old, was an A student. She was on the debate team and student council. You knew this because her mother constantly talked about her. You had never met someone who was more proud of their child than Mrs. Delpratt.
Her mother must be losing her mind right now. I know I would be, if my kid was ripped from me in the middle of the night.
You massaged your temples. Izzy was practically a saint. So why would the MRD arrest her? Why did they arrest the others?
You glanced over the other three names on the list, the mutants who weren’t taken.
Physical mutation — Green skin, pointed ears.
Physical mutation — Webbed hands and feet. Ability to breathe underwater.
Physical mutation — Vegetation grows in place of hair follicles.
The four mutants who had been arrested had internal mutations whereas the mutants who were not arrested had external mutations.
No, it wasn’t just that. Franklin Armstrong had some kind of acid spit ability, which could be technically categorized as physical. The only reason it wasn’t was because it didn’t present itself as an obvious mutation — it was invisible, like the others.
Oh. Of course. Electricity manipulation. Acid saliva. Gravity manipulation. Fire manipulation.
“We’re taking care of a few dangerous mutants in the building.” That’s what the MRD soldier had said. They didn’t arrest them because they had done something wrong. They arrested them because they had the ability to do something wrong.
How many mutants had they arrested with “dangerous” abilities? How many other teenagers? Children?
You researched the raid they conducted last night online, looking for news articles on the event, looking for any “justifications” for it — but there was barely anything. It was like they were trying to cover it up, or not draw any attention to it. You were a couple hours into reading through the lengthy and legal-jargon-filled Mutant Registration Act when you suddenly remembered someone else you knew whose powers could fit the definition of “dangerous”.
Tereza.
She had a shapeshifting ability — specifically, shifting into that of a jaguar. She had control over the shift, and as far as you were aware she didn’t much like shifting into her jaguar form. Something about not liking the way the animal part of her could take over.
But the MRD wouldn’t see it that way.
Especially given she had been living as an unregistered mutant for several months before she was discovered.
Especially given the government wanted her deported.
You were up and out of your apartment in two seconds.
Tereza’s place was on the other side of the city, in a small Brazilian neighbourhood. You called her on the way to the subway but she didn’t answer. You called her when you were on the subway but she didn’t answer. You called her walking to her apartment complex but she didn’t answer. You buzzed her apartment number but she didn’t answer. When you managed to get past the front doors, you raced up to her floor and banged on her door, yelling for her to open it.
But she didn’t answer.
“[They took her.]”
Slowly, you turned around to look at the woman who had spoken. She was standing in her doorway, regarding you sadly.
“[The men came last night. Everyone was asleep. And they took her. Just her.]” The woman shook her head and muttered a string of curses.
This was bad.
This was really, really bad.
You rubbed your eyes and ran a hand through your hair.
What are you going to do?
What can you do?
Think.
What are your options?
Options. You had to have options.
. . .You knew where the MRD’s prison facility was. You had pulled that particular piece of information from that soldier.
. . .You also knew a vigilante.
Your phone was out of your pocket and your feet were moving down the hall before you could fully process it.
“Alex? I need a favour.”
It was starting to get late by the time you got to Matt’s apartment building to knock on his door. You only hoped that he hadn’t left yet to do whatever it is that Daredevil did during the night hours.
“Just a second!” you heard him call from inside, and some of your nervousness dissipated. Peering into his mind, you could tell he had been halfway dressed into his Daredevil attire. You had cut it pretty close getting here.
You waited for about a minute as Matt haphazardly changed into normal clothes and threw his Daredevil costume into a trunk and locked it.
He wasn’t wearing his glasses when he opened the door, dressed in a soft t-shirt and sweats. “Hey,” he said, his eyebrows knitted together. “Are you okay?”
Oh, boy. Here we go. “I’m really sorry, Matt,” you said as you walked past him and into his apartment, “but I don’t have time to put this gently. I know you’re Daredevil.” You didn’t give him a chance to speak to that. “And I know that because I’m a mutant, and a telepath. I read minds. I’m telling you this now because I need your help. I need Daredevil’s help. Last night, there was—”
“Hang on, hang on, hang on,” Matt interrupted you. His face had contorted into an expression of anger and confusion. It looked like he was grasping for words. “. . .You lied to me.”
“No, I never lied,” you said. Because you would’ve known if I was lying. “I avoided certain truths.”
“Semantics,” he bit back. “You were dishonest.”
“I’m unregistered. And I didn’t know you. But now I do, and I need your help. You said you would help me.”
Matt shook his head in disbelief. “That is not what I meant and you know that.”
Your friendship with him was practically crumbling before your eyes. Matt hated liars. You knew this. But you didn’t have any other options right now. “Last night the MRD went on a raid, arresting mutants and taking them to a prison facility just outside the city,” you continued. “I need your help to break them out.”
Matt rubbed his face with his hand. “I don’t have time for this,” he said. “Believe it or not, but I have bigger things to deal with right now than breaking out mutants who were probably arrested for good reason.”
“They weren’t,” you emphasized. “They—”
You stopped. You had flitted through his mind for just a second but—
No.
No.
No.
No .
The moment there was a change in your breath, a rise in your heart rate, Matt noticed it.
“Y/N?” he ventured, some of his anger beginning to dissipate.
You couldn’t breathe. You couldn’t breathe.
“The Hand is in New York?”
Matt’s eyebrows knitted together and his mouth fell open. “How did you—? Did you just go through my head?”
You were barely conscious, strung up by your wrists so the rest of your body hung limply, your feet, but not your knees, touching the ground. There were cuts and wounds ranging from small to large on every bit of visible skin — which was most of it. With the exception of your face and major arteries, your arms and legs and stomach and sides and chest and shoulders were bleeding. A string of blood mixed with saliva ran from your mouth; there were bruises on your face instead of lacerations.
You were choking on the taste of your own blood again, barely twenty years old, so, so young and innocent and good and they took that from you and they took that from you and they took that from you
and you can’t breathe
and you can’t breathe
and you can’t breathe
and the only person who knows your pain as intimately as you do is
not
here.
You wanted to vomit, or scream, or do something but you were frozen, chasing breath as it ran away from you, ran away from your trauma, ran away from your violence.
You didn’t know when Matt had moved close enough to you to put his hands on your shoulders. You didn’t know when you had ended up crouched over, your hands braced on your knees. Matt’s face was level with yours, and he was speaking but you couldn’t hear him.
But you couldn’t hear him.
But you couldn’t hear him.
You let Matt sit you down on the floor, let him gently move you so your head was bent between your legs.
Sounds came back, slowly.
Matt was sitting across from you, his hands on your knees. “. . .to me. Listen to my voice. Breathe in for four counts.”
You forced air into your lungs.
“One. . .two. . .three. . .four, now hold it for seven.”
You clamped your mouth down, trapping the oxygen, holding it hostage.
“One.”
A hand gripped your upper arm, tight — but flesh. You opened your eyes. You hadn’t realized you had leaned against the wall to keep your balance. The Soldier was giving you a steel gaze; it said, Keep it together.
“. . .two. . .”
You were starting to panic. You don’t know if the Soldier noticed or not, but either way he pulled you aside. “Repeat back to me what I told you.”
“. . .three. . .”
You desperately tried to stop your hiccuping sobs. . . .“Go back to sleep. Please.”
But he didn’t. Instead, Bucky wrapped his arms around your shoulders in a tight embrace. . . .You closed your eyes. He was warm.
“I got you,” you heard him whisper.
“. . .four. . .”
Your knees gave out and the only thing holding you up was him. His grip was as fierce as it was gentle, with his metal arm supporting you and his flesh hand wiping tears from your face. . . .Bucky wrapped both his arms around you in a tight hug and you closed your eyes.
“. . .five. . .”
He gently squeezed the place above your knees in a silent, comforting gesture. . . .and his thumbs made circles on the inside of your legs. You closed your eyes, breathing in, breathing out. You focused on Bucky’s comforting movements. . . .You let go of a breath you didn’t know you were holding.
“. . .six. . .”
You realized what he was doing. Bucky was tracing the scars on your sides, the lines ranging from short to long, small to large. . . .You’re not sure when you started crying, only that tears flowed down your cheeks in steady streams. Bucky was quietly undoing you, undoing the pain and the violence and the horror that had been committed against you.
“. . .seven. Now breathe out for eight.”
You did as he told you, and as you listened to him count, you held onto the memory of Bucky tracing your scars, held onto the gentleness and comfort he had provided you.
“. . .seven. . .eight. Breathe in for four again. One. . .two. . .”
Matt had you repeat the cycle two more times before deciding that you had calmed down enough to breathe on your own.
“You were involved with the Hand,” he finally said, when the symptoms of your panic attack had ebbed away.
You focused on your breathing. “Long time ago,” you said, forgoing complete sentences. “Almost a decade.”
“They wanted you because you have abilities, right?”
Your eyebrows knitted together, but you nodded. If Matt was making that assumption, it meant you weren’t the only person with gifts that the Hand had tried to control.
Although, the Hand didn’t just want you because you were a strong telepath. They heard a rumour that you were to become the next host to the Phoenix. Of course they wanted that power for themselves.
You had had a lot of time to think about how they could have gotten that information. They told you they heard a rumour, so they didn’t know for sure. That’s why they tortured you, they wanted the truth. So, maybe the Hand had infiltrated a lower branch of the Hellfire Club. It was a plausible explanation.
Alexander Pierce didn’t hear a rumour.
He knew for sure.
“As far as I know, the Hand isn’t here for you,” Matt said, and it sounded like he was trying to reassure you. “But I’ll keep tabs on it. I’ll make sure they don’t look your way.” There was a finality in his tone. You don’t have to worry about the Hand, so you can leave now. There’s nothing more to talk about, is what the tone was saying.
But you didn’t get up. You ran a hand through your hair. “The mutants who were arrested didn’t do anything wrong. The MRD arrested them because their mutations could be classified as ‘dangerous’. That’s not a good enough reason to detain them,” you tried to explain to him.
He sighed. “Y/N—”
“They arrested a sixteen-year-old from my building.” You looked at him, and he closed his mouth. “. . .They arrested Tereza.”
Matt closed his eyes and rolled back to sit down. He breathed in, then out, and you were quiet as you let him think.
“Okay,” he said after a moment, “I’ll help you. On one condition.”
You read his mind. “You’re going to help me anyway, that’s what you’ve already decided,” you commented.
“Humour me.”
You sat up straighter. “Fine. What’s your condition?”
“You tell me the truth. All of it. What’s been going on with you. I’m sure it has something to do with you being a mutant, that’s why you haven’t told me yet, right? Just give me the truth, and then we can go.” Matt raised his eyebrows, waiting for your answer.
You tucked your knees to your chest; the muscles in your jaw flexed as you clenched your teeth together.
You’re wasting time as it is. Just give him the abridged version and get it over with.
“Two years and about eight months ago, right before the world found out that Hydra had infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D., Hydra kidnapped me for the same reason the Hand tried to almost ten years ago,” you began. “I escaped Hydra like I escaped the Hand, and I ran to Romania with my friend, Bucky.” You didn’t think you’d said his name out loud since the day you got back to New York (. . .except those nights you woke in a panicked cold sweat, “Bucky” on your lips, and your hands reaching across the bed for someone who wasn’t there). Saying his name now, to Matt, it tasted. . .different on your tongue, somehow. “He helped me hide from Hydra. Eight months ago, we got in some trouble, and we got separated. We were supposed to meet at a rendezvous point, but. . .he never showed.” You paused for a second, giving yourself a moment. “The X-Men have a telepathic amplifier they can use to find people. It’s why I came back to New York. But, the thing is, the telepaths who raised me are a part of a society of mutants who aren’t. . .very. . .good. I knew if they thought. . .my friend was coming between them and whatever power I could offer them, they might try to get rid of him. I couldn’t risk it. So now he’s. . .wherever, and I’m here.”
Matt nodded silently, taking in everything you said. “You miss him.”
“. . .Yes.”
His eyebrows narrowed together in thought. “But that’s not all of it, is it? You came to that church two months ago looking for forgiveness. But you’re not looking for forgiveness for leaving your friend behind — you don’t need to be forgiven for that, not when you did it to keep him safe. You wouldn’t regret keeping him safe, no matter how much you miss him.”
Damn him for reading you so well. You were hoping you could give him the censored version of the truth and move on — but he asked you a direct question. You couldn’t lie.
You swallowed and took a breath.
“. . .I. . .sometimes have trouble with control. My telepathy, it. . .it has its own self-defense mechanism. I try. . .I try to keep it in check, but. . . .The Hand, Hydra — people died.” The rush of guilt you suddenly felt was overwhelming. “I killed them.” You haphazardly wiped away a few tears leaking from your eyes. “Bucky. . .he used to help me deal with all of that. Without him. . . .”
“You don’t have anyone to forgive you,” Matt finished for you in a quiet voice.
You nodded, not saying anything more about it. You took a slow breath in, then out. "I'm sorry I lied to you."
He considered everything you said for a moment. "Well, you had good reason to." He paused, then, "Where are they going to go, after we break them out?"
He was talking about the mutants who were detained. "Does this mean you're going to help me?"
"You did say I was already committed to it."
You gave him a small smile. "I have a contact who's going to transport them out of the country discreetly." You sighed. "I know this isn't the only time the MRD is going to pull something like this, and shipping mutants out of the country isn't going to work forever. But this is what we've got until we figure out what we're going to do about. . .all of it."
"The MRD. . .mutant registration. . . .What are you going to do?" Matt asked.
"I don't know." This was the American government you were talking about. Fixing the mess they started. . . . Going against human fear and paranoia. . . .This was not going to be easy. "I guess we'll. . .cross that bridge when we get to it."
He nodded. Then he stood, and held out his hand for you. You took it and let him pull you up.
Matt walked over to the side of the room and opened the locked trunk on the floor. He took the helmet and outfit out, then paused.
“How long have you known?”
You gave him a sheepish smile. “Since the first moment I met you.”
The expression Matt made was something like, of course, of course you knew from the beginning. He disappeared into his room to change, leaving the door open just a crack. “So all those times I lied to cover this up, you knew?”
“Now you know how it feels,” you said, sitting down on his couch.
He came out a couple minutes later fully dressed, his helmet in hand. “I guess that’s karma for you.” He offered you a black scarf. “To hide your identity,” he explained.
You took it. “Good idea.” You wrapped the scarf around your mouth and nose and tied it tight around your head.
Matt placed his helmet over his head. “I’m assuming you know where this holding facility is?”
You nodded and pulled down the scarf so you could speak. “I pulled it out of the mind of one of the MRD soldiers who raided my apartment building last night.”
His head tilted to the side. “Advantages of telepathy. And Foggy thought my abilities were invasive.” It was less of a snide comment and more of an observation. “So, where are we going?”
Together, you and Matt managed to knock out every soldier on the premise within ten minutes. You’d render them unconscious telepathically; Matt would do it. . .a bit more violently.
Despite his no-killing rule, you knew Matt could be ruthless if he wanted to be. It’s why you were grateful for your telepathy: no interrogation tactics needed when you could just pull information from their minds with ease. You even managed to turn the security cameras off using instructions you got from the guard watching fifteen screens in a little room.
“There’s forty-three prisoners in the facility,” you confirmed, taking your hand back from where it was pressed to the head of an unconscious MRD soldier.
“Only forty-three?” Matt inquired.
“They must have wanted to start small,” you mused. “Attracts less attention that way. A few people disappear in the middle of the night, but not enough that any news gets wind of it. Or any news even cares.”
He only hummed in response. You stood from where you were crouching and began walking in the direction of the holding cells. Matt kept stride next to you.
“Are you sure all of them are innocent?” he asked. “I know you said they were arrested because their mutations are the quote-unquote ‘dangerous kind’, but there’s a very real possibility that some of them were arrested because they are dangerous.”
“I can vet them,” you replied. “If any of them have criminal intentions, we leave them here. I don’t want any bad people on the street as much as you don’t — mutant or human, doesn’t matter.”
He nodded and the two of you continued. When you found the holding cells, you did as you promised: you made sure each and every prisoner had no intention to harm you or anyone else before letting them go and disabling their inhibitor collars. Matt was right — at least a few of them were in there for a reason.
Tereza recognized you immediately, despite the black scarf wrapped around the bottom of your face. When you opened the door to her cell and disabled her collar, she threw her arms around you.
You murmured soothingly to her in Portuguese, letting her know that everything was going to be okay and that you had a plan to get her out of the country. (It saddened you to think you had fought so long for her not to be deported, yet she was going to end up having to leave the country anyway.)
Tereza left your embrace and moved a few paces backwards, staring over your shoulder with wide eyes. “O diabo,” she whispered.
You turned to find the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen standing behind you. “Thirty-nine is the final count,” Matt relayed to you. “Does your contact have enough room for that many?”
You nodded. “She should. There’s a private airport near here, all we have to do now is get everyone there.”
It was more difficult than you expected to calm everyone down enough to organize leaving the facility. But with help from a few of the more level-headed mutants you liberated, you managed to get them to the airport.
Alex was there, along with Mrs. Delpratt. She cried and ran to her daughter, hugging and kissing her a hundred times.
“You called her mom,” Matt murmured to you.
“Of course I did,” you replied. “I mean, wouldn’t you want to know? If it was your kid?”
You didn’t give Matt a chance to respond as you finally approached Alex and gave her a hug.
“Thank you for doing this,” you said.
She shrugged as she pulled away. “You needed my help. You know there’s very little I wouldn’t do for you.” Her gaze was intense, and for a moment your skin felt warm. But it lasted only a second.
Alex’s eyes flicked to Matt standing next to you, and she took in his vigilante attire. She grinned.
“Looks like you have a type, Y/N.”
“Alex,” you hissed, not wanting Matt to put two-and-two together about another vigilante-type you’d been involved with. He was only a few pieces of information away from figuring out that the Bucky you told him about was Bucky Barnes, Captain America’s best friend and current fugitive. If Matt knew, suddenly you’d be bombarded with questions about it and you didn’t want to deal with that, at least not for a while.
“What?” Alex asked innocently. “I was talking about brunettes.” She twisted her own brunette hair around her finger, smiling at you mischievously.
“How did you—” Matt touched the top of his helmet. “How do you know I have brown hair?” He turned to you, scowling. “She’s a telepath, isn’t she? You didn’t think to mention that?”
“Sorry,” you said, wincing. “Alex promises not to say anything about your identity, don’t you, Alex?”
She chuckled, but nodded. “I’ll even get Y/N to erase my memory of it, if that’ll make you feel better.”
“It would.”
Alright, moving on. You turned to Alex. “The pilot knows where to take them?”
“We have a couple different safehouses they can stay in,” she confirmed. “And don’t worry — the pilot will be discrete. She won’t say anything.”
“Good,” you said.
“But you realize this isn’t going to work forever,” Alex mused. “You can keep freeing mutants if that’s what you want but we only have so many resources, Y/N.”
You sighed. “I know.” You would’ve said more, but a couple of people from the group you had just rescued made their way over to the three of you.
“We want to stay,” the first one said, a woman with her hair half-shaved and several piercings in her face and ears.
“Stay?” you echoed.
“We want to help,” the second one clarified, a man with a snake tattoo wrapped around his arm.
“If you’re starting something, we want in,” the woman with the piercings added.
Your mouth parted as you looked at her. “This isn’t. . .This isn’t the start of some kind of revolution.”
“You want to do something about this, don’t you?” she asked. “You saved us for a reason.”
“I saved you because it was the right thing to do,” you said. “But I won’t be involved in some kind of. . .violent uprising. I’m not Magneto. You want that, you join the Brotherhood.”
“A revolution doesn’t have to be violent,” the man with the snake tattoo murmured. The woman with the piercings nodded.
You licked your lips, thinking. “If you can promise me that nobody gets hurt, and I mean nobody — mutant and human alike — then you can help me. . .do something about this.”
The woman with the piercings nodded again, then held out her hand. You clasped it.
“You’re a telepath, right?” she said, not really asking. “You’ll find my contact information in my head. My name is Lydia; this is Killion. Keep in touch if you need us.”
You grabbed the information from her mind and dropped your hand. “I will.”
And so you said goodbye and goodluck to Teresa and the others, and watched as the jet disappeared into the sky.
“Be careful with what you’ve started,” Matt said as you got back to his apartment. He pulled his helmet off. “These things can easily get out of hand. Don’t let it get that far.”
“It’d be easier if you kept helping me,” you offered. “I think we make a good team, don’t you?”
He breathed through his nose. “Yeah. But between the Frank Castle case, and my other prior commitments, I don’t know if I have the time.”
You hummed. Matt stopped, his eyes narrowing.
“You know about Elektra, don’t you?”
You paused. “. . .Yeah.”
“And you know that nothing is going on between us, right? This is just about stopping the Hand, nothing more,” he insisted.
You hesitated. “. . .I know you think you think that,” you said, slowly.
His eyebrows knitted together further. “Meaning?”
You sighed. “It’s not really any of my business, but. . .You loved her. And when she left and broke your heart, she wrecked you. Feelings like that. . .don’t just go away.”
“Nothing’s going to happen,” Matt reiterated. “I would never do that to Karen.”
“I know,” you said. “But maybe you should take your own advice and be careful with what you’ve started. There’s obviously some unresolved feelings between the two of you that you haven’t dealt with, and I don’t want anyone getting hurt because of that.” Karen was your friend, too, just like Matt was.
He breathed and smiled, a bitter thing. “You know, you’re really one to talk.”
You blinked a couple times and crossed your arms. “What does that mean?”
“You obviously have some serious unresolved things between you and your friend, but you don’t want to talk about that,” he said, “or him.”
Your heart twisted. Matt noticed.
“I don’t even have to say his name, and your body has a physical reaction. Do you want to talk about that?”
Your jaw flexed. “He was my friend, and now he’s gone. There’s nothing more to talk about than that.”
Matt took a few steps closer to you. “You don’t want me to call you out on your shit, then you don’t get to talk about mine.” He sighed. “I have Foggy for that, I don’t need you to do it, too.”
You didn’t meet his eyes. The two of you were quiet for a few moments.
“So,” you finally said. “Are you going to help me again?”
“. . .Maybe. We’ll see.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
It was early in the morning by the time you got home.
You were exhausted.
Not just physically, but. . .mentally, too.
Hot tears ran down your face, for no other reason you could explain than the fact that you were so, so tired.
Fuck.
You wished Bucky was here.
Notes:
A/N: Matt Murdock, #1 Bucky/Birdie shipper (Birdie is the nickname I’ve settled on for the Reader, for those who don’t know).
Next chapter is gonna be a fucking doozy, v emotional, none of u are prepared and neither am I. Let’s just say a secret is going to finally come out that’s going to change everything.
~Chapter titles for the next three~
Part 3 - Chapter Twenty-Nine: Truth Will Out (HELP ME GOD, I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO)
Part 3 - Chapter Thirty: The Lovers
Part 3 - Chapter Thirty-One: Somewhere in Europe, 1945 (Again)
Chapter 29: Part 3 - Chapter Twenty-Nine: Truth Will Out (HELP ME GOD, I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO)
Summary:
Your mother comes to visit.
Notes:
A/N: So, if you’ve never seen the movie "Lucy", there’s a scene at the beginning where Scarlett Johansson’s character is walking into a dangerous situation (that she doesn’t understand is dangerous), and the scene is inter-cut with clips of a cheetah stalking a gazelle (ScarJo’s character being the gazelle surrounded by cheetahs). As the danger becomes more obviously apparent, the scene is inter-cut with the cheetah chasing the gazelle and eventually catching and killing it. This scene in "Lucy" inspired a lot of the metaphors described in this chapter when Y/N is speaking with her mother.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Over the next month, you and Matt went on two more break-out raids. Alex continued to help you smuggle the mutants out of the country, but there were more and more of them locked up each time. She told you that you needed to start thinking of a better solution — but what were you supposed to do? Go up against the MRD; go up against the American government itself?
Fortunately, the amount of mutants agreeing to help you was growing. You had about twenty-five people now, working behind the scenes and conducting their own break-outs. As per your wishes, they did it with minimal violence. The group was beginning to garner the attention of other mutants who had already been riding on the resistance train.
There were those who agreed with your pacifistic view of a resistance, those who wanted peace between human and mutant-kind. But there were also those who wanted to push for more…extreme measures. It was those types of people that you sent away, that you told as many times as necessary that you were not like the Brotherhood, that you would not condone violence as a means to an end.
But this wasn’t the only attention you were getting. The media, as well, loved to cover news of prison break-outs, and they loved to spin it in a negative light. Lydia suggested broadcasting a sort of PR segment — something to explain to the public that you were here, not to fight against human beings but to help protect mutant-kind against the wrongful legislation of the Mutant Registration Act, against the wrongful actions of the Mutant Response Division. Killion agreed with Lydia, and mentioned he had a friend who called himself Anonymous who could help. Killion’s friend had a special mutation — he could mask the identity of anyone and make it impossible for that person to be recognized or found by any algorithms.
You brought it up to Matt to ask for his opinion. He told you that you should go through with it, and even promised to help you write a speech.
But then, things got complicated.
Elektra Natchios died a week ago.
You wanted to be there for Matt, but Matt was Matt and he was pushing away and shutting out everyone and everything. Nelson & Murdock fell under. His friendship with Foggy fell apart. He finally told Karen the truth, and they were no longer on speaking terms.
As promised, last night Matt came over to help you write your speech for the next day. You had had most of it written at that point, so he mostly just gave you advice on it and added a couple things here and there. Every time you tried to bring up everything that had happened, he changed the subject. He even started doing it as soon as you inhaled to speak.
You supposed you were no better. It’s not like you had opened up any further than the quick summary you had given him a month ago. But it still didn’t make watching him suffer any easier.
You could tell he was trying to distract himself. He was throwing himself head-first into being Daredevil, into helping you with your ‘mutant resistance’. He was doing anything, everything he could so he didn’t have to think about what had happened. So he didn’t have to think about her.
You let him have his space; you let him help you with your speech and you stopped trying to bring up Elektra or Foggy or Karen. By the end of the night, you had the speech perfected, and you watched Matt walk out the door with only a simple “I’ll see you tomorrow”.
You froze as you entered your apartment.
You just got home from work; you were planning on taking a nice, hot shower, maybe watch a trashy romcom, make some popcorn and hot chocolate and enjoy all of that ‘treat yo’ self’ comfort stuff so you could forget that you basically lost your support system that consisted of Nelson & Murdock.
(You still had Matt, but he was dealing with his own shit, currently. And spending time with Foggy or Karen separately…especially when you were continuing to lie to them despite the fact that they knew the truth about Matt…it just wouldn’t be the same.)
But back to the problem at hand.
Your mother was sitting in your kitchen, drinking coffee in one of your cups as if she lived there. Emma, who sat next to her, at least had the decency to look somewhat apologetic when you entered.
“Y/N!” your mother said cheerfully. It sounded fake, so, so fake — it was like a tiger was grinning at you, showing you all her sharp teeth. For a moment you imagined yourself a gazelle, heart rate rising, panic twitching through your limbs — but not enough, not enough to run away.
You’re not a gazelle, you reminded yourself. It was not the first time you told yourself so as you stared down the gaping maw of this ferocious beast. You’re not a gazelle.
“I hope you don’t mind, I had the superintendent let us in,” your mother continued. ‘I had the superintendent let me in’ meaning ‘I forced her against her will using my telepathy’. “This coffee is a bit strong, dear, you should consider switching to something not as dark, it’ll be better for you.”
The Hand. The Winter Soldier. Hydra. Adversaries who had kidnapped or hurt you or put you in a compromised position. But never did you once consider going against your beliefs of pacifism. Two weeks of torture and never once did you consider hurting or killing your captors, not until your own powers forced your hand. You knew the Winter Soldier would take you to Hydra, and yet you never thought to hurt him. You knew Hydra had plans for you, and yet you never thought to fight back. When Hydra soldiers threatened your life that day by the waterfall, you didn’t plan to kill them, didn’t even consider it. Except for the instances in which control over your abilities slipped away from you, you always upheld your pacifism.
But your mother.
For a split second, you could have lobotomized her.
“I apologise for the intrusion, Y/N,” Emma said. No doubt the White Queen was here to act as a sort of buffer between you and your mother. Her presence alone was already diffusing some of the crackling tension in the room.
“What are you doing here?” you directed toward your mother as calmly as you could manage.
“Is that any way to greet the woman who raised you?” she asked sweetly. Too sweet. Sickeningly so.
“What are you doing here?” you repeated without blinking. Don’t blink. Don’t look away. Don’t take your eyes off a dangerous animal.
“Am I not allowed to visit my own daughter?”
Your breathed through your nose, a short and bitter laugh. “I’ve been back for nine months. And you choose now to come and see me?”
She sipped her coffee. “I was giving you your space. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
Oh, how you missed having an ocean between you.
“So, how’ve you been?” she continued.
“Fine,” you said tightly.
“You went back to your old job. How has that been?”
“Fine.”
She hummed. “Anything new in your life?”
You had had enough. “Why are you here?” You were not a gazelle. You could growl at her, too — you could show her your teeth and let her see how sharp they were.
Your mother sighed. A predator unflinching. “I’ll be honest with you, I came to see how you were doing. Two years hiding from Hydra; I worry about you, sweetie. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
To think, sometimes you wondered how you learned to lie so well. Maybe you were wrong, maybe she wasn’t a tiger. Maybe she was a snake, hissing sugar-coated words into your ear.
While she squeezed the life out of you.
“Well, I’m fine,” you answered simply.
Your mother gave you a concerned look. Phony, phony. Crocodile tears; crocodile sympathy. “I spoke to Alex about your ordeal. All the things you went through, dear… .Are you safe? Are you running?”
“Running?” you parroted. Confusion was like venom sluicing through your veins. Dangerous. Potentially fatal. She caught you off guard.
“Alex told me about the man you were with,” she continued. “I can’t help but notice he isn’t with you now. Are you running from him?”
You blinked. “Of course not,” you said. “Why would you ask me that?” The question left you off-balance. You were defenseless in an open field.
You were a gazelle.
(And you missed the confused look that even Emma was giving your mother.)
“Well, honey, the man is a Hydra assassin,” she emphasized. “You can’t blame me for making an assumption.”
Emotion bubbled up in your chest. “He’s not an assassin, not anymore,” you defended him. “He’s good, and he helped me, and…and… .”
A deer caught in headlights, that’s what you were.
Maybe she was a tiger. She was stalking you. She was stalking you, and you hadn’t noticed. You hadn’t noticed the level of danger until now. You stopped paying attention, you forgot for a moment what she was.
There was a fox in your hen house — and you were the chicken.
“Why would you ask me if I was running from him?” you asked again, slowly, not moving.
“I just said—”
“No,” you interrupted her. You chose your words slowly, so slowly. “You talked to Alex. I know you looked through Alex’s memories. You know how hard I tried to look for him. You know how much I care about him. So why would you ask me if I was running from him?”
You noticed for the first time Emma’s expression, how lost she was in this conversation. Wherever your mother was going with this, your mentor wasn’t going with her.
Your mother sighed again. She stood and went to the sink, rinsing out her coffee mug. (Your coffee mug.) “Just let it go, Y/N. It’ll only upset you.”
You were watching a wild beast approach you, and you could do nothing but stare at its claws, its teeth, its hungry, hungry eyes. “What will only upset me.” It was barely a question, more a statement, a demand.
You will not be a gazelle.
You will not be a gazelle.
She set the mug on the drying rack. “I know how much you dislike speaking of your future as the Phoenix, Y/N.”
You weren’t sure you were breathing anymore. Even Emma’s eyes were narrowed. “What does that have to do with anything?” You were struggling to keep your tone level.
You had a bad feeling.
You had a horribly bad feeling, deep in your chest.
“Very well, if you want to know so badly,” she said in an exasperated tone, “I’ll tell you. But don’t say I never tried to protect you from the truth.”
“The truth,” you said in a barely restrained tone. “Now.”
“Perhaps you should sit down, first.”
You didn’t move. Your mother sighed, again.
“Fine.” She sat down herself and folded her hands together. “About three years ago, Irene had another vision of you. You, and a man she believed to be James Buchanan Barnes.”
You had a sinking feeling.
You had a horrible, sinking feeling.
“Of course we were confused by the vision. This ‘Bucky’ Barnes had been dead for seventy years, after all. We did some digging, ruled out time travel, and finally came to a conclusion. Hydra had turned him into an assassin, as you well know. The next bit, however, was more difficult.” She blinked, only once. Comfortable. A predator who feared nothing. “It was of the utmost importance to fulfil her vision. To find a way…to bring the two of you together.”
You felt like your brain was skipping, skipping like a broken record. You could hear the noise in your head, a constant beat repeating, repeating, repeating.
“Bring…us…together… .” you repeated in a whispered voice.
There was a man in your apartment.
There was horror on Emma’s face, her cheeks drained of colour as she stared at her mother. “What did you do?”
Skip.
Skip.
Skip.
Skip.
Your mother stood and walked over to you. The monster was getting close, too close, too close, but you couldn’t move. She rested her hand on the side of your face.
“I did what I had to to ensure my daughter’s future.”
Skip. Skip. “It was you.” Your words were so soft and quiet and broken that you were afraid she wouldn’t hear you. There were silent tears on your face that you could not control. “You told Hydra about me.”
You were a bird.
You were a bird and you wanted to fly far away.
Your mother wiped away one of your tears. “A means to an end.”
She had you. The tiger had her teeth in your throat and you were bleeding, bleeding out and you couldn’t think.
Emma spit your mother’s name, dripping venom. “What have you done?”
A means to an end.
My daughter’s future.
James Buchanan Barnes.
Find a way to bring the two of you together.
A means to an end.
Future.
A means to an end.
A means to an end.
I know how much you dislike speaking of your future as the Phoenix.
Skip. Skip. Skip.
“What does this have to do with—” You couldn’t say the words. Your voice was too quiet, too broken. Your thoughts were too scrambled, too messy. “What does this have to do with… .”
“Don’t you understand?” your mother asked you, and she smiled, smiled with her predator teeth, with the teeth embedded in your throat. “Your love for him is what transforms you. It’s what changes you into what you were always meant to be. Your grief, will make you.” Her thumb stroked your face. She might as well have been scoring your skin with her claws. It wouldn’t have mattered either way; you couldn’t feel anything. “My beautiful Phoenix.”
Sk
ip.
S
kip.
“My…grief… .”
More teeth, monster teeth. “Poetic, isn’t it? It’s true what they say. Only death can pay for life.”
Irene showed you a vision. A vision of you, on your knees in the middle of a golden field; you were laying on top of something, crying out in anguish. A glint and gleam of something metal twinkled beneath you in the sunlight.
Something metal… .
The record stopped skipping in your head, and the feeling in your body returned in a rush. You ripped yourself away from your mother, panic and pain and despair clawing at your throat.
“No,” you said, shaking your head, hot tears in your eyes. "No."
“Y/N, this is necessary—”
“Get out.”
Your mother blinked at you, and you began to see, began to see the beast pacing behind her eyes. “Y/N,” she said, a warning.
“I said, GET OUT!” you screamed at her, all your emotion pouring out at the top of your lungs.
She blinked again, a cold look on her face. She walked past you, stalked past you, and stopped at the door. “You can’t run forever, Y/N. This will happened. I ensured it.”
You knew you should never turn your back on a predator, yet you could not find the energy to face her. Even the brief moment of anger you felt was being sucked away into a black void of nothingness.
Only Emma was left, now. Your mentor slowly stood, her steps hesitant as she made her way toward you.
“I didn’t know,” she whispered to you. “Y/N, I promise you, I didn’t know.”
“Leave,” was all you could manage.
When she finally shut the door, you screamed
and screamed
and screamed
and the sobs that came were uncontrollable
and you threw the mug that your mother used against the wall
and you smashed it to pieces
and you pressed your back against the door and slid to the ground
and you cried
and you cried
and you cried.
The church was very quiet as you sat in one of the pews, hunched over with your hands clasped tightly together, arms resting on the bench in front of you. You sobbed as silently as you could manage.
Your mother had sold you out to Hydra. She was the reason Alexander Pierce sent the Winter Soldier after you. She was the reason you spent two years of your life hiding. All so you could meet James Buchanan Barnes. All so you could fall in love with him.
Your grief will make you.
Bucky was going to die. And the resulting anguish would cause something in you to snap so violently that it would attract a cosmic being.
Only death can pay for life.
Bucky dies. You become the Phoenix.
“I don’t know how it starts,” you said between hiccups, “I don’t know how it happens — I-I don’t know how else to stop it.”
“We’re going to fix this,” Bucky said. “We’re going to make sure there’s a third outcome, I promise you that.”
“How?”
He breathed through his nose. “We’ll…cross that bridge when we get to it.”
Here you were, at the bridge. Except there was no bridge. There was only a rushing river of water and you were drowning.
Bucky was going to die and it was going to be your fault.
Bucky was going to die and it was going to be your fault.
Bucky was going to die and it was going to be your fault.
You tried to think of the words.
“O Father who art in heaven…Forgive me, for I…I… .” A gasping sob escaped your throat. “God,” you whispered, “if you’re there…please help me. I don’t know what to do. Tell me what to do.”
The church was so, so quiet.
You felt a hand squeeze your shoulder. You hadn’t even heard footsteps coming down the aisle. You turned your head and your eyes, swollen and red-rimmed, looked at the person holding onto you.
Matt regarded you solemnly, his lips pulled in a tight line. Your breath stuttered, more tears leaking from your eyes as you sniffed and wiped your nose.
“How did you find me?” Your voice sounded sad, so sad, even to your own ears.
“Father Lantom recognized you. He called me,” Matt explained in a soft voice. “I came to your apartment to come get you for your speech. There was a broken mug on the floor.” His head tilted, and he took a few beats. “What happened?”
You leaned back in the pew. “Matt,” you whispered. “…Do you think God will forgive me?”
Matt sat down and pulled you into his arms, and you dissolved into broken cries once more as you buried your face into his shirt.
“We can postpone this,” Matt told you for the fifth time as you walked into the abandoned warehouse where the speech was going to be held. “It doesn’t have to be tonight.”
“No, I have to do this,” you told him for the fifth time as you made your way over to Killion and his friend.
Anonymous lived up to his name. You couldn’t explain what he looked like, only that he had no recognizable features, and every time you tried to picture him in your head, you came up with nothing. But it’s not like his face was a completely blank slate, either. You could understand what emotions he was displaying, what his eyebrows were doing, which way his mouth was slanted: smiling or frowning or neutral. And yet his face itself was still unrecognizable.
If you weren’t in such a state of…well, you might have been fascinated.
“Something happen?” Lydia asked as she walked over to pin a mic to your shirt. You knew what you looked like — like you had been crying for the past few hours.
“Long story,” was all you gave as an answer.
“It won’t matter what you look like, anyway,” Anonymous spoke. Even the sound of his voice was uneven, somehow. Killion was right — no algorithm, no matter how complex, would be able to find a match. “No one will really see it.”
“You have your speech?” Lydia asked. You nodded and pulled the paper out of your pocket. “Good. Come sit over here in front of the camera.”
You did so. Lydia brought over a young woman with black hair and kind eyes. “This is Sam,” she said. “She’s a technopath. She’ll be able to broadcast the speech over all the televisions and phones in New York City.” She grinned and crossed her arms. “They won’t be able to turn it off. Are you ready?”
You nodded again and took a breath. Then you looked into the camera.
“Three…two…one… .We’re live.”
“…People of New York,” you began, and you had to clear your throat to make your voice stronger. “I come to you as a representative of the mutant group that has been orchestrating the MRD prison break-outs you’ve all probably seen on the news. I’ve come to you to tell you…we have no violent intentions. We freed those who were wrongfully, and unconstitutionally, arrested by the MRD. It is our belief that the things that the Mutant Response Division has been doing is fundamentally wrong. They claim to be keeping people safe, but who is keeping us safe?” You paused and swallowed, glancing down briefly to the words on your paper. “We are not here to start a fight. We are not here to start a war. All we want, is to live peacefully and equally side-by-side with those who call themselves human-kind. I come to you to tell you that we are here and we are alive. We live and we breathe, just are you do. We have children and we have families, just as you do. We laugh. We cry.” You hesitated on the next line. “We…fall in love.” You paused again. One second. Two seconds. “We’re not so different from you. And so, we kindly ask that the American government reconsider its stance on the Mutant Registration Act. We kindly ask that the Mutant Response Division be disbanded, and we ask that any mutant who has been wrongfully arrested be freed. We have no threats. Only hope, that you will do the right thing.”
The camera lingered on you for a few moments longer before shutting off. As soon as Lydia gave you the O.K., a sob clawed its way up your throat and you broke, unable to hold it together any longer.
Matt, who was in his Daredevil suit, was by your side in a second. He helped you stand up from the chair and began ushering you out of the building. He said some things to Lydia and Killion and Anonymous and the technopath who’s name you could not remember, but his words sounded far away. You focused on his hand on your back and putting one foot in front of the other, and you let him lead you back home.
“You need to tell me what happened,” Matt said as he closed your apartment door behind him. He took off his helmet and gloves and set them down on the small table by the entrance.
You began sweeping up the broken pieces of the mug you had smashed earlier. “I don’t want to talk about what happened,” you said decidedly, your voice stronger than it had been before, in the church. You left the broken pieces in a little pile by the wall, so at least no one would step on them. “I don’t want to think about what happened. I don’t want to think about anything; I don’t want to do anything; I just, I just—”
“Y/N, you were crying in a church!” he said, his voice louder, but not quite at shouting level. “You need to tell me what happened.”
“You don’t talk about Elektra when I ask!” Now your voice, your voice was at shouting level. “So why do I have to talk about this?”
He paused, considering what you just said. “This is about him,” he mused, and his tone told you he wasn’t asking. “This is about Bucky.”
You sucked in a painful breath and didn’t deny it.
“What happened?” he repeated. “Did something happen to him?”
You strode across the room to where Matt was standing. “How about we make a deal, okay? I’ll talk about him, if you talk about Elektra,” you snapped at him. “I’ll talk about him, if you talk about what happened between you and Foggy and Karen. Hm? How about that? Huh?”
Matt was very still. He opened his mouth once, then closed it.
“Yeah,” you said with tears in your eyes, “that’s what I thought.”
His voice sounded defeated when he spoke. “What do you want me to do?” he asked. “How do you want me to help you?”
“I don’t know!” you screamed, a cry crackling your voice. “I just need — I just need to be distracted — I just need you to distract me. Distract me. Distract me. Distract m—!”
Your cries were cut off as suddenly Matt’s mouth was on yours and his hands were on your face and he was kissing you—
And your arms were around his neck now, and your hands were blindly feeling for the zipper of his suit, and then you were feeling the bare skin of his chest—
And then your shirt was pulled over your head and Matt’s lips were on your neck and your legs were around his waist—
And he distracted you.
And he distracted you.
And he distracted you.
Notes:
A/N: Y’all, I freaking love this chapter and I hope you do, too. Some dramatic reveals happening over here. What do you think??
Chapter 30: Part 3 - Chapter Thirty: The Lovers
Summary:
You talk to someone who might be able to help you save Bucky.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Y/N wasn’t in bed when Matt woke up.
He could hear her, making coffee in her kitchen, tapping her nails against the granite table.
Click click click click click.
He rubbed the sleep from his face and shifted into a sitting position, wincing only slightly at the feel of her cotton sheets on his skin.
It didn’t take him long to find his underwear, but there was still the issue of a shirt. He had come in his Daredevil suit, and he didn’t think it’d be very appropriate to leave Y/N’s room with a bare chest, given he hadn’t had a chance to judge how she was feeling about the whole…situation, yet.
“I have some oversized sweaters in the top drawer,” Y/N called from the kitchen, almost as if she read his—
Ah, right. Telepathy.
Matt made his way over to her dresser. “Should I verbally tell you to stay out of my head, or should I just think it?” he called back to her, half a joke. He heard her exhale through her nose, a quiet, amused laugh.
Matt felt through the dresser drawer, trying to find something that would feel the least coarse on his skin. He found the softest sweater of the bunch, something that was new, judging by the department store smell — when his hand brushed something that wasn’t a sweater.
Gingerly, he ran his hands over it. It was a shirt, but much too big to be Y/N’s. Judging by size and by the shape of the collar, he deemed it to be a man’s shirt. He gently lifted it to his nose. It was definitely a man’s shirt, and one that had been worn by a man before. The scent, however, was faint. Whoever had owned it originally had not worn it in a long time. Y/N had, though. Recently.
(It smelled like metal, too. The metallic scent was as faint as the man’s, but Matt didn’t give much thought to it.)
He put the shirt back in the drawer. It wasn’t any of his business, not really — although he had a good idea of who the shirt likely belonged to.
Matt shrugged on the oversized sweater of Y/N’s that he had picked out, and padded out of her room.
Click click click click click.
Y/N was tapping her fingernail against the side of her mug. The strong smell of coffee filled his nose and mouth.
“I made you a cup, just the way you like it,” she said. “Why don’t you sit down.”
He did as she asked and let the warmth of the ceramic seep into his hands as he pressed them against the mug. He took a sip. Not too black, not too much cream, not too much sugar. Nothing that would overwhelm his senses and make the coffee unenjoyable.
“Matt,” Y/N began, and she inhaled. “Last night…was… .” She was struggling to find words.
“We don’t have to have this conversation if you don’t want to,” he intercut, offering her an out.
“No, I… .” She sighed. “I just need to say this. Look, neither of us is in any place to be in a relationship right now. I know you don’t like to talk about it, and I know you don’t like it when I’m in your head…but I know you loved Elektra. And she died. And I…I have too much going on in my life right now. A lot of shit, that…I can’t really explain. For good reason,” she added. “So this—” She gestured between the two of them. “—isn’t really a good idea.”
“Would it help if I promised that I’m not in love with you nor do I have any plans to fall in love with you, now or in the future?” Matt asked, mouth quirking.
Some of the tension in her body relaxed and she exhaled. “It would, actually.”
He smiled. “I wouldn’t want to get mixed up in all of this, anyway,” he said, gesturing to her. “With everything you’ve told me— with everything you haven’t told me, I mean…The Hand? Hydra? Y’know, it’s always the love interest that gets kidnapped and used for leverage, never the best friend. I’d rather be the best friend in that situation.”
She smiled back at him. “Best friend, that’s kind of strong, don’t you think?”
He gave her a mock look of hurt. “Ouch.”
Click click click click click. Her heart rate had increased, slightly. Nervousness. “You know…if you wanted to…I wouldn’t be opposed to continuing…whatever it was that we were doing last night. Y’know, as a…sort of… .”
“Distraction?” Matt finished for her.
“…Yeah.”
“Alright, if you want,” he said. “But you have to promise one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“You can’t fall in love with me.”
Y/N snorted and stood, taking her now empty mug to the sink. “Never gonna happen, Devil Boy.”
After Matt left, you sat on the floor of your living room in your small apartment and closed your eyes.
Your mother be God fucking damned, you were going to find a way around this.
You didn’t sleep last night. You thought and thought and thought, trying to find something, anything that could help.
And then you remembered — a particular memory. A memory that happened to correlate with what you were dealing with now — the first instance in which you were told that something in your future, something in Bucky’s future, was going to go wrong.
Your apartment bled out and was replaced with the walls and floors of the apartment in Romania, the exact same as you, well, remembered.
“Do you want to watch a movie?”
Your heart constricted as Bucky walked past you, walked past you without seeing you, as if you were a ghost. In a way, you were.
You watched yourself smile and nod in response to his question. Then, when Bucky had his back turned, your past selves’ eyes narrowed, and she fished a card out of her back pocket.
You paused the memory. Striding over to her, you took the card from her hand.
The Lovers Card. Intricately painted with an image of two people embracing, the seer claimed it meant you and Bucky were stronger together than you were alone. Thinking of what your mother told you, you couldn’t help but doubt the seer’s words. But that’s not why you had come to this memory.
You turned the card over, to the words you knew you would find written there.
Accept what you cannot control.
You recalled the Death tarot card, recalled what the seer had spoken: “…if you cannot accept the death that is inevitable on your path, then it will consume you. It will consume everything.”
She knew. Whether she was a mutant like you, or some kind of enhanced person, she knew about Bucky’s death and she tried to warn you about it. And her comment about being consumed — she was talking about your grief attracting the Phoenix.
“[Death represents change, rebirth, transformation]. There is a transformation, a rebirth, in your future. I see that now.”
She knew what you would become and how it would happen.
“It will consume everything.”
It will consume everything.
It will consume everything.
She was trying to stop it.
She knew about the Phoenix. She knew about Bucky’s death. She understood the way the two of these things were correlated… .She knew enough to give you advice on how to stop it. It wasn’t advice that you agreed with, but… .
Maybe she knew how Bucky died. That’s the one thing you didn’t know; that’s the one piece of information you needed to even begin to find a way to save him.
You glanced over at Bucky for a moment, at your memory of him.
You needed to speak to the seer.
You made a B-line to Professor Xavier’s office, speaking to none of the students or staff on the way there, not even a ‘Hi’ or ‘Hello’.
He didn’t seem surprised to see you. “Hello again, Y/N. It’s been some time since I last saw you.”
“You’ve been expecting me to come again, haven’t you?” you asked him.
He hummed. “Temptation is a cruel thing, especially when it involves someone you care about. To be honest, I’m surprised you hadn’t come sooner. But, you must care about your friend a great deal if you’re willing to stay away for so long, just to keep him safe.”
“His safety is why I’m here, actually.” You took a step forward. “I still don’t want to know where he is, I didn’t come for that. I came because someone told me that…he’s going to die.” You paused to collect yourself. “I don’t know when, and I don’t know how it happens. But I do know someone who might. I need to talk to her.”
Letting him read your mind and go through your memories went against your every instinct and everything you’d been taught but you did it anyway. “I see,” he said after a moment.
“So you understand the gravity of the situation.” If you could save Bucky from dying, maybe you wouldn’t have to become the Phoenix. It was a win-win scenario, not just for you but for everyone else, too.
It will consume everything.
It will consume everything.
“Yes, I suppose I do,” Professor Xavier responded. “Come with me.”
“Remember,” the Professor said as you placed the helmet of Cerebro on your head, “try not to let your focus waver. It’s this seer you wish to find, no one else.”
Cerebro woke in a familiar burst of light as he turned it on, the machine tugging and stretching your telepathy to the point where it was almost painful. You flew past glowing figures of red and of white as the world swirled and voices of thousands filled your head with every passing cluster.
“Focus,” Professor Xavier repeated. “Focus.”
You pictured the seer in your mind — how she looked, what she was wearing the day you met her, the fear and confusion she made you feel as she gave you your fortune.
It was proving to be much more difficult to find her than it was to find Bucky. You knew Bucky, almost as well as you knew yourself. Looking for him was like looking for an old familiar shirt amongst a hundred duplicates — you knew it by smell, by touch, by feeling alone. Looking for the seer was like looking for something you didn’t even know what looked like, like looking for something that had only been described to you by someone who had only seen it in the dark.
“If you’re having difficulty, I could—”
“No,” you interrupted the Professor through gritted teeth, your mind feeling like it was on the edge of snapping, “I can do it. It has to be me.”
You put everything you had into picturing the memory you had of her, into recreating exactly how you felt when she gave you each of your fortunes.
The Lovers (“a partnership”). Warmth in your cheeks. A comforting sense of security.
The High Priestess, Reversed (“secrets, withdrawal, silence”). Guilt. Guilt. Guilt.
Death (“change, rebirth, transformation”). Fear. Denial. Anger. Confusion.
Fear fear fear fear.
And suddenly you were standing in a small apartment in Romania, and the seer you were looking for was standing across from you.
She was leaning against the table in her kitchen, sipping tea from a cup in her hands. “You’re late,” she murmured, blinking languidly.
“Late?” you parroted, anger crawling into your skin. “Late?”
“You discovered the truth from your mother yesterday evening; I expected you to come find me then,” she explained. Her comment didn’t sound mean or judgmental, just…curious. A statement of fact.
“Forgive me if I needed time to collect myself — I had just found out that someone I care about— that— that the person I care about…is going to die…because of me… .” The words that had started hard and angry dissipated into something more sad and broken the longer you spoke. The rage you tried to summon now was hollow. “So forgive me if I needed time to figure out what the hell I was going to do.”
She regarded you, and there was the barest hint of sadness in her eyes. “You have a question for me?”
You took a breath. “Do you know how Bucky dies?” You didn’t bother explaining who Bucky was — you were sure she knew that already, if not as a seer than by context alone.
“Yes,” was the simple answer.
You waited a beat.
“Are you going to tell me how Bucky dies?” you followed up, your patience wearing thin.
“No.”
“Then help me dammit!” you shouted at her. “If you’re not going to tell me how it happens, then you could at least tell me how to stop it! And don’t tell me ‘accept what I cannot control’ because that’s bullshit, it’s bullshit — I’m not just going to accept him dying, not when I can do something about it!”
She tapped the edge of her teacup, then set it down on the table behind her. “There are two paths set in front of you, Y/N. One good, one bad. One of peace, and one of chaos. At some point in your future, you will make a choice. This choice will determine what path you will follow. This choice will determine what path the world will follow.”
You waited, but she didn’t elaborate. “So…what?” You felt like your blood was boiling under your skin. “That’s it? I’m just supposed to monitor every decision I make in the future, no matter how small — that’s insane. You have to give me more than that. You can’t just tell me that a choice I make is going to be the difference between the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ ending, not just for myself but for— for everyone, without giving me some kind of direction — You have to give me something. You have to give me something more than words scribbled on the back of a tarot card.” Eyes wide, you stared at her, waiting, waiting for an answer. Anything. Anything to save Bucky’s life and stop the future where the Phoenix — where you — hurt thousands of people.
“I’ve already given you the tools you need,” she said, in a tone that seemed like it was meant to be…comforting. “The choice you make is whether you decide to follow or disregard the fortunes I’ve given you. I cannot tell you which will lead to which outcome; some things can only be understood in the context of the moment.”
You considered what she said for a moment, going over her fortunes in your head. “…Will any of this save Bucky’s life? The Death tarot card — you told me I had to ‘accept the death that is inevitable on my path’. Are you telling me I have to go against your fortune in order to save him? You say you can’t tell me if following your fortunes leads to the ‘good’ or the ‘bad’ path — but I know how these things work. You wouldn’t give me those fortunes if you didn’t think they would lead to a better path for the world. If I follow your Death fortune, will Bucky die?”
She hummed, and her head shook slightly. “Perhaps I understand why that is the only fortune you seem to focus on.” She sighed. “I’m afraid I can’t answer your question, because you don’t yet possess the context of the choice you will have to make. The only thing I can give you is this: remember what I told you, and remember everything I told you. But only you can decide what you want to do.”
You knew she wasn’t going to give you any more than, lest she influence your decision in a way that might accidentally lead to the wrong path. But you had one more question before you wanted to leave.
“The vision,” you began, “with the chess pieces. I figured out most of it: I didn’t have a King because my King represented Bucky, and he’s supposed to die. When Emma took my Queen and switched it to her side, it represented the Hellfire Club taking control of the Phoenix like they wanted — taking control of me in the aftermath of Bucky’s death. But there’s one thing I still don’t understand. Why were half of the pieces missing on the board? I’ve gone over it; I’ve counted the pieces. It’s exactly half. Why? What is that supposed to represent?”
There was a deep emotion in her eyes, something like…fear. “I pray you never know.”
Ice water flushed through your veins, her cryptic words resting heavy in your chest. You had had enough of this.
You felt your hands reach for the helmet of Cerebro, thousands of miles away from where your mind was now. But you stopped when the seer opened her mouth to speak one more time.
“I truly hope you find a way to save him.”
You swallowed. “So do I.”
It was only for a second. You lost your focus for only a second. But a second was enough to violently pull your mind from the seer’s apartment in Romania, to throw you across the continent —
— and land you somewhere else.
And for the first time in nine months, you were seeing him. Alive and well. His hair was longer, his beard fuller. But other than that…he was exactly the way you remembered him.
“Bucky,” you whispered before you realized what you were doing. Bucky’s head turned toward the sound and—
—and you had the helmet off of your head in a second. Cerebro’s light faded away and you took several steps back from the console.
“Erase it,” you told Professor Xavier. “Erase his location from my mind again.”
“Hey, Buck, you okay?” Steve asked as Bucky stared over his shoulder.
“I thought I heard… .I thought… .” He continued to look as if he would find something there, but there was nothing. Nothing. He blinked, then turned his head back to where Steve was standing across from him. “Never mind.”
He could have sworn… .
“You thought you saw her, right?” Sam interjected, and Bucky breathed through his nose, avoiding eye contact. “I get it, man. When you miss someone…your mind plays tricks on you. I can’t tell you how many times I thought I saw Riley after the accident.”
“Sam’s right,” Steve added. “Same thing happened when I thought you died.”
“I just… .” The muscle in Bucky’s jaw flexed. “I just wish I knew for sure. If she was safe. If she was okay.”
“I know, Buck,” Steve murmured.
Sam cleared his throat, probably wanting out of this conversation. “I’m, uh, I’m gonna go find Nat.” And he was gone.
Bucky leaned against the wall and rested his head back, closing his eyes for a second. It felt like there was something caught in his throat.
He could have sworn he had felt her, for a moment.
“I miss her,” he whispered, and his voice sounded jagged. He swallowed again, tears pricking at his eyes.
“I know,” Steve repeated.
And Bucky wondered, not for the first time, if he was ever going to see her again.
Notes:
A/N: Since so many of you seem so preoccupied with Matt and Birdie sleeping together, I’ve added a response to a comment left on the last chapter:
"im gonna set the record straight because i know a lot of you guys have been worried about this: matt and birdie sleeping together isn't going to negatively affect their relationship, nor will it negatively affect her relationship with bucky in the long run. it happened as a reminder that birdie is separated from bucky and she's trying to learn how to live without him. for her, sex is a great way to turn off her brain for a least a little while, and not think about the fact that bucky is supposed to die some time in the future. (it's also a way for her to pretend like she's not in love with bucky, because somewhere in her brain she's associating being in love with bucky with causing his death)
it's also to remind the audience that her entire life shouldn't have to revolve around bucky 24/7. i was getting afraid that the two of them were getting too co-dependent, and of course there's always the issue of female characters where their only motivation is their love interest, and i didn't want it to be like that. she has a life outside of bucky now. (ALSO, a reminder that birdie hasn't had sex in almost four years!! holy shit she needed a break). but even so, bucky is still a constant presence in her life, especially now that she has to find a way to stop him from dying. i just didn't want birdie to be so reduced down that bucky was the ONLY thing in her life. (i hope this makes sense?)
but the biggest thing i need to add is that matt and birdie are not going to fall in love! at all! there will be ZERO romance between these two, if that's something you might have been worried about. this sub-plot was not created as a way to cause drama in the story. she needed a distraction and this is the outlet she chose to go with.
i hope this makes you feel better about things"
Chapter 31: Part 3 - Chapter Thirty-One: Somewhere in Europe, 1945 (Again)
Summary:
You and Matt face some members of the Brotherhood, and somehow you end up bumping into a familiar face.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“What are we doing here again?” Matt asked as he strode next to you in his Daredevil suit. It was late, and the two of you were sneaking around the back of a government administration building — specifically, the government administration building where most of the orders given to the MRD were decided.
“Lydia picked up a tip that the Brotherhood was planning an attack here,” you explained. “I mean, I don’t like what the MRD does but that doesn’t mean I want anybody hurt, or killed.”
The next thing you knew, Matt was spinning into action, grabbing a man who was climbing into the back window and pinning him down to the ground.
The man hissed at him — literally hissed, with a forked tongue slipping through snake-like fangs. Matt was careful not to get bit as the man struggled.
“What do you think you’re doing?” a woman’s voice asked behind you, and you turned.
“I know you’re planning an attack on the people in this building,” you started, keeping your voice level and calm, doing your best to try and diffuse the situation.
“The MRD scum, you mean,” the woman said.
“Look, I don’t like the MRD any more than you do,” you went on. “I’m a mutant; they’ve hurt my people as much as they’ve hurt yours. But that doesn’t give you the right to plan a guerrilla attack against them. Violence isn’t going to solve anything.”
The woman groaned. “Your little pacifism group has been one step behind us every time we try to make progress with the liberation of our people. And you know what? The Brotherhood is kinda getting sick of it.” She walked a few paces toward you.
“That’s close enough,” came Matt’s voice from where he was still handling the mutant with the forked tongue.
The woman stopped, glancing over at Matt. “I recognize you from the news. You’re a little out of your territory, aren’t you, Devil?” She returned her attention back to you. “Magneto’s patience is wearing thin, Y/N L/N.”
Your eyes grew wide. “You know me?”
“I don’t know you, but Magneto does,” she explained. “I don’t know why, but he seems to have an interest in you. He knows you’re the leader of your little pacifist gang, and for reasons I cannot comprehend, he wants to speak with you.”
You blinked. The leader of the Brotherhood…a group with morals that directly opposed your own…wanted to organize a sit-down with you? “Really?”
She nodded, but her face darkened and she gave you a roguish smile. “…But first, you’re gonna let us do what we came here for.”
“Not gonna happen,” Matt growled.
“We can’t just stand back and let you hurt people,” you added, holding your ground.
She snickered. “Don’t worry; I’ll come pick you up when we’re done.”
You didn’t even have time to be confused, because in the next second the woman was snapping her fingers — never a good sign when a mutant does that, really — and a portal opened behind you.
You gaped at the swirling colours of blue and orange for just a moment, whipping around when the woman commanded, “Sasha” — and a bald woman turned the corner of the other side of the alley.
Sasha swooped her arms in a circular motion then pointed them straight at you. A blast of air hit you, a current stronger than any wind you had ever felt. You covered your face with your arms, but then lost your footing — then your balance — then you were falling — falling backwards into the swirling blue and orange.
Then you were on the ground.
You were in an alleyway, kind of like you were before, but it wasn’t the same alleyway, not by a long shot.
And it was…lighter outside. Like the sun was still up.
But before you could make any other observations — Matt had fallen on top of you. The portal closed behind him.
You groaned. Matt found his way to his feet, then held out his hand to pull you up.
“You’re going to have to explain to me what just happened,” Matt said, and you could feel his growing anxiety. You supposed ‘portal’ wasn’t included in the list of things his enhanced senses could understand. “Everything around us — it’s different.”
“She threw us through a portal,” you explained.
“A portal?”
And then you laughed.
Like, really laughed. For the first time in a very long time.
“What?” Matt asked.
“It’s just—” you gasped, “You’ve dealt with literal ninjas and this is where you draw the crazy line?”
He huffed and crossed his arms, then waited as you laughed yourself out. “Are you done?” he asked after a time.
You took a breath and nodded. “Okay, okay. So,” you said, “she used her mutant abilities to open a portal to send us somewhere else.” You looked around. “Judging by the architecture, I’d say…somewhere in Europe, maybe?”
“Great. That’s great.” He sounded like wanted to punch something.
You walked to the edge of the alleyway and peeked your head out, hoping to see something that would help you judge exactly where you were; something like a language written on a sign, for example, would be fantastic.
But what you found was not what you expected.
“Uh, Matt?” you ventured.
“Yeah?” he asked in a frustrated tone.
“…You’re not going to like this.”
“We’re halfway around the world, Y/N,” Matt said. “There is very little you could say right now that would make things worse.”
“…How much do you want to bet on that?”
You could feel Matt’s hesitation. “What is it?”
“Either the entire town is having some kind of themed event, or…we’re in the forties,” you said slowly.
Matt was quiet for a moment, like he wasn’t understanding what you were saying. “‘The forties’?” he repeated.
“As in, nineteen-forties,” you clarified.
He processed what you said. “You’re saying…You’re saying she sent us back in time?!”
“Ah mutants,” you mused. “It’s like a roulette wheel. You never know exactly what kind of crazy you’re going to get.”
“Y/N, be serious,” Matt pressed. “This — This is impossible.”
“I assure you, I’m well-versed on forties culture,” you said. “That’s where we are; I’m sure of it.” You took another look at the town, at the people milling about in their ‘40s’ dress. “The ability to create a portal that can send someone not only across space but across time — That’s incredible.”
“Dangerous, is what it is,” Matt reminded you. “What are we supposed to do now?”
You turned back to face him. “She did say she’d come pick us up. I don’t think she wanted us stuck here — just out of the way until they could finish their mission.”
“So you want us to wait?”
“We don’t really have much of a choice. Can you time travel? Because I can’t.” You sighed. “We should probably find you something better to wear, first,” you mused. “You don’t want to be wearing something like that in war-torn nineteen-forties’ Europe.” You looked down on yourself, playing with the hem of your shirt. “Even what I’m wearing might stand out. We don’t want to attract any attention; we don’t know how long we’re going to have to be here for.”
The two of you managed to nab some clothes off of a couple clothes’ lines, and you found a bag where Matt could store his Daredevil suit while you waited for the Brotherhood woman to come get you. You even acquired a walking stick and shaded glasses for Matt.
You felt strange wearing 1940s’ attire. You felt strange being in the 1940s. It was like walking around in one of Bucky’s memories, except it wasn’t a memory. It was really 1940-something and you were really here.
You sat outside a tiny café in your newly-acquired dress and uncomfortable shoes as you waited for Matt to change in the café’s washroom. You drummed your fingers on the table, your eyes slowly sweeping across the town’s buildings when they stopped.
Your gaze caught on what looked like a bar.
No, that’s not right.
Your mind caught on what looked like a bar, your telepathy tugging at you and trying to get your attention.
Your legs and feet were moving before you could fully understand what you were doing. You were halfway to the bar, then you were at the door.
It was crowded when you walked in, filled with bright lights and upbeat music. People were dancing, laughing, having a good time despite the turmoil and the current political climate.
It was strangely…familiar. But for the life of you…you couldn’t understand why.
Like you were being pulled, you began walking through the throng of people, your gaze searching every-which-way, taking in the atmosphere. You paused just before the dance floor, your head moving in an arc — looking left, up, right, and back again. Slowly, your feet were tugged forward, and you continued on into the crowd of dancing people.
That is, until you bumped into someone.
Stupid shoes. Stupid, uncomfortable, ‘40s shoes that you didn’t know how to properly walk in, especially when you weren’t watching where you were going — which is why bumping into someone caused you to trip over your feet and spin. You reached out to grab onto anything you could find.
What you found was a pair of strong shoulders — and a man’s arm around your waist, saving you from falling smack on the floor.
What you found was—
Was—
Bucky.
James Buchanan Barnes, solid and present and real in your arms, with his own arms wrapped around you. Bucky — with his short military haircut and clean-shaven jaw and easy-going smile and blue eyes, the blue you’d been desperate to see for ten months now. The blue you’d happily be willing to drown in.
(Who needed air, anyway?)
(Certainly not you, who stopped breathing the moment you recognized him.)
“Hi,” he said, and hearing his voice again for the first time in a long time was like a defibrillator shocking you at 200 volts, restarting your heart.
“Hi,” you breathed finally, fragile and soft.
This was it — the memory you had seen in Bucky’s mind over a year ago on New Year’s Eve. It wasn’t just someone who looked like you. It was you.
Gently, he brought you up and set you on your feet. You still had your arms around his shoulders and you were close to him — close, so close, too close — and his hands were still on you, on your waist and back.
You couldn’t stop staring. You couldn’t find it in yourself to pull away.
“Are you alright?” he asked, and he smiled at you, soft and easy.
You were having a hard time finding the words to speak.
“I can keep holding you, if you want,” he added, a flirtatious lit to his tone, “but I’m going to have to ask that you loosen your grip on my shoulders a little.”
You hadn’t realized that your hands had a vice grip on him, like if you let him go he’d disappear forever. You opened your hands and slid them down to rest them his chest.
“Sorry,” you said. You blinked a couple of times, trying to collect yourself. “New shoes. Not very comfortable.”
“Well, it’s a good thing I was here to catch you, then,” he said. Had it been anyone else, you would’ve thought he was no more than a sweet-talking, cocky, player who had said that exact line a dozen times to a dozen other girls.
But he wasn’t, he was Bucky — and because he was Bucky his blue eyes filled with concern and he took a step back, taking his hands off you and giving you your space. “Are you sure you’re alright?” he repeated.
“Yeah,” you breathed, nodding. “Thank you.”
You couldn’t stop looking at him. It was one thing to see who he used to be in his memories — it was another to meet him here, in the 1940s, before everything had happened to him. And when you hadn’t seen him for ten months… .You were playing a dangerous game, but you couldn’t bring yourself to leave or even take a step away.
He licked his lips, seeming almost…nervous, all of the sudden. His eyes didn’t leave yours as he held out his hand. “Wanna dance?”
You cursed the shy smile that made its way onto your face as your heart burst into butterflies, fluttering around your chest cavity as you took his hand. The left one, you noticed. Calloused and flesh and real.
He gently pulled you back to him and rested his right hand on your waist. You placed your other hand on his shoulder and let him lead you.
(You weren’t sure what you were doing, but you knew that you shouldn’t be. And yet, you couldn’t help yourself. Months of refusing to ask Professor Xavier to show you where Bucky was — refusing to let yourself go to him, put him in danger — and you had reached a breaking point. The Professor was right. Temptation was a cruel thing.)
“So,” Bucky murmured, putting his lips next to your ear so you could hear him better over the music, some of his swagger returning, “a pretty girl like you must have a pretty name to match.” He pulled away to smile at you, his eyebrows raised in question.
And you—
You laughed.
Giggled, was more like it. You smiled wider than you had in so long that your face hurt. You couldn’t help it — it was just so cheesy. And all the tension in your body was suddenly coming out in laughter, and you felt good — so, so good to just be with him again.
“Does that line really work?” you finally asked him, still giggling.
Bucky looked away, smiling sheepishly before returning his attention back to you. “…Yeah, usually.”
You laughed again at his response, and enjoyed the way his smile widened as he watched you.
“You can just call me…Doll,” you said when you stopped giggling.
“Doll,” he repeated back. “I’m Bucky.”
You swallowed. “…Nice to meet you, Bucky.”
“Likewise,” he said with a soft grin. “So, what brings you here?”
Your amusement returned. “You mean — ’What’s a pretty girl like me doing in a place like this?’”
He chuckled. The sound warmed your heart. “I was gonna avoid saying it like that…but yeah.”
You curled your hand into his jacket, bunching up the fabric on his shoulder a bit. You focused on the feel of his hand in yours, his hand on your waist, his eyes on you. “…It’s a long story,” you finally said.
He noticed the small shift in your demeanour. His eyes were kind, like you knew them to be — but they were kind even to someone he only knew as a stranger. “I’ve got time.”
You inhaled. “Well…The truth is…I’m not supposed to be here,” you said honestly. You swallowed again, and your throat felt thick. Looking into his eyes now…Looking into Bucky’s eyes… .“I’m really not supposed to be here.”
It was too much. It was all too much — being with him, but not really being with him. Looking at him, smiling, happy, when in just ten days… .
You felt your bottom lip wobbling, your face beginning to betray your emotion and inner turmoil.
“Hey,” Bucky said softly, and you felt yourself crumbling inside.
You sucked in a sharp breath. “I’m sorry,” you whispered.
“It’s okay,” he said, his eyes searching yours.
Your face finally broke, drowning in his blue, and you couldn’t — you just couldn’t—
“Come on,” Bucky said, and he began leading you off the dance floor and to a secluded corner of the bar.
“I’m sorry,” you repeated as you wiped at tears now leaking from your eyes.
“Hey.” Bucky took your hands in his own and gave them a comforting squeeze. “Don’t be sorry. War is scary, I know that. I know exactly what you’re feeling right now because I feel that. Every day. You know we’re all just…terrified.” He moved his left hand up to rub your arm, an attempt to soothe your fears. “But I also know that one day it’s gonna be over,” he said. “And I’m gonna go home. And I’m gonna see all the people I love again. And so will you.”
“I’m gonna see you again, alright? I promise.”
A sob clawed its way out of your throat and you couldn’t stop yourself — you threw yourself into him. You wrapped your arms around him and buried your face into his shoulder and bunched your hands into the back of his jacket.
You felt Bucky rubbing your back. “You’re gonna be okay, Doll,” he whispered.
You pulled away from him, then. You shouldn’t be doing this. He didn’t know you. And as much as you sought comfort from him, from your best friend — you were a stranger.
“I’m sorry,” you said, again. “Here I am, a complete mess — and you don’t even know me.”
“You don’t have to apologise,” Bucky told you. “Don’t ever apologise for surviving. I mean we’re all just…trying to get through this, right? Plus…when there’s a war going on, there’s no such thing as strangers. Just friends and enemies.” He gave you a reassuring smile.
Fuck, you missed him. You missed him so much it ached.
“Do you want to leave?” Bucky asked. “Is there somewhere I can take you?”
You should say yes. You should leave the bar and go find Matt and wait for the Brotherhood woman and go home.
But you shook your head.
Temptation is a cruel thing, especially when it involves someone you care about.
“…Can I keep dancing with you?” you asked, your voice small and hesitant.
His smile widened. “How could I possibly say no?”
He waited until you smiled back at him, then took your hand, pulling you along and back onto the dance floor.
This time your chest was pressed to his, his hand on the small of your back as you swayed. You rested your head on his shoulder, and for a moment you closed your eyes and let the feeling of him wrap around you.
But you were curious. And you knew you were never going to get another chance like this.
“What scares you the most,” you asked Bucky, “about war?”
You heard him breathe through his nose. “I don’t know.” You lifted your head to look at him. “I guess most people would expect me to say dying, but…that’s not what scares me. I’m not afraid to die. Dying is nothing. It’s just oblivion. What scares me…is watching other people die. Watching friends, people I’ve known for a long time, people I care about…get hurt, suffer…disappear forever. That’s what scares me. I have this friend, Steve — he’s sitting over there, actually.” Bucky gestured to the bar, and you glanced over, spotting Steve Rogers with a beer in his hand. “I’ve known him since we were kids. And if anything were to happen to him…I don’t know what I’d do,” he said honestly. He paused for a moment, just looking at you. “But you know the worst thing about war is that you feel like you’re living on borrowed time, all the time. As far as I know, today could be my last day. I could be dead tomorrow, or in a week, or in a month. I could walk outside right now — trip over my own feet and—” He made a popping sound with his mouth, then clicked his tongue. “Lights out forever. Really makes you think about your own mortality. But…it makes you appreciate things more, too. The friends I have here, the family I have back home. You appreciate the little things, small moments…like dancing with a pretty girl…because it could all be gone tomorrow.”
You listened to him, listened as he spoke, as he talked — taking the time to memorize his voice and his face and his eyes. When he stopped talking, when he watched you watching him, you could see him realize the intensity of the conversation you were having. A conversation not meant to be had with someone you had just met, in a bar where people were dancing and having a good time.
Bucky cleared his throat. “So, I scare you off, yet?”
You smiled gently and shook your head. “How could I be scared off by a sweet soldier with such pretty blue eyes?”
You were playing with fire, you knew that. You were actively giving yourself over to something you had been desperately trying to lock away.
“Your love for him is what transforms you.”
(You were so fucked.)
Bucky seemed surprised by your words, blinking and avoiding your eyes, all while smiling nervously.
“Why, Sergeant Barnes,” you teased, “I do believe you’re blushing.”
He looked at you and his eyes said, I’ll give you something to blush about — but then his face fell into confusion. “…When did I tell you my last name?”
Shit. You slipped up. You scrambled for an explanation when your eyes caught on the metal hanging around his neck. “…You didn’t. They’re on your dog tags.”
He glanced down briefly, like he forgot they were there, then looked back up and smiled at you. He bought it. “You have a good eye, Doll.”
You took a breath. “So I’ve been told.”
“Your turn,” Bucky said. “What scares you most?”
“Well…” you began, thinking about it, “you made a lot of good points. But I guess…I’d have to say that the thing that scares me the most…”
You let yourself get lost in his eyes, just for a moment.
“…is the idea that I might never see the people I care about, ever again.”
“Yeah,” he said, nodding. “That’s a good one.”
You spent some more time dancing with him, indulging in the feel of him, very real and solid against you. His thumb stroked the small of your back in that way that it did, in the way that your Bucky would do.
Bucky licked his lips and opened his mouth as if he was going to say something, when he faltered, his eyes catching on something behind you.
A hand landed on your shoulder. “Hey, what are you doing?”
You detached yourself from Bucky and turned to find Matt standing next to you. His face was a mixture of confusion and annoyance. “We have to go.”
Bucky looked between you. “Sorry, did you two come here together?” he asked.
You said, “No,” the same time Matt said, “Yes.”
Bucky’s eyebrows raised.
“He’s just my friend,” you explained.
“Matt Murdock, nice to meet you,” Matt said quickly, and in a way that said he didn’t really care about who he was meeting at the moment. His attention returned to you. “We need to get going.”
“James Barnes,” Bucky introduced himself. “But, uh, any friend of Doll’s is a friend of mine. You can call me Bucky.”
Matt froze. “Bucky?” he repeated.
You scrunched your eyes shut. Fuck. Busted.
You felt the gears turning in Matt’s head, and could practically hear it click when he made the connection.
“Bucky Barnes,” he slowly drawled with realization.
“Yes, sir,” Bucky replied.
Matt’s face pinched in that way it did when he was trying to simmer his bubbling emotion. It kind of reminded you of the way moms looked at their kids when they were irritated with them in public. (You were really going to hear about this later.) “Doll,” he directed toward you in a mocking tone, “we need to go. Our friend is waiting for us.”
Your eyebrows knitted together. “What friend?”
“The friend who promised she would pick us up, remember?” Matt was almost speaking through clenched teeth.
You realized what he was talking about. “Oh,” you said, “that friend.”
“Is everything okay?” Bucky asked slowly, looking to you.
“Yeah,” you told him, and you slid your hand into his. “Matt, give me a minute, okay? Go wait outside.”
Matt sighed. “We are talking about this when we get home,” he said sternly, then turned and disappeared into the crowd.
Bucky’s eyebrows were knitted together when you looked back at him. “What was that about?” he asked.
You searched for something to say. “He just doesn’t want me dancing with handsome strangers, that’s all.”
He grinned at you. “No strangers in war, remember?”
You swallowed, and you willed the sudden rising emotion to stay out of your eyes. “Bucky, I have to go now.”
He joined his other hand with yours, so that both of them were in his. “I wanna see you again,” he said, hopefulness and excitement in his blue eyes. “And I was hoping…that maybe you would want that, too.”
Don’t cry.
Don’t cry.
Don’t cry.
You forced a smile onto your face. “I do,” you said. “More than anything.” You didn’t have to lie and that’s what hurt.
You were breaking.
“You’re gonna see me again, alright?” you told Bucky, nodding and straining to keep the smile on your lips. “I promise.”
Not, I’m gonna see you again. Not, We’re gonna see each other again.
Bucky was going to see you again.
…Just not for another seventy years.
And as for you…well… .
You didn’t know if you were ever going to see Bucky again.
Bucky smiled at you softly. You needed to leave, now, or you were never going to.
Gently, you put your hand on Bucky’s shoulder and pulled him down so his face was level with yours. You pressed your lips to his cheek, closing your eyes.
“Goodbye, Bucky,” you said when you pulled away. And maybe…maybe you were saying it for the very last time.
“See you soon, Doll,” he replied with a wicked grin.
Tears filled your eyes as soon as you turned around and began weaving through the crowd. You stopped just before the door, reeling yourself in, trying to keep yourself together for just a little while longer.
You approached the Brotherhood woman on your own, watching her as she was leaning against the wall with a bored expression on her face. Matt had gone to change back into his Daredevil suit to keep his identity a secret, so you went to meet her alone.
“Hey,” she greeted you. “Where’s your Devil friend?”
“He’ll be here soon.”
“Good.” She gave you a smirk. “Have a good time?”
You didn’t answer her question. “Did you kill anyone?” you asked.
She shrugged. “We set off a few bombs, made sure a few important documents were destroyed. Don’t know if there were any fatalities — didn’t stick around long enough to see.”
“Those were human lives you might have taken,” you said, shaking your head.
“Exactly,” she replied. “They were human lives. They’re not worth anything.”
“Didn’t you have a family?” you asked, trying to get somewhere with her. “Don’t tell me you didn’t have at least one human parent. Or a neighbour, or a schoolmate. Someone you grew up with, someone you knew.”
She snorted. “My parents kicked me out as soon as they knew what I was. They hate us. They will always hate us. And the sooner you understand that, Y/N L/N, the better.”
Matt waited until you were back in your apartment before saying anything.
“The Bucky you’re in love with is Bucky Barnes?” he exclaimed in disbelief as you shut the door.
“I’m not in love with him!” you threw back.
“Missing the point — but now that you bring that up—” Matt took off his helmet. “Y/N, you can lie to me, and you can lie to yourself — but your body doesn’t lie. You had a physical reaction to being around him. It was textbook; you’re in love with him.”
You didn’t want to do this right now. “He’s my friend and I miss him!” you defended yourself.
“You’re in denial,” Matt concluded. “But, luckily, we have other things to discuss right now. How is it that I didn’t know that the Bucky you talked about was Captain America’s best friend and, oh yeah, terrorist?!”
You sunk into your couch and let your head hit the back. “He’s not a terrorist; he was framed for the attack in Vienna,” you explained in a tired voice.
“You promised you would tell me the whole truth,” Matt said.
You sighed. “Yeah, well I left out a few details, so sue me.”
He thought for a moment. “Wasn’t Bucky Barnes an assassin for Hydra before he ran off with Captain America?”
“…Yep.”
“And weren’t you kidnapped by Hydra?”
“…Yep.”
“Are you really going to make me put this together by myself?”
You slapped your hand down on the cushion. “Matt. I just saw my best friend for what might have been the last time. Ever. I really don’t want to do this right now. Okay?”
He was quiet for a moment. “I’m sorry.”
You leaned forward and put your face in your hands. “Matt, I just want to be alone right now, alright? I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Goodbye, Matt.”
Matt sighed, then you heard his footsteps walk toward the window, where the fire escape was. “See you later, Y/N.”
When you heard the window shut you laid down on the couch, toying with your star necklace as silent tears leaked from your eyes.
You were not in love with Bucky.
You were not in love with Bucky.
You could not be in love with Bucky.
You could not be in love with Bucky.
Fuck.
You got up and went to the window, opening it and stepping out onto the fire escape.
“Matt!” you called up. He stopped where he was and began taking the steps back down.
“Change your mind?” he asked.
“I am not in love with him,” you reiterated.
“Sure you’re not,” Matt said when he reached you.
“I’m not.” You grabbed his hand and pulled him inside. He let you tug him along on the way to your bedroom.
“Yeah, okay. Whatever you say.”
And that night, when you drifted off to sleep with Matt lying next to you, you tried not to think about the memory session with Bucky on New Year’s Eve, and what Bucky’s past self had said to Steve in the bar after you had left.
(“I’m gonna marry that girl.”)
Notes:
A/N: Endgame’s version of time travel can go screw itself, I like the old fashion version better.
Chapter 32: Part 3 - Chapter Thirty-Two: Whistleblower
Summary:
A mutant who calls himself ‘Whistleblower’ agrees to help you with your cause. You meet with Magneto.
Notes:
This chapter would not be posted without all the lovely people who left comments, not just on the last chapter but in general. It's been really wonderful and encouraging. (On the other hand, this new chapter will not be posted on tumblr yet, because I don't think they deserve it as much as you guys do. The last chapter got barely any attention, so whoops they're not gonna get a new chapter.) I really hope you enjoy this one, love you guys!!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“Bucky, I have to go now.”
Bucky joined his other hand with hers, so that he was holding both of them, connecting himself to her. “I wanna see you again,” he confessed to her in a crazy, hopeful, excited rush of breath. “And I was hoping—” nervousness coiled within him, along with a spark of something else — something she had created, “. . .that maybe you would want that, too.”
She smiled at him. It made him feel soft and warm inside. “I do,” she said. “More than anything.”
He beamed at her, that something growing and expanding in his chest.
“You’re gonna see me again, alright?” she said, nodding, the smile still on her face. “I promise.”
Bucky gave her a soft smile in return.
Gently, she put her hand on his shoulder and pulled him down so his face was level with hers. She pressed her lips to his cheek, his skin blooming with warmth as she did so.
“Goodbye, Bucky,” she said as she pulled away.
He gave her a wicked grin. “See you soon, Doll.”
Bucky woke with a start.
He’d been having that dream a lot, lately. The memory of the woman he met in 1945 — the woman who looked so much like Y/N he could barely believe it.
But this time. . . .
This time he noticed the waver in her smile. This time he noticed the gleam of moisture in her eyes.
And he wondered, not for the first time, who this woman really was. Why she looked so much like Y/N, if she was really related to her in some way.
He thought about how Y/N’s birth parents had abandoned her.
He thought about how he had abandoned her.
Bucky rubbed his eyes and got out of bed. No use just staring up at the ceiling and thinking negative thoughts. He opened the door of the room he shared with Steve in the shitty apartment the four of them were squatting in.
Sam was watching the TV they managed to get working when he walked out.
“Mornin’, sleepin’ beauty,” Sam chirped him and he ignored it.
“Where’re Steve and Nat?”
Sam shrugged, scooping some cereal into his mouth. “They went to get supplies, I think.”
Bucky sighed, then sat down next to Sam on the old and patched-up couch they were using. He swore a cloud of dust coughed up as he did so.
“What’re we watching?”
You had your eyes closed as Matt ran his fingers over the bare skin of your back, using his hands to see what his eyes could not.
"You have a tattoo here, don't you?"
You blinked open your eyes and looked up at him from where you were lying on your stomach.
"Yeah, I do," you said as casually as you could manage. "You can feel that?"
He hummed in response, his eyebrows pulled together. "A tattoo feels different to the touch than unmarked skin. It's sort of like. . .scar tissue, except not as extreme." He leaned down and pressed a kiss to your spine, the tip of his tongue touching your skin briefly before pulling away. "Tastes like ink, just a little bit."
"We've been doing this for how many months now and you've only just noticed it?" you asked him, nervousness curling in your stomach. This was the one thing that hadn't been brought up yet — he knew about your history with the Hand, he knew about your history with Hydra, he even knew about Bucky — but this was the one thing you had managed to avoid talking about.
"No, I've noticed," Matt mused, tracing your back as if he was trying to discern what was tattoo and what was not. "But I remember when Foggy said something about seeing a tattoo on your hand, and your heart rate spiked for a second. Just like it did now when I asked you about it." He ran his fingers down your arm and to your wrist. "Is it all one tattoo?"
You swallowed. "Yeah."
"There's some kind of story behind it," he said, and it wasn't a question. "And not a good one. Right?"
"Right," you whispered.
"You want to tell me about it?"
You sat up and grabbed your bra and shirt, clasping the former on and sliding the latter over your head. "Not really, no." You found your underwear and pants and pulled them on. “And do me a favour? You can bother me about all the other stuff all you want. I may not like it, I may not talk about it, but you can ask about it. But my tattoo? You can’t bring it up again.”
“You know that only makes it sound more interesting, right?”
“I’m serious, Matt.” You sat back down on his bed. “Please understand.”
He sighed through his nose, then stood. “What time are we going out tonight?” he asked as he pulled on underwear.
“Midnight, as always,” you answered, standing. “Don’t be late.”
You and Matt followed the regular routine of taking out security cameras and knocking out guards. Killion had discovered some intel that said an important mutant was being held here — someone whose abilities could help you with your cause.
Killion said the mutant called himself ‘Whistleblower’. Even before the Mutant Registration Act was enacted, he was causing the American government a lot of trouble; the MRD was planning on transferring him to Guantanamo Bay tomorrow — this would be your only chance to set him free.
He was whistling when you found him, leaning against the wall and looking generally unworried. He grinned when he spotted the two of you.
“Our fearless leader of the revolution,” he said. “I feel honoured.”
Your eyebrows knitted together. It was one thing for Magneto to know who you were, but you weren’t exactly advertising your status within your group. In fact, you didn’t consider yourself to be the leader at all. You just happened to be the person who brought them all together. “You know who I am?” you asked.
He shrugged. “I deal in secrets, babe. Whatever it is you wanna hide, I know about it. And I can arrange it to be broadcast.”
Ah, ‘Whistleblower’ made more sense now. “Can you help us?”
“You wouldn’t be here if I couldn’t, now would you?”
You shook your head. “No, we would.” You watched him blink at you a couple times as you unlocked his door. “You’re one of us. You may not have always been fighting for us, but you’ve been fighting for what’s right. That’s important to me. But, regardless. . .Guantanamo Bay is a ruthless and unnecessary place. I wasn’t just going to sit back and let you be sent there.”
He hummed as he looked at you, thinking. Then he stood from where he was leaning and walked the few paces over to you. “Alright, here’s how I’m going to help you. I can do the intel thing, that’s usually my M.O., but what you need is for the world to know who you are. Don’t give me that look, I don’t mean your identity,” he said, addressing the concerned expression you had on your face. “I mean what you represent, I mean your group. You had the right idea with your little broadcast a few months ago. But there are mutants outside of New York and there are mutants outside of America, and all of them — they need something to believe in. Your followers believe in you and they believe in what you’re doing. So it needs to be you.”
“What needs to be me?” you asked, hesitant.
“Like I said, this isn’t about who you are; it’s not about everyone knowing your ‘secret identity’.” He put his hands on your shoulders. “It’s about what you represent. For the sake of our people, I need to make you into something bigger than yourself, something that will inspire other people to follow your lead, even half a world away. You need to be untouchable. Mythic. I’m gonna make you a legend, babe.”
You shook your head. “I’m not. . .I’m not anyone. I’m no one; I just wanted to help people. My friend Lydia, she’s the first person who wanted to join me. Or Killion. They run the behind the scenes, I just. . .do what I can.”
He hummed. “But your friend Lydia isn’t you. One way or another, hon, people are gonna worship you. I think you know that. You know what to expect — you’ve known what to expect since you were fifteen years old.”
A cold feeling ran through you.
He knew.
“What is he talking about?” Matt asked you.
“Nothing you need to worry about there, counselor,” he said, and Matt tensed. “Don’t worry; all your secrets are safe with me.”
Matt’s jaw muscle flexed. “Forgive me if I don’t trust a man who calls himself ‘Whistleblower’.”
“I don’t care about your secret identity,” he said with a wave of his hand. “This is a revolution not TMZ.” He gestured toward the exit. “Now are we leaving, or what?”
Within a month, Whistleblower had made good on his promise. He spread the idea of a larger-than-life leader of a mutant revolution — and he was right, it worked: people used the idea, the legend, to inspire themselves and inspire others. It was exactly what the revolution needed.
You just hated the symbol he chose to represent you.
Everywhere you looked, your tattoo was the symbol of the mutant revolution — a great fiery bird, a phoenix, spray-painted on buildings and plastered all over the news. And as he promised, it wasn’t isolated to just America. The phoenix symbol was popping up all over the world: Europe, China, Kenya, Brazil — just to name a few.
Matt could tell it bothered you, but you didn’t tell him why. You didn’t tell him that the symbol Whistleblower had chosen was the same symbol that was inked into your skin. Matt assumed you didn’t like the attention and responsibility that came with being the mythic head of the revolution, so he didn’t ask you about it. He wasn’t wrong, but you also didn’t correct him on why it actually bothered you.
But as much as you hated it. . .hated being associated with that symbol. . . .
The mutants you freed, the ones you started organizing safehouses for (in America, instead of shipping them off to another country), they’d ask you. Ask you if you were her.
You didn’t care for the admiration or respect. You didn’t care for the awe or reverence.
It was the gratitude. When you told them “Yes” — some of them hugged you so tightly it brought tears to your eyes. You gave them freedom, you gave them hope. You may have just been a symbol, but you were important to them.
And for that, you endured it.
The Brotherhood had contacted you a couple weeks ago to set up a meeting with Magneto. Matt didn’t like the idea of you meeting with the leader of the Brotherhood (“What if it’s a trap? Why else would he want to meet with you?”), but any chance for peace was a chance you were going to take. So you managed to convince him by letting him come with you.
The two of you were now standing outside an abandoned building; Matt had his arms crossed, looking thoroughly unamused in his Daredevil suit.
“It’ll be fine,” you reminded him. He didn’t reply.
When the door opened, the two of you were escorted into the building and taken to an office-like room with a desk and chairs for you to sit in.
You sat down. Matt remained standing.
Click click, click click, click click, came the sound of a Newton’s cradle on the desk. Except — except the metal balls had no strings. They floated and clicked on their own.
“Welcome,” came the voice of a man who walked in behind you. He made his way to the other side of the desk and you stood to be polite. He offered his hand and you shook it. “My name is Erik Lehnsherr. Perhaps you know me better by the name Magneto.”
You nodded. “My name is Y/N L/N. But you knew that already.” He nodded back. “This is my friend,” you added, gesturing to Matt as you sat down.
Magneto took the seat at his desk, across from you. “Yes, I believe I’ve seen you on the news before. The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen,” he mused. “Wonderful to have an enhanced helping our cause. The humans always were more impartial to you than to us.”
“I’m here for her, that’s it,” Matt replied.
Magneto hummed. You sat forward in your seat. “I don’t want to be direct,” you said, “but. . .why am I here?”
You had tried to get a read on him earlier but couldn’t. It was the helmet he wore — somehow, it blocked your telepathy and kept you from reading his mind.
“I commend the work of your little group, I do,” he began. “When I was a younger man, I myself envisioned a place where mutants could live peacefully, without the laws and restrictions of the humans. I would’ve called it Genosha, and it would have been a safe haven for our people.” He stood. “But I am an old man now. And I understand that the humans will never stop. Even if we had a place of our own — the humans will always try to erase us, to shove us into a box. Create laws that oppress us, arrest us for no reason other than the fact that we are.” He turned and looked out the window on the wall, the window that opened to the world. “This is why you are here. I need you to understand who the real enemy is.”
“I can’t just stand by and let you hurt people. I can’t just stand by and let you kill people,” you said. “They may not be us, and they may not like us, but they are still living beings. Violence is not the answer.”
Magneto turned back to you. “They know nothing else. Look at this world; they’re destroying it. War is all they know.”
You shook your head. “Not all of them are like that. If we view them that way, it makes us no better than them. They like to call us dangerous — put us in a box. But that’s what you’re doing, with them.”
“Sometimes we need to sink to their level, to rise above,” he said.
“That’s just a bullshit metaphor; it doesn’t mean anything.” Your voice was surprisingly calm as you spoke. “It doesn’t have to be this way. We can have peace — What about Genosha? I think that’s a wonderful idea. It solves the Mutant Registration problem. It gives mutants a place to live, away from humans, if that’s what they want. A peaceful, safe haven: that’s our solution. Genosha can be a reality; we can do it. Together.”
Magneto slowly shook his head. “Oh, my dear. Genosha is a fairytale. It is the dream of a younger man who believed that peace could be achievable. But over my years I have watched as people I loved have been tortured. . .killed. . .experimented on. I have been under the mercy of men who believed I was lesser than before.” He pushed up his sleeve and showed you the inside of his arm, the tattooed serial number that was there. “That started with a registration, too. We were forced to wear badges on our chests, to expose us to the rest of the world. It wasn’t long before they put us on trains and took us to camps. How long do you want to wait before they start doing the same to our mutant brethren?”
Just the thought of. . .It was making your throat feel thick. You swallowed. “I’m not going to let that happen.”
“No, you’re not.” He let his sleeve fall and cover his arm once more. “Because you have a responsibility to your people to end this.”
The shift in tone had uneasiness creeping up the back of your neck. “What do you mean?”
“You think Charles and his X-Men are the only ones keeping an eye on you?” he asked. “I know exactly who you are. I know exactly what you’re meant to become. And I have dealt with it, first hand. I know what it can do, and I’ve brought you here to ask that you do the right thing, for all of us.”
You were paralyzed in your seat. Next to you, Matt’s mind was whirring; you could practically hear it. “What is he talking about?” he asked.
“‘The right thing’,” you repeated when you finally found your voice. “Murder is never the ‘right thing’.”
“You could end this war with half a thought,” Magneto said. “You could save countless lives—”
“By doing what?!” you asked, your calmness dissipating. “What would you have me do? Destroy the human race? End billions of lives? I — I don’t have to end a war if there isn’t one. There doesn’t have to be a war. If we just make peace—”
“Oh, my dear,” he interrupted you. “You can beg for peace all you wish. But sooner or later you will have to face the reality: war has already begun. You need to choose a side. And you need to consider what’s best for your people.”
You opened your mouth and sucked in a breath to speak, but you were interrupted by a Brotherhood member barging into the room.
“Erik,” she said sharply. “We have to go; they found us.”
“What?” you exclaimed, panic rising.
Magneto walked out from behind his desk, heading to the door. He paused to regard you once more. “Consider what I said, Y/N. I know you will make the right choice, in the end.”
“At some point in your future, you will make a choice. This choice will determine what path you will follow. This choice will determine what path the world will follow.”
You felt sick. No, this couldn’t be the choice the seer was talking about. Because it wasn’t a choice for you — not when you would never even entertain what Magneto was asking you to do.
But you had more pressing issues right now.
Matt grabbed your arm and pulled you up from your chair once Magneto had left. “We gotta go.”
“Right.” You let Matt tug you along in your somewhat shocked state, before eventually finding your own footing and running alongside him. You could hear the shouts of MRD soldiers, hear the sound of fleeing and even gunfire—
You and Matt ran out of the abandoned building and down an alleyway. It was raining now — pouring — and the wetness assaulted your body and eyes as you ran through it.
It was hard to see through the dark and the rain, but your mind held onto Matt’s and you were able to follow him, turning a corner and—
You skidded to a halt as a sharp and familiar feeling tugged at your mind and you whirled, peering through the droplets and absence of light.
Is that. . .?
Is that. . . .?
You stood, frozen in place, breathing hard, hesitating, hesitating, hesitating. . . .
Matt heard her heartbeat skip, heard the change in her breath.
“What are you doing?!” he called back to her, to where she was standing, unmoving.
“I—” she started and stopped. Without his advanced hearing, he didn’t know if he would have been able to hear her over the rain. “I. . . .”
“Y/N!” he shouted, trying to snap her out of whatever had come over her.
But the next thing he knew, she was running in the opposite direction — back the way they had came.
Back toward the MRD.
“Dammit, Y/N,” Matt hissed under his breath, and tore after her.
You didn’t know where you were going — only that you were following something, following a feeling — a feeling you had once known but had not felt for a long time.
The rain was soaked into your clothes, now. Your shoes were squishy as you ran through puddle after puddle—
Splish splish splish splish splish
The only thing you could hear was the sound of rain on pavement and your heart pounding against your ribcage—
Bum-bump bum-bump bum-bump bum-bump
The feeling — you were so close to it now, just around this corner, it had to be—
You tripped over your feet as you stopped, barely keeping your balance.
Just the sound of rain and your own heartbeat—
as you stared down the barrel of a gun.
You breathing increased as you watched, wide-eyed, the MRD soldier who was pointing his firearm at you from the other end of the alleyway. There was a distance between you, maybe if you turned around now, you could—
No. As soon as you moved he would shoot.
You were dead.
You couldn’t see his face in the dark, couldn’t hear his voice over the rain — and yet, you could see his smile. You could hear his whispered, “Gotcha.”
You were dead.
You were a deer caught in headlights, frozen, unable to move.
You were dead.
But.
But then—
A man, seemingly coming out of nowhere, grabbed the rifle out of the MRD soldier’s hands and smashed the butt of it into his face. He whacked the gun across the soldier’s face a second time, and knocked him out.
You held your hand over your brow, trying to shield your eyes from the rain, trying to see. . . .
The feeling. . . .
. . .the feeling was all around you, now.
Slowly, you lowered your hand, letting the rain pour over you.
It’s you.
It’s
you.
Bucky tossed the gun to the ground, staring at you from the other side of the alley, through the rain and the dark.
Eleven months.
Eleven months, two weeks, three days — that’s how long it had been. And now he was standing just feet away from you.
You forgot everything you had been through. You forgot why you stayed away. You forgot the things your mother had told you. You forgot about the danger and the deadly future that had been set out for you, for him.
Everything of the past year disappeared — none of it mattered anymore.
Tears sprung to your eyes and you ran — ran to him, blindly in the rain and the dark — following the feeling of him, him, him, him.
When you threw yourself into Bucky’s arms, he held you securely against him and spun you around and you laughed and cried and grasped his shoulders so hard it hurt your hands— He squeezed you so tightly you thought you might break but you didn’t care you didn’t care you didn’t care.
You’re here. You’re here.
“I’m here,” Bucky murmured in your ear, echoing your words. He was real and solid against you and around you and in your arms. You pressed your face into the crook of his neck and he held you tighter, if that was even possible. “I’m here.”
You didn’t want to let go of him — you didn’t want to let go of him ever again — but you let him set you down, had to pull back to look at him, make sure he was here, make sure he was real.
Bucky’s hair was dark and plastered to his head in the rain, and his face was dripping, but it was him — blue eyes and all.
His hand brushed your cheek. . .wiping away a tear or a rain droplet, you couldn’t tell the difference. It didn’t matter, anyway. He was smiling softly at you and running his hand through your wet hair. There were tears in his eyes, too; you swept them away.
He was here.
He was here.
Bucky found her. He found her. She was smiling and she was crying (and so was he) but she was like the sun
(like his sun, bright and beautiful),
looking at him like he was the moon
(your moon, dark and lovely)
—apart for so long but now he was here, he was with her again.
He never understood the fascination with eclipses. Not until this moment. Not until he finally had her in his arms again.
And he could stand in the rain with her for the rest of his life, just listening to her laugh, watching her lips move “Bucky”, and thank whichever god it was who allowed him to do so.
Eleven months.
Eleven months, two weeks, three days.
And in just
one
second
, “How did you find me” died in your throat as the man suddenly standing behind you pulled the trigger
, and Bucky fell to his knees
, and you screamed
, and something deep inside you
snapped.
~Chapter Thirty-Three Teaser~
Notes:
I cannot tell you how many times I went over the reunion with Bucky - I had to make sure it was perfect since it was such an important moment. Part of the inspiration for that bit comes from the scene in Stranger Things (s1, ep1) where the party first meets Eleven and it's pouring with rain and they're just staring at each other in disbelief as music plays in the background.
And oh whoops dramatic cliffhanger again.
~Chapter titles for the next two~
Part 3 - Chapter Thirty-Three: Eclipsează-Mă, Dragostea Mea
Part 3 - Chapter Thirty-Four: Take All of My Breath. It’s Yours. Forever.
Chapter 33: Part 3 - Chapter Thirty-Three: Eclipsează-Mă, Dragostea Mea
Summary:
Bucky is with you again, and that’s all that matters.
Notes:
A/N: Y’all better worship me this is the longest TTWD chapter to date at 7179(!!!) words and unlike the previous longest chapter (Chapter Twenty-Eight, running at 6660 words), Bucky is in 5679 of those words!! This particular chapter has been planned since the very beginning. Also celebrating that this chapter bumps the series word count past 100,000 words!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Also I normally don't do this but I feel it's important to specify that this
is the Bucky Look we're going for here
You could barely hear the tortured screams of the man who had shot Bucky, the violet haze of your power filling and overwhelming you.
(You let it. You let it. You let it.)
The man with the gun was on his knees (you put him there), holding his head in his hands (to combat the pain you were inflicting on him), yelling “STOP STOP STOP STOP” (but you wouldn’t — why would you, why would you, why would you?).
You barely registered Matt standing just a few feet away, transfixed, his senses telling him something he could not believe. (He’d never seen you lose control before; you knew a part of him didn’t quite believe you were capable.)
You were violent.
A violence.
Cold, and unfeeling.
The man’s hand curled around the handle of the gun he had dropped as if it was your own hand. You felt the weight of it as he lifted it to his head, pressed the barrel to his skull. Your finger — his finger — twitched on the trigger. Just one more movement and—
Cool metal wrapped around your wrist and your head whipped around, the anger, the rage still there, still seething. You didn’t understand—
Let me kill him
Let me kill him
Let me kill him
The metal tightened around your wrist. A hand. It was a metal hand.
“Stay with me,” the man behind you, the man on his knees, bleeding, coughed out in a desperate rush. His eyes. His eyes.
Bucky.
The violet, the violence, faded from you and suddenly you could hear again, you could feel again — the rain pouring over you and the anguish in your heart.
“Bucky.” You caught him and went to your knees as he toppled over, unable to keep himself up any longer. You couldn’t tell where he had been shot, only that there was a dark spot spreading through his rain-soaked shirt. You pressed your hands to it; you could feel the warm blood on your skin. “No no no no no, stay with me, stay with me.”
Your love for him is what transforms you. It’s what changes you into what you were always meant to be. Your grief, will make you.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
This is not where Bucky dies. You wouldn’t let him die, not here, not now, not when you had only just got him back.
You could feel your power buzzing under your skin, threatening to overwhelm you once more. You pushed back, you fought it. For him.
Stay with me.
“MATT!” you shrieked, looking behind you to find him knocking out the man with the gun, the man you had tortured and almost killed.
Matt came rushing over at your yell. He stood in front of you where you were crouched over Bucky, who was lying on the pavement, barely conscious.
“It’s him,” you breathed, and you were half-sobbing, “it’s him. Please, Matt, I don’t know what to do, I can’t lose him, please—”
“Help me,” he interrupted you, and he bent down to grab Bucky’s right arm. With your help, the two of you lifted him; he had one arm around Matt’s shoulders and one arm around yours. Matt took your hand and pressed it to Bucky’s wound. “Keep pressure. We just need to get him back to your apartment, okay? I know what to do from there.”
The steadiness and calm in Matt’s voice relieved some of your stress. But in his mind, you could tell he was worried.
The leash on your control loosened again, and you grabbed a tight hold on it.
Bucky asked you to stay with him.
You were going to stay with him.
Your leg bounced up and down as you sat on your couch, waiting. Waiting. Waiting. The anxiety and fear was drowning you and you were barely holding on. Your control was flickering — the power inside you was banging against your resolve like a caged animal, pacing, waiting. Waiting. Waiting.
When you had gotten Bucky back to your apartment, Matt called a woman named Claire, who he told you was a nurse. She made it to your apartment in good time, and she may not have been happy to be there but she agreed to do whatever she could to help, and that’s all that mattered to you.
She had been in your bedroom with Bucky for…you didn’t know how long it had been. It felt like hours. It had probably only been ten minutes, or fifteen. At least you weren’t sitting in wet clothes anymore, as Matt had grabbed dry pajama shorts and a shirt for you and made you change. But what did it matter, really? Dry or wet, it didn’t make a difference to you, not when Bucky was bleeding out in your bedroom.
This could be it. This could be when he dies.
You squeezed your eyes shut and held your head in your hands. You shoved back that little voice inside your head that spoke your worst fears, the little voice that sounded a lot like your mother.
“His heart’s still beating,” Matt whispered from where he was sitting beside you.
Still beating.
Still beating.
Still beating.
Forever. That’s how long you waited. Until finally, finally, Claire stepped out of your room, wiping blood off her hands.
You stood, and so did Matt, your eyes still leaking tears as you stared at her.
“He’s gonna be fine,” she said, and all the air left your lungs all at once.
He’s alive.
He’s alive.
He’s alive.
“He lost a lot of blood, so he’ll need to rest now,” she added.
Matt nodded. “Thanks, Claire.”
She sighed. “Do I even want to know?” she asked, addressing Matt directly.
He shook his head. “Probably best if you didn’t.”
“Right, well, I’m gonna get going now.” She began collecting her things and headed toward the door.
“Wait.” Your voice sounded quiet and hoarse. She stopped and you made your way over.
Then you hugged her.
“Thank you,” you whispered, the words rough. She patted your back and pulled away, giving you a small smile and a nod. Then she opened the door and left, closing it behind her.
When she was gone, you sank back down into the couch, exhausted.
“So,” Matt began, “that’s him, huh?”
“Yeah,” you breathed, your voice still a bit shaky, “that’s him.”
You closed your eyes for a moment, letting the feeling of Bucky envelope you. Still alive. Heart still beating. His feeling was…fainter now, though. The distance and time between you served as a thinner for your bond. There was a time where you could barely tell the difference between your own mind and his — it wasn’t like that now.
You hesitated to reach out to him. Trying to connect with him now, the way you’d been connected before…it could overwhelm him, and you. Especially when your abilities had been acting so volatile just moments before. Even now, you could still feel the power crawling under your skin, feeding off your ebbing anger and pain.
Go slow, you reminded yourself. Baby steps.
Matt leaned against the arm of the couch, and the two of you sat in silence for what felt like a long time. You could finally…relax. And not just relax because he was okay, but relax because he was here.
You felt like you had been tensing for the past eleven months, on your own, trying to deal with the nightmares and trauma and terrifying future by yourself. Matt helped, took away some of the weight pressing down on your shoulders — but he didn’t know you, not really.
Bucky knew you better than anyone else in this world. Even Alex, who had known you so intimately and who knew things about you and your future that you could not be honest about to anyone else, did not know you in quite the way that Bucky knew you. Bucky understood what it was to deal with trauma. Even more, he knew the specific trauma of facing the pain and death committed by your own hand — pain and death committed without your own consent.
With Bucky in the next room, alive and safe, you felt like you could finally sleep again.
But sleep would have to wait.
“We need to talk,” Matt murmured, breaking the silence.
You shifted on the couch to turn to him. Here we go, you thought. You knew he was going to bring up what happened in that alleyway at some point tonight. He had never seen you lose control like that before, he must have questions, he probably—
“Are you going to tell him?”
You blinked, confused, at Matt’s words. Your mind felt fuzzy from exhaustion. “Tell him what?”
“Tell him about us.”
About us? Realization came a second later, and you groaned. “Are you serious? Are you seriously bringing this up now? Like right now?”
Matt breathed through his nose. “This is something you need to think about. Or it’s going to blow up in your face. Remember what happened between me and Karen?”
You rubbed the heels of your palms into your eyes. “I’m not going to tell him. He doesn’t need to know. Because it doesn’t matter. So, just leave it alone, okay?”
Matt hummed. “You want to know what I think?”
What was it about people you’d slept with that made them want to give you unsolicited advice about your relationship with Bucky? “I really don’t.”
He continued as if you hadn’t spoken. “I think you don’t want to tell him because you’re afraid he’ll react badly. If you decided you wanted to tell him, it would mean you don’t care how he reacts either way. But if you don’t tell him, it’s probably because you think it might affect your relationship with him. Because you’re in love with him.”
You closed your eyes for a moment, gritting your teeth. You really had had enough of this. “So, what? Now you’re psychoanalysing me?”
“No. If I were psychoanalysing you, I’d say…that you have self-destructive tendencies, and the reason you were stupid enough to come back to New York where Hydra or the Hand could find you is because you were hoping that he,” Matt gestured to your bedroom, “would come and save you.”
Your mouth fell open and you gaped at him. You didn’t know what to say to that. You hadn’t told Matt that the reason you came back to New York was to use Cerebro; you didn’t think about what it looked like, for you to come back to a city where you weren’t exactly hiding.
You went back to your old job.
You went back to your old life.
You hadn’t thought about it. Why did you stay in New York? Was it because Cerebro would be easily accessible? Was it because you were tired of running? Was it because it was just easier that way, to go back to your old job and life?
…Or did Matt have a point?
Staying in New York was stupid. And reckless. But you did it anyway. Was there really a part of you that thought…that if you were in danger…Bucky would come rescue you?
Regardless, the comment was somewhat uncalled for. “You want to talk self-destructive tendencies, Mr. I-Ruined-Every-Single-Relationship-With-The-People-Who-Care-About-Me-In-Favour-Of-Being-Beaten-Up-Twice-A-Night?” you threw back.
Matt shifted where he was sitting. “Okay, point. But you know I’m only saying these things because I care about you. I know I joke around about this, but I’m serious. And I see you struggling. I’ve been watching you struggle for five months now, and I know you’ve been struggling longer than that. I don’t know why you’re holding back on this, but maybe you need to reevaluate your reasons. And consider…if they’re good enough.”
It was too late at night for this conversation. You didn’t want to think about your reasons right now. You just got Bucky back, you didn’t want to be thinking about… .You didn’t want to think about that.
Matt stood, letting you have your silence. “Just…think about it, okay?” He leaned down and kissed the top of your head, then lowered his voice to murmur in your ear, “He’s alive. Don’t waste that trying to figure out what you feel.” Matt stood up straight, and gave you a faint smile. “Get some sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“See you tomorrow,” you repeated back to him, the exhaustion making the words feel robotic.
You watched Matt gather his things and leave your apartment.
Then you turned your head to the door of your bedroom.
“So, what? Now you’re psychoanalysing me?”
It’s the first thing Bucky heard as he slowly came back to consciousness. It was Y/N’s voice, that much he could tell. It sounded like she was arguing with someone.
“No. If I were psychoanalysing you, I’d say…that you have self-destructive tendencies, and the reason you were stupid enough to come back to New York where Hydra or the Hand could find you is because you were hoping that he would come and save you.”
…What?
A knot grew in Bucky’s chest. The same kind of knot that grew every time he thought about how he had abandoned her, the same kind of knot that grew every time he wondered if ‘keeping her safe’ was a good enough reason to stay away.
Y/N was quiet for a period of silence. Then she bit back, “You want to talk self-destructive tendencies, Mr. I-Ruined-Every-Single-Relationship-With-The-People-Who-Care-About-Me-In-Favour-Of-Being-Beaten-Up-Twice-A-Night?”
The man she was speaking with must have been some kind of vigilante. And if Bucky was going to put his money on anyone, he’d say it was Daredevil.
“Okay, point,” the man said. “But you know I’m only saying these things because I care about you. I know I joke around about this, but I’m serious. And I see you struggling. I’ve been watching you struggle for five months now, and I know you’ve been struggling longer than that.”
She’d been struggling without him.
Bucky thought back to the sleepless nights, the nights of nightmares he’d had because she wasn’t there to keep them away.
She’d been struggling without him the same way he’d been struggling without her.
“I don’t know why you’re holding back on this,” the man continued, “but maybe you need to reevaluate your reasons. And consider…if they’re good enough.”
Bucky wondered what he meant by that. But he didn’t focus much on it. He was more focused on the growing feeling of guilt within him — guilt stemming from deciding that she would be better off without him, better off without being on the run. And he thought, not for the first time, that maybe he shouldn’t have made that decision for her.
“Just…think about it, okay?” the man said when Y/N was silent. “Get some sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“See you tomorrow,” Y/N’s voice murmured back.
Bucky heard the sound of footsteps, then a door opening and closing. After that, there was a long silence. A silence long enough that Bucky began to fall back into unconsciousness, his eyes closing, the exhaustion in his body weighing him down.
The next thing he knew, there was a creaking sound coming from the side of Y/N’s room. Footsteps.
Bucky blearily opened his eyes. He shifted up into a sitting position, his body and wound protesting, but he did it anyway.
Moonlight illuminated the room through the window. And in the soft light he could see the silhouette of a woman.
“Y/N?” Bucky whispered softly as you padded into the room. You lifted the covers he was under and gently wrapped yourself around him, sitting on his lap with one leg around each side and curling your arms around his shoulders.
You pressed your face into the crook of his neck as Bucky wrapped his own arms around you, holding you tightly against his chest. You sat like that for a few moments, just breathing each other in. You let the way he felt, the way he smelled, the way he was, envelop you.
You reached your mind out to his then, slowly, gently. You found the wall of his mind, and softly you knocked on it. When it opened for you, you were careful about the way you interlaced your mind with his. Baby steps, you reminded yourself. You needed to take things slow.
But as much as you were holding yourself back, you were collapsing into him, a kind of relief shuddering through you that you hadn’t felt in a very long time.
God, I missed you, you whispered to him, and you felt his arms around you squeeze you closer.
I missed you, too, Doll, he whispered back, and the sound of another voice in your mind, of his voice in your mind again after so long (and the sound of your nickname coming from his lips) almost broke you. Bucky loosened his grip so he could pull back enough to press his forehead to yours. I missed you in my head.
You opened your eyes finally, and you looked at him, really looked at him. His hair had been cut shorter since the time you saw him through Cerebro, the length just barely brushing his shoulders. He had also shaved his beard since then, only a bit of stubble left on his face.
Your hands were resting on his shoulders now, on the bareness of his skin. Claire must have cut off his shirt when she…when she was… .
Your hand slid down his chest to where a piece of gauze was taped to his skin.
Suddenly, emotion was overwhelming you.
“You could have died,” came the broken sob from your throat, hot tears welling in your eyes. Bucky pressed his forehead to yours again, his hand cupping your cheek. He shushed you softly, then took your hand and pressed it to the left side of his chest, over his heart.
“I’m okay,” he said. “Heart’s still beating. I’m okay.”
You curled yourself back into him, closing your eyes and hiding your face in his shoulder. He let you, wrapping his arms around you again and making soft strokes on your back with his thumbs.
When you finally felt stable enough, you untangled yourself from him. “Hang on,” you said quietly as you began moving off the bed. But Bucky caught your arm, keeping you from moving further.
You gave him a soft smile. “I’m not going anywhere,” you whispered. “I promise.”
After a moment he nodded, and let go of your arm. You padded over to your dresser and opened the top drawer, digging around for the piece of clothing you knew would be there.
You pulled out a shirt, then walked back over to the bed, handing Bucky the soft fabric in your hands. “Here.”
Bucky took it from you and went to put the shirt on when he paused. He looked closer. “…This is mine,” he mused, turning it over in his hands.
You shifted your weight where you stood, biting your lip. “Yeah.”
Bucky looked up at you. “You were wearing this the last time I saw you.”
You swallowed. Thinking about that day was painful. “I had grabbed your clothes instead of mine by accident,” you explained. “…I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away.” You didn’t tell him the way it gave you comfort, wearing it yourself, those nights you couldn’t sleep, those nights the nightmares were relentless. “I wanted to be able to give it back to you. I…I hoped I would be able to give it back to you.”
Bucky looked down at the shirt again, feeling the material in his hands. Then he began putting it on, wincing as he did so. You slid back into the bed, back into his lap, and helped him pull the shirt over his head.
When his chest was covered, you found yourself moving your hands down his arms, and your right hand froze at the unfamiliar topography of the metal on his left.
You studied Bucky’s new metal arm, your fingers running over the golden grooves. Your throat felt thick as you remembered. You heard Bucky inhale to speak, but you beat him to it.
“I felt it,” you said in a small voice, unable to meet his eyes. You could feel him looking at you, see his eyebrows pull together from the corner of your eye. “I don’t know how, but…” You moved your right hand and touched your own left arm, remembering the pain you felt. His pain. “When you lost your arm I could feel it.”
You met his eyes then. They were filled with so much…guilt. It broke your heart.
Bucky joined his left arm with yours, holding your forearm in his hand as you held his. You cupped the side of his face, tears surely still shining in your eyes. “I was so afraid, afraid you were… .Bucky, what happened?”
He swallowed. It seemed as if he was having a difficult time finding the words. “Tony Stark…he found out about his parents. He found out what I did to them.”
Your eyes grew wide. “Iron Man did this to you?”
He only nodded slowly in response. You traced circles into the metal of his forearm in a soft, soothing motion. “I’m so sorry.”
Bucky didn’t meet your eyes; instead, he brought your body close to his again, burying his face into your shoulder. You let him, and found your hand tangling itself into his hair.
He hummed contently. The sound vibrated throughout your entire body; it left a shiver behind in its wake.
“Bucky,” you whispered, breaking the silence once more, “how did you find me?”
He leaned back again; your arms rested on his shoulders; his hands were braced on your hips, his arms resting on your thighs. But his hands moved to trace patterns on your back through your shirt.
“I saw your tattoo on the news,” he mused. “They called it the symbol of the mutant uprising.” Bucky inhaled, a strangely shaky gesture. “Not gonna lie, it scared the shit out of me, Doll.”
You gave him a small smile. “You think my pacifism thing is just a fun part-time hobby?”
He breathed resignedly through his nose, then continued. “The news said your group was being run out of New York. Once I knew that… .Well, I wasn’t just going to let you fight a revolution on your own. When I got here, I remembered you mentioning something about the X-Men, how they had a machine that could find people.”
Cerebro. You nodded.
Then, Bucky smiled for the first time since you walked in this room and he was okay. He even chuckled, and you swore you never saw nor heard anything as sweet. “The professor there, Xavier, he knew exactly who I was the moment I walked in. And who I was looking for.” He smiled at you, and your heart felt like it was melting. “He showed me where you were.” Bucky’s smile faded from his face. “Told me about Magneto. Said he probably wouldn’t hurt you, but that didn’t make me any less worried about you.”
You felt a twinge of guilt that you made him worry. “Then you saved me,” you whispered, wanting him to smile again.
He didn’t. “I saved you,” he repeated back, and his eyebrows knitted together.
What is it? you asked him telepathically, too hesitant to speak aloud.
He was quiet for a moment. Then…Did you really stay in New York because you thought I’d come and get you?
Your heart twisted. The guilt on his face was overwhelming you, and you hated that you were the cause of it. “You overheard our conversation,” you murmured.
“Just that part,” he replied.
You took a moment to breathe, then met his eyes again, those intense blue eyes that seemed so, so sad. “Matt only said that to push my buttons,” you tried to reassure him, and as you spoke you knew you were telling the truth. “I didn’t stay in New York because I was hoping you would come and save me. Matt doesn’t know the real reason I stayed, that’s why he made that assumption. In his defense…staying in a place where I could easily be found by people who want to hurt me was kind of stupid, and reckless.”
Bucky leaned forward and pressed his face into the crook of your neck. “You’re gonna give me a heart attack someday, Doll,” he groaned.
You sighed. “I know. I’m sorry. But—” Bucky looked up at you, “—you got shot and scared the hell out of me today, so you’re not allowed to be angry with me.”
He pressed his lips together and inhaled through his nose. “So what was the reason? That you stayed in New York?”
You felt your guilt increasing by the second. “It was because of Cerebro, actually,” you confessed. “It’s why I came to New York in the first place. To find you.”
His eyebrows pulled together in confusion, and you licked your lips, not meeting his eyes.
“And I did find you, not long after we were separated. But…” Your throat felt thick. “I called Alex.” His eyebrows rose in surprise. “Used the Hellfire’s resources, their jet, to get here. I risked them knowing where I was to find you, I… .” You swallowed. “But once I knew you were okay, that you weren’t in any immediate danger… .” You finally forced yourself to look at him. “Bucky, the Hellfire Club is so much more dangerous than I ever let on to you. If they ever thought that you were coming between them and whatever it is that they want me for…they’d kill you. And if I went to you… .”
“You’d be leading them right to me,” Bucky finished for you.
“I’m—” You took a shaky breath. “I’m sorry.”
He shook his head. “You thought you were keeping me safe, I don’t blame you for that. I…I did the same thing. Steve, Nat—Natasha, Sam, and I we…we were on the run, all the time. I didn’t want that for you. I thought it would be safer if you stayed wherever you were.”
You leaned down and rested your cheek on his shoulder, then exhaled, breathing out all of your guilt and negative feelings. Bucky began shifting so he could lay down, wincing as he did so, and you reluctantly moved off him to make things easier.
Instead, you laid beside him, studying his face, and couldn’t help yourself when your hand reached out and brushed his hair out of his eyes and tucked it behind his ear. You pulled your hand back, then, a sort of nervousness growing in your chest at the unexpected gesture of intimacy.
“So,” Bucky started, clearing his throat. “You saw Alex again. How was that?”
You snorted and rolled your eyes. He seemed to find the reaction amusing, judging by the smile on his face. “Weird,” you answered. “It was weird. But I guess that’s to be expected.” You shrugged. “I couldn’t think of anyone else to call.”
He nodded, then Bucky began telling you a little bit about being on the run with Steve, Natasha, and Sam. In return, you told him about the mutant revolution and your group.
But there was something he was leaving out. Something… .
“Trigger words,” you murmured, and Bucky’s eyes narrowed. “When I found you with Cerebro, Steve said something about trigger words, something that had to do with you.”
He exhaled, and seemed to avoid your eyes. “Hydra put trigger words in my head. When they say them…suddenly I’m him again. Their soldier. They say the words and…they have complete control.”
You shut your eyes, covering your face with your hand. “Trigger words,” you whispered. “I should have seen it. I should have been able to… .How did I miss trigger words?”
“Hey,” Bucky said softly, and you lowered your hand. “Don’t do that. Don’t put this on yourself.”
You took a breath. “It’ll take some time to undo the conditioning Hydra put you through, but…I might have a temporary solution. If I can…add anti-trigger words, words that can be said to undo Hydra’s words, then at least we have a way to help you if you ever get into that situation again.”
“You can do that? Put words in my head that…will turn me back into myself?”
You nodded. “And lucky for you, I’m a telepath, so it won’t take years of repeated conditioning to do it.”
The corner of his mouth quirked up at your comment. You lifted your hand and placed it on the side of his face, feeling the slight prickle of his stubble under your skin.
“Close your eyes,” you told him. “Just relax.”
He did as you said, exhaling as he did so. You shut your own eyes and let your mind envelop his.
Bucky opened his eyes to find himself in a black void, silence and nothingness surrounding him on all sides.
“All of Hydra’s trigger words have been conditioned in your mind to be associated with particular things, particular memories,” Y/N’s voice echoed throughout the void. “Negative things, things that have to do with Hydra. If the ‘undoing’ words are going to work, we have to associate them with positive things, positive memories. I’m going to give you words to contrast the triggers — all you need to do is let you mind make associations.”
“How do I do that?” Bucky asked the void.
“Just relax; don’t try to stop or resist the process. I’ll give you the words to work off of, all you have to do is let the associations flow through your mind. And remember — the triggers are all negative associations, things associated with Hydra. These new words need to be good things. Things you associate with your life, with yourself. The more they are, the easier it will be to bring you back.” She paused, and there was a moment where the void was silent once more. “Going through the triggers…it may be intense for you. Are you ready?”
He nodded. “I trust you. Go ahead.”
There was another pause, then—
“Желание.”
Longing.
Suddenly, the black void was filled with images flying past him, images of him being trapped by Hydra, of being conditioned back in a time where he still had the willpower to fight against it. Longing to return to his old life, to return home.
“Apartenenţă.”
Belonging.
The void changed into a memory as he let his mind take in the word and give it its own meaning. The memory his mind chose was of him and Y/N at the Smithsonian. She was offering to help him in exchange for him helping her.
“We go on the run together; you keep Hydra from capturing me and I piece your memories back together.”
“Okay.”
Memories flew by in a rush, memories of Bucky belonging in a place beside Y/N — as her protector, her partner, her friend.
“Ржавый.”
Rusted.
Memories of Bucky’s metal arm — a weapon created and used to hurt people.
“Creşterea.”
Growth.
Memories flew by of Bucky growing and changing from a mindless assassin to someone who made their own choices, who did good things instead of bad.
“Печь.”
Furnace.
Memories of the smell of hot metal and burning skin.
“Apa.”
Water.
A cool and soothing sensation replaced the heat — A memory opened up before him of his and Y/N’s trip to the waterfall, where they were finally able to relax and have fun and just breathe.
“Рассвет.”
Daybreak.
Bucky Barnes had died, and the sun rose on Hydra’s new weapon.
“Apusul soarelui.”
Sundown.
The sun set on Bucky’s time as the Winter Soldier — A memory of Bucky pulling Steve from the water, saving his life. As he walked away, the sun began going down behind him.
“Семнадцать.”
Seventeen.
1917 was the year Bucky was born. This trigger wasn’t necessarily negative, but it served as a reminder that he was not the age he appeared to be — that his previous life was forcibly ripped away from him.
“Paisprezece.”
Fourteen.
2014 was the year Bucky met Y/N, the year he stopped being the Winter Soldier and started being himself again.
“Добросердечный.”
Benign.
A memory of Bucky’s dormant state within cryostasis, unable to hurt anyone, unable to do anything.
“Viu.”
Alive.
Bucky wasn’t in cryostasis anymore, he was awake and living. A memory came to him of teaching Y/N to defend herself — her back pressed to his chest, his hand on her body, showing her where the solar plexus was — working with her to teach her the basics.
The two of them spun into a different memory, the memory of Bucky dancing with Y/N, gently dipping her and listening to her soft, melodic laugh.
Her laughter triggered another memory, the memory of making a cake with her, laughing himself as they threw various ingredients at each other.
“[Store-bought, I’m afraid],” Y/N said as the memory shifted again, this time to their dinner with Mr. and Mrs. Mikalos. “[There was a…mishap while we were baking.]” Y/N’s eyes slid to where Bucky was sitting, to where he was already looking at her with a smile on his face.
“Девять.”
Nine.
The nine heads of the Hydra. Cut one off and another will grow in its place — the symbol of a relentless, unending organization.
“Două.”
Two.
An image of himself and Y/N, two people, two minds, working together.
“Возвращение на родину.”
Homecoming.
The memory of the Winter Soldier — of himself — being sent to assassinate President John F. Kennedy. The memory of finally going back to America, finally coming home after years and years. And a more detached memory, of Bucky lying on the ground, looking up at the stars and wondering if he’ll ever return from the war.
“Acasă.”
Home.
The memories began with Bucky’s childhood home. Memories of his mother, father, sister flew past him — things he thought were long gone, memories he thought were long forgotten.
The memories evolved into ones with Steve. Steve Rogers, his best friend — memories of playing with him, growing up with him. He protected him from bullies, and in return, Steve saved his life from a Hydra experimental facility in Europe. Memories flew by of the two of them during the war, then something more recent as Steve was the first person to recognize him, to bring him back to himself.
The memories developed further — to the apartment in Romania. Small and cramped and rundown as it was, it was home.
And so was she. Memories of Y/N began flying past him, faster and faster until it finally settled on a memory of her laying beside him as he watched her sleep.
Home really was where your heart is.
“Один.”
One.
As the Winter Soldier, Bucky was the Fist of Hydra, a weapon singular and solitary in nature. He was the first in the Winter Soldier program.
“Împreună.”
Together.
Coming out of being the Winter Soldier, Bucky wasn’t alone. Memories of travelling with Y/N during their first days together flew past him, pausing briefly on the memory of him shielding her with his body in that small town in Spain.
The memory shifted into the first time Bucky comforted Y/N when she had a nightmare: her, waking up screaming, telling him to go back to sleep and him, wrapping his arms around her, softly whispering, “I got you.”
A memory, of the two of them laying in bed together, Y/N telling him that she didn’t miss America because of how lonely it was for her. “The two of us, we’ve both been through some fucked up shit,” she said, “but we have each other.”
“Грузовой вагон.”
Freight car.
The final trigger, the worst of all of them. Bucky braced himself as he relived falling off that train into the ravine, relived losing his arm, relived being dragged to a compound by Russians where they started the process of turning him into the Winter Soldier.
The bottom floor of his building of memories.
“Dragoste.”
Love.
The memories began with his mother, a simple memory of baking a cake with her, of her placing a kiss upon his head and letting him lick the spoon.
They evolved into memories of Steve, of his friendship with him, a type of love so pure and strong it was able to break through Hydra’s conditioning — “‘Cause I’m with you, ‘till the end of the line.”
Finally, it settled on a memory of Y/N. It was the memory of her showing him her tattoo fully for the first time — the memory of tracing her scars and letting her trace his — the memory of soothing and fixing her with all the love he could possibly give.
The memory of almost kissing her.
And that was it, the last word had been placed. Bucky opened his eyes, blinking in the darkness of the moonlit room.
“Those words,” he mused, breaking the silence, “they were in Romanian.”
Y/N nodded. “All the triggers are in Russian, because it was the Russians who conditioned you. But Romanian… .Your parents were from Romania. Your first language was Romanian. Romania is a place where we lived for two years. I thought…if anything was going to get through to you, get through the trigger words, it wouldn’t be words that were in English. It would be in words that were in Romanian.”
Bucky licked his lips. “You just keep on surprising me, you know that, Doll?”
She smiled at him, but then it faltered, and her eyes grew wide. She sat up excitedly. “Oh, my God! I almost forgot to tell you!”
“What? What?” he asked, and she laid back down with her head resting on her hand, elbow resting on the pillow.
“I can’t believe I almost forgot — Do you remember that memory we found in nineteen-forty-five, the one with the woman who looked just like me?”
He nodded, not sure where she was going with this. “Yeah, I remember.”
She was so animated, it was adorable. Fuck, he missed her so much.
“It was me!” she exclaimed with a smile on her face, and she giggled at the probably dumbfounded look he was giving her.
(You could smile and laugh about it now because you were with him again, with Bucky — your Bucky. It was no longer the story of the last time you saw him, no longer the story of your last goodbye to him. It didn’t have to be anymore, because he was really here. Not a past version of him, but him here in the present.)
Bucky found himself smiling at her excitement, despite still being confused. “Wait, what do you mean it was…?”
“Matt and I got into some trouble with a woman working with the Brotherhood. She had portaling abilities — she sent us across the world and back in time. Somehow, well somehow it was in the same place you were, in nineteen-forty-five.”
Bucky blinked at her, his eyebrows pulling together. He thought back to that memory, of his interactions with the Y/N-lookalike — well, his interactions with Y/N herself, he supposed.
“So, what brings you here?”
“…It’s a long story.”
“I’ve got time.”
“Well… .The truth is…I’m not supposed to be here. I’m really not supposed to be here.”
“I’m gonna go home. And I’m gonna see all the people I love again. And so will you.”
She had thrown her arms around him when he said that, and suddenly he understood why.
“But I guess…I’d have to say that the thing that scares me the most…is the idea that I might never see the people I care about, ever again.”
“You’re gonna see me again, alright? I promise.”
Not, I’m going to see you again. Not, We’re going to see each other again.
He remembered what he said about her, when Y/N asked him what happened between him and her lookalike. “We danced for a little while. Talked. She was — she seemed…sad.”
“You really didn’t think you were ever going to see me again, did you?” Bucky asked in a quiet voice.
Y/N’s smile faltered, and she avoided his eyes. She shook her head, shifting so she could lay on her back and look up at the ceiling. “No. I didn’t. Seeing you in nineteen-forty-five…I honestly thought it was the last time I would ever see you.”
He reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze. She curled into him, then, tucking her face back into the crook of his neck.
The idea of going back in time and seeing her at a time in her life when she didn’t know him, didn’t know who he was…thinking that would be the last time he would ever see her… .He couldn’t imagine having to endure something like that.
Bucky wanted to see her smile again, wanted to cheer her up, so he said, “You really had me call you ‘Doll’?”
She untangled herself from him again and laughed. “It’s the only thing I could think of, honestly.”
And then Bucky remembered something else they had found from that memory.
“I’m gonna marry that girl.”
Oh, he was so much more than fucked than he realized.
“You’re tired,” Bucky murmured as you yawned, despite trying to stifle it. “You should get some sleep.”
It was true, the exhaustion was weighing heavy on your body and mind. But you shook your head, blinking. “No. No, I can stay awake.”
“Y/N, you can barely keep your eyes open.”
“No, I—I can’t. I can’t go to sleep,” you said, and Bucky’s eyebrows knitted together.
“Why?” he asked.
You tucked your head down, your face heating. “…It’s silly.”
“It’s not,” Bucky replied in a soft tone.
You avoided his eyes, your heart beating harder in your chest now. Your voice was very quiet when you spoke. “I’m afraid…if I close my eyes, if I fall asleep…that when I wake up, you won’t be there anymore. That…you were just a dream.”
Her confession broke his heart. Bucky reached out and wrapped his arms around Y/N, pulling her into his chest. He pressed his lips to her hair, breathing her in. “I’m not going anywhere,” he whispered. “I promise. Close your eyes. Sleep.”
You fisted your hands into his shirt, then finally did as he told you and closed your eyes, letting your fears wash away and be replaced by the feeling of security Bucky provided for you.
And in the place between conscious and unconsciousness, safe in Bucky’s arms, you found that it was becoming extremely difficult to pretend that you didn’t love him—
Heart and soul.
Notes:
A/N: Practically first thing next chapter, Birdie’s gonna tell Bucky about Matt, don’t worry.
Please please please leave me some feedback on this one. I can’t tell how you long it took me not only just to write this chapter but to edit it and then format it. (It’s 1:52am as I’m typing this and I am exhausted.)
Chapter 34: Part 3 - Chapter Thirty-Four: One Choice
Summary:
You tell Bucky the truth about you and Matt. You come face-to-face with a difficult decision.
Notes:
A/N: lmao @ me trying to return to normal lengths of chapters, this ended up being 4711 words long. originally this chapter was supposed to include the stuff that’s going to happen in the next chapter, so thank god i decided to split it up because writing and editing it all together would have killed me
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The smell of pancakes surrounded you as you slowly blinked your eyes awake, along with a comforting feeling of security, like an extra blanket over your body. Bucky wasn’t in bed, but as long as you could feel that blanket you weren’t panicking.
Not like you panicked last night, when you had a nightmare and Bucky was nowhere to be found. You couldn’t think straight, all you knew was he’s not here he’s not here he’s not here—
He had only gone to the bathroom, and he rushed out when he heard you scream. He had shushed you softly and wrapped you in the security and solidness of his arms and talked with you until you could sleep again.
You slowly sat up, stretching out all the kinks in your arms and back. The door to your room was open — it was probably Bucky ensuring that you could see and hear him clearly as he made breakfast in the kitchen.
Still here.
Still here.
Not a dream.
You padded out of the bedroom and Bucky turned from the stove to smile at you. An unexpected feeling of fluttering hit your chest and you found it impossible not to smile back.
“Good morning,” Bucky murmured, his voice still somewhat laced with sleep. He handed you a mug of coffee as you passed him and you let the warmth seep into your hands as you took it.
“Morning.” You sat down at your dining table, sipping your coffee and just watching as Bucky shifted freshly-made pancakes from the pan onto two plates. He padded over and set one of the plates in front of you with utensils, then sat down himself.
The feeling of comforting familiarity and routine filled your heart with such a sense of… .
Oh, God.
This was what happiness felt like.
“Thank you,” you said as you began digging in. Bucky only gave you a small smile in return as he watched you, almost as if he was disbelieving it himself.
“So,” Bucky began as you were halfway through your plate, “the guy who helped save my life, when do I get to officially thank him for that?”
You swallowed harshly, a bit caught off guard. “Matt?”
“Yeah, Daredevil, right?”
You nodded and cleared your throat, setting down your fork and knife. “He’s supposed to come by sometime this morning. But before you meet him, I…” Early this morning you had decided Matt was right (as much as you hated it). Keeping secrets was only going to cause problems later. “…You should know…I slept with Matt.” You winced at your wording. “I am…sleeping with Matt.”
Bucky was caught off guard by her confession. It made his heart flip painfully, but he quickly reeled himself back in.
He had no right to feel this way.
Y/N was not his girlfriend. They were not in a relationship.
She had every right to do what she wanted with her life, with her body, and associate with anyone she wanted to.
It didn’t make it hurt less, but getting upset wouldn’t be fair to Y/N, who had no obligations to him other than being his friend. Not to mention that they had been separated for eleven months. If Y/N had started a relationship with someone…then that was her right to do so.
Bucky swallowed, albeit somewhat harshly. “You don’t have to…” he began, then restarted, “You don’t have to tell me, it’s not any of my business.”
“But it is, though,” she insisted, and avoided his gaze when his eyebrows knit together. “I mean…” Y/N looked back up at him, her eyes soft but strong. He had missed them. “I mean you’re my best friend. You should know these things.”
Bucky was finding it difficult to ask the question on his mind. But he needed to know. If nothing else…he needed to know this one thing.
“Do you love him?”
Her reaction was not the response he had been preparing for.
Y/N blinked rapidly at him, her mouth sliding open and her eyes growing wide. “What? No!” She waved her hands back and forth, shaking her head. “No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Matt’s just…a friend.”
A mixture of relief and confusion washed over him. He waited for her to explain, watching her squirm in her seat and press her hands to her face as if they had grown hot.
“How do I…explain this…” she mumbled, talking mostly to herself. She was quiet for a moment, as if she was collecting words. “I was…not in a good place. I had no support system, I was…alone. By some miracle, I met Matt, and all he wanted to do was help me…be not alone anymore. I spent time with him and his friends and things weren’t…great, but they weren’t…crushing anymore.” She paused, and he could tell that she was trying hard not to cry. It broke his heart. “But then the woman that Matt loved died. And being Daredevil had caused a rift between him and his friends, and therefore me and his friends.” She took a deep breath. “One day I…had a difficult conversation with my mother.” She swallowed. “And I was upset. And I…missed you.” She paused again, and he reached under the table to squeeze her hand. She sighed and ran her other hand through her hair, pulling herself together. “I asked Matt to distract me, because I didn’t want to think about any of it. So…we slept together. And then decided to keep sleeping together. Because we were both…alone. Lonely. And it didn’t make things better, but at least I had something where I could turn off my brain for a little while. But…” She smiled finally, chuckling to herself. “I’m not in love with Matt Murdock, I’m never going to be in love with Matt Murdock. Neither of us were in any place to be in a relationship, I mean he had just lost the woman he loved, and I… .”
Y/N stopped, her eyes catching his. Bucky stared back at her, waiting for her to finish her sentence, his heart skipping strangely in his chest.
She looked away again. “Well, I wasn’t in a good place, either.” She took her hand back and leaned back in her chair, shrugging. “But I don’t think that Matt and I are going to…continue. I mean…I don’t really…need it…anymore.”
Bucky nodded slowly, taking in everything she just said. And he realized…realized he should be just as honest with her as she was being with him.
There was another reason he had no right to be judgmental about her choices.
“I slept with Natasha.”
The awful feeling piercing your chest was 100% unexpected, not to mention unwanted and unnecessary. And yet, the feeling remained.
It was not a good feeling.
“Oh,” was what you managed, trying to keep what you were sure was a strangely helpless look off of your face.
“It was just one time,” Bucky continued. “I had had a…really bad day. Nat—” he winced, “—Natasha was just trying to help get my mind off…things.”
You were scrambling for words. You hated that you felt this way. You hated it because it was just more proof that you…that you… .And you couldn’t.
But you had to ask.
“Are you…” you began, trying to find the right way to say it, “Do you… .”
“I’m not in love with her,” Bucky said, as if he knew what you were trying to ask.
And in that moment, you were so distracted by relief that you forgot, forgot again why you were pushing back. You let the nervous, fluttering feeling fill you, up, up, up, intensified by the look that Bucky was giving you.
“And you’re not in love with Matt,” he added.
“Right,” you confirmed, not taking your eyes off of him.
“Right.”
“Okay,” you continued, almost in a daze.
“Okay,” he repeated back to you, the corners of his lips quirking upwards.
You were lost. You were losing yourself in his eyes, in the colour and depth and intensity. You were losing yourself in the feeling that was spreading throughout your body, to your fingertips and toes and the tips of your ears.
You were losing yourself in him.
Knock, knock, knock, knock.
“Y/N?” Bucky said.
Knock, knock, knock, knock.
Bucky smirked at you when you only continued to stare at him. “Y/N, there’s someone knocking at the door.”
“Hm?” You blinked, snapping out of your daze. “Oh!” Your cheeks filling with heat, you pushed out of your chair and stood, hurrying to the front of your apartment.
Matt was grinning when you opened the door. Damn his fucking superhuman hearing.
“Don’t,” you practically growled at him, and he threw up his hands.
“I didn’t say anything!”
You rolled your eyes and began walking back over to Bucky, letting Matt come in and close the door himself.
Bucky stood and held out his hand. The metal one. “I’m Bucky,” he said. “Good to finally meet the man who helped save my life.”
Matt shook it, having to use his nondominant hand to do so. “We’ve met, actually.”
Bucky’s eyebrows pulled together in confusion, and you realized Matt was right.
You touched Bucky’s arm and he looked at you. “Matt was with me in 1945. Do you remember?”
He thought for a moment, then nodded, slowly. “Yeah. That’s right.”
When they finally stopped shaking hands the silence that followed was…not the most comfortable, to say the least.
You cleared your throat. “I’m going to go get dressed, I’ll be back in a second.”
“Okay,” Bucky said softly, and watched Y/N pad back to the bedroom and close the door.
He sat back down at the table and crossed his arms.
“So,” Matt said, clearing his throat. “You know about me and Y/N, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Bet you kind of want to punch me for sleeping with the girl you love, right?”
Bucky opened his mouth to say otherwise but Matt shook his head, speaking again before he could.
“Don’t bother trying to deny it; I have super-hearing, I can hear your heartbeat and I can tell when you’re lying. You love her.”
Bucky sighed. “Okay. You’re right about that. But you’re also wrong. I don’t want to hit you. Who Y/N sleeps with isn’t any of my business; we’re not together. In fact…honestly, I’m grateful for you.” Matt’s eyebrows rose at that, and Bucky continued, “I know how hard these past eleven months have been for her. I know because I went through the same thing. But she had you. She wasn’t alone. So, thank you — for being there for her when I couldn’t be.”
Matt nodded, and he took a seat. “You’re a good man, Bucky.”
Bucky hummed. “If you had hurt her, though — then I would have punched you.”
“That’s fair.”
The two of them fell into a comfortable silence as they waited for Y/N.
“Can I ask you a question?” Matt asked, breaking through the quiet.
Bucky’s eyebrows raised. “You can ask but I might not answer.”
He continued anyway. “What’s the deal with Y/N’s tattoo? She didn’t tell me and I didn’t bring it up, but I know her group used it as the symbol to represent the mutant revolution. The man who made that call…Whistleblower…he said some things about her. So did Magneto. Things that don’t add up — and I have a feeling it has something to do with the phoenix on her back. So…what is it?”
Bucky laughed then, shaking his head.
“Something funny?” Matt asked.
“Nothing,” he said, “it’s just— I’ve known Y/N for two years. Almost three if you count the time apart… .And she still hasn’t told me.”
Matt thought about that for a moment. “Well, what do you think it is?”
Bucky had thought a long time about what Y/N’s tattoo could mean, every since her extreme reaction in the beginning when she said she’d walk out the door if he asked her about it. He’d gone from curiosity, to concern, to actual horror, when she’d giggled and told him her tattoo was a death sentence. But not her death sentence. He’d even explored the ink in such an intimate way, yet he was still no closer to knowing what the meaning behind it was.
Finally, Bucky shrugged. “I’ve given up trying to figure it out,” he said. “If she wants to tell me, she’ll do it when she’s ready. And not before.”
Matt nodded, and said nothing else.
Bucky and Matt stood when you walked out of your bedroom and over to the dining table.
“We were going to speak with the group today,” you addressed Bucky, referring to yourself and Matt. “You can come if you want.”
Bucky reached out and touched your wrist. You opened the link between your mind and his.
Are you kidding? You think I’m gonna let you out of my sight ever again?
You smiled at him. I don’t think I was really asking, anyway.
He grinned back at you, then Matt cleared his throat.
“Whatever nonverbal telepathic conversation thing you’re having, could you give me the abbreviated version?”
You chuckled, your face becoming slightly warm. “Bucky’s coming with us.” You went and grabbed your keys. “We should probably get going—”
“Hang on,” Bucky said, catching your arm. “I gotta check in with Steve, Natasha, and Sam, first.”
Your eyebrows raised. “They’re here? In New York?”
He nodded, a small smile on his face. “They wouldn’t let me go by myself. And— they’re impressed with what you’ve been doing. I think they would want to help.”
“What’s a revolution without at least five war criminals, right?” Matt commented.
“Oh, like you haven’t wanted to meet the Captain America since you were a little kid?” you asked Matt, and he gaped slightly at you, his eyebrows pulled together.
“…How many times do I have to tell you to stay out of my head?”
You snorted. “Every kid’s childhood hero is Captain America; I didn’t have to read your mind to know that.”
He sighed and your smile grew. You patted both Matt and Bucky on the back.
“Let’s go see Captain America, you two.”
Steve, Sam, and Natasha were staying in a crappy motel on the outer edges of the city, obviously trying to keep as much of a low profile as possible. Bucky told you that just getting to America had been a whole ordeal, with Natasha’s contacts getting them a cargo plane to ride in. “No seatbelts, and we had to hide under blankets the entire eight hours,” Bucky had said. “I think I almost threw up at least three times.”
When you arrived at the motel, Bucky knocked on the door of the motel room that Steve was staying in, knocking in a distinct pattern as if to let Steve know that it was him.
“Do you really have to wear that?” you asked Matt as the three of you waited for Steve to come to the door. Matt was wearing a scarf around his head, covering his eyes and nose.
“He may know my secret identity, but I’m not advertising it to anyone else,” Matt explained, briefly gesturing to Bucky. “And since walking around in the Daredevil suit in broad daylight would attract attention, yes, I have to wear this.”
“They don’t have secret identities,” you said, referring to Bucky, Steve, Sam, and Natasha.
“Yeah, and look where it got them.”
“He does have a point,” Bucky agreed.
You heard footsteps padding to the door and the click sound of it being unlocked. The door opened, and you were surprised who you found behind it.
“Oh, good, you’re back,” Natasha said to Bucky. She gave you a smile. “Long time no see, Y/N. Glad to see you’re okay. Oh, and you brought a friend.”
“Where’s Steve?” Bucky asked, his eyes searching the room behind her.
Natasha took a step back to let the three of you inside. “He’s just finishing up taking a shower, hang on.” She padded to the back of the room, where there was another door. She knocked on it. “Hey, Bucky’s back.”
“I’m gonna go get Sam,” Bucky murmured to you as he touched your arm. You nodded and he left the room.
Steve must have said something through the door to Natasha you couldn’t hear, because she sat down on the single bed in the middle of the room.
“He’ll just be a second. You should introduce me to your friend.”
Matt had his hands on his hips. “This is Daredevil,” you introduced him. “He’s a vigilante; he’s been helping me with mutant revolution stuff.”
“Daredevil,” she mused, “yeah, I’ve heard of you. Seems like the government hasn’t really gotten to you yet. Or any other vigilantes in New York, for that matter.”
Matt hummed. “They didn’t really do much with the Sokovia Accords, did they? It’s funny, because they had no problem enacting mutant registration.”
“Wonder why that is,” Natasha said cynically, then gave you a sympathetic smile.
You waited a few minutes until Steve walked out of the bathroom and Bucky got back with Sam beside him.
“Hey!” Sam said cheerfully when he saw you. He opened his arms and waved his hands for you to hug him.
You gave in and let him put his arms around you.
“It’s great to see you again, Y/N!” He put his hands on your shoulders and pulled back to look at you. “You have no idea what the past eleven months have been like; Bucky would not shut up about you—”
“Sam,” Bucky growled in a warning tone, and you found the fluttering had returned to your chest.
Sam chuckled and gave Bucky a smirk, but stopped talking. Steve came over and gave Bucky a clap on the shoulder in greeting, which he returned; then Steve turned to face you. His hair was longer and he had grown a beard since you last saw him.
“Y/N. Good to see you again.”
Nervousness replaced the fluttering and it twisted in your stomach. “Steve,” you began. “Listen, I’m…I’m sorry. You were trying to help me and you asked me to be honest with you and I wasn’t and I’m—”
“I know,” Steve interrupted you. “It’s okay. I understand. Besides, if Bucky trusts you…then I have no reason not to.”
You gave Bucky a shy smile. He returned it.
Steve breathed through his nose, then turned back to his friend. “I was kind of worried about you when you didn’t come back last night, Buck.”
“Yes, your father and I were very concerned,” Natasha said in a mocking voice, getting up to stand over by Steve. He gave her a look and she grinned at him, then glanced over at you. “I told him not to worry since Bucky was with you, but old habits die hard, I guess.”
“Bucky went to find her, there was no guarantee that he was with—” Steve cut himself off and inhaled sharply, staring at the ceiling for a moment with his hands on his hips. Then he finally looked back at Bucky. “So what happened?”
“The X-Men showed me where she was, told me she was with the leader of the Brotherhood,” Bucky said, looking pointedly at you, “so I didn’t waste any time getting there.”
You rolled your eyes. “I wasn’t in any danger… .Not yet, anyway.” Steve’s eyebrows raised and you hurried to explain. “I had arranged a sit-down with the leader of the Brotherhood. The Brotherhood may be violent, but Magneto has his own code of ethics, he wasn’t going to hurt me.”
“If he did, that’s why I was there,” Matt threw in.
“Yeah, and who are you again?” Sam asked.
“Daredevil,” you and Natasha said in unison.
“I’m Y/N’s friend,” Matt clarified.
“You’ve been helping Y/N’s revolution, right?” Steve asked, and Matt nodded.
Steve took a step forward and held out his hand. Matt shook it.
“Good man,” Steve said, and you could see Matt smiling to himself as he stepped back.
“Anyway,” you continued, “the MRD ambushed the Brotherhood that night. They probably would have killed me…but Bucky showed up to save my life.” You gave Bucky a soft smile, which he returned, but then your eyes narrowed. “Then he got shot.”
“What?” Steve exclaimed.
“I’m fine,” Bucky said quickly. “Daredevil’s nurse friend patched me up and now I’m good as new. Nothing to worry about.”
“Ah, so that’s why you didn’t come back last night,” Sam mused. “You were out playing knight in shining metal armour and got yourself hurt because you didn’t bother calling for backup.”
“And I thought I was supposed to be the reckless one,” Steve quipped, and Bucky sighed.
“I’m sorry, and I promise next time not to do anything stupid.” He turned to you. “You want to go over why we’re here, now?”
You nodded. “Right. So I’m sure by now the three of you know about the mutant revolution I’ve sort of been, uh, leading. We were hoping you’d help. I mean, you got the short end of the stick with these Accords, too. If I can find a way to get equal rights for mutants and clear all your names than that’s what I’m going to do.”
“Sounds good to me,” Natasha said.
Both Steve and Sam nodded. “Of course we’ll help,” Steve assured you.
“It’ll be nice to eventually stop staying in shitty motels,” Sam added.
“Good.” You sat down on the edge of the bed. “Daredevil, you want to fill them in on what we’ve been doing so far?”
Matt nodded and started from the beginning. As he talked, Bucky came over to sit down next to you.
You felt the coolness of his metal finger stroke your wrist where it rested on the comforter. You looked over, tuning into his thoughts.
Hey.
What is it? you whispered.
He smiled at you. Knight in shining metal arm.
You looked away and pressed your lips together, trying not to laugh. Then you turned back to him, smiling and shaking your head. You’re such a dork.
It’s your joke!
But you thought it was funny enough to repeat. That makes you the dork.
He grinned. You’re so cute.
You blinked at him and colour tinted his cheeks, as if he didn’t mean to project that to you. You glanced down, smiling to yourself before shyly looking back at him.
You’re still a dork.
His grin returned. Ah, but you’re the one who chose to be around me, so what does that make you?
You laughed silently through your nose, your smile growing. I don’t know.
“Hey! Lovebirds!”
You and Bucky turned your head to find everyone staring at you.
“Either the two of you have been having a telepathic conversation—” Sam continued, “—which is really rude, by the way, when you’re supposed to be paying attention — or, you’ve just been gazing lovingly into each other’s eyes, and lemme tell you, it better be the first one because if it’s the second one I think I might throw up.”
Heat filled your cheeks and colour bloomed on Bucky’s. You forgot (again) the way telepathic conversations looked to other people.
An uncomfortable feeling suddenly filled your stomach. The way Bucky made you feel…the person you were when you were with him…it was something you couldn’t ignore any longer.
You loved him.
And it was going to get him killed.
“It was a telepathic conversation,” Bucky gritted through his teeth in a restrained tone.
“About?” Natasha asked in a voice bordering on sing-song-y.
“Nothing, doesn’t matter, sorry,” you murmured. Out of the corner of your eye, you could see Bucky staring at you, noticing your chance in demeanor. You stood, rejoining the conversation with the others. “Now that he’s caught you all up, I can tell you that the group has been planning a peaceful protest march, to take place a week from now. It’s a good way to get people’s attention, and it’ll get their attention even more if half the Avengers show up.”
“Is that safe?” Steve inquired. “If the government finds out we’re participating in that march they might try to shut it down.”
“They’ll try to shut it down anyway,” you said. “That’s why we’ll have people with strong, defensive mutations on standby. Nobody’s getting arrested. Not on my watch. If the MRD wants to make a scene, let them. Maybe it’ll help make the world understand. But nobody’s going to get hurt. I won’t let that happen.”
“Alright.” Steve looked to Natasha, who nodded, then Sam, who did the same. “We’re in.”
You had spent the rest of the day talking over details of the march with Lydia and Killion. Matt and Bucky sat with you, making comments or bringing up questions and concerns here and there.
When you and Bucky had got back home, he gently took your arm and asked you what was wrong.
“Something’s been off with you,” Bucky murmured softly. “Are you okay?”
At the time, you didn’t know how to answer him. So you did what you did best.
You lied to him.
“I’m just worried about the march,” you said. “A lot of things could go wrong.”
His hand slid down your arm, and his thumb stroked the back of your hand. “If it does, we’ll take care of it. Don’t worry, okay?”
Now you were sitting up in your bed, Bucky sound asleep behind you, and you couldn’t stop thinking about what you were going to do.
Your heart was breaking.
You were breaking.
Your love for him is what transforms you. It’s what changes you into what you were always meant to be. Your grief, will make you.
You weren’t going to let that happen. But preventing it would force you to do something…you really didn’t want to do.
“Lydia,” you said, catching up to her as she walked away. “One more thing before you go.”
“Sure, Y/N. What is it?”
You swallowed thickly. “Lydia…Lydia, if something happens to me, if I can’t make it to the march…I need you to be me. I need you to represent the group.”
Lydia’s eyes narrowed. “You going somewhere, Y/N?”
You didn’t answer her directly. “Things happen, Lydia. I need to know that there’s a backup plan in case they do.”
She was quiet for a moment. Then, “You know can count on me, Y/N.”
You packed as quietly as you could.
Leaving was the last thing you wanted to do, but staying, when you knew Irene had a vision of Bucky dying…dying because you loved him, dying because you involved him in your mess…you couldn’t do that. You wouldn’t risk that.
You wouldn’t risk Bucky’s life. It would kill you.
No.
No, that’s not right.
It wouldn’t kill you.
But it might kill everyone else.
Bag finally packed, you risked one last look behind you, where Bucky was sleeping soundly.
Pull yourself together.
Pull yourself together.
You forced yourself to look away, then made your way to the front door. You hesitated with your hand on the door handle, your mind going into overdrive.
Was this the right choice?
Was this the right decision?
The seer’s words came to you, then.
Only you can decide what you want to do.
This was it. Somehow, you knew that this was the choice the seer had told you about. What else could it be? She said that your decision would impact the world — choosing to leave was choosing to save Bucky, and choosing to save Bucky was choosing not to become the Phoenix. It was choosing to save the world.
You would not accept the seer’s advice. You would not accept Bucky’s death. You would not accept your transformation.
(It didn’t matter if you could feel your soul dying in your chest. It didn’t matter if your heart was shattering into irreparable pieces.)
This was the right choice.
You turned the handle.
Notes:
A/N: Can you imagine if I combined this chapter and the next chapter like I originally planned? I wouldn’t have this amazing cliffhanger!
I also started writing the next chapter immediately after I finished this one. Take from that what you will.
Chapter 35: Part 3 - Chapter Thirty-Five: Take All My Breath. It's Yours. (For However Long We Have Left)
Summary:
You make the right choice.
Notes:
Mature content warning for this chapter.
A/N: For all those who sued me for the last chapter, I spoke with my lawyer and they said this chapter should be sufficient compensation.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Except.
Except.
Your hand stilled on the door handle. What was the other thing the seer had said?
“If I follow your Death fortune, will Bucky die?”
“Perhaps I understand why that is the only fortune you seem to focus on… .The only thing I can give you is this: remember what I told you, and remember everything I told you.”
Remember everything.
Remember everything, not just the Death fortune.
“[The Lovers… .The Lovers card does not always mean a romantic relationship. It is a partnership. And it is one that is important to you. Trust in this relationship. You are stronger together than you are alone.]”
“[The High Priestess, Reversed… .Reversed, she represents secrets, withdrawal, silence… .But keeping secrets will not help you. You cannot keep them forever. Trust your partner, remember?]”
Trust in this relationship. Trust your partner.
Trust in this relationship. Trust your partner.
Trust your partner.
Trust in this relationship.
You are stronger together than you are alone.
You released your grip on the handle. You heard the click of the lock slipping back into place, then you pressed your forehead to the door.
Tears filled your eyes, the pure relief you felt then overwhelming you.
You weren’t going to leave him. You weren’t going to leave him ever again. You were going to take the seer’s advice — to trust in your relationship with Bucky, to trust him, and hope— no, and know that the two of you together would be strong enough to face whatever was coming.
All you needed to do now was finally tell him the truth. The whole truth.
And the thought of that terrified you.
“What are you doing?”
You whipped around at the sound of Bucky’s voice, soft but loud in the silence and edged with sleep. His eyebrows were pulled together as he looked at you, his eyes searching you, searching the bag hanging at your side… .
The confusion and…devastation on his face was overwhelming, piling onto your already fragile state.
The bag slipped from your fingers and you shattered, sobbing into your hands as you splintered into a thousand little pieces. You heard Bucky move toward you in an instinctive response and you rushed into him, burying your face into his chest and grabbing onto his shirt like it was a lifeline. He took no time to wrap his arms around you.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” you repeated over and over as Bucky held you tightly.
“Were you…Were you gonna leave?” he asked. There was a desperate sort of sadness in his voice — it was like a knife cutting into your heart.
You have to tell him. You have to do it now, or you never will.
You pulled back to look at him, to observe the concerned and confused and upset emotions on his face. You took a deep breath in, your body shaking.
“Sit down, please,” you asked of him, and although he hesitated he followed you to the dining table and sat down.
You sat across from him, resting your arms on the table and your hands itched to scratch the tattooed bands around your wrist, an old habit that you hadn’t given in to in a long time.
Trust in your partner. Trust in your relationship.
“I need to tell you the truth, about this,” you took his metal hand and rested your wrist in his palm. “My tattoo, what it means, why it’s dangerous. Everything. All of it.”
He turned his hand to hold yours, squeezing it. “What does that have to do with you leaving?”
“I’m not leaving,” you said, and swallowed, closing your eyes. “I was…I was going to leave.” You opened them again. “But I’ll get to that in a minute.”
You paused as you collected yourself. You had never told anyone the whole story before. Everyone who knew…they knew from the start. They didn’t need to be told. And those who didn’t know…you never trusted any of them enough to tell them.
Bucky began shaking his head as you hesitated. “You don’t have to… .”
“No,” you said. “No. I do. It’s…” Emotional rose unexpectedly to your throat and eyes. “It’s important.”
“Okay,” he whispered. His thumb stroked the back of your hand. “Just…take your time.”
You took a deep breath. “Okay. Okay.” You paused again, finding a place to start. “Okay, I’ve already told you a bit about the Hellfire Club — it being a gentleman’s club for mutants, sort of like a secret society playing behind the scenes, with their own motivations and ambitions,” you began, listing off what he already knew.
“Right. Your parents were a part of it,” Bucky said.
You nodded. “The Hellfire Club had an Inner Circle, a group of people who were in the center of things. The Inner Circle had their own ambitions…specifically…” you closed your eyes and felt Bucky squeeze your hand at your hesitation, “…specifically with something called the Phoenix.”
You opened your eyes to find Bucky’s eyebrows pulled together. “That’s what you have tattooed on your back. A phoenix.”
You nodded again, this time more slowly. “The Phoenix is a…a… .” You were having a hard time explaining. “Okay, you know how Thor is a literal god from legend?”
Bucky blinked at you. “I— Yeah.”
“The Phoenix is…kind of like that. It’s a celestial being from space. The Inner Circle has worshiped the legend of the Phoenix for a long time — the Phoenix is ancient, and powerful, and if someone could find a way to harness that power they would be practically unstoppable.”
You gave Bucky a second to take in what you were telling him. “Okay,” he said. “Okay, so I’m guessing the Inner Circle wants what most secret societies want — control over the world.”
Despite everything, a smile made its way on your face. “Yeah, exactly.” But your smile quickly faded. “Over our history, the Phoenix has taken hosts…a lot of them from Earth. At some point, the Inner Circle realized…if they could control one of these hosts, then they could control the Phoenix. Which is why…Which is why the Inner Circle began raising a group of children with telepathic abilities.”
Bucky’s eyes narrowed.
“Mutants, specifically telepaths, have had better luck in the past with being chosen as a host,” you continued. “No one really knows why, but the Inner Circle theorized it has something to do with a stronger mind having a better chance of holding the Phoenix’s power.”
Bucky’s blue eyes searched yours as you paused again to let him think. “You were one of those kids, right? You said…You said you didn’t think your mom would have adopted you if you weren’t a telepath.”
You nodded, your throat feeling thick as you swallowed. “Yeah.” You stayed quiet and let Bucky put the pieces together, watching the gears turning behind his eyes.
“They chose you, didn’t they,” he finally said after a moment. “Becoming the host to this…being, that’s the future that you’ve been so afraid of.”
“They didn’t just choose me,” you said, your heart pounding in your chest, “they saw it happen. Irene Adler — she's the Inner Circle’s seer, she sees the future — she saw a vision of me, in the future, becoming the Phoenix.” You took a shaky breath. “Hurting a lot of people. Leaving destruction in my wake.”
Bucky held your hand in both of his as the tears started pouring from your eyes.
“Do you understand now how dangerous this information is?” you asked him, your tone desperate. “That’s why the Hand kidnapped me. They heard a rumour that I was going to be the next Phoenix…or, or maybe they thought I was the Phoenix then I don’t know — but they wanted to be sure. They wanted me to admit what I was. I wouldn’t. You know the rest. The kind of power the Phoenix represents…people will do anything for it. If an organization like that knew you had information about the Phoenix, they would torture you for it, the way they tortured me. It’s why I couldn’t tell you — why I couldn’t tell anyone. Also…” You found yourself avoiding his eyes. “I didn’t…I didn’t want you to look at me differently.” You heard Bucky’s mouth open to speak but you continued. “This thing…it could be as old as the universe itself. It eats suns. It’s a being of creation and destruction, life and death, and…and the idea of that…of being that, of becoming that… .”
You finally looked at him, diving into his blue, your own colour staring back.
“It terrifies me,” you confessed, “and I can’t even imagine what it would be like…to be on the outside, to look into someone’s eyes and know that one day…that will be staring back at you.”
Bucky’s shoulders shrugged and his head shook side to side, his eyes never leaving yours. “All I see is you.”
Your mouth parted, your heart that was tied into knots in your chest unraveling all at once. Your bottom lip trembled and everything that you had stitched together crumbled, tears filling your eyes and a sob escaping your mouth.
From across the table, Bucky cupped your face with his hand and used his thumb to brush away tears, letting you have your moment of broken relief. When your shaking sobs began to subside, he whispered, “I promise you, we’re going to figure this out, okay? I’m not going to let you become…this thing, this…Phoenix. I won’t let that happen. We’re going to find a way around it. We’re going to find out how it happens, what triggers it, and we’re going to find a way to stop it. Together.”
You bit your bottom lip. In one motion, you pushed your chair away from the table and stood, pulling away from him. You didn’t feel like you could be sitting for this conversation. “There’s something else — something else I’ve been keeping from you.”
Bucky’s head tilted to the side, and he was sure there was a question showing in his eyes. A couple of minutes ago, he had woken to find an empty bed, which was terrifying in it of itself — but walking out of the bedroom to find Y/N at the door, packed bag in hand… .He swore his heart had stopped. Listening to her finally tell him the truth about everything… .Admittedly, he didn’t completely understand it, but he understood (on an extremely intimate level) what it was to be made into a weapon. And from what he was getting from her, she was less like the ‘Fist of the Hellfire Club’ and more like a nuclear bomb. He understood now why she had been so afraid, why she had had such extreme reactions to talking about her tattoo, what she meant when she had said her tattoo was a death sentence, just not her death sentence. And all of this scared the hell out of him, because the idea of her becoming a weapon, of doing things against her will because a secret organization wanted control of the world — He wasn’t going to let what happened to him happen to her.
And he could understand her decision to leave. He didn’t like it — in fact, he fucking hated it — but he understood it. Because as much as a part of him was angry with her for even considering trying to do this on her own, he knew that he would probably make similar choices if Y/N’s safety was on the line.
But she didn’t leave — she stayed and told him the truth. But now there was something else, another thing she had been keeping from him.
But what the hell else was there to tell?
You took a deep breath with your arms crossed over your body, as if you could protect yourself from the truth.
“You remember what I told you today, that Matt and I started sleeping together because there was a day that I had a difficult conversation with my mom.”
Bucky nodded, and you could see that he was trying to figure out where you were going with this — and the mention of your mother did not help the concern that was deepening in his expression.
You briefly looked up at the ceiling, trying to collect enough of yourself to begin telling him your story. “So…a few months ago, my mother came to visit me. It had been…nine months, I think, since I got back to New York, and apparently she thought that was enough ‘space’ to give me, and now she was ‘checking in’. I know my mother. She never just ‘checks in’; she always wants something. Always.” You paused to lick your lips. You started speaking quickly. “She asked me if I was running from you, which was a weird question since I knew she knew that I cared about you and you weren’t just some Hydra assassin anymore so I asked her why she would ask me that and she got, y’know, defensive like she does, which for her means she’s definitely hiding something, so I asked her about that and suddenly she’s bringing up my future as the Phoenix which is never a good sign when we’re talking about something completely different—”
“Y/N,” Bucky said softly. “Slow down. What are you talking about?”
You took a breath, then readjusted your speaking pattern to a normal pace. “My mom started telling me a story — about how a couple years ago Irene had another vision about me. About me becoming the Phoenix. A vision that involved you.”
Bucky’s eyes narrowed. You continued.
“She found out who you were, found out how you survived falling off that train in nineteen-forty-five, found out about you being an assassin for Hydra.” You swallowed, your gaze lingering on the floor. “She told me she needed to find a way to bring us together; nothing was more important to her than that, than making sure my future came true.”
Bucky breathed through his nose, considering what you were saying. “Well…she got her wish, just not the way I’m sure she expected,” he commented.
You gave him a look, then — a sad, pained look. Your lips pulled together in a tight line.
Bucky’s eyes narrowed, then began to widen. “No,” he said, his voice full of disbelief. “She didn’t—?”
“Nothing is more important to my mother than ensuring my future,” you said slowly. “Not even my safety.”
Bucky stood, running a hand through his hair. His face was twisted into an expression of anger, his hands shaking. “Hydra could have killed you, and your mother was willing to take that chance? How could she do that, you’re her daughter.”
“My mother trusted in Irene’s visions,” you said, “she was convinced that they would come true, no matter what. Any pain I experienced, to her, was…” you swallowed harshly, “…a means to an end.”
He shook his head, disbelief and confusion still evident on his face. “…I still don’t understand what any of this has to do with me.”
You bit your lip and looked up at him, matching his gaze with your own. You forced yourself not to look away, to tell him the truth in the way he deserved to be told.
After all, isn’t that what you’re supposed to do when you tell someone they’re going to die?
“She never really…explicitly said the words, but she was alluding to the idea that you play an integral part in me becoming the Phoenix.” You slipped your hand around his, watching his eyebrows pull together. “Bucky, you know me. You know that intense emotions like pain, or…grief can trigger…an episode for me.” You took a breath. “The Inner Circle didn’t just choose me because of Irene’s vision, I…I was always the strongest out of the group, and… .With the level of power I have, a strong outburst, more than I’ve ever had in the past…would be enough to attract something like the Phoenix to me. That’s always been the theory — in Irene’s vision of me becoming the Phoenix, I was devastated. I just didn’t understand why…until a few months ago, when my mother finally told me the truth.”
Bucky’s eyes were narrowed, but you could tell he still wasn’t putting it together.
“My mother said,” you continued, “that my love, for you, would transform me — that my grief,” you drew out the word and it caught in your throat, “would make me.”
You paused, searching his eyes, watching the gears turn behind them. His body was tensed. You could feel more tears threatening to fall, but you kept it together, for him.
You took a shaky breath. “Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”
Bucky blinked at you, his mouth parted. He was quiet for a moment. Then,
“You love me?”
Your heart burst into butterflies. Your own mouth fell open and you blinked back at him in surprise, stopping your tears for at least a moment. You let go of his hand. Took a step back. “I… .” You stared at him in disbelief. “I just told you that a seer had a vision that you’re going to die sometime in the future, maybe soon, and—and that’s your takeaway?”
Bucky didn’t take his eyes off you; he seemed almost at a loss for words. “…Yeah.”
(Bucky had faced death a thousand and one times — he could do it again and didn’t doubt that he would do it again. But this? Facing the possibility that the woman he had this unexplainable, indescribable bond with was in love with him…what the hell could be more important than that?)
You almost felt…angry at him. This was his life and he was focusing more on how you felt about him than the very real possibility that he might die?
Remember everything, not just the Death Fortune.
Trust in your partner. Trust in your relationship.
You folded your arms around your middle and turned away from Bucky, walking a few paces in the opposite direction. “You know…ever since my mother told me the truth, I have been trying to keep my distance from you.” You half-turned back, so he could see your profile. “It was going to be my fault. If anything happened to you, if you died…I thought that would be on me. Because you were involved, because I brought you into this, because…” You finally met his eyes. “Because you know me.” You looked away again. “So I tried. Everything. I stayed away. I did my best not to think about you: where you were, what you were doing, if you were alright. I didn’t know how you die; the only variable I had was me. I thought if I could take myself out of the equation…I could keep you safe. But—”
A memory. The sound of rain filling your ears; a feeling, a familiar feeling all around you. Looking across an alleyway and seeing him standing there, looking back at you.
You blinked and reality replaced the memory, of Bucky still standing across from you. Not rain but silence filled your ears, with only the sound of your breath, yours and his, breaking it.
“—then I saw you,” you continued, taking a step closer, keeping your eyes on him, “in that alleyway in the rain. And suddenly it was like…”
You forgot everything you had been through. You forgot the things your mother had told you. You forgot about the danger and the deadly future that had been set out for you, for him.
Everything of the past year disappeared — none of it mattered anymore.
“…like I couldn’t remember all the reasons I stayed away.” You shook your head as you looked at him, your eyes beginning to fill with tears once again. You could tell Bucky was restraining himself, standing very still, giving you your space but waiting in anticipation of your next words. “And I didn’t know what to do. Because the thought of losing you… .I thought I could pretend, thought I could…bury it away somewhere, but…but even though it hurts,” your voice broke on the word, on the rawness of emotion and truth laid bare before him, “I love you so damn much that I—”
Bucky finally let go of his self-restraint and closed the gap between you, his lips colliding onto yours. You closed your eyes and tied your arms around his neck; you let him press his body against yours, walking you backwards until you were trapped between him and the door.
The idea of taking things slow with him in a telepathic sense completely went out the window: as he physically crashed into you — with his metal hand cupping your cheek and his flesh hand on your waist — so did your mind crash into his, shattering his wall and wrapping around him in a desperate more more more more.
Closer, you needed to be closer — and the two of you seemed to work in tandem as Bucky lifted you and you wrapped your legs around his waist. You tangled your fingers into his hair and he was kissing you like he was starving and he tasted better than you ever imagined — and the once-void in your mind was rough and greedy and wanted as much of him as your physical self did and — and it was — so much — all at once—
“Is this—” you breathed for the first time, separating your lips from his, “—too much?”
“God, no.” And Bucky’s mouth was back on yours and he was sliding his tongue on your bottom lip and then you were tasting more of him and his hands were a rough grip on your hips and your lungs were screaming for breath—
—but why would you need to breathe when you could kiss him instead, feel his stubble on your face, feel his hard body between your thighs and pressed against you, feel his hands squeezing you and his tongue in your mouth—
Bucky pulled back and you breathed again.
Worry had flushed out the initial eagerness and intensity, and Bucky could finally think again. All he knew was suddenly she was telling him she loved him and then he had wanted all of her, all at once, not thinking — but he needed to stop, slow down, because his hands were not made to be gentle. He was not made to be gentle.
“Am I hurting you?” he asked as he panted. He wanted to do this…right, wanted to love her in the way that she deserved to be loved, wanted to love her as the person she made him feel like he could be.
Y/N cupped his jaw and stroked his cheek with her thumb. “Never,” she whispered, and some of the tension in his shoulders relaxed. (Some of the tension in his heart dissipated.) And when his eyes flicked back to her mouth she pressed a gentle kiss to his lips, softer than the desperate hunger of before.
Bucky followed Y/N’s lead and slowly moved his mouth against hers, noses bumping a few times until they found a steady rhythm.
Honestly, kissing Bucky at a relaxed, easy pace with your legs around his waist and your back against the door was not how you imagined your night going — but, God, you weren’t complaining.
His lips kissed down your jaw to your neck and you let out a sigh. You tangled your fingers back into his hair and he hummed in response, sending vibrations running through your body. Bucky returned his mouth to yours and his hands gently gripped your bottom, keeping you supported as he moved you away from the door.
He walked across the room and into the bedroom, then set you down on the bed. You detached yourself from him and watched as he straightened and pulled his shirt over his head.
He seemed nervous, now, as he stood bare before you with his scars and metal arm completely on display. You stood and slipped your own shirt off; you unclipped your bra and removed it so you could be as bare as he was. Then you reached out and traced the angry lines on his shoulder with your hand.
As you did, Bucky reached out and toyed with the metal star necklace that was hanging around your neck.
“You kept this?” he whispered, surprise in his tone.
A shy smile made its way onto your lips. “Of course I did,” you replied. “You made it.”
While Bucky’s attention was on the necklace, you returned to what you had started, leaning forward and pressing soft kisses to his shoulder, to his scars. You caressed his metal arm, then brought the palm of his hand to your mouth, pressing a kiss there as well.
There was a poetic sort of irony in the way she regarded the metal arm attached to Bucky’s shoulder — it wasn’t the arm that Hydra had given him, but it still stood as a representation for all the bad that he had committed, all of the violence and pain that he had inflicted and that had been inflicted on him. She was kissing a dangerous weapon and doing so without fear or trepidation.
Whether Bucky was referring to his arm or to himself, he wasn’t sure anymore.
“You’re beautiful,” she whispered softly, and Bucky’s heart stuttered in his chest.
He gave her an amused smile. “That’s my line.”
She smiled back at him and Bucky kissed her again, unable to help himself. His hands roamed her bare back, then he pulled away and grasped her wrist.
He pressed his lips to her pinky, to the orange ink inscribed there. He moved his mouth down her hand and wrist and then up her arm, pressing a hundred kissing over her tattoo. His hand made circles on her back as he kissed the ink on her shoulder. Then he did the same with her other side. He wanted her to feel the way she made him feel — like she wasn’t just a weapon made to destroy.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmured, and you laughed softly.
“Hey. That’s my line.”
For a moment you just stared at each other, breathing audible in the quiet of the room. Eyes not leaving his, you slowly sunk down onto the bed and undid your jeans, slipping them off your legs.
Captivated, Bucky watched you. He swallowed, then undid his own jeans and pulled them off. You inched backwards on the bed, resting your weight on your forearms; you waited until Bucky had eased his way across the bed and was on top of you before laying down completely.
He shifted his weight to lay beside you, resting his left hand on your waist as he kissed you, slow and deep. Gently, you took his metal hand and pressed it to your breast. You gasped slightly at the feeling, which Bucky used as an opportunity to deepen the kiss with his tongue. He kneaded your breast, his other hand slipping under your body and his arm wrapping around your back to bring you closer. You whimpered as his thumb made circles around your nipple; your leg hooked around his waist and you pressed into him, craving the friction.
Bucky let out a groan; he felt solid and hard against you. He pulled away from you then, letting the both of you breathe, and you rested your hand on his chest. His heart pounded underneath your fingers.
“Are you nervous?” you asked in a gentle tone, and he licked his lips.
“Yeah,” he breathed. “A little.”
You nodded. Your own heart was hammering against your ribcage. “Me, too.”
It hadn’t exactly been a long time since you’d had sex with someone. But being this intimate with someone? Being with someone you loved and who loved you…letting them see your entire body and your entire mind…well that was something you hadn’t had… .
Ever. You’d never been in love before. The closest you came to that was probably Alex — she was your first serious relationship: she knew all your secrets and could connect with you on a telepathic level, not to mention the two of you grew up together and had shared experiences that way. But there was always a part of you that held back, that kept to yourself…the part of you that was afraid of the Hellfire Club and the Inner Circle’s plans for you.
You weren’t holding back with Bucky. You had told him your truth — all of it, this time. And the idea of that…of letting him see all of you, experience all of you… .Yes, it did make you nervous.
But you also trusted him, more than anyone else.
You rolled your hips against his and his breath hitched.
“Is this okay?” you asked.
All he could do was nod as you continued, building up a rhythm. Despite the two of you still wearing underwear, it felt good — increasing an intense feeling in your core.
I need you. The voice inside your head was not your own.
I want you. This time you couldn’t tell if it was you speaking or him.
Verbal words were becoming very, very difficult. “I…I have to…I have to go get a… .”
Bucky nodded and reluctantly let you go. You got off of the bed and disappeared into the bathroom for a moment; you came back with a condom and without your panties.
Bucky inhaled sharply when Y/N came out of the bathroom and began slowly padding over to him. He watched her, stifling an expletive by exhaling, and took the condom from her when she handed it to him.
Bucky slid off his own underwear and rolled the latex on; when he was done, Y/N climbed on top of him.
She kissed him for a while more, his hands squeezing her hips and stroking her thighs. All he wanted to do was touch her — feel her soft skin under his rough hand and metal one, and taste the sweet flavour of her chapstick off of her lips.
He wanted to take his time, wanted her to feel comfortable and safe with him. He wanted her to feel good.
“Are you ready?” he finally asked as his mouth pulled away from yours. You nodded and braced your hands on his shoulders. Then you finally sunk down on him.
It was slow, stretching and filling you bit by bit, inch by inch. With one hand, you dug your nails into his shoulder; with your other, you threaded your fingers into his hair.
When he was fully inside you, you began moving in tandem with him, rolling your hips to move up and down him. Bucky wrapped his arms around your back to bring you closer, then kissed your neck, gently sucking until you were whining his name.
When you got into a comfortable rhythm, you looked at him, diving into the blue of his eyes, feeling closer to him than you ever had before, than you ever thought was possible.
Your mind was tangled around his the same way you were tangled up in him — inside Bucky’s head the same way he was inside you.
And all the heartbreak and pain and fear that you had felt the past few hours, the past eleven months, disappeared — and you were filled with love and warmth and him in its place.
Pressure built at the apex of your thighs joined with his, building and building and building — you murmured his name again, pleading, coming undone, and he murmured yours in the same ruined way—
You cried out as the pressure overcame and overwhelmed you and Bucky came undone with you, matching your noises, his hips stuttering. Your core pulsated around him, waves of pleasure crashing and breaking as the two of you came down from your high.
You both panted, sharing breath, and Bucky kissed you a final time while you were still on top of him, while he was still within you.
“I love you, too,” Bucky whispered when he pulled away, because he realized he hadn’t said it out loud yet — although he was sure his mind had been speaking volumes. “I am so in love with you, Y/N.”
He could feel Y/N’s heart bursting into butterflies and she giggled, happiness (both hers and his) swirling inside her and demanding to be vocalized. She was so good and wonderful, and he was so damn lucky to have her.
The feeling was so intense that your eyes filled with tears, but you couldn’t stop smiling as you kissed him.
For two years Bucky had been by your side, promising to help you even when he didn’t know you, even when his only interest was getting his memories back. Slowly, the two of you had formed a mutual partnership, then a friendship, then a bond you could not describe at the time — but knew it was something that could only be shared between people who understood the other’s trauma and experiences, who could feel the other’s pain as well as they could feel their own. Bucky was more similar a person to you than you had ever met; you saw yourself in him and he saw himself in you. You both saw the good things inside each other and encouraged the other to be better, not just for the other person but for yourselves.
And now you were here, almost three years since you felt the telepathic twinge of a man waiting for you in your apartment. And now you loved that man.
You loved Bucky Barnes, and he loved you. And nothing else mattered.
You are stronger together than you are alone.
Notes:
A/N: Thirty-five chapters and we’re finally here. What a hell of a slow-burn, huh? I went over this chapter a lot of times, adding and making changes, trying to make it perfect. To be honest, I was really nervous about this chapter, because I feel like the perfectionist in me thinks it could still be better. Plus, I don’t have a lot of experience writing smut, so I hope this was okay.
This chapter took a lot out of me, and there were a lot of revisions, so please leave me some feedback <3 <3
Chapter 36: Part 3 - Chapter Thirty-Six: Intimacy
Summary:
Late night talks with Bucky. And kissing. Lots of kissing.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The two of you had taken turns cleaning yourselves up and returned back to bed, still bare but under the warmth of the covers this time. Not that you really needed it — the lingering pleasure, the feeling in your heart, and Bucky laying beside you were all things that were keeping you warm enough.
Bucky had his head propped up on his hand, his elbow sitting on the pillow. His other hand, the metal one, drew circles on your hip. He was watching you, his blue eyes looking into yours, flicking down to your lips, and your body, and back up to your eyes again.
“What are you thinking about?” you asked tentatively, breaking the silence of the room. Your hand that was resting on his chest trailed up his neck and cupped his jaw, feeling his stubble under your skin.
He gave you a shy smile, just the corner of one side of his mouth pulling upwards. “I’m thinking I’m really hoping I’m not dreaming right now.”
You gave him a soft smile in return, and Bucky leaned down to kiss you. You hooked your arm around his neck and the hand on your hip slid across your back to press you against him.
You kissed him slowly, languidly, and felt that there was no better feeling in the world than time ceasing to move as the two of you took the time to explore each other.
When you finally pulled your mouth from his, you purposely bumped your nose against his before resting your head back down on your pillow.
“I did have a dream like this once,” you found yourself confessing. Bucky’s head tilted slightly, intrigued. But as soon as the words were out of your mouth, your face and body heated, and your expression became sort of nervous.
You didn’t think you would ever tell him the truth about it, but with Bucky’s mention of dreaming and the bare situation you found yourself in now…it was on your mind.
“Well, not…exactly like this,” you continued. You tucked your head down shyly into his chest for a moment, then looked back up at him. “Back when we were living together… .” you took a breath, and exhaled, “You remember when I saw that memory of yours, of you…with that girl, in a…compromising position together?”
His eyebrows pulled together in thought, then an amused smile crossed his face and he nodded. “Yeah, I remember.”
“Well, that night I…sort of had a dream about you. And me. In a compromising position,” you finished, hoping he understood what you were implying.
Bucky’s eyes, noticeably darker now, blinked at you. He cleared his throat, and suddenly his expression seemed as nervous as yours was. “…I had a dream like that about you, too, that night.”
Your whole body heated up a couple of degrees. “You did?”
Bucky’s metal hand brushed his knuckles down your side and skimmed the top of your thigh, leaving a thousand shivers in its wake. “Yeah. I did.”
You sucked in a breath and licked your lips, your eyes on his mouth. You raked your nails over his scalp, then fisted your hand into his hair. “You wanna tell me about it?” you breathed out, and Bucky bit his bottom lip.
“After you saw that memory of me…in my dream we were having a conversation, about sex,” he began, voice low. “About missing sex.” His face was very close to yours. “You made a very…very good suggestion… .”
Your eyes flicked back up to his and you pulled back an inch. “Did I suggest that we start regularly having sex to take the edge off?”
Bucky’s eyebrows knitted together. “Yeah, how did you…?”
Face burning, you covered it up with your hands and turned so you were lying on your back. Bucky’s hand was now resting on your stomach, the cool metal stroking your skin in a soothing motion.
“We had the same dream,” you exclaimed in a groan. Honestly, the situation was half hilarious, half mortifying.
“We had the same dream, as in…we were sharing the dream?”
“Telepathically, yeah,” you said, your face still covered by your hands. “Oh, my God.”
“If you’re worried you sucked me into that situation, you should know that every decision I made in that dream was one-hundred-percent mine.”
When you finally looked at him, he was giving you an amused smile, his eyes still dark. You huffed and rested your hand on his where it was on your stomach.
“It’s just…it was embarrassing enough that I had a dream like that, about you, but to think that you were…actively involved… .” You breathed through your nose, pressing your lips together. You gave him a small smile, and reached out to tuck his hair behind his ear. “It doesn’t matter anymore now, but back then— You were much too important to me to do something as reckless as suggesting we start having no-strings-attached sex.”
Bucky nodded, slowly. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”
You drew a finger down the side of his face and his jawline, then brushed your thumb over his lips. “You know, that dream really wasn’t ‘all that’.”
Bucky’s eyebrows rose. “No?”
You smiled at him. “In the dream I never got to kiss you. I didn’t know what I was missing.”
He smiled back at you, breathing through his nose, and you pressed your mouth to his again. He cupped your face with his metal hand and you drew patterns on his chest with your own.
I could kiss you for the rest of my life, Bucky’s voice whispered to your mind as his tongue slid across your bottom lip and into your mouth; his hand moved down your body and squeezed your hip.
Please consider doing so, you whispered back, your body leaning into his touch.
His mouth pulled from yours and kissed your jaw, then your neck, sucking gently. Does this count?
Your eyes rolled into the back of your head and your fingers tangled into his hair. Yes, your telepathic voice sighed. Yes.
Feels good having your voice inside my head again, Bucky confessed on the way back to your lips. You stopped him from getting there, taking a moment to look at him.
You carded your fingers gently through his hair. You have no idea.
Bucky ran the back of a metal finger down the side of Y/N’s face, then laced his hand with hers. “What was that like for you?” he asked quietly. “As a telepath? To have someone in your head for two years, and then…not at all.”
Her eyes trailed down to where their hands were joined. Her voice was small when she spoke. “It was really hard.”
Bucky let go of her hand and instead wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into his chest. She tucked her face into his shoulder where it met his neck, and Bucky stroked her back softly with his thumbs. He pressed a kiss to the side of her head and murmured to her under his breath, things like, “I’m here, I’m here” and “I’m not going anywhere”.
After a few moments, Y/N leaned her head back onto her pillow and she just looked at him, her eyes studying his face. Her hand cupped his cheek, her thumb stroking his skin.
“You want to know what I’m thinking?” she asked, breaking the silence.
He smiled at her, nodding. Always.
She moved her hand down to trace patterns on his chest, and he ran his knuckles down her side and back up again. I’m thinking about the first time I knew I loved you.
His hand stilled. Transfixed, Bucky watched her, hanging on to every word.
You propped your head on your elbow so you could look at him better. “I spent so long denying that I felt anything for you,” you began, “even before my mom told me the truth about…all that. Because…admitting that I felt anything, admitting that I loved you, when I didn’t even know if I was ever going to see you again…hurt too much. I missed you enough when you were just my best friend. But being in love with you?” You closed your eyes and pressed your forehead to his for a moment. I didn’t know how to handle that.
Bucky’s mouth brushed your cheek briefly, and you pulled away again.
“But then…in nineteen-forty-five, when I saw you… .You may not have been the man I know now, but it was you. And you may not have known me, but you were so kind to me — a perfect stranger — and you were so good. And I missed you so much.” Bucky was quiet as you paused, waiting patiently for you to continue, his eyes searching yours. “Just being with you again…it was overwhelming. But in those moments I was letting myself feel something that I had been trying to push away.” You paused, giving him a brief smile. “But that wasn’t when I realized that I was in love with you.”
Bucky’s eyebrows raised, but he let you continue.
“It was when I remembered what you said, in the memory,” you went on. “After I left nineteen-forty-five, when you went to talk with Steve.”
Bucky avoided your eyes, turning shy; his face seemed to warm under your touch as you cupped his cheek with your hand. “You mean when I impulsively claimed that I was gonna marry you?”
You shook your head. “You weren’t being impulsive. You said that because of me.”
His eyebrows knitted together in confusion, and you stroked his cheek with your thumb.
“I didn’t realize I was doing it at the time, but…somewhere, subconsciously, I was reaching out for our telepathic bond that wasn’t there yet,” you explained. “I was projecting. The reason you chose me out of a crowded room, the reason you had such strong feelings toward me… .It’s not to say that none of those feelings were your own, but… .You were feeling what I was feeling. You were drawn to me…because I was a telepath who loved you.” You smiled at him, then. “The memory…of you telling Steve about me, about wanting to marry me… .You were living proof that I could not ignore. Proof being that what you felt about me…was what I felt about you.”
“You loved me,” Bucky whispered.
“I loved you,” you repeated back to him. “I love you. Not that I was ready to accept that at the time. But you should know that Matt was always very adamant in trying to convince me that I was lying to myself and to just accept the fact that I was in love with you. He was never, ever going to let that go. Guess he was right.”
Bucky grinned. “Liking that Matt Murdock more and more.”
Realization hit you then, and you groaned. “Oh, God, he’s never going to let me live this one down.”
Bucky chuckled. “Well, I’m glad he was right,” he said, and kissed you as you giggled.
When he finally pulled away, you studied the blue of his eyes, brushing your thumb over the stubble on his cheek.
“I think…I think that’s why a part of me was always so drawn to you,” you murmured, and Bucky tilted his head to the side in question. “Even when you were…the Winter Soldier…there was something about you. A feeling, maybe. And I wonder if…subconsciously, I felt a part of me within you. A memory, long erased and forgotten — but still there, somewhere. A version of me…that knew you, cared about you. Loved you.”
Bucky ducked his head down, blinking in disbelief. “That’s…I don’t know. All this time travel stuff makes my head hurt.”
You laughed softly. “Maybe it’s fate.”
He shook his head. “I don’t believe in fate. But I believe in you. You gave me a chance — you offered to help me get my memories back. Me, the man who had kidnapped and taken you to Hydra.”
“I saw what they did to you,” you said in a small voice. “I could see you were as much a victim as I was. As soon as I saw you again, I had to… .” You paused, eyebrows knitting together as you realized why you saw him again. “…I made my way to the museum without knowing where I was going, or why. I made my way to you. Some part of me lead me to you. Maybe I didn’t know what I was doing…but my subconscious did. And once I was there, I couldn’t just let you go without helping you.”
“You’re so good,” Bucky whispered. Your cheeks grew warm and you looked away for a second, then back up at him.
He studied your eyes for a long moment.
“You want to know the first time I knew I loved you?” Bucky asked, and you gave him a playfully confused expression in response.
“You love me?”
Bucky made a noise not unlike a growl in the back of his throat and nipped your ear; you gave a small shriek at the ticklish feeling and Bucky swallowed your giggles as he kissed you again.
You gently pushed his shoulder to get him to lean back, and shifted so you were more on top of him. You kissed his jawline and neck and chest, then pressed a last kiss to his mouth before meeting his eyes again.
“Tell me about the first time you knew you loved me,” you whispered, studying the blue of his eyes with fascination and tracing his jawline with your fingers.
With his metal hand resting on her hip, Bucky made circles and patterns with his flesh hand on Y/N’s back, relishing the feel of her body under his hands. “Do you remember when you bought that record player and old music…and we danced together for the first time… .”
She smiled at the memory. “Yes. It was Valentine’s Day, I think. You got me flowers.”
Bucky nodded. “That’s when,” he said, his voice small.
Y/N’s head tilted to the side. “That’s when what?”
He swallowed. “When we danced. That’s the first time I realized I was in love with you.”
Her eyelids shuttered; her mouth parted and she inhaled. Exhaled. Through their bond, he could feel metaphorical butterflies fluttering in her chest, and an indescribable, overwhelming feeling flushing through her.
“That…That was three months before we were separated,” she said, in as small of a voice as his was a moment before. He nodded. “You’ve…You’ve been in love with me for that long?”
He took his own shaky breath and nodded again. He didn’t know what he was nervous for — the woman he loved was lying naked, on top of him, and she had just told him a story about the first time she knew she loved him — and yet he still felt like any moment now the rug was going to be pulled out from under him.
(It happened once before. And he lost her for almost a year.)
Y/N ran her hand through his hair; her eyes flicked down to his lips before moving back to meet his gaze again. “Why didn’t you say anything?” she whispered.
Bucky wondered if she could hear his heart pounding. “Because it scared the hell outta me. And… .It’s like you said before. You were too important to me to risk doing anything that might ruin our relationship. I didn’t want to put you in that situation when we were already stuck together hiding from Hydra — when there was no option for you to leave. If you didn’t feel the same way…it would put you in a difficult place.”
She sighed through her nose. “I guess I can understand that.” She began tracing patterns with her nails on his chest. “Just thinking we could have been doing this for three months already.” She stared at his lips. “All the sex we could have had by now… .”
Bucky rolled his eyes and she pressed her mouth to his. Smiling through the kiss, he rolled the two of them over and pinned her under him. Y/N pulled her mouth away to press her lips to his cheek, then ran the tip of her tongue over the shell of his ear. Shivers spiked through him and she took his lobe into her mouth, sucking gently and intensifying the feeling.
He groaned in response and she leaned back to rest her head on the pillow again, giving him a mischievous grin.
God, he loved her.
“I did try to kiss you, once,” Bucky remembered then, as he was laying on top of her and between her thighs.
You blinked, thinking, then nodded with a softer smile. “That’s right. After I showed you my tattoo. Mrs. Mikalos interrupted us.”
“What do you think would have happened?” he asked. “If I had kissed you? What would you have done?”
You leaned back up and kissed him softly in response, pulling his head down with you as you rested onto the pillow once more, deepening what you started.
When Bucky finally pulled his mouth from yours, his eyebrows were knitted together. “Really?” he whispered. “But you weren’t in love with me then.”
“James Buchanan Barnes, you are a good and kind man; my best friend; my partner — not to mention very, very handsome.” You brushed some of his hair out of his eyes. “Trust me when I say I would have been very open to starting a relationship with you, even back then,” you reassured him. “Actually, I was going to talk to you about that almost-kiss the next morning. Before…everything happened. And I think maybe…if things had been different…we would have started something then.”
Bucky gave you a shy smile and you kissed him briefly.
“Also…” you began as you leaned back again, “if I’m being honest, I guess there was always a part of me that thought…that if we had to stay in Romania, to keep Hydra from finding us, that…it would be you and me, in the end. That we would start a real life. Maybe…maybe start a family, in the long run.”
Bucky’s eyebrows rose and he blinked a couple of times at you. “You thought about stuff like that?”
You tucked your head down, your eyes looking away. “Yeah. I mean, it wasn’t like I thought about it all the time. It was just something that was there, in the back of my mind. Planning for the long term.” You shyly found his blues again. “Does that freak you out?”
He shook his head. “No. That sounds…nice.”
(And it did. A lot of the time that they had lived together, Bucky had been worried that he was keeping Y/N from finding someone and starting a life of her own: a family with a partner and kids, if that’s what she wanted.
But she had thought of the long term, too. And her long term included him.)
“One other thing,” you murmured. “Back then, I kind of had a small crush on you.”
Bucky’s eyebrows raised. “Meaning?”
Your smile was less than innocent. “Meaning that you’re very nice to look at and it was sometimes difficult to think when you had your shirt off.”
His eyes flicked down to your lips. “Yeah?”
Your breathing was becoming more audible in the quiet room. “Yeah.”
Bucky inhaled through his nose, licking his lips. “There’re some memories from my old life I wanna… .” He cleared his throat. “There’s something I wanna try. With you.”
You took a breath yourself, your heart rate spiking in anticipation. “Okay. What is it you want to try?”
You cupped his cheek and his skin felt hot under your hand; he seemed nervous.
Unable to verbalize it, Bucky showed you what he wanted to do, sending you images through your bond to your mind.
Suddenly, your body felt as hot as his cheek did. Tension coiled in your core, right around the place where Bucky was lying between your thighs.
“From my experience, women seem to like it,” Bucky added when you said nothing.
You inhaled and nodded, trying not to let your eagerness show.
“Okay.”
Bucky paused a moment, studying you — then gave you a brief kiss on your mouth, then your jaw, then your neck, collarbone, moving lower.
His hands squeezed your upper thighs; you felt his tongue near your navel. Then he was kissing the inside of each of your thighs, his mouth moving down. Lower.
Your hands tangled into his hair and you let out a cry as his tongue licked a stripe over your core. You tugged at him, breathing laboured as he continued, and his name came off your tongue in a whimper.
His hands spread your thighs wider; you could feel his tongue inside you, then moving circles around your sensitive bundle of nerves, eliciting an array of different noises coming from your mouth as he worked.
The only thing you could focus on was the sound of his name from your mouth piercing the silent room, louder and louder, and the feeling of Bucky between your legs, building pleasure in your core.
There was something oddly erotic about letting a dangerous assassin put you in such a compromising position: mouth between your naked thighs, arms pinning you down as you writhed in ecstasy, metal hand palming your breast.
He could be gentle, and kind, and very, very generous — and you trusted Bucky Barnes with the entirety of your body, mind, and soul.
A test of faith — for both of you. You were putting your faith in the former Winter Soldier to handle your bare body; and Bucky was putting his faith in a telepath who could tear his mind to shreds with half a thought. Because as much as you tried to keep a handle on yourself, your telepathy loved to tug and pull on your bond with Bucky, especially when you were in the throes of it. The mental part of you wanted to touch and wrap around and be close to him as much as the physical part of you did — but the mental part of you could do much, much more damage. You had to be careful the same way Bucky had to be careful with how tightly he held you or kissed you…or performed any acts with you a bit more intense than that.
But your mind was pulling on his now, as you felt yourself teetering towards the edge, and you were letting him feel all the things that you were feeling.
Which is why you felt Bucky’s grip tightening on you as his mouth and tongue caused your core to pulsate — why he was unable to suppress groans of his own, noises that caused vibrations to run through your body.
Bucky dug his fingers into your skin and you tugged on his hair as you came, losing yourself in the feeling and in the warmth and wetness of Bucky’s mouth on you.
You were both breathing hard as he finally made his way back up your body, and the pleasure had you barely thinking but you managed—
Condoms. Bathroom. Bottom drawer on the left.
Making love a second time had exhausted the two of you. Not to mention it was now reaching the early hours of the morning.
Snuggled against Bucky with your head on his chest and his arm securely around you, you closed your heavy eyes and let unconsciousness take over.
And as you laid in the arms of the man you loved, you had never slept so peacefully. And neither had Bucky.
Notes:
A/N: Next chapter’s gonna be even more fluff. Titled “The One Where Everyone Finds Out” cause it’ll be fun to write everyone’s reaction to their relationship.
Then after that we’ll get back to our regularly scheduled angst.
Chapter 37: Part 3 - Chapter Thirty-Seven: We Will Never Be Here Again (Not in the Same Way)
Summary:
You enjoy your time with Bucky as you prepare for the March. Several people find out about the two of you.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Sunday - 6 Days Until the March
When Bucky woke the next morning, he experienced a headache so blinding that he stumbled getting up from bed and attempting to put on underwear.
His metal hand gripped Y/N’s nightstand when he teetered to the side, and the various objects littering the table clinkered, some even toppling over.
“Bucky?”
Fighting the pain in his temples, Bucky turned around to look at Y/N, tangled naked in sheets and blinking sleepily at him. The sight made him smile and forget the strange stabbing in his head for a moment.
“It’s early, go back to sleep,” he reassured her, and she nodded without putting up a fight, closing her eyes again.
Bucky took another generous look at Y/N’s sleeping form, then finished pulling on his underwear and headed out of her bedroom, closing the door behind him.
He was attempting to follow his regular routine of getting up early, exercising, going for a run, then chatting with Y/N when she woke up. This routine changed slightly when they were separated, but only because Steve, Nat, and Sam seemed to like getting up as early as he did. (And sometimes Bucky didn’t bother getting up that early, didn’t bother with the exercises or running with Steve — he was the only one who could keep pace with him, after all — because sometimes it was just easier to lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, trying not to think. But he quickly discovered that silence was worse; he needed to keep his body moving, keep his mind distracted, keep the void from swallowing him whole.)
(You knew exactly how that felt.)
But the strange headache pounding against his skull was unrelenting, so Bucky gave up and returned to the bedroom (and honestly, was not complaining).
Y/N was lying on top of the covers when he walked in and closed the door behind him, the pillow that he slept on wrapped tightly in her arms. Bucky padded over and sat on the bed, about to lie down next to her — when he noticed something.
There was a discolouration on the tops of her thighs — discolouration in oval shapes. Finger marks.
He gently ran his hand over the bruised flesh, grimacing to himself.
“Don’t do that.” Y/N was sitting up now, taking his hand in hers and removing it from her thigh. She used her other hand to brush her thumb over his cheek. “I know what you’re thinking. Don’t.”
“I hurt you,” he said in a very small, small voice. The one thing he thought he could never be capable of, the one thing he hoped he—
“Hey.” Y/N gripped his jaw in her hand, pulling him out of his thoughts. “So you left a couple bruises. Are you going to pretend you didn’t wake up this morning with a blinding headache?”
His eyebrows pulled together. So that’s what that was. He did admit, Y/N had been…less than gentle last night, her mind clawing at his the way her nails would rake over the skin of his back. Except her nails didn’t dig deep enough to make his vision go black when he tried to stand up this morning.
Bucky would have shook his head, but Y/N was still holding onto his jaw. “That’s not—”
“It is,” she said, finishing a sentence that he wasn’t even sure how was supposed to end. That’s not the same? That’s not your fault? However it was going to end, Y/N knew before he did. She loosened her grip on him and brushed her fingers over his face again. The anger in her expression had been zapped and was replaced with…guilt. Her face mirrored his own, now. “I should have been more careful.”
Bucky opened his mouth to speak, but she pressed her fingers to his lips before he could.
“We both just need to be more careful, in the future,” she continued. “You and I…the two of us can do things that make us…dangerous. And potentially dangerous toward the other person. We just need to…” she ran her hand through his hair, and suddenly the pain in his mind was relieved, as if she had gone in and soothed over the invisible wounds she had inflicted, “…work on it. Okay?”
Bucky would have argued more, would have looked at her bruises again and let the guilt eat him up inside — if it wasn’t for her expression. She seemed almost on the verge of tears now, the words she had given him to calm him down beginning to sound like they were more for her own benefit than his.
Bucky wrapped his arms around her waist and she buried her face into his shoulder, her hand tangling into his hair.
“I’m okay,” he murmured softly.
“I hurt you,” she said, sounding very much like he did only moments before.
He brushed his hands over the tops of her thighs. “We’ll work on it.”
And even though he wasn’t tired, he leaned back down on the bed and let Y/N lay on top of him. She closed her eyes and he inhaled the smell of her hair, her skin. He brushed his hand over her head and was glad to be awake, to enjoy a moment of peace with his arms around the woman he loved.
“Have you ever been in love?”
You were sitting with your legs crossed on the kitchen counter, watching Bucky make breakfast as you sat wrapped in his shirt and his shirt alone. The two of you had gone back and forth since you woke this morning, asking each other deep questions you wanted to know about the other. Finally, you came to this one.
Bucky hummed as he stirred the scrambled eggs he was making. “If you don’t know the answer to that question then maybe I wasn’t doing something right.” His flesh hand briefly skimmed the inside of your thigh and he leaned over to kiss your neck.
You giggled at the ticklish feeling of his lips and tongue on the sensitive part of your skin; his hand raised goosebumps where it trailed, and you rolled your eyes as he pulled back to return to cooking. “I mean besides me.”
Bucky’s grin became something more thoughtful. “I don’t think so. I went on a lot of dates, y’know, but nothing really serious. I guess I was more focused on having fun when I was younger. Guess I thought…all of that would come later. But then the war happened, and I got drafted and… .Well, you know the rest.”
You hummed, nodding.
“What about you?”
You shook your head, sipping your coffee. “No. I never loved anyone before I loved you.”
His eyebrows pulled together and he looked up from his cooking. “Really? Not even Alex?”
You shrugged. “I mean, I loved her because I grew up with her, because she was my best friend. And she was my first and only serious relationship, so I guess you could say I was ‘in love’ with her. But I wasn’t…I didn’t love her. We had a…complicated relationship. Well, you know.”
“Suddenly you saying she was too involved with the Hellfire Club for your taste makes a lot of sense,” Bucky commented. “I’m guessing she supported the whole ‘Phoenix’ thing?”
You nodded. “Yeah. But I mean…even if we didn’t argue about that, I don’t know if I ever would have gotten to that place with her. I never felt about her the way…well, the way I feel about you.”
He gave you a shy smile, and you smiled back at him.
“So,” he murmured, moving the eggs onto two plates, “what’s the plan for today? Are we meeting with Lydia again?”
Your smile disappeared. “Right. Lydia.”
Bucky’s eyebrows knitted together at your tone. “What is it?”
“Nothing, I just have to call her. Yesterday…I mentioned to her that if anything should happen to me she needed to take my place. Lydia’s not stupid, I’m sure she knew that something was up.”
“So leaving wasn’t just some split-second decision, then, huh?” Bucky said quietly. “You…made preparations. Made sure things were taken care of when you were gone.”
You swallowed and avoided his eyes. “Yeah.”
You squeezed your eyes shut. No, you weren’t going to do this. You weren’t going to shut down.
You took the plates from Bucky’s hands and set them down, then you wrapped your arms around his middle and rested your head under his chin. He hugged you back after a moment.
“I know I almost made a bad choice,” you whispered. “But you have to understand, I… .” You were having a difficult time finding the words. Instead you shared with him your emotions, how you were feeling, how you felt that night, how you felt when you first made the decision to leave.
You showed him the conversation with your mother. You let him feel your fear and your grief and your heartache.
You showed him the church, sitting in a pew with Matt. You let him feel your hopelessness, your devastation.
I was lost.
I was lost.
I was lost.
You made him understand.
And when you were done Bucky was holding you so tightly you could barely breathe.
Reliving all of that… .It took you a moment to come out of it, to realize that Bucky was saying something, repeating something over and over, to realize there were hiccuping sobs coming from your mouth.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” is what he was saying. “I shouldn’t have left you.”
When you pulled back to look at him, he was crying. You shook your head, more tears springing from your own eyes. “No, Bucky, no.”
“I shouldn’t have — I should have stayed with you.” His words were punctured with sobs of his own. “If I hadn’t left maybe we wouldn’t be here.”
You cupped his face and kissed him, desperate, needy, feverish. Tears still leaking from your eyes and from his, Bucky hoisted you up and you wrapped your legs around his waist.
He took you to the couch, and didn’t let you go.
Didn’t let you go.
Didn’t let you go.
Stayed.
Monday - 5 Days Until the March
“I just spent eleven months with Steve, he can do without me checking in for a few days,” Bucky said from where he laid in bed, gently grasping your wrist as you attempted to get dressed. “I have time to make up with you.”
You gave him a grin. “There are some logistics of the March we need to go over with them. Plus—” you leaned in close to his face, “we have to leave the apartment sometime; we’re running out of condoms.”
In a swift movement, Bucky grabbed your waist and pulled you onto him, eliciting a surprised squeak from your end. He kissed you and you lightly hit his chest.
We’re going. Get dressed, you told him, and got back up off the bed.
Tuesday - 4 Days Until the March
Matt was present at today’s meeting at the warehouse, as he was just as important as any of you to be there when the March started — mostly as backup, but the extra publicity of having Daredevil out and about in the middle of the day couldn’t hurt, either.
You hadn’t seen Matt in a few days, not since he went with you and Bucky to speak to Steve, Sam, and Nat the first time and tell them the plan.
Maybe you just wouldn’t tell him. Maybe you didn’t need to — you could just wait…until your wedding, maybe, or until you started having kids—
Your face flushed at the thought, at how far ahead you were suddenly starting to think about your life with Bucky. You had just confessed your feelings for him, it had only been a few days.
But hadn’t the both of you felt something more for much longer than that?
Regardless of future plans, you had been avoiding this particular conversation with Matt, given how long you had spent denying that you felt anything more than friendship toward Bucky.
It probably didn’t matter whether or not you verbalized it to him, anyway — When you had gone to talk logistics with Steve, Sam, and Nat yesterday they knew right away. Or, rather, the three of them had been convinced that you had already been together the first time you came around. When Bucky had taken your hand and announced to his friends that you were a couple, they only had a few things to say in response.
“I didn’t know it was a secret.” Natasha.
“Wait, like this just happened? Then I gotta say, no offense, but you guys are officially the last to know.” Sam.
Only Steve didn’t seem surprised. He knew Bucky best — perhaps he figured it wouldn’t be as easy for the two of you to get together after reuniting as Sam and Natasha seemed to think. “I’m happy for you, Buck. You, too, Y/N.”
So now you were standing in the warehouse, Matt across from you, watching him as the meeting went on and trying to decide if you wanted to bear the inevitable “I told you so” that would come with telling him. Soon, however, the thought slipped from your mind as you became preoccupied with the March that was to happen on Saturday, in just four days.
It wasn’t until the meeting had ended, when Matt approached you, that you remembered.
He said nothing, simply raising an eyebrow at you.
“What?” you asked stubbornly.
“You’re really gonna make me say it,” he continued, angling his head to the side in his way of acknowledging Bucky, who was currently speaking to Lydia across the room.
You said nothing, instead crossing your arms over your chest.
Matt sighed, although his smile remained. “Increased body temperature and heart rate…even more so than the last time I saw you two. And you smell like him. But I’m not going to start making assumptions. Okay,” he corrected himself when he saw your eyebrows raise, “I’m not going to start verbalizing assumptions. So…?”
After a moment, you uncrossed your arms and nodded.
Matt’s smile grew. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell you ‘I told you so’. I know…I know how difficult this has been for you. I get it…why you wanted to pretend like you didn’t love him. Like you didn’t feel anything for him. I think…I would’ve done the same. Have been doing the same,” he added in a smaller voice.
Elektra.
Matt reached out and took your hand, squeezing it. You squeezed back.
“He came back to you,” he murmured. “Do me a favour. Make the most of it.” You could hear the unspoken meaning behind his words. Because it could all be gone tomorrow.
You nodded. “I will.” You couldn’t help yourself, then, throwing your body forward and enveloping Matt in a hug.
His arms tightened around you, and an unspoken “Thank you” resonated in the silence.
Thank you for helping me.
Thank you for being there.
Thank you for being my hand to hold in the darkness, when there was no one else.
Thank you for being my friend.
And your eyes found Bucky’s over Matt’s shoulder, where he was standing across the room. “I promise I will.”
Wednesday - 3 Days Until the March
All the logistics of the March had been ironed out and decided, and you had planned on spending the next three days with Bucky and only with Bucky.
The universe, however, seemed to have other plans.
Luckily you were dressed when there was a knock on your door that morning or you might not have bothered to answer it. You normally wouldn’t have been, having opted to stay mostly undressed during your alone time with Bucky, but you had run out of pancake mix and were planning to go out to get some more for tomorrow.
You recognized the person behind the door telepathically before opening it.
“Alex,” you murmured when you were face-to-face.
Alex gave you a charming grin. “Hey. I was in the neighbourhood, thought I’d drop by.”
You gave her a suspicious look in return. “Why?”
She shrugged. “I hadn’t seen you in a while and I wanted to make sure everything was going okay with your group. The American government is not happy with you, you know.”
You smiled despite yourself. “Yeah, I know.”
She looked like she was going to say something else when her eyes caught on something over your shoulder and she stopped. You glanced back to see Bucky coming to stand at your side.
Alex blinked. “Holy shit. It’s you.” She breathed out. “You’re him.”
Bucky crossed his arms over his chest and Alex snorted, shaking her head.
“I didn’t mean Captain America’s best friend or Hydra’s assassin or whatever,” she said, as if she had read Bucky’s mind and knew what he was thinking (which is exactly what she did). “I don’t give a shit about that. I mean you’re him, as in the man Y/N was losing her goddamn mind worrying about.”
Bucky’s eyebrows rose and his arms fell back to his sides. He looked her up and down, as if he was sizing her up. “You’re Alex.”
It was Alex’s turn for raised eyebrows. “She told you about me?”
“Yes, I did,” you interjected, beginning to feel uncomfortable with being referred to as if you weren’t present.
“Everything?”
“Everything,” Bucky answered, and gave Alex a look as if he was daring her to contradict him.
“So you’re him,” she mused after a moment of silence.
Bucky nodded. His stillness was a mask of calm, but you could tell his patience was wearing thin. “You said that already.”
Alex’s eyes flicked to yours, all that intensity and affection that you remembered. You love him, she projected. It wasn’t a question.
“Yes,” you answered verbally, and Bucky glanced over to you, one eyebrow raised.
Does he know? she followed. The question had a double meaning. Does he know you love him? Does he know the truth?
You found Bucky’s eyes and smiled at him. Although confused, he smiled back. “Yes,” you answered, and looked back to Alex. “Yes,” you repeated with a more grim expression, indicating an answer to her other question.
“Good.” Her voice was quieter, softer. Her attention returned to Bucky. “I was there when she thought she lost you. I hope you know what you mean to her.”
Bucky’s eyes found yours again. He nodded. “I do.”
When it happens, you need to be there for her.
Alex’s voice spoke inside Bucky’s head. It felt different than Y/N’s telepathic touch — it was harsher and more foreign.
Bucky’s chin lifted as he spoke back. I’m not gonna let that happen.
Alex snorted and shook her head; Y/N was watching Bucky now, concerned, but he could feel that she wasn’t listening in. She trusted him to tell her about it later.
You can pretend all you want that you have some kind of say in this, Alex continued, I don’t care. But when— if, she amended, this happens, Y/N’s going to change. And I need to make sure that you’re going to be here, because she’s going to need. Help. To get through it.
Bucky held her stare. I’m not going anywhere.
Good, because she loves you. He could see her facade crack, then. Just for a moment — then her cool smile returned. If you hurt her, I’ll make you wish you were dead.
Bucky acknowledged her sentiment with a nod.
You observed the silent conversation between Bucky and Alex, itching to listen in but restraining yourself from doing so. Finally, Alex turned back to you.
Are you happy? she asked, her voice tentative in your mind.
You gave her a small, genuine smile and nodded.
“Okay.” There was a finality in her tone of voice. She gave you a parting smile and said, “I guess I’ll see you around?”
You nodded. “It was good to see you, Alex.”
Her smile grew. “See you around, babe,” she repeated, and gave Bucky a last glance before heading down the hall.
“Stars shining bright above you
Night breezes seem to whisper I love you
Birds singing in the sycamore tree
Dream a little dream of me”
You had surprised Bucky that night with a record player and the first song you ever danced to. (You had asked Matt to borrow the one Mrs. Clark had paid him and Foggy in exchange for legal advice and he was more than happy to oblige, with only minimal teasing.)
Now the two of you were swaying slowly in your kitchen, Bucky dipping you ever once in a while and causing you to giggle.
“~Stars fading but I linger on, dear,” you sung along as best as you could. “Still craving your kiss~” Bucky pressed his mouth to yours and you laughed, missing the next couple of words. “~till dawn, dear. Just saying this~”
“~Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you,” Bucky took up the next line, singing softly, quietly by your ear. His voice left goosebumps behind. “Sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you. But in your dreams whatever they be. Dream a little dream of me~”
And in that moment you had peace.
And in that moment you worried about nothing.
And in that moment, you were free.
Tomorrow would bring the beginning of the e͢n̴̕d҉̨.
But tonight, you were free.
Notes:
A/N: I want to thank everyone for being patient with me as it’s been a while since the last chapter and this one. I’m hoping to start updating more regularly again (especially because those pictures of Seb filming Falcon and the Winter Soldier has got me hype for Bucky SHORT HAIR WOO), but I still have school and a lot of projects that are due within the next few weeks. Hopefully when school ends (Dec 3 is my last class, Dec 6 is my last due assignment, and Dec 11 is my only exam so I’ll be officially done after that) things will be running more smoothly.
Next chapter we get back into storyline stuff. If this was a TV show, the next chapter would be Finale Part 1.
Chapter 38: Part 4 - Chapter Thirty-Eight: Tony Stark
Summary:
Peace doesn’t last forever, and the future can be a dangerous place.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
It was dark. You were in a forest. Things scurried behind the trees and in the bushes and across the ground around you, but you weren’t afraid. It was life — vegetation and tall, strong trees that seemed to grow forever into the sky; animals small and large, living to protect and provide for their families. And in the middle, the Shadow. And you, the light, the Fire that cast it into view.
(You were dreaming.)
The Shadow in front of you was shaped like a man. He seemed to embody the whole of the forest: the trees and the animals, the freshness of the air you breathed and the soft earth under the bareness of your feet. You were a woman made into Flame, bringing light and warmth into the dark and cold of the woods.
The closer you reached for the Shadow, the more your light illuminated him and pushed away the darkness that enclosed his body. You began to see the shapes of the man he was — the softness of his hair (like the earth beneath your feet), the blue of his eyes (like the sky lightening above)… .
It was Bucky.
He smiled at you, a lovely thing, and the more your Flame illuminated him, the more the dark forest became sun-dappled and bright.
His hand caressed your face. It felt cool against the heat of your cheek.
“Stay,” Bucky said, and his voice echoed — sounding right in front of you, but at the same time a thousand miles away. “Stay here, with me.”
Your eagerness caught in your throat. You wanted to say Yes, yes but the words didn’t come.
A twig snapped somewhere behind you. Your head twisted to follow the noise.
There was someone here.
They should not be here.
They should not be here.
This is a peaceful place.
(It was getting brighter. It was getting hotter.)
They should not be here. They will only bring bad things. Danger, destruction, death—
But when you turned back to warn Bucky, he was gone. And the forest was burning, flames of orange and red and blue licking the trees and vegetation and spreading and spreading and spreading. And there was ash on the ground and in the air and covering your hands.
L o o k w h a t y o u ‘ v e d o n e .
Your hands flew to your head, feeling the weight, the devastation, in your body and your bones. Look what you’ve done. Look what you’ve done. Look what you’ve done.
No.
No.
No.
“Something worse is coming.”
A woman’s voice. It sounded…familiar. You knew it, but couldn’t place it in the swimming haze of your dream.
“Worse than Thanos?”
A man’s voice. Not as familiar as the woman’s, but… .
“Let me show you.”
You squeezed your eyes shut, covered your ears. You didn’t want to see, didn’t want to hear any of it.
Stop.
Stop.
Stop.
Something grabbed your wrist, hard and unforgiving. It forced you to your feet, forced your ears to be uncovered. Your eyes opened to find a towering metal sentry, with eyes that glowed with unnatural light. A robot.
When it spoke, its voice was synthesized, emotionless. Unfeeling.
“Mutant detected.”
You were shaking when you woke with a shriek, your entire body trembling with fear. Bucky had his hands on you in a second, stroking your face and trying to calm you down.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he murmured, and you grasped onto his shirt. His normally soothing tone wasn’t working this time.
No, no, something’s wrong, you projected to him, your panic using your telepathy as a defensive mechanism.
Bucky winced (you must have pierced harder into his mind than you had meant to) and squeezed your hand. “You’re not in any danger. You were dreaming. You’re with me. You’re with me.”
Your breath came out in short, fast bursts, and you shook your head. You turned your attention through your open bedroom door to the front of your apartment.
There’s someone here.
Bucky’s eyebrows knitted together at your words. “What?”
A knock. At the front door.
Fear filled your eyes and streamed down your cheeks. Bucky’s demeanour changed palpably, standing from where he had been sitting on the bed (a soldier getting ready for a fight). He squeezed your shoulder, his eyes on the door.
“Stay here.”
You didn’t. Instead, you followed him out of your bedroom to the front of your apartment.
Bucky reached out his metal hand to twist the handle, slowly pulling the door open.
He was surprised to see who was standing on the other side.
You weren’t.
Tony Stark held up his hands in a gesture of surrender as soon as he met Bucky’s eyes. Bucky, jaw clenched down so hard he could break glass with his teeth, moved to shield you from the potential threat.
“I come in peace,” Tony said, laid-back, but you could feel him watching Bucky the same way Bucky was watching him: As if at any moment he was going to hurt someone.
Gently, you took the arm that Bucky was using to shield you and placed it back by his side, taking a step forward. “You shouldn’t be here,” you said in a steady voice, trying to keep your original panic at bay.
Tony took his aviators off of his face. “You say that as if you’ve been expecting me.”
Have you? Bucky asked you quietly in the back of your mind.
No, but… . You thought about your dream. Put it out of your mind for a moment. There’s something…not right about him.
What do you mean?
Instead of answering Bucky, your attention returned to the man at your door. “Who are you?” you asked.
His eyebrows rose. “You don’t know who I am?”
“You’re Tony Stark,” you said, “and yet somehow you’re not Tony Stark.” There was something off about him, something your telepathy had been picking up.
“Maybe I should come in so we can talk,” he suggested.
Neither you nor Bucky moved.
“Explain,” you said.
He sighed. “Alright, you got me.” He put his hands in his pockets. “The reason I’m Tony Stark and yet not Tony Stark, like you said, is because I’m Tony Stark from the future.”
You could feel Bucky’s confusion washing over you…and yet for some reason you weren’t surprised.
(There were things in his head. Memories you wouldn’t touch. Bad things. Bad things.
You didn’t want him here.
You didn’t want him to spoil the good things you had found with the terrible future he was from.
He shouldn’t be here.
He shouldn’t be here.)
You took a step backwards, surprising Bucky as you gestured for Tony to come inside.
You believe him? Bucky asked you.
He’s telling the truth, you replied.
As Tony looked around the apartment and you shut the door, Bucky took your hand in his, causing you to meet his eyes.
What is it? he asked. He knew something was wrong. He didn’t understand what, but he could feel the difference in your demeanour, feel the lack of surprise in you, replaced with an overwhelming feeling of fear.
Before you could try to answer, Tony broke the silence with, “How did you know something was off about me? Did you read my mind already?” The question was edged with a humorous tone, but there was something…hollow, about it.
You didn’t bother to ask how he knew about your telepathy. “Your consciousness doesn’t match your body,” you explained. “It’s the same thing you get when a telepath possesses someone — You can tell the consciousness isn’t quite…right. Like its origin doesn’t come from the body. Like it’s being projected from somewhere else.” You raised your eyebrows at him after you finished speaking, a question in your expression.
“There’s a girl named Kitty Pryde, she’s one of the X-Men,” Tony explained, taking his hands out of his pockets. “She can send people’s consciousness back in time to their body in the past.”
That’s a new one, you thought to yourself. You wondered for a moment if Professor Xavier was the one who had sent Tony to you. You wondered why. And you were afraid of the answer.
“Look, there’s no easy way to put this, so I’m just going to say it,” Tony continued as he leaned against the table in your kitchen. “About a year from now, an alien named Thanos is going to come to Earth, looking for Infinity Stones. I don’t really have time to explain what those are, but the Tesseract is one of them.” He gestured to Bucky when he said ‘Tesseract’, and Bucky nodded in recognition.
“Powerful. Dangerous. Got it.” Bucky was still tense, but you could tell he was making an effort to be cordial. (Meanwhile, you were thinking about how the name Thanos was ringing warning bells throughout your head; it had something to do with your dream—)
“Right, well, there’s six of them. And when Thanos gets all six—” Tony paused a moment. “He snaps his fingers,” he demonstrated with his own hand, “and wipes out half the population of the universe.”
There was a heavy silence.
You were having a hard time comprehending what he had just said.
Of all the bad things you considered when you thought about the future—
This was not one of them.
Slowly, you collapsed down into a chair, your legs losing the strength to stand. It was becoming hard to breathe again. Your telepathy was reaching out against your will, searching, searching Tony Stark’s mind, looking for the lie, hoping, wishing, needing for a lie… .
There was no lie. Only an unimaginable amount of pain, of suffering, that stole all the breath from your lungs—
A memory. Of a teenager— a child, disappearing into nothing in his arms… .
You couldn’t stop the tears that blurred your eyes and the nausea that churned in your stomach.
“Who?” Bucky asked, finally breaking the silence, his voice thick. “Out of all of us… .” He looked over at you and you met his eyes. He swallowed. “Who?”
“Well… .” Tony sighed. “…It’s hard to say.”
Bucky’s eyes narrowed. “Meaning?”
“I was off-world when the rest of the Avengers were fighting Thanos,” Tony began. “Long story, not important. But Thanos was on Earth when he snapped his fingers, and when he left…he didn’t leave anyone alive.”
You gave him a quizzical look. “What?”
“He destroyed the entire country of Wakanda. Blew it up. No survivors,” Tony said tightly.
That’s not… .
But that’s not… .
Why did that sound wrong.
He was telling the truth, but… .
He wasn’t there. And there were no survivors.
Half the population of the universe… .
“Half the pieces are missing.”
Chess pieces.
The fortune teller had been trying to warn you. The vision she gave you, of the chess board, the chess board with only half the pieces… .She knew, about Thanos, about what he would do.
“I don’t even have a King.”
Bucky.
You could feel Bucky lingering on the edges of your mind the best way a non-telepath could, waiting for you to speak, trying to see if you were okay. You covered your mouth with your hand.
It’s my fault, the half-sob projected to his mind.
What? You could tell Bucky was trying to take in all this new information all at once, and he wasn’t understanding what you were trying to say.
He’s wrong, Thanos didn’t destroy Wakanda, you explained, and you couldn’t look at him. This is it. This is how it happens. Thanos snaps his fingers, and you die. And I— You closed your eyes, desperately trying to collect yourself. It’s my fault. All the people in that country— Steve, Sam, Natasha. Bruce Banner, James Rhodes, Thor — They’re all dead because of me.
You opened your eyes when you felt Bucky’s hands wrap around yours. He was kneeling in front of you now, attempting to comfort you in the only way he knew how. He wiped some of the tears from your eyes, then looked back over to Tony.
“How do we fix this?”
Tony was still; he seemed hesitant to respond to Bucky’s tone, the anger laced in his voice.
“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” Bucky followed. “You have some kind of plan?” The desperation in his tone was clear: Tell me you have a plan. For the love of God, tell me you have a plan.
Tony sat in the chair across from you. He drummed his fingers on the table. “I spent years trying to figure out a solution to what Thanos did. I looked into everything. Any mention of the Infinity Stones in both Earth history and alien history; any alien artifacts that might be able to reverse the Stones’ power; time travel, of course. It’s the cleanest solution, like a do-over. But the science was impossible, so I had to give up. Move on.”
“Then the X-Men came to you,” you said, your voice hoarse and thick, the words difficult to say as dread and grief weighed heavy on your heart.
“Actually, they didn’t,” Tony said. “At the time, Kitty didn’t even know she had the ability to send people’s consciousness back. No, the person who knocked on my door with promises of solutions was a strange woman by the name of Irene Adler.”
Irene. That’s how Tony knew you were a telepath.
“The seer,” you whispered, looking at Bucky. He looked back at you when you spoke. “She’s friends with my mother; she works for the Hellfire Club.” It was her vision, remember? you projected to him. That I become the Phoenix. It came from her.
“Not exactly trustworthy then,” Bucky gathered.
“That’s why she sent me,” Tony said, and you and Bucky glanced back at him. “She knew about our history. She knew I would have a hard time coming here. Facing you.” You silently took Bucky’s hand as you felt a wave of guilt washing out from him. Tony continued without disruption. “And she knew my past self would’ve reacted even worse. The point is, the only way she knew you were going to trust her plan was if you knew the situation was desperate. And what’s more desperate that a guy willingly facing the person who murdered his parents?”
Bucky swallowed, his gaze falling to the floor, and you squeezed his hand.
It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault, you repeated over in his head, your eyes narrowing at Tony.
“Sorry, that was… .” Tony sighed. “It’s been a long time, since all that happened. Seven years, for me. And since Thanos, I’ve had a long time to think about… . Well, you kind of discover that grudges just aren’t worth keeping.”
(Steve was dead, and now Tony would never be able to reconcile things with him. And in a dark pocket of Tony’s mind, you saw him consider a thousand times what would have happened if the Avengers had been united against Thanos. If Tony had put aside his pride and hurt feelings and had just called Steve.)
“So,” you said, after a long silence, “Irene came to you with time travel on a silver platter and you didn’t think it would come with any hidden agendas.”
“Of course I did, I know what the Hellfire Club is,” Tony said, crossing his arms. “But that’s not the reason I said no.”
“You said no?” Bucky asked, incredulous.
“Despite my earlier sentiment, time travel isn’t as clean as you’d think it would be. It fucks with how things are, and I just couldn’t risk doing it,” Tony said, and a powerful surge of emotion seemed to leak from him. An unrelenting, uncompromising force of protection, selflessness, desperation, love—
“You have a kid,” you realized.
Tony nodded solemnly, then gave you the shadow of a smile. “Her name is Morgan, and she’s…she’s everything to me. If anything were to happen to her because I went back in time and screwed something up… . I would never forgive myself.”
And he meant that, you could feel it. A force of love so strong, it had no contender.
Which begged the question—
“Then what convinced you to change your mind?” Bucky voiced before you could. And suddenly the answer was on your lips before you could stop yourself— because you had seen it, the memory, in your dream before Tony Stark had even set foot inside your apartment.
“Something worse is coming.” Bucky and Tony turned to you as you spoke, grim and afraid. “Worse than Thanos.”
“Yahtzee,” Tony quipped, but his voice was hollow and humourless.
“What could be worse than half the population disappearing?” you asked, not wanting to know the answer but unable to stop yourself from asking the question.
“I’m surprised you don’t already know,” Tony said, gesturing to his head, as if you should have taken the information from his mind by now.
You had been avoiding it. All of it, as much as you could. You didn’t want to know; you didn’t want to see.
(You didn’t want him here
ruining your rare bit of paradise
with his and yours and everyone’s inevitable crushing reality.)
Tony took your silence as an answer, and began, “Adler came to me because she had a vision —which she showed me via telepath— of the future, and the future is this: Machines, called Sentinels, created to find and arrest mutants.”
The metal sentry in your dream. That’s what it was.
(What else from your dream came from Tony Stark’s future?)
“This quickly turned into find and kill mutants,” Tony continued, “which quickly turned into find and kill any human with the mutant gene— which quickly turned into —you guessed it— find and kill any human capable of passing on the mutant gene, which is everyone. The A.I. running the Sentinel program didn’t take long to turn on its human masters and take over, so that even the people who created it weren’t safe.” He drummed his fingers on the table. A nervous habit, you noticed. “Ten years into the future. Fifteen, for you. But ten years, or five, or twenty-five, or fifty — if this is a future where my daughter can’t live in peace,” he took a moment to swallow thickly, “…can’t live at all… . Then I have to do everything I can to change it. No matter the consequences.”
This was all becoming so difficult to process. First, it was the elimination of half the population of the universe. Now, it was the rest of the population of Earth. Just trying to imagine all of it… .
(You were trying not to think about it too much.
Bucky was dead in the future.
You were the Phoenix.
You killed an entire country of people.
Steve.
Sam.
Nat.
The rest of the Avengers.
And Bucky was dead.
Bucky was dead.
Bucky was—)
Wait.
“You’re here to stop Thanos,” you said, slowly. “But how does stopping Thanos stop the Sentinels?”
“Oh, right,” Tony said, shifting in his chair. “After Thanos, the Hellfire Club got their hands in pretty much every honey pot there was. With Thanos taking out about half of all government officials in the entire world, the Hellfire Club was able to get a leg up basically everywhere. At least, that’s what I thought. Apparently, they didn’t do it without help. Adler said that because of Thanos, the Hellfire Club was able to get their hands on some kind of weapon that let them take control. Unfortunately, Adler says about a year from now —well, six years for you— a corporation called Trask Industries steals the weapon from them. Very anti-mutant; they’re the ones who create the Sentinels. Adler says they hold onto the weapon as they’re designing the first prototypes, then start using it once they decided that it’s worth killing mutants instead of just arresting them.”
Some kind of weapon the Hellfire Club gets their hands on… .
“What kind of weapon?” you asked, your stomach turning. You had a feeling. A terrible, awful, horrible feeling… .
“Adler didn’t say,” Tony answered. “But I’m assuming nuclear. She said that once the A.I. takes over from Trask Industries, it uses the weapon to level the playing field, so to say. Left the world very post-apocalyptic. Ruined buildings, deserts everywhere, the whole nine.”
“And how does Adler know that stopping Thanos will stop this weapon from falling into the wrong hands?” Bucky asked. He was now standing behind your chair, his hands squeezing your shoulders.
“That’s what I asked, too,” Tony said. “But apparently any information about this weapon is all very hush hush, so she put a message in my head, for your eyes only.” He gestured to you. “She said it would explain everything.”
Bucky could feel Y/N tense under his hands. He rubbed her arms and pressed a kiss to her hair before stepping back to let her stand.
She held onto his hand for a moment before letting go to place her hand on the side of Tony Stark’s head, like she had done for Bucky so many times before.
She closed her eyes. The apartment was quiet for several moments.
Then Y/N recoiled back, almost tripping over the chair as she stumbled to the kitchen sink. Bucky quickly followed her, hands on her as she trembled violently, sobbing and dry-heaving into the sink.
What is it? What did you see? Bucky was unable to hold back his panicked thoughts as Y/N finally vomited up the contents of her stomach. She was more scared than he had ever seen her.
Later. Even telepathically, he could hear the exhaustion in her voice, feel it flowing from her to him. When he’s gone.
“Well that can’t have been anything good,” Tony quipped, but like before, there was no real humour in it. He knew how serious all of this was.
Bucky looked over his shoulder at Tony. “How. Do we fix. This,” he repeated, breathing through his nose, his stomach feeling as sick as Y/N’s was.
“There’s a weapon,” Tony began. “Not like the one the Hellfire Club and Trask Industries gets their hands on; not nuclear. Something ancient. Adler said it might be as old as the Infinity Stones, so, alien tech, I’m assuming. But powerful enough to take down Thanos.”
“Okay,” Bucky said slowly, “and where is this ‘super-weapon’?”
“Adler put the coordinates in my head,” Tony said. “Can you believe she doesn’t trust me to know where it is?”
Y/N turned around, her one hand fisted in Bucky’s shirt. He helped steady her on her feet when she swayed slightly.
Y/N’s eyebrows knitted together as she looked at Tony. “It’s in Egypt?”
She must have taken the coordinates from his mind. Tony shrugged in response. “If an ancient weapon was going to be anywhere, makes sense it’d be there.”
Y/N took a deep breath, as if she was slowly trying to spool herself back into her body. She was still shaking, and Bucky rubbed circles into her back.
“So we have a plan,” Bucky said. “We find this weapon, we stop Thanos before he can wipe out half the universe. Neither the Hellfire Club nor Trask Industries gets the weapon that allows them to fuck up the rest of life on Earth. Am I missing anything?”
“No, you got pretty much all of it,” Tony replied.
“Any other important bombshells you wanna drop before you leave?” He didn’t want to ask, was afraid of the answer, but he knew they needed to be aware of everything before heading to a fight.
(He was so tired.)
“No, that’s pretty much it,” Tony said as he stood. He began making his way to the door, then paused. Turned back. “Just one other thing. When you go to Egypt to pick up the weapon, then go to kick Thanos’s ugly purple ass…take me with you.”
Bucky’s eyebrows knitted together. “What?”
“I know that if you’re here, Cap’s in the city somewhere, too,” Tony said. “You need to convince me to make things better between us. Whatever changes when you take down Thanos, I will not have a repeat of him because the Avengers are broken up. And I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what happened between Cap and I…between you and me,” he said directly to Bucky, and Bucky’s jaw muscle flexed. “And I spent a long time dealing with all of you being dead. I never thought I’d get a chance to make things better. I do now.”
“How are we going to convince you to help us?” Y/N voiced. “I mean, you and Steve, you don’t exactly seem like you’re ready to forgive each other quite yet.”
“I know you’ll find a way to convince Cap,” Tony said, walking back over to where Bucky and Y/N were standing. “As for me, just tell me the truth, about all of it. And if I’m still not convinced… .”
Gently, Tony took Y/N’s hand and pressed it to the side of his face.
“Take this memory. Show it to him. He won’t say no after seeing it.”
As Y/N looked into Tony’s eyes, taking the memory from him, tears silently filled her eyes and slipped down her cheeks. After Tony let go of her hand, she lowered it, then swallowed and nodded.
Tony took a breath, then put on the best smile he could muster. “Time for me to head back to the future.” He let out a shadow of a laugh. “Oh, do I wish I could make that joke under better circumstances. Well,” he sucked in another breath, “if you guys are successful, I’ll be returning to a changed future. If not… .”
Bucky studied him as he paused; Y/N’s grip on his shirt tightened.
“I guess I’ll just have to keep coming back until you get it right,” Tony finally said. He put his aviators back on, then turned and left Y/N’s apartment, the door closing behind him.
As soon as it shut with a click, Y/N collapsed into Bucky’s arms. The two of them sank down until they were sitting on the floor, Y/N with her back to the cupboards under the sink.
She seemed to grip him like a lifeline, like she was afraid that if she let go she would lose herself forever. Her sobbing and trembling came back full-force, and her breaths came out in short gasps.
“What is it that you saw?” Bucky asked again, cupping her face with his hand and trying to get her to look at him. Show me, he begged her. Show me.
She tethered her hand into his hair, giving him a panicked look that said more than anything she could have said, aloud or telepathically.
“I can handle it,” he whispered. Let me shoulder some of this for you. You don’t have to carry it by yourself.
She took a few sharp breaths, then nodded, bringing his face closer to hers. She pressed her forehead to his, then closed her eyes.
First it was the vision, the one that Irene Adler had given Y/N when she was fifteen. Except this time
Y/N watched as Bucky disappeared into dust, into nothing
and Y/N kneeled in a golden field
(the golden fields of Wakanda)
and her violet eyes bled into gold, and she exploded with rage and anger and pain and grief
destroying everything and everyone in sight.
Then it was Y/N with her mother and other members of the Inner Circle
(Alex and Emma Frost were not present. They wouldn’t be, ever again.)
and they were trying to control Y/N, try to handle her new power as she struggled to keep a leash on it.
(Y/N’s eyes were dead. She had lost everyone she had ever cared about.)
The Inner Circle and the Hellfire Club used her to get the things they wanted. Y/N did what they asked of her.
(She didn’t have the strength to do anything else.)
Then there was an ambush.
They took her.
Trask Industries.
Y/N.
They took her and locked her away
put a power-dampening collar on her
and ten telepaths to weaken the Phoenix’s power.
They
Tortured
Her.
Used fire
To
S
T
R
I
P
Her
Of her tattoos
Shaved her head,
Played with her mind
For
T
E
N
Y
E
A
R
S
And when there was nothing left of her
They unleashed her onto the world
Had her kill her mutant brothers and sisters
Had her kill any humans left
Until there was nothing
Just her.
Alone.
Watching the world
burn.
Stars.
There were stars.
Notes:
A/N: Thanks again for you guys being patient with me, I know it’s been a few months since I’ve updated.
This was a lot of exposition and information in one chapter, so I hope it wasn’t too much to handle lol. If you have any questions or need any clarifications, just ask.
So the vision at the end, that’s basically a vision of what I call the “Bad Timeline”, the one where Birdie left Bucky instead of deciding to stay.
Love you guys and don’t forget to tell me what you think!
Chapter 39: Part 4 - Chapter Thirty-Nine: Just Close Your Eyes; Wait For Morning's Light (W h a t e v e r I t T a k e s)
Summary:
You try to convince Tony to help you. You go to the coordinates Irene gave you to get the weapon that could stop Thanos.
Notes:
A/N: Sorry for the long wait, but I really love how this chapter turned out!
Here
we
motherfucking
go.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“No.”
“Steve.”
“No,” Steve repeated to Bucky, the six of you (you, Bucky, Steve, Sam, Natasha, Matt) all cramped together in the small motel room. “If Tony reacts badly, suddenly all of us are going to jail — and then what? We don’t need Tony to stop Thanos. We can handle this on our own.”
You had been sitting quietly in the corner as Bucky had explained everything to everyone, watching as they all went through their own versions of shock and disbelief, followed by a renewed sense of purpose that they could stop Thanos, that nothing had happened yet so nothing was set in stone. There was still hope.
They hadn’t seen what you had seen.
Not that you didn’t believe that you could stop Thanos, you did, of course you did — because if you didn’t, then what were you left with?
(There was nothing.
Just you.
Alone.
Watching the world
Burn.
Stars.
There were stars.)
“You don’t get it,” were the first words out of your mouth since you had gotten to the motel. The other five people in the room turned to you. “We can’t afford to cut corners, or assume that we can do this without him.”
Steve uncrossed his arms. “One more person is not going to change—”
“This isn’t about him!” you shouted suddenly, standing. “Or you! This is about a united front — You all lost against Thanos the first time because the Avengers were broken up. And yeah, this time we have a weapon that can beat him. But the truth is, Irene never said what this weapon is or how it works. We don’t even know where Thanos is. He could be half a universe away. We might have to wait until a year from now when he shows up on Earth — which means spending a year preparing and figuring out how to operate the weapon that’ll take him down. You really want to spend that year still running and hiding when we could get Tony and everyone else on board with this? So put aside your FUCKING PRIDE—” Bucky reached out to you as you took a step forward, and you held onto his arm as you gently kept it away from you, “—and talk to him.”
There were tears running down your cheeks now, a manic sort of energy surrounding you and appearing in your expression. This seemed to thaw through Steve a bit, his face becoming more compassionate as he sighed.
“And if he says no?” he asked.
“He won’t,” you answered.
“How do you know?”
“He gave me a memory,” you said. “A memory he knew would be enough to convince him. And if it isn’t,” your hands shook, and Steve became blurry as you looked at him, “then I will make him listen.”
There was a heavy silence following your words.
You, the pacifist, the non-violent.
Something in you was cracking.
“Y/N,” Bucky murmured softly. Your hand found its way to his shirt, bunching the fabric as you held onto him.
“I won’t let you die.” Broken words — broken, intimate pieces that suggested a conversation more private, a conversation not designed for the small motel room filled with six people.
“I know,” Bucky replied, his hands rubbing up and down your arms. “It’s okay. Tony will listen.”
“Okay,” you said, nodding. Your head felt jumbled and messy. You couldn’t stop seeing Bucky die,
seeing yourself become a monster, become the thing you had feared for half your life,
seeing yourself alone at the end of the world.
“Okay,” you repeated.
There was another silence as the room waited for Steve’s next words. Matt (with a scarf covering his identity, as usual around the ex-Avengers) was standing on your other side now, arms crossed. He and Bucky were practically taunting Steve to keep saying no to your plan.
Natasha touched Steve’s arm before he could speak. “He’ll listen, Steve,” she said. “If it’s important enough —and it is— he’ll listen.”
Steve sighed.
“Okay,” he finally said. “So how do we do this?”
As it turned out, just walking into the Avengers Compound was actually pretty easy.
There wasn’t any defense system (“Not since I left, y’know,” Sam commented), but everyone was aware that there would be some sort of alarm system, so now all there was left to do was wait.
As you sat with the others, your leg bouncing up and down in a fit of anxiety, you watched Steve approach one of the security cameras. He put his hands on his hips, looking down for a moment with a sigh, then returning his attention up.
“Tony,” he began, “We need to talk. It’s important. Come to the compound. Don’t bring any unnecessary attention.” And then, because he noticed you watching him, his face softened somewhat and he added, “Please.”
A moment passed. Steve leaned against the wall, arms crossed, eyes on the ground, thinking.
“You need to make things good with him again.”
Steve looked up at you when you spoke.
“That’s kind of up to him at this point,” he said.
You scowled in response. “It’s not. Relationships are a two-way street. You both have to give something.”
Steve uncrossed his arms, standing away from the wall now. “He tried to kill Bucky. Doesn’t that bother you?”
Across the room, Bucky stayed silent. He watched the conversation, let you handle it yourself.
“Bucky killed his parents.” Neither you nor Bucky blinked as you said the words. “It wasn’t his fault; he wasn’t in control — but they were still killed by his hand. I know what that’s like. I know what it’s like to deal with the responsibility of actions I did that I didn’t necessarily have control over. To deal with the responsibility of the fallout. Do you?”
Steve breathed through his nose, not saying anything. It was a curious dynamic, you and him. He may have been Bucky’s best friend, but Steve was unscathed when it came to things like this. Unscathed in the ways you and Bucky were not.
“You had a disagreement over how to handle the Avengers, but you were both trying to do what you thought was best,” you continued. “Then Tony found out what really happened to his parents, and he reacted —impulsively, yes— but also in a very human way.”
Steve weighed your words, considering them for a moment. Then, “And if he attacks Bucky again?”
You stood. Walked over to Steve. “I’m not going to let anything happen to Bucky.”
Steve was quiet for another moment as he looked at you. Finally, he seemed content with your answer. “Okay.”
KA-THUNK!
The sound came from just outside the compound, followed by the rhythmic whirring and repeated thunk, thunk, thunk of metal. Footsteps.
Iron Man.
His hands came up and the charging sound of propulsors sang through the room, one pointed at Steve, one pointed at Bucky.
“Give me a reason not to shoot you right now,” came the robotic-tinged voice of Tony Stark from inside the Iron Man suit.
You crossed the room in just a few steps, standing in front of Bucky. Between him and Tony’s blasters.
Y/N— came Bucky’s panicked voice in your mind, and you wrapped your hand around his wrist behind you.
He won’t shoot me, I’m a civilian.
“New friends?” Tony inquired, the suit whirring as his helmet tilted slightly to the side. You could imagine his eyebrows quirking up under the mask.
“Something’s coming, Tony,” Steve began. “Something big. Bigger than New York.”
A beat. “How much bigger?”
“We thought Loki was behind the invasion,” Steve continued. “But he was just the middleman. Someone else was pulling the strings. And New York was only phase one of his plan.”
Silence as Tony considered what Steve had said. It was difficult for the room to tell what he was thinking, given the lack of visible facial expressions — but you had been monitoring his thoughts since he walked in.
And they just took an interesting turn.
“You’ve seen it,” you said softly, your voice breaking through the quiet.
A Chitarui Leviathan coming to life and flying over Tony’s head.
A mountain of rock, a starry sky overhead.
The bodies of the Avengers, all dead.
Dead.
Dead.
Dead.
My fault.
Tony’s suit whirred as his head turned in your direction. (The rest of the room stared at you, then at Tony — you had projected Tony’s thoughts aloud, not noticing that you had done so.)
“Everything you’ve done, it’s all been to stop that from happening,” you realized. “How long have you been living with that vision?” You probed further. “Since Ultron?”
You could feel Tony’s agitation. “Are you going through my head?” He walked toward you, the propulsor on Steve lowered — the one on you and Bucky still held.
Bucky made an instinctive move to step in front of you; eyes kept on Tony, you put your hand on Bucky’s chest and stilled him.
“I’ve seen it, too,” you continued, and Tony stopped. “Not the metaphorical vision that Wanda Maximoff showed you, but the real thing. They’re all going to die.” Your eyes briefly scanned the room, roving over Steve, Sam, Natasha. Matt. “Unless we stop it. And we can’t do it without you.”
Another beat. “You see the future as well as read minds?”
You shook your head. “No. You came back from the future and told us what happened.”
This seemed to throw him off enough to get him to lower his propulsor. “…Explain.”
“His name’s Thanos,” you began. “The alien pulling the strings behind the scenes. He only has one goal: Destroy half of all life in the universe. He succeeds because the Avengers were split up. Steve, Sam, Natasha. Thor, Bruce Banner, James Rhodes, Vision, Wanda Maximoff. They all die. You’re the only one who lives.”
(Just you. Alone. At the end of the world.)
“So you come back,” you continued, “to warn us. To tell us how to stop it from happening.”
From Tony’s tone, you could imagine his eyes narrowing under his helmet. “Why should I believe you?”
“You gave me a memory,” you said. “A memory to convince you.”
“What memory?”
You stepped closer to Tony, and felt Bucky tense up behind you.
He won’t hurt me, you repeated to him. Trust me.
Hesitation. Then,
I trust you.
You held out your hand, placed it an inch from Tony’s helmet. You were afraid he wouldn’t let you do it, wouldn’t let you inside his head, wouldn’t let you convince him. Telepaths were hard people to trust, you knew that better than anyone. They could twist things, make you do things you didn’t want to, make you believe things that weren’t true.
But you could tell there was a part of Tony that wanted to trust you. He had spent three years agonizing over the vision Wanda gave him, over the possibility of all the people he cared about dying, over how to stop it at any cost.
The mask of his helmet slid up. His expression was apprehensive, but he didn’t make a move to pull away when you placed your hand on his face.
“Mr Stark?”
The frightened voice of a child.
“I don’t feel so good.”
“You’re all right.” The comforting tone of a man who didn’t believe his own words.
“I don’t…I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t know…I don’t want to go. I don’t want to go, sir. Please. Please, I don’t want to go. I don’t want to go.”
A brief thought crossing Tony’s mind: He’d never hugged the kid before.
“I’m sorry.”
Dust.
And Tony was alone.
Tony jerked out of your reach, his breathing coming out in short, quick bursts. Tears poured down his cheeks as if they couldn’t stop, and Tony frantically grasped the wall to stay upright.
“FRIDAY,” he managed to say between gasps, “get— get the suit off. Get the suit off. Get the suit off.”
The suit began to fold into itself, then, continuing to fold until it accumulated into a shape resembling a briefcase. Now only attached to Tony’s hands, he was able to pull them out. His hyperventilating didn’t stop.
Matt, clad in his full Daredevil suit, took a step forward. “You’re having a panic attack, you need to slow your breathing—”
Tony, who had been rummaging through drawers, pulled out a brown paper bag. “I know,” he said between gasps, “I’ve had panic attacks before.” He put the bag around his mouth and breathed into it, the paper crinkling as it expanded and shrank, expanded and shrank.
“Tony… .” Steve began, but Tony cut him off.
“I’ve been working on nano-tech.” He gestured to the Iron Man briefcase. He was trying to divert attention from his panic attack, didn’t like the worried eyes pressing in on him.
None of them knew. Five years of panic attacks, of dealing with the fear of what had happened with New York, and none of the Avengers knew.
It broke your heart to see this pain in his mind.
“To get the suit on and off more easily,” Tony continued. “I’ll have it up and running,” another breath into the bag, “six months, tops.” He seemed to hesitate, then. He looked at you. “How long do we have?”
Steve answered for you. “A year.”
Tony’s eyes found his. “You have a plan?”
“You —the future you— told Y/N about a weapon that can stop Thanos,” Natasha said, her head briefly turning toward you to illustrate who she was talking about. (You hadn’t exactly had time for proper introductions.) “We know where it is. Now we just have to go get it.”
Tony nodded. “Then what the hell are we waiting for?”
The atmosphere on the jet was thick with silence. F.R.I.D.A.Y. was flying, so the rest of you sat in the back — the only thing you could do for the next ten hours was wait.
It had been a tense half an hour of no talking. Tony may have been on board with your plan to stop Thanos, but that didn’t mean that anything had changed between him and the ex-Avengers.
“Why didn’t you tell us about your vision, Tony?” Steve finally said, and Tony looked up at him. “We all saw it,” he added, briefly looking in your direction.
You gave Tony an apologetic look but didn’t say anything.
“It wasn’t real,” Tony said. “It was one of Wanda’s fear-induced visions. I didn’t need to bother any of you with it.”
“But it’s been influencing your decisions since you saw it,” Steve went on. “The panic attacks, Tony… . How long has that been going on?”
Tony rubbed at his eyes. “Since New York.”
Steve uncrossed his arms. “Why didn’t you say anything?” When Tony stayed silent, he added, “If I had known, maybe I would’ve… .”
“Would’ve what?” Tony countered. “Agreed with me on the Sokovia Accords? Not split us up? Would things really have been any different?”
“I would’ve known where you were coming from,” Steve said.
“As opposed to just being an asshole in a suit, right?”
Silence ensued after Tony’s words. Everyone was quiet, for a long time.
“I’m sorry, Tony.”
Tony didn’t look up. Steve continued.
“I’m sorry for how things went down between us. I didn’t want any of that to happen. You’re my friend, Tony, I…I should have tried harder. To make things better. Not just left things to get worse.”
Tony wouldn’t look at him. His eyes searched the floor, as if he was trying to decide how to proceed.
“I’m sorry, too.”
Bucky’s voice got his attention. Tony looked up at him.
“For Howard and…and your mom,” Bucky said, his voice strained. “I never said the words. I should’ve, then. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
You squeezed Bucky’s hand.
Tony sniffed, wiped away the moisture leaving his eyes. His gaze caught on Bucky’s arm, on the gold veins running through it. “I’m sorry I blew off your arm,” he said.
“I kinda deserved it,” Bucky replied. You took his metal hand in your flesh one, your eyebrows pulled together.
“Nah.” Tony looked back down a moment, collecting himself. Then he looked up again. “I know it wasn’t your fault…what happened to them. I know it was Hydra.” His eyes found Steve. “But you knew. You knew and you didn’t say anything.”
“I know,” he said solemnly. “I should have.”
Tony’s leg anxiously bounced up and down. “Backing the Accords was a mistake,” he admitted after a moment. “I thought it would put us in check, but…they’re just using it to enforce mutant registration.” He stilled his leg. “I just wanted to make sure Ultron didn’t happen again — I didn’t want this.”
“At some point, you’re going to have to forgive yourself for Ultron,” Natasha murmured, and he looked over at her. “We’ve all made mistakes, Tony. It’s time to move past it.”
Tony’s eyes met the floor again, and another moment passed. Then Steve walked over to where Tony was sitting, and held out his hand.
Tony looked up, at Steve, at his hand. His mouth quirked as if he was thinking about it, then he stood. He clasped Steve’s hand in his.
You smiled as they shook hands, Steve clapping Tony on the shoulder.
“You know Ross still wants you arrested, I can’t do anything about that,” Tony commented as they finished shaking hands.
“You could let us stay in the Compound,” Sam threw in.
Tony thought about it. “Yeah, alright. But you’re going to have to hide in the closet whenever Ross checks in to make sure I’m not doing anything illegal. Good thing he uses hologram calling, so I won’t technically be lying to his face. Wanda can come, too,” he added. “Where is she, anyway?”
Natasha put on an amused smile. “Probably with Vision. We have her check in from time-to-time.”
Tony’s eyebrows raised. “Well, seems like more people were on your side than I thought.”
“Vision’s not with us,” Steve said. “I didn’t even know Wanda and Vision had been seeing each other until recently. They have a…complicated relationship.”
“How very Romeo and Juliet of them.” Tony clicked his hands together, was quiet for a moment. “We’ll find a way to fix this thing with Ross. Get you off of ‘America’s Most Wanted’ list. I mean, c’mon. We’re the Avengers. They need us.”
Steve nodded. “It’s good to have you back, Tony.”
Tony shrugged. “Yeah, well. It’s nice to have you guys back, too.” His eyes traveled to where you were sitting with Bucky. “Even you, Manchurian Candidate.”
You chuckled to yourself at the nickname, and Bucky raised an eyebrow at you.
You don’t get the reference, do you? you said to him telepathically.
He shook his head. I didn’t the first time he said it, either.
It’s a movie reference, you began. I haven’t seen it, but I took the context from Tony’s thoughts. The movie is a political thriller about the son of a high-profile American political family who is brainwashed into being an assassin for a Communist conspiracy.
Bucky blinked at you, brow’s raised, then knitted together. That’s…a surprisingly accurate label.
You giggled again. That’s why it’s funny.
“Are they having a telepathic conversation?” Tony asked Steve, pointing at the two of you.
Steve nodded with an amused smile on his face.
“Do they do that a lot?”
“Yeah,” Sam said in a tone of mock-annoyance.
“Fascinating,” Tony commented. “Now, what kind of conversations exactly are you having that you can’t say out loud?”
“I was explaining to him what ‘Manchurian Candidate’ means,” you said, intentionally ignoring his suggestive tone.
“Oh, I’m sure explaining pop culture references is the only use for that,” Tony said. His tone was light and amused, so you let it slide.
Anything to keep everyone’s mind off what you were doing. Anything to keep everyone’s mind off the terrible future you were trying to stop.
Anything to keep your mind off the vision of Bucky disappearing into dust — the monster you would become — the empty, burning world of just you, at the end of all things.
Stars.
There were stars.
You squeezed your eyes shut.
This was going to work. Irene’s plan, the weapon she was leading you to, it was going to work. Bucky wasn’t going to die. You weren’t going to become the Phoenix. Thanos wasn’t going to wipe out half the universe, and the anti-mutant Sentinels weren’t going to take over and lead to the destruction of all life on Earth. It was going to work.
It had to.
There wasn’t really much to do in the jet on a flight lasting ten hours. Mercifully, the flying was relatively stable with low turbulence and room to move and walk around — unlike the flight Bucky had taken with Steve, Nat, and Sam to get to America covertly. Suffice it to say, that flight had not been pleasant.
Tony made an offhand promise to add a theatre to the jet for next time, but for now, there were only three options: sit in silence, chat, or sleep.
Most of the talking points had been exhausted within the first two hours. Bucky and Y/N listened quietly, throwing in additions every once in a while, as Tony caught up with Steve and the others.
Soon, the hum and occasional jostle of the jet had lulled most of its passengers to sleep.
Y/N had her feet tucked under her the best she could in the chair, her head lying on Bucky’s shoulder as she slept. Bucky, still awake, pressed his lips to her hair. Gently inhaled. He lifted the arm around her to let her shift to get more comfortable, then put it back securely around her shoulders. He stroked her arm with his thumb.
“So how does she fit into all of this?”
Bucky glanced up across the back of the jet to the only other person awake. Tony.
“The woman who sent you back in time with information about the weapon, she knows Y/N,” Bucky explained simply.
“And how did Y/N find you?” Tony asked.
“She didn’t… .” Bucky trailed off, wondering how much information to give. Things were still very new with Y/N, romantically speaking, and the atmosphere between him and Tony was still tense, despite apologies given and accepted. “She didn’t find me. Three years ago, Hydra went after her. I helped her hide from them, and she helped me get my memories back.”
Tony nodded thoughtfully. “I like her.”
“So do I,” Bucky agreed.
Tony leaned back in his seat, was quiet for a few moments.
“I have Pepper.”
Bucky looked over at Tony again when he spoke.
“She’s my person. I can’t function without her—” Bucky found himself looking at Y/N as he listened to Tony “—She used to be my assistant, now she’s the CEO of my company, so, you can see she’s the competent one in this relationship. What I’m saying is — I need her.” Bucky looked back up as Tony leaned forward. “And I need to know that this is going to work.”
He meant the weapon, the plan to stop Thanos.
Bucky glanced over Y/N’s sleeping form again. “It’ll work.”
Tony clasped his hands together. “I need you to be sure.”
Visions of Y/N suffering, of Y/N becoming the thing she feared since she was fifteen, of Y/N being tortured, of Y/N being used and controlled and forced to act against her will — of Y/N, watching the world burn and die.
Alone.
“It’ll work,” Bucky repeated.
The coordinates Irene gave Tony took you far out into the deserts of Egypt, the sand whirling and clouding in the wind. There was a small stone temple in the middle of it all, right where the coordinates brought you.
It was midnight in Egypt. The lack of sun chilled the air, a million-million stars twinkling overhead. There was so much more to see without all the light pollution of the city. It was breathtaking.
But you had more important things to do than stargaze.
The seven of you stood in front of the temple’s door, wondering how to proceed.
“So the weapon’s in here,” Sam said, his tone more a question than a statement.
“These are the coordinates Irene gave us,” you replied.
There were Ancient Egyptian symbols just above the door. You ran your hand over the patterns and groves.
“You’re the language expert, Y/N,” Matt said. “What does it say?”
You took a step back, clicked on your flashlight, and pointed it at the symbols. “Beware…all…ye…who…enter.”
“‘Beware all ye who enter’? It really says that?” Tony asked.
“No!” you laughed, and felt the rest of the team visibly relax. “I’m just fucking with you, I can’t read Ancient Egyptian, that’s not how telepathy works. I’d have to have met someone who knew the language, and I don’t know anyone who knows Ancient Egyptian.”
With no way of knowing what the symbols on the temple were saying, the seven of you returned to the matter at hand.
“So,” Bucky said, “who wants to go first?”
It ended up being Tony. He had to use the Iron Man suit to pry open the stone door of the temple. You hated having to desecrate something that seemed so old, but…desperate times.
Tony lit up the propulsors in his hands to light the path in the temple.
“It’s so dark in here,” you murmured.
“Is it?” Matt asked, and you both laughed. It diffused some of the fear that you felt, and you were grateful.
You didn’t walk for very long before you came to a staircase, one that seemed to go down,
down,
down
into the earth.
“Please nobody say ‘let’s split up and look for clues’,” Sam mumbled, staring down the dark staircase.
“Alright, if anyone gets claustrophobic, last chance to go back and wait in the jet,” Tony said, his voice taking on that robotic tinge when under the Iron Man helmet.
You felt Bucky take your hand.
Are you okay to keep going? he asked you.
You nodded. As nervous as this place made you, you felt better with Bucky by your side.
“No?” Tony asked when no one spoke up. “Alright. Here we go.”
It
was
a
long
way
down.
“Someone went through a lot of trouble to keep this thing hidden,” Natasha commented after a while. She was checking the scanner on her watch, watching it for any unnatural activity — or possible traps left to deter thieves.
Or kill them.
“Any idea what this weapon might be?” Tony asked.
“Future You guessed alien tech,” you said. “But the truth is we really don’t know what it is.”
“Well, here’s hoping it doesn’t blow our faces off.”
You felt something, then.
It made you pause. Bucky, who had been walking next to you, stopped as well.
“Hey, hang on!” he called to Tony at the front. Bucky met your eyes the best he could in the dimly lit hallway. “What is it?”
It was like…a dull pulsing. Faint, but definitely there. “You don’t feel that?” you asked.
Bucky shook his head.
“I’m not getting anything, either,” Matt added. So it was definitely a telepathic thing.
“What do you feel?” Bucky asked you.
You struggled to explain it. “Something,” you decided on. “There’s something down here.”
“At least now we know we didn’t come here for nothing,” Natasha commented.
“Let’s keep going,” Steve said. He had been bringing up the reer behind you.
Keep talking to me, okay? Bucky projected to you. Let me know if anything changes.
You gave him a nod, and the seven of you continued on down the staircase. The further down you went, the more intense the feeling became. You definitely knew you were getting closer to it, whatever it was.
Finally, the staircase ended.
And when you stepped off the final step onto the ground, two things happened:
A surge of whatever feeling had been washing over you hit you all at once, causing you to lose your balance, stumbling and clutching your head—
And a cascade of torches lit the hallway before you, fire bursting in the sconces two by two until it reached the end.
Bucky stabilized you on your feet. “Are you okay?”
“Okay, that was definitely creepy, right?” Sam commented, referring to the apparently self-lighting torches.
“Oh, one-hundred-percent,” Tony agreed. “Let’s keep going.”
Bucky’s hand cupped your cheek. “Y/N?”
“It’s much stronger now,” you told him. You looked down the row of torches. “It’s there. At the end.”
“Look at these symbols,” Natasha mused as she observed one of the walls. “Whatever this weapon is, it sure is destructive.”
The wall’s symbols seemed to confirm what she was saying, the pictures painting a story of devastation and death.
“We’re sure about this weapon, right?” Sam asked as he looked over the walls and their story. “I mean, we’re not going to accidentally blow up the world with this thing. Right?”
“Irene wouldn’t have sent us here if that was a possibility,” you said, although a feeling of dread was beginning to settle in your stomach.
And the overwhelming thing at the end of the hallway was not helping.
Bucky kept his metal arm around your waist to keep you upright as you continued down the hall, slowly making your way to the end.
There was a stone wall at the end of the way — a rectangular-shaped crack was in it, as if it was a door that needed to be opened, not unlike the door to the temple. By the size of it, it was smaller than the first door: fit for only one person through at a time. You weren’t sure if even the Iron Man suit would fit through it.
Tony wedged the fingers of his suit into the door’s cracks as the seven of you approached the door, and began prying at it the same way he had done above.
It didn’t budge. And the pounding in your head was becoming painful.
“Alright, everyone stand back,” Tony said. Whether he was about to hit it or shoot it with whatever firepower he kept in that suit, you didn’t let him choose.
“Wait,” you said, stopping him. The Iron Man suit whirred as Tony looked back over his shoulder at you.
You knew what to do.
You didn’t know how you knew, but you knew. And forcing your way through the door was never going to work — worst case, Tony would end up bringing the whole temple down on your heads.
You untangled yourself from Bucky, shooting him a quick telepathic reassurance that you were okay to stand before walking to the door.
You pressed your hand to the stone. It wasn’t cold, like you expected it to be. Instead, it was warm — almost uncomfortably so. There was a gentle beating against the inside of your palm, almost like, almost like… .
It was alive.
Stone scraped against stone as the door slid open, and you pulled your hand back as if it had burned you. The door was small enough that it was difficult to see the inside, but there was a faint light coming from within.
The others were staring at you.
“How did you do that?” Steve asked quietly.
Your heart was pounding in your chest, and you stared at your hand. “I don’t know.”
Bucky reached for you.
What is it?
You didn't answer him.
“Moment of truth, everyone,” Tony said. “Let’s go get our weapon.”
You don’t know why you thought of the dream, then. The dream you had had last night, the dream of the forest and the shadowy figure that embodied it.
You wished you could stay in that place, that peaceful place full of love, where you were loved and were free to love. Where you illuminated the shadows and he cooled your fire.
But there were things you had to do.
You couldn’t stay there.
“I’ll go first, make sure it’s safe,” Y/N said. If he had been anyone else, if he had not known her like he did, Bucky may have not noticed the waver in her voice.
“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” he voiced, trying to meet her eyes.
She finally looked at him. There was something…off about her.
I’m the telepath, she projected to him. Let me handle this.
Every instinct of his was screaming not to let her go in, not to let her handle this by herself. But she knew what she was doing. And Bucky trusted her, with everything he had.
He nodded. “Okay.”
She smiled tightly at him, a reassurance. Then she turned, and walked to the door. She had to contort her body to fit through, but she managed it.
Bucky was about to call out to her, maybe telepathically, maybe verbally, maybe both— when suddenly Steve collapsed next to him.
“Steve?” Bucky caught him as he fell, lowered him to the ground so he wouldn’t hurt himself. His friend was completely unconscious.
Natasha was next.
Then Sam.
Then Matt.
Then Tony, whose Iron Man suit caused the temple to rumble when he fell.
They all fell unconscious within seconds of each other, and Bucky was afraid he could be next when—
The stone door at the end of the hall began closing.
Bucky left Steve and rushed to it, his, “No no no no,” reverberating through the hallway as stone met stone with a dull thud. Bucky pressed his hands to it, pulling, tugging, then pounding on the surface.
Panicking.
“Y/N!” he shouted. He didn’t know what was going on, what could be happening inside, if Y/N was safe—
His pounding became more frantic. “Y/N! Y/N!”
He didn’t know why everyone had suddenly fallen unconsciousness. Didn’t know if Y/N was unconscious, too. Didn’t know why he was the only one who wasn’t. What the fuck was going—
“I’m sorry.”
Bucky whirled to look at his side, where suddenly Y/N was standing next to him. He felt relief— until he saw her face. The fear in her eyes. The tears streaking down her cheeks.
Bucky moved to hold her, but his hands slid through her body, like she was a ghost.
“I’m still inside,” she explained. She was a telepathic projection.
“Y/N, Steve and the others, they all passed out, they just—”
“I know.”
She didn’t seem surprised or worried about the state of their friends. Bucky was feeling the dread within him rising at an alarming pace, washing over him in waves. He was sure the confusion he felt was evident on his face, because Y/N went on to say,
“I couldn’t let them try to open the door.”
Bucky’s whole body felt like it was freezing up, like he couldn’t move. He didn’t understand. He didn’t understand what was happening. He didn’t understand what she was saying.
“What are you— What—”
“This was always going to happen.” Her words came out in a broken sob. “For a moment there, I thought, I thought I was finally free of it, but—” Her face contorted, as if she was desperately trying to get the words out but she couldn’t.
Bucky wanted to hold her. Wanted to pull her into his arms and fix whatever this was for her.
He didn’t understand.
He didn’t understand what was happening.
He didn’t understand what she was saying.
“I should have known,” she said when she was able to collect herself enough to speak. “When Irene said there was a weapon that could stop Thanos, I should have known.” She inhaled sharply. “What else would it be?”
He understood, then.
“Y/N, no.”
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed again.
“No, no,” he repeated. “No, we can— we can find another way. You don’t have to— You don’t have to do this.”
“There is no other way.” She bit her bottom lip, shaking her head. “This is the weapon Irene was talking about. We can’t stop Thanos without it.”
“Things are different now.” Bucky’s voice was desperate, desperately trying to convince her, to stop her. “The Avengers are back together, we’re stronger this way, maybe—”
“Maybe,” Y/N repeated. “I can’t bet on ‘maybe’.”
Bucky shook his head. There were tears running down his cheeks. “I can’t let you do this.”
“And I can’t let you die!” When she reached for his hands, this time, he could feel her skin on his. She cupped his cheek, wiped away tears with her thumb. Her head dipped down, and she took a moment to collect herself. When she finally opened her eyes to look at him, it took her another moment to speak.
“I love you.”
“No.” He shook his head again. “Don’t do this. You don’t have to do this. We’ll find another way. We’ll find another way!”
She sobbed, put her arms around him. He wrapped his arms around her in return, her body feeling so real pressed against his.
“I love you,” she repeated, and then she was gone.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Banging on the door behind you. Right where you had left him.
“Y/N! Please! You don’t have to do this!”
Bucky’s voice. Desperate. Pleading.
Tears in your eyes. Tears on your face.
Fear in your chest.
Fear in your chest
Fear in your chest.
He’s wrong. You don’t have a choice. You have to do this. You’re the only one who can. You’re the only one who can stop Thanos — stop him from killing half the universe, from killing Bucky. Matt. Alex. Emma. The trillions of others. Keep the Hellfire Club from taking advantage of you, Trask Industries from taking you and torturing you. Stop the Sentinel A.I. from using you to wipe out your people, wipe out the rest of the humans, wipe out the rest of life.
Stop the future of you
alone
at the end.
Fear in your bones.
Fear in your bones.
Fear in your bones.
It was there. In front of you. Just steps away.
Banging again.
His voice is breaking.
His presence only serves to remind you why you’re doing this.
F e a r i n y o u r s o u l.
F e a r i n y o u r s o u l.
F e a r i n y o u r s o u l.
Finally facing the one thing you have been fearing for most of your life. Finally facing the thing that could save you all.
Or d e s t r o y y o u.
The thing in your nightmares. The thing in the seer’s vision. The inspiration for your tattoo. The Hellfire Club’s fixation.
Creation and ruin. Life and death.
Galaxy shaper; sun-eater.
The eternal flame.
The cosmic entity.
The Phoenix was a simple ball of light illuminating the room. To anyone else, it would have seemed beautiful, harmless. But you could feel its power, its energy.
It was alive.
It was overwhelming your senses, your hearing, your sight. It was overwhelming your thoughts, your mind.
It was calling to you.
Whispering to you.
Needing you.
You reached out. Let the light touch your hand, your wrist, your arm. Let the light swirl around you, envelop you. Enter you.
You screamed.
And you screamed.
And you screamed.
And you screamed.
There was an explosion of light, an energy that burst through the walls of stone and knocked Bucky all the way back through the hallway. He hit the wall on the other side, his head smacking against it and sprinkling stars across his vision.
The column of light was shooting upwards from the room ahead, up, up, up through the stone of the ceiling and the sand above it, up into the night sky.
It was light and heat and it scorched the floor and walls around it. It was fire and energy and the brightness of it made Bucky’s eyes burn, like looking at the sun.
And then it was just gone, the light and energy receding upwards, upwards into the sky, into the inky blackness of space above.
Bucky, stumbling, pushed through the pain in his head and ran down the hallway to the room at the end.
He could still feel the heat of the room when he entered it, some bits of the floor and the wall still burning. The sand above the temple had been scorched into glass, the surface now reflecting the sky above. The moon was the only light left, the burst of energy having blown out the torches in the hall.
Y/N was gone. And when Bucky looked up, there was nothing.
Stars.
There were stars.
Notes:
A/N: We’re finally here, huh?
Let me know in the comments when you figured out that the weapon was actually the Phoenix, I’m really curious if anyone figured it out before it was revealed!
Edit: The next chapter is written. Considering leaving me some love for this chapter so I can post the next one sooner!
Chapter 40: ???? ? - ??????? ?????: ???????
Summary:
Ţ̹͍͚̣̳̟̰̲̯͍̲̕h̢̠͈̻̗̹̟͚͙̝͓̮̫̜̟̮͟͝ͅe͏̴̶̲̖̯͇͈̙̺̣̺͈ͅ o̡̰ņ̶̟͎͡ͅl̞̥̟̻̝͢͞͞y̖͎͜ t̶hi҉n͏g T̈ͥͮ͂ḧ̨̒ͥ͠a̛̋ͤͣ̏̚ń̢̉̊̄o͊҉͜s͑ͧ͝ f̮͖e̦̲̤̠̯͡ͅa̘͙̬̰̣̟͠ŗ͚͇͎͔̖͖̟s͙̼̦̳̼̻̠.҉̯̖̺̮
Notes:
(This chapter wouldn't be posted without all of the lovely comments from WilderMind <3)
Chapter Text
You burned in a way you never had.
You were power, you were light.
You were heat, you were fire.
You were the cosmos, a child of the universe.
A force, unrelenting. Untiring. Unstopping.
Save for that first moment, you felt no pain. No sadness. No regret. Only purpose.
Kill Thanos.
Kill Thanos.
Kill Thanos.
Kill him for his hubris.
Kill him for his ambition.
Kill him for his blasphemy.
Kill him for a future where he abused pieces of the universe, the very pieces that held the fabric of everything together.
Kill him for tempting to upset the balance.
Kill Thanos.
Kill Thanos.
(No, a small part of you said. Those were not your words. Those were not your thoughts. Bucky. You were doing this for Bucky, for your friends, for all the people who would die if Thanos was able to continue on his path.)
An agreement.
For Bucky.
For the lives of half the universe.
You were a living flame of blinding light as you approached the rock where Thanos had claimed his throne. Where you were, how long it took you to get there, it did not matter. You were here.
You would be a reckoning.
It gave you great pleasure to see the fear in Thanos’s eyes as he beheld you. He tried to mask it.
But nothing could be hidden from you.
“You,” he said. He knew exactly who you were. As he should.
“I should rip the tongue from your mouth.” It was your voice, but not your words. Your breath in your lungs, yet not your control to dispel it, to fill the air with speech. You were a passenger, even as you felt the fire in your bones, your body. “I should burn the eyes from your skull. I should turn your body to ash, and scatter you to the farthest reaches of the universe.”
A pause. Hesitation from the supposedly great Titan. “Have I done something to offend you?”
You looked upon him with disgust. “Do not speak as if you are innocent.”
He continued with his act, even as you felt his fear. “I have done nothing wrong.”
“You conspire to use the pillars of this existence for your own ends. To abuse them.”
“Ah,” he mused. “The Stones.” He paused to find words. “I’m surprised a being of your power has a need for such things. You, a celestial of creation and destruction. You have the power to do as you wish on your own.”
An appeal to your ego. To think he considered you so low. “I will not bow to pretty, false words. You will face judgement. Punishment. Absolution.”
He stood from his throne. Held up his left hand, the golden gauntlet that adorned it. “The universe needs my help. I am only trying to bring balance—”
“BALANCE?” YOU GREW AND GREW AND GREW, YOUR FLAME AND LIGHT CONSUMING THE INKY BLACKNESS ABOVE YOU, YOUR HEAD AND WINGS STRETCHING WIDE. “BALANCE?” YOU REPEATED, YOUR ANGER AND YOUR RAGE SCREAMING OUT OF YOU IN COSMIC FIRE. “YOU DO NOT ERASE HALF OF LIFE AND CALL IT BALANCE. YOU DO NOT ABUSE THE POWER, SPACE, REALITY, SOUL, TIME, AND MIND OF THE UNIVERSE AND CALL IT BALANCE.”
HE SHOUTED IN PAIN AS YOU TORE THROUGH HIS MIND, GOING THROUGH HIS THOUGHTS, UNRAVELING EVERYTHING, ALL HIS SECRETS, ALL HIS INTENTIONS.
YOUR FLAME ONLY GREW, OUTRAGE CONSUMING YOU. “YOU WOULD USE THE INFINITE PIECES OF THE UNIVERSE TO DESTROY THEMSELVES AND CALL THAT BALANCE? YOU WOULD HAVE RIPPED HOLES IN THIS DELICATE FABRIC AND CALLED IT BALANCE?”
FOR ONCE, HE HAD NO WORDS. EVEN HIS MIND WAS BLANK WITH FEAR.
“THANOS OF TITAN, I HAVE SEEN YOUR FUTURE,” YOU TOOK HOLD OF THE GAUNTLET WITH INVISIBLE HANDS, CRUSHED IT, FORCED IT INWARDS AS HE HOWLED FROM THE PAIN, “AND I CONDEMN THE ACTIONS YOU WOULD HAVE TAKEN.”
YOU SHATTERED THE GAUNTLET, THE WEAPON USED TO WIELD ALL SIX OF THE PIECES OF THE UNIVERSE. BROKE THE METAL DOWN TO ATOMS. SMALLER THAN THAT. UNTIL THEY WERE NOTHING.
EVEN AS THE TITAN’S HAND FOUND RELIEF, HE CRIED OUT IN ANGER. YOU IGNORED HIS WAILING. COMPARED TO YOU, HE WAS A CHILD.
“I SENTENCE YOU.” YOU TOOK HOLD OF HIM WITH THOSE INVISIBLE HANDS. “TO DEATH.”
No.
You were a quiet voice in the background, barely even a whisper.
No.
Yes.
This is the way.
But this is not my way.
Your flame shrank until you were only a faint glow, and Thanos breathed again, the invisible hands dropping him back onto the ground.
“I won’t kill you,” you said, and even though you could still feel the power rippling and writhing under your skin, your words were wholly your own. “That’s not who I am.”
Thanos laughed then, purplish blood spurting from his mouth as he did so. “Your Host is weak, Phoenix.”
“No,” you whispered. You need not raise your voice in the silence of this place. “I’m strong. Killing you would be easy. It would solve so many problems, for so many people. But isn’t that just the same excuse that you’ve been making? That killing people is going to solve something? If I kill you, because it’s easy, because I. . .‘don’t have any other choice’ — how am I any better than you?”
“The universe will die, because of you,” he sneered. “There are too many people, with more and more born every day. There are not enough resources to sustain us.”
“The universe will manage, as it always has.” Your own voice mingled with that of the being within you. “People will live and die; people will prosper and people will suffer. When resources dwindle, so does life — thus resources have room to become plentiful again. This is the way of things. This is the cycle of eternity. This is the balance.”
He didn’t seem to agree, but that didn’t matter to you. “If you’re not going to kill me, what are you planning on doing with me?”
You could read his thoughts. He seemed to think you were going to let him go.
He seemed to think being merciful was synonymous with being stupid.
It didn’t matter.
He would have time to decide if sparing his life was indeed a mercy.
“I’m sentencing you to imprisonment.”
Thanos laughed again. “There is no prison that can hold me.”
You embraced the power inside you, the fire and light and life and let it grow, let your wings spread across the stars.
“Then I will make one.”
❂ ❂ ❂ ❂ ❂ ❂ ❂ ❂ ❂ ❂ ❂ ❂ ❂ ❂ ❂ ❂ ❂ ❂ ❂ ❂ ❂ ❂ ❂ ❂ ❂ ❂ ❂ ❂ ❂ ❂
You watched as Thanos raged against the hole you threw him in, as he shouted his threats and promises, his inevitable escape and your inevitable death.
You watched, calmly, glowing with your light. Then you spoke. You both did.
“What an irony it is,” you mused, “that you consider yourself to be the pinnacle of morality: the saviour of the stars.” You let the Phoenix smile for you. “I exist across the multiverse, child. And there is a version of you —in fact, the first version of you— who did not wish to save the universe, but rather impress a woman with your feat of death.” You let the Phoenix use your body to laugh, and even you enjoyed the amusement of it, if only for a moment. “She was not impressed.”
As Thanos raged below you, you took back the reins of control, a strange sort of understanding created between you and the cosmic entity inside you.
There was a final thing you needed to say.
“I’ve seen inside your head,” you began. “I’ve seen your life. The Titans were not beings with purple skin, were they? Your mother tried to kill you when you were born. She thought you were a monster. But you were just a child.”
Thanos seethed below you.
“Maybe that’s why you secretly believe that you’re not worthy of ultimate power,” you continued. “Why you wanted to use the Infinity Stones to destroy the Infinity Stones — so you wouldn’t have that power anymore. The point is, the universe wasn’t kind to you, so you weren’t kind to the universe. The universe wasn’t kind to me, either.”
Your upbringing.
You being forced into a destiny you didn’t want.
The Hand torturing you.
The death you brought in return.
Hydra capturing you.
The death you brought in return.
Having to run and hide for your life, to keep Hydra from using you to hurt others.
Being separated from Bucky.
Seeing your future, the monster you were destined to become, to be used and abused by others. Destroying all life on Earth. Being alone, at the end.
You shook your head, slowly. “But I wouldn’t want anyone else to feel the pain that I felt.”
Your regret and guilt every time you killed, even if some considered it warranted, even if some considered it necessary.
Your vow not to harm, not to kill (a vow you could not always keep, but you tried, tried to the point of bleeding, tried to the point of near-death and lifelong trauma), grown from the fear of becoming a monster.
And yet— you were here.
You were the monster from your future, from your nightmares.
But you found a way.
You found a way to still be you.
Because there were things that were stronger than pain. Stronger than anger. Stronger than grief.
Because you were not made from sorrow.
You were made from love.
For the people of the universe.
For the people of your world.
For your people.
For your friends.
For Bucky.
For Bucky— Bucky who made you forget that the universe had not been kind to you. Bucky who you helped to forget that the universe had not been kind to him. For Bucky who knew pain, for Bucky who faced death— and tried to stop you anyway, even when he knew the Phoenix could save his life.
He didn’t want you to face any more pain.
To be turned into a weapon—
He didn’t want you to feel the pain that he felt.
For Bucky.
For love.
You turned from him. “Think about that, while you’re down there.”
And you ignored Thanos’s shouts and rage as you spread your wings and flew into the stars.
Chapter 41: Part 4 - Chapter Forty-One: The End
Summary:
Bucky and the others are left in the desert without you. The March happens as scheduled.
Notes:
A/N: It took me a very long time to get myself to write this chapter, and it took a long time to write it. This chapter is the longest chapter of TTWD, sitting at a staggering 9,358 words – 2,206 words longer than the previous longest chapter (Chapter 33).
This is it. We’re here at the end now. There will be an epilogue, but not counting that, this is the last chapter of the series.
I’m glad that you’ve taken this journey with me.
Time to see how it ends.
Oh! And credit to Badpenny on AO3 for giving me the idea of the first part of this chapter <3 Love u
Chapter Text
April 2016
The sky crackled with thunder as rain poured down over Bucharest. Two figures ran in the cloud-covered darkness that should have been filled with light in the middle of the day. They found cover under a slightly run-down gazebo in the park, the direction of the wind still leaving them soaked to the bone.
Bucky swore as they entered the shelter, and Y/N gave him a sympathetic look.
“The park will be here tomorrow, like it always is,” she said. They had been on one of their daily walks when the sky began to fill with dark clouds. “It’s just a little rain.”
“No, I—” He sighed, and ran a hand through his wet hair. “It’s just that I… .”
She gave him an amused, confused look. “What?”
But before he could explain, Y/N held out a hand for him.
Show me.
She understood him without words, like she always did. He took her hand, and back into the rain they went as he led her farther into the park. They stopped at a clearing, where Y/N had paused to stare.
It was supposed to be a surprise. And it was supposed to be simple — a picnic in the park, with a nice blanket he had spent a little extra money on and delicious prepared meals he had kindly asked Mrs Mikalos to make for him. They were in a pretty wicker basket Mrs Mikalos had let him borrow, so they were probably untouched, but— It was supposed to be nice today. They were supposed to sit and have a nice meal and not worry about memories or the Winter Soldier or Hydra or tattoos for just an hour. Just an hour.
And it was ruined.
“You always plan things for us,” Bucky said after Y/N hadn’t spoken for a long time. “I wanted to do something … nice … for you. For us. Take our minds off things, for a little bit.”
“You set up a picnic in the park,” Y/N finally spoke. She looked at him, eyebrows raised, searching his eyes.
“I wanted to do something nice,” he repeated.
Then she did just about the last thing he thought that she would do— She grasped his hand and smiled at him.
Bucky’s heart stuttered in his chest, for it was the same smile she gave him a couple months earlier on Valentine’s Day. The same smile that made him fall in love with her.
Her smile grew and she tugged on his hand, pulling him to the (now soaked) picnic blanket. She sat.
Bucky raised his eyebrows at her. “It’s still pouring.”
Come sit with me, her thoughts projected to him as she began searching through the wicker basket.
He did as she asked and she turned back to him. “I don’t care if it’s raining. I love that you did this.” And she smiled at him again before reaching back into the basket.
As much as his heart was struggling, Bucky managed to stop her hand before she could pull anything out. “You might not care if it’s raining, but the food is gonna get wet. Maybe let’s take this somewhere else?”
She nodded, and the two of them took their picnic under the gazebo. They sat on the blanket even though it was wet —Y/N insisted— and began their meal.
Y/N made appreciative noises as she ate. “You got Mrs Mikalos to make this for you, didn’t you?”
Bucky nodded. “She says I owe her. We have to go over for dinner at their place some time.”
“Done and done.”
Y/N shivered as a breeze swept through the gazebo, and Bucky felt a twinge of guilt in his chest.
“I’d give you my jacket, but that’s soaked, too,” he said.
She waved him off. “I’m fine.”
“You’re shivering, Doll.”
She gave him a look that was difficult to decipher. (Y/N would later tell him that every time he called her ‘Doll’ it put butterflies in her chest — and she really wondered how she could have denied for so long that she was beginning to love him just as much as he loved her.) Then she moved to sit next to him.
Close to him.
Very close.
“You did all of this and I’m not about to let a little —okay, a lot,” she corrected herself when he gave her a look, “—of rain ruin it.” She leaned her head on his shoulder. “We’ll just have to keep each other warm.”
Bucky was soaked to the bone. He was soaked and it was windy and the gazebo didn’t really offer much shelter as the wind blew the rain horizontally under the roof over their heads.
Bucky slid his right arm over Y/N’s shoulders, and rested his cheek on top of her head. He rested the urge to press a kiss to her hair; instead, he let the sound of her content sigh fill his entire body.
He had never felt so warm.
Present Day
The sunrise against the glass would have been beautiful if it wasn’t so devastating.
Bucky had sat within the temple all night, staring up at the night sky, at the stars, waiting for the others to wake. Waiting for… . Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.
He failed her.
He had failed her.
His eyes were still on the sky, on the fading stars, as the first voice spoke since the last thing Y/N had said to him.
“I love you.”
“Bucky.”
He didn’t pull his eyes away.
“Buck, what happened?” Steve repeated, and Bucky blinked before finally turning his head toward his friend.
He was so, so tired.
“She’s gone.” His voice was rough and quiet. Steve’s eyebrows knitted together.
“She’s gone? What do you mean she’s gone, who’s—?” And he looked around, as if he was counting heads. Could see that one was missing. “Y/N. What happened to Y/N?”
Bucky rubbed his face, could feel tears burning behind his eyes. The exhaustion, in his heart and mind and body, was taking its toll, and all he really wanted to do was hit something, or scream, or sob and cry to the stars,
“Come back. Come back.”
“I promised her,” he said instead, and the words came out broken. “I promised her I wouldn’t let it happen, and I failed her.”
Bucky couldn’t feel it in his body when Matt grabbed him roughly and shoved him into the glass wall of the temple. The words felt muted even as Matt yelled, “What happened?” through gritted teeth.
Some feeling came back then, in the form of hot anger that bubbled up from somewhere dark inside him. “What happened is Irene Adler fucked over Y/N. She sent us here knowing exactly what this weapon was. Knowing that Y/N’s spent half her life running from it— She didn’t want this.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Bucky could tell Matt was losing his patience with him, but he didn’t fucking care. He just didn’t fucking care.
“This thing, this weapon that Adler sent us to get, it’s a fucking celestial being that needs a host. The Hellfire Club has been obsessing over it for years and when Y/N was fifteen they told her that one day it would be her. The host to the Phoenix.” Bucky slammed his metal fist into one of the murals covering the temple wall, and he watched the others process the information as they took in the symbols and images, the fire and destruction and the figure embedded in the flames, orchestrating death and devastation.
The gravity of the situation crossed over all of their eyes, weighing down their shoulders and sparking panic in their expressions.
(All but Matt, who couldn’t see the murals, but rather recognized the term that Bucky used.
Phoenix.
Like the symbol tattooed onto Y/N’s back.)
Bucky braced himself against that mural, the exhaustion pouring into his body once more like concrete. “I promised her. I promised her I wouldn’t let this happen.” And his knees gave way and he fell to the ground, his hand sliding to rest upon the image of the figure. The Host.
Y/N.
“Her tattoo… .” came Matt’s voice from behind him.
Bucky’s voice was defeated when he spoke. “You wanted to know. Now you know.” And he couldn’t stop the tears that came then, the grief and the pain like waves and waves of something much heavier than water.
He’d lose his arm a thousand times if it meant he could get her back. Fall off that train into the ravine, bear the snow and the pain, get wiped over and over and over and over and over. However many times it would take. If it meant he could save her from the future that had been traumatizing her for half her life … he would do it all again. However many times she needed.
“So, this thing… .” Bucky could barely register Tony Stark’s voice. “It possessed her? Where did it go?”
Bucky’s fingers curled over the image of the Host. “I don’t know.” He looked upwards, to the sky. “Up there.”
“Well, does Y/N have any control over this thing? This Adler sent us here for a weapon to save the world; do you think Y/N went to find Thanos, do you think she—”
“I don’t know!” Bucky cut Stark off. “She only just told me about all this and she didn’t tell me much. All I know is that she was scared—” His voice broke on the word, and he had to take a moment to collect himself. “She was terrified of this thing. She didn’t want any part of the Hellfire Club’s plan for her.”
“You think Adler screwed us over to get Y/N to be … this … Host?” Natasha asked carefully.
Bucky closed his eyes. “I don’t know what I think anymore.”
Everyone was very quiet, for what felt like a very long time.
Finally, Sam spoke the question nobody wanted to hear, the question nobody had the answer to.
“So…what now?”
Bucky sat against the wall, leaned his head back against the mural. He watched the sun bounce off the glass, felt the scorching heat of being enclosed within a greenhouse in the desert.
He had never felt so cold.
They argued for a while about what to do next. The main problem was … there wasn’t much they could do next.
There was nothing they could do to help Y/N. Their only hope of defeating Thanos was gone, and they didn’t know if either of them would ever come back.
Finally, finally, Matt convinced the group to go back. Tomorrow was the March. It was the furthest thing from Bucky’s mind, but—
“It’s what Y/N would’ve wanted. You know that. I don’t know if Y/N had some kind of saviour complex or what—” Matt chuckled to himself. Then, “If Y/N were here she would’ve said something like ‘Look who’s talking’.” He paused. Bucky wasn’t the only one who had words getting stuck in his throat. “She was afraid of hurting people. I guess I get that now. All she wanted to do was help. And now she needs us to see this through. For her.”
Lydia and Killion didn’t ask questions when they arrived without Y/N. Bucky didn’t know what Y/N had told the two of them before they left, but he supposed the looks on their faces when they returned were enough.
They were there, like they promised, like Y/N wanted. Three terrorist-labelled ex-Avengers, one terrorist-labelled non-Avenger, one non-terrorist-labelled current Avenger, and a vigilante. Enough big names to draw attention, to make people look, to make them pay attention. That’s what Y/N wanted.
And Lydia wasted no time in compensating for her absence.
Bucky didn’t pay much attention to the hours following … what happened. There was a ringing in his ears that replaced all other noise. Time passed by as if it didn’t, or it passed by all at once — there was no inbetween.
The ten hour flight home felt like nothing. What was left of Friday, spent helping Lydia and Killion with last-minute planning, felt like nothing. But that night?
Y/N had given him a key to her place. “Just in case,” she had said, with that smile he loved.
Oh, I am never letting you out of my sight again, he had replied.
Giving your key to someone means something. She had pressed the key onto his chest and he had covered her hand with his. Let this mean something.
That night, lying in her bed in her apartment, surrounded by things that smelled like her and felt like her and reminded him of her, time refused to move. And Bucky couldn’t move, weighed down by everything that had happened.
He thought of Y/N and waited for time to start again.
“Can’t believe it; it’s two-thousand-and-fifteen all over again.”
When Bucky briefly tuned back into the world, it was Sam who had spoken. And he was right. Steve was back in his proper Captain America uniform, with hair cut and beard shaved; Natasha had her Black Widow catsuit, hair dyed back to red; Sam got a fresh pair of Falcon wings with his old outfit — all courtesy of Tony Stark, who donned the Iron Man suit. The four of them turned quite a few heads when they showed up to the March, some of them human, but a lot of them mutant — mutants who offered their admiration and respect, who thanked them for their support and who told them what it meant to them that they were here.
“I’ve always liked the clean-shaven look on you, anyway,” Natasha said, her hand raising to brush Steve’s cheek and jawline.
He smiled, small but there, and gave her braid a gentle tug. “I missed the red.”
Bucky tuned back out and tried not to think of her, of the way they’d flirt with each other easily and without thought. Talk and smile and laugh and … and… .
“Pull it together.”
Bucky looked to his right, where Matt was walking, donned in his Daredevil uniform.
“For her,” Matt clarified. “Pull it together for her.”
Bucky … nodded. Turned to stare straight ahead. And marched forward.
They marched until they reached the end of the island, with their signs and their shouts, asking America to give them their rights back. When they reached the Intrepid Museum, the aircraft carrier that rested in the Hudson, they turned around to go back— And found that they were unable.
There was a commotion at the front. Steve immediately took charge.
“Tony, stay here and keep people calm. Keep them safe if you have to, but remember: This needs to be a peaceful protest. We can’t give the MRD any reason to start arresting people.”
“No excessive force, got it,” came Stark’s robotic-tinged voice.
Steve nodded. “Nat, Sam, you two patrol the crowd. Buck, Daredevil, the two of you are with me.”
The four of them split, and Bucky followed Steve through the crowd to the front, Matt following behind them.
“EVERYONE MUST DISPERSE!”
The voice came from an MRD officer, speaking through a megaphone. The MRD had set up a blockade across the street, preventing the March from moving forward. Bucky would have been worried by the amount of prison trucks on the road, but the soldiers pointing guns at the crowd took priority.
Lydia was front and center, standing on top of a parked car with her own megaphone. “This is a peaceful protest. We have the right to gather here!”
Bucky swore he saw the MRD officer chuckle before he lifted his megaphone again.
“Not anymore you don’t,” he said, and Bucky had a bad feeling about the way he said it. “Maybe you should read the Registration more carefully. Any assembly of mutants within the context of a rally or protest is an illegal gathering. Now, DISPERSE! Or we. Will. Fire.”
Steve stepped forward to make himself seen. “These are American citizens. You can’t just shoot innocent people.”
The MRD officer put down the megaphone. “Look who it is: Captain America. You’re on a terrorist watchlist—” his eyes slid to Bucky, “—so is he. And this ‘mutant activist group’ is on a list, too. This gathering is a potential risk to the safety of the human beings of this city. We have permission to use whatever force necessary to protect them against these dangerous mutants.”
Lydia raised her megaphone again. “We’re not leaving.”
The MRD officer raised his megaphone to match. “YOU HAVE FIVE SECONDS TO BEGIN DISPERSING, OR WE WILL USE LETHAL FORCE. ONE!”
Steve hurried to where Lydia was standing on the car. “We need to start getting people out of here.”
“TWO!”
She shook her head. “We’re not leaving.”
“THREE!”
Lydia turned to a young woman standing behind the car. “Jez, you’re recording?”
The young woman, who seemed to be staring directly at the MRD officer without blinking, nodded.
“FOUR!”
“Everyone here knows the risk,” Lydia said to Steve, her words coming out in a quick rush. “The people in the front and back row were picked because they know the risk. You’re here to protect the rest. When things start going sideways—”
“FIVE! OPEN FIRE!”
Impulsively, Bucky grabbed Lydia and pulled her off the car. He turned his back to the MRD, shielding her with his body. From the corner of his eye, he saw Steve get as many people as he could behind his shield.
They heard the guns go off, but … no bullets came. People screamed— but only for a moment.
When Bucky opened his eyes, he found Lydia staring over his shoulder, her mouth open. Slowly, Bucky turned.
There was a bullet an inch away from his face, frozen in mid air. There were a hundred bullets just like it, all frozen, all stopped just before their gathering. The MRD soldiers paused, and even the MRD officer was stunned.
For a moment Bucky thought maybe… .
Maybe it was—
“Surprised to find you here,” Matt said, and Bucky turned to see who he was addressing.
An old man wearing a deep red helmet, his hand raised, chuckled in response to Matt’s greeting. “Did you really think I was just going to leave my mutant brothers and sisters to die? I may not agree with Miss L/N’s methods, but she is one of ours.”
Magneto, Bucky put together.
“Thank you for coming,” Lydia said to him, and she briefly patted Bucky on the shoulder. A silent thank you for protecting her with his life. She followed that by squeezing his shoulder and looking him in the eye. A silent plea not to do it again.
“Don’t thank me yet,” Magneto replied, and the way he said it shot a chill down Bucky’s spine. “I see Y/N isn’t here. A pity. But it leaves me to do what is necessary; what Miss L/N was not willing to do.“
Slowly, Magneto’s hand began turning. And the bullets hanging in the air began spinning.
Bucky would have loved nothing more than to watch those MRD soldiers and that officer die a slow and painful death— but that wasn’t what Y/N wanted.
Bucky shot out his left hand and grabbed Magneto’s outstretched arm.
“No,” Bucky said. Magneto turned to look at him. “No killing. Y/N’s rule.”
Magneto chuckled. He observed the gloved hand that was stopping him. “A metal arm. How interesting.”
In the next second, Bucky’s left arm was being pulled away from Magneto and across the street, bringing the rest of his body with him. He crashed through the window of a shop, had the wind knocked out of him as his body smacked onto the floor.
Bucky wasted no time in getting up and running back out of the store. A few people that certainly did not belong to Y/N’s mutant group were restraining Matt and Lydia. Steve was on the other side of the street, lying on the ground.
Bucky’s path to Magneto was halted as his arm was ripped up, the rest of his body attached to his floating appendage hanging with his feet off the ground. Bucky scrambled, legs swinging, grasping at his left arm as if he could pull it down.
“Don’t do this!” Lydia shouted at Magneto.
“It’s already done, my dear.” His hand closed, and the bullets flew forward.
A sonic B O O M pierced through the atmosphere,
and the bullets disappeared into golden dust.
Bucky dropped onto the ground. Steve, who had made his way over to him, helped him up.
“Something’s happening,” Steve said. They both looked up to the sky, to the golden light barreling down to the surface.
It crashed into the Hudson River.
There was a murmuring rushing through the crowd, all the way back from the docks and flowing to the front. Bucky couldn’t see anything else through the tight crowd of people besides the radiating light above. He got up onto a parked car to get a better look at whatever it was that had landed in the Hudson.
He felt … warm.
The golden ball of light was not in the river, but rather on top of it. And as it came closer, Bucky realized that it was a figure.
A glowing figure walking on top of the water.
And the closer the figure got, the more Bucky could see.
A woman. The glowing figure was a woman.
Hope lodged itself inside Bucky’s chest. Not yet. Not yet. He couldn’t hope, not until he could see her. Not until he could see her face.
She made it to the dock, the Intrepid resting beside the long strip. The aircraft carrier creaked and shifted in the water, and the people on the boat held onto anything they could to keep steady.
She finally stepped off the dock and onto the street, and Bucky jumped off the car as the crowd began parting for her.
The closer she walked, the more the world began to feel strange. Gravity felt lighter— he could see the loose parts of her clothing floating, as if she was under water. Bits of pavement and trash began rising up, weightless. The warm feeling within him became more intense. Began to feel uncomfortable.
Car alarms rang when she passed them. With a wave of her hand, they turned off. Street lights turned on and popped, then bent and twisted.
She was encased in light. Bucky still couldn’t see her face.
Pain sluiced through his mind, then, and he grabbed onto Steve’s shoulder to steady himself.
“Buck?”
There was a voice in his mind, screaming, unintelligible. Like something was trying to connect, but the other end was incompatible with him. Wrong. Alien and unrestrained; a being not made to be gentle.
F̵̕͝o̸͝҉̨u͏̛͡n̷̛͢͝d̛͞ ̴̴y҉͘͡o̵̷̢͘͜ų̸̷ ̧̢͠͝f҉͝ơ҉͟u͜͠ņ̛͘d͜͟͡ ̨̨y̴̷̕͟͞o̧̢u̴̧͟͠ ̶̡҉̨̡f̸̧͜o̷͡͡u̵̢͘͜͢n̴̕͢d̕͜ ͝y̸҉ơ͏̸̷ų̡̛ ̧f̸͞o҉̴̢̕u̶̵n̴͟͠d̵͘͘͜͝ ͏͢y̴͘͞o̸͘͜u̶̶.
Bucky forced himself to open his eyes. He needed to see, he had to see.
She was close enough now.
It was her.
“Y/N,” Bucky said softly.
She almost walked past him, her focus on the MRD soldiers ahead. But she stopped. And she turned to him.
The glow of her light was harsh on his eyes, and her irises burned golden orange, like fire.
Bucky felt panic rising within him. He couldn’t see her. Her eyes were wrong. She felt wrong. What if she wasn’t in there anymore. What if the Phoenix had—
Her hand lifted and touched the side of his face, with a forced and careful gentleness. Her skin felt hot — not hot enough to burn, but hot enough to be unnatural.
Her eyebrows pulled together. A human (mutant) gesture. A gesture of concentration. Her hand shook against his cheek, as if she was restraining herself.
This time, when her mind connected with his, it felt like her.
This time, she sent him memories. Memories of him. Memories of them.
Like the first instance she came into contact with Bucky, and almost every time after that, she felt him before she saw him. She was in the Captain America exhibit of the museum now. He had his hair tied back and he was wearing a hat.
“We go on the run together; you keep Hydra from capturing me and I piece your memories back together.”
“… . Okay.”
Bucky landed on top of her, shielding her body with his own. When the sounds of gunshots stopped, he looked down at her, and there was a moment. A moment where they shared breath, a moment of calm despite the adrenaline spiking her veins.
“We are the same,” he said. “And I need you.”
A gentle smile pulled at her lips, and her hand found his flesh one on the table top. She squeezed it lightly.
“Also,” he continued, “you can call me Bucky, if you want to.”
Slowly, her hands fisted into the front of his shirt, holding onto him like a lifeline, and she pressed her face into the crook of his neck. His arms squeezed her closer as she let out a cry. Slowly he leaned back onto the bed, gently pulling her with him. Her head was tucked under his chin; her tears stained his shirt as her sobs slowed. She closed her eyes.
“I got you,” he whispered.
She took his metal hand and pressed a lingering kiss to his palm. “You don’t have to be guilty, anymore.”
Bucky took a deep breath and squeezed his eyes shut. He reached out for her and wrapped his arms around her waist. She hugged his head to her middle and rested her cheek on his hair.
We’re gonna be alright.
Her mind intertwined with his, both their bodies and their memories open and vulnerable to each other, it was nothing like anything she had ever experienced before. To show him the worst parts of herself —the torture, the uncontrolled and unrestrained responses of blood and death toward people who had hurt her— to have him show her the worst parts of himself —the assassinations, the pain and murder he had caused— it was to give herself over to him, to have him give himself over to her.
You and me.
You
and
me.
“No,” she interrupted, shaking her head. I’m not leaving you.
“You meet me at the train station,” Bucky repeated. He gripped her upper arms with his hands.
She couldn’t stop the tears that were suddenly filling her eyes. “Don’t make me. Please,” she whispered, her voice broken.
“Look at me,” he whispered, and his voice was just as broken as hers was. “I’m going to see you again, alright? I promise.”
Bucky pressed a kiss to her forehead and she closed her eyes. Then he cupped her cheek and she looked into his blue once more.
“See you soon, Doll.”
Bucky tossed the gun to the ground, staring at her from the other side of the alley, through the rain and the dark.
Tears sprung to her eyes and she ran — ran to him, blindly in the rain and the dark — following the feeling of him, him, him, him.
When she threw herself into Bucky’s arms, he held her securely against him and spun her around and she laughed and cried and grasped his shoulders so hard it hurt her hands— He squeezed her so tightly she thought she might break but she didn’t care she didn’t care she didn’t care.
You’re here. You’re here.
“I didn’t know what to do. Because the thought of losing you… . I thought I could pretend, thought I could … bury it away somewhere, but … but even though it hurts,” her voice broke on the word, on the rawness of emotion and truth laid bare before him, “I love you so damn much that I—”
Bucky finally let go of his self-restraint and closed the gap between them, his lips colliding onto hers. She closed her eyes and tied her arms around his neck; she let him press his body against hers, walking her backwards until she was trapped between him and the door.
They both panted, sharing breath, and Bucky kissed her a final time while she was still on top of him, while he was still within her.
She loved Bucky Barnes, and he loved her. And nothing else mattered.
You are stronger together than you are alone.
She remembered him.
When Bucky returned to reality, her eyes still burned with gold, her body still glowed, her skin was still too hot — but it was still her, inside. Not just the Phoenix. Y/N.
Emotion and all the things he wanted to say to her stuck itself in his throat. Even so, he knew what he needed to say first. “Y/N, you shouldn’t’ve had to do this. I promised I’d find you another way, and I—”
“I wanted you safe,” she said, her voice familiar and so, so foreign at the same time. Her thumb stroked his cheek, those burning eyes studying him. “My soldier.”
“S-surrender yourself! Or … we will use lethal force!”
Bucky didn’t bother turning his attention to the MRD officer still trying to control the situation. But Y/N did, and Bucky at once felt a nervousness, a fear, that Y/N was not herself enough not to use her own —the Phoenix’s— brand of lethal force.
“You finally have the power to do what is necessary.”
Y/N looked behind her to find Magneto, staring at her with expectation and … apprehension. (Bucky swore it looked like … fear.)
“You must do what is necessary,” he repeated. “You cannot allow the humans to—”
With a wave of her hand, Magneto dropped to the ground, unconscious, along with the followers that had been restraining Matt and Lydia.
Then Y/N stepped forward to the MRD blockade. Stopped. Stared at the officer as he yelled at her.
Whatever she was going to do next, Bucky knew it was beyond him to stop her now.
You would do what you had always done.
You would find a peaceful solution.
The moment the MRD officer’s gun went off it began to disappear into golden light — molecules splitting and bunching together into tiny spheres that gently lifted up, up, floating on into the air and the sky. Beautiful glowing balls of energy that took apart something violent and made it harmless and wonderful.
You lifted your hand. The left side of the blockade followed suit — guns disintegrating out of soldiers’ hands, leaving them to stare in bewilderment as they continued away, shining and free. No longer weapons. Just light.
You lifted your other hand. The rest of the guns dissolved into the same golden dust, along with the prison trucks parked all along the street. They created the most light, the most spheres that filled the air with beautiful gold and orange and yellow. The things used for trapping, for imprisonment — they were free, too. And they were magnificent.
Some of the soldiers took off their helmets, let the heavy piece of armour drop from their hands. Some just watched, not knowing what to do next. And some stared at you: some with wonder, some with fear, some with anger, some confusion, some undecided.
It was enough. You watched as the last weapon followed the others into the sky. That was enough.
“It’s time to go, now,” you said as you turned, and began to walk in the direction of the river.
Bucky, your Bucky, your soldier, your friend, your person, your love. He fell in step with you, as did Matt, as did Steve and Natasha and Sam and Tony Stark.
“Go where?” Bucky asked.
You paused. Half-turned back, to where Magneto lay a few steps from you. He was conscious — and by the look on his face, he had seen what you had done. Just like you wanted him to.
“Genosha,” you replied.
You turned back and continued, ever steady even as the ground began to shake beneath your feet. You continued to reach deep down into the Earth, the Phoenix giving you a range of power that was seemingly without end. Your glow expanded, and you were vaguely aware of your friends and your Bucky stumbling behind you as you walked ahead, still reaching, still shifting and pulling and changing what was underneath.
Not here.
Out there.
Off the coast, just far enough to be in international waters. You cracked open the Earth’s core, and what usually took millions of years took only seconds for the Phoenix to manipulate.
Shockwaves continued to run through the city until you were finished
, and the Earth stilled
, and you stopped at the edge of the water.
“What the hell just happened?!” came Sam’s voice from behind you. Your attention was on the water, on the Hudson River itself. Your head turned to the left, your eyes running farther out and to the Upper Bay, then to the open sea beyond it.
“Readings say it was seismic activity,” was Tony speaking within the Iron Man suit. “What did she do?”
Bucky came up by your side. All of them, him, your friends, your people making up the crowd behind you, they were looking at you. They were looking to you. For what to do next.
“Y/N?” Bucky prompted.
“Adopted isn’t really the right word.
They found me …
in a basket,
floating in a river.”
The water from the Hudson began rushing out, draining out, out, out as you pushed it to the sea. You pushed until you could see the bottom, then kept pushing.
Water began to build and pile far out, just before the ocean, leaving the river and the Upper Bay empty.
You turned, took Bucky’s hand in yours. Put everything you could into controlling the being swirling inside of you, the thing with enough power to cause earthquakes, create islands, move bodies of water. You restrained it, like you did when you took that moment to connect Bucky’s mind with yours, and you found the strength to address the crowd before you.
“We can’t stay here!” you shouted to them. “The humans don’t want us. And maybe that will change— but maybe it won’t. And we can’t change their minds if they keep trying to kill us.”
You stepped backwards over the edge, but your foot didn’t fall into the emptiness below. You stepped onto nothing, and stepped back again, and again, until Bucky was forced to let go of your hand. You stood in the middle of the waterless Hudson now, your glow returning with a renewed intensity, your flame growing in size.
“You have a choice to make,” you continued. “You can stay. Or you can follow me.”
Bucky didn’t even hesitate. He may not have been clear on what Y/N was doing, but he would follow her to the end of the universe if she asked him to.
He slid down into the empty river, his eyes never leaving her from where she stood above, glowing just as brightly as he always saw her.
No ancient being could stop the love he felt for her, and no ancient being was going to stop him from saving her.
He watched the fire that encircled her, that began to block even her face from view.
If it comes to that.
Steve slid down after him, his eyes looking far more worried as he took in Y/N above them. “Buck—”
“I know what you’re going to say and— just— one step at a time, okay?” Bucky said. He took a deep breath, his eyes still on her. “She’s in there. I felt it.”
Matt slid down to join them. “And if the next moment she’s not in there?”
Don’t let it come to that.
Matt pointed above him. “Do you know how I know that she’s up there even though I can’t see her?” Natasha and Sam slid down behind him. “Because I can feel the heat. I can smell the fire. And I know there’s nothing up there, but she’s up there anyway, which means she’s standing on nothing. Those guns and trucks back there were there one moment and the next they weren’t. She caused an earthquake.” He paused. Took a breath. “Her voice doesn’t sound right. Don’t tell me you don’t hear that.”
Bucky pressed his lips together. Tried to keep calm. “I believe in her. She can do this.”
Matt’s head titled in a few different directions before settling, like he was listening for her.
(It was his own equivalent of watching her — while the others saw glow and fire, he heard crackling, smelled ash, tasted smoke, felt warmth fevering his skin. And his own version of awe and disbelief crossed over his expression.)
“…Okay,” he said. (Matt wanted Bucky to be right. Y/N was his friend and … he couldn’t lose anyone else. Matt needed Bucky to be right.) “Okay.”
The Iron Man suit clanked to the ground and Stark stood. “This is good, right? Now that is our weapon.”
“She’s not a weapon,” Bucky snapped. It was the last thing in the world that Y/N wanted, he knew that. It was her greatest fear.
“Whatever you want to call it,” came his robotic-tinged voice. “That is our ticket to beating Thanos.”
The five of them doubled over in pain. That loud and insistent voice, screaming in Bucky’s mind was back, and it was speaking to all of them this time.
T҉̶ḩ͏̛a̷̷̛͞n̷̢̨͜ơ͢͝͝s̵͜͝͡ ͜͡i̧̢͢s̷̷͡ ̶͘g̴͜ǫ͟n̢͠͠ȩ̧̧͝ ̢͢͢Į̴ ̵͡t͜o͘͝o҉̴̨k҉̸͜͠ ̶c҉̸̴a̸̧͡r̷̢̢͞e̷̵͜͟ ̵̷̨̡͟o̕͏̵f̡͠ ͜͟͜i̷͘͞t̶̕͞҉ ̨̕͜͠Ţ͘͞ḩ̸̛͞a̛̛͞͡n̷͢͞͠o͡҉s҉̧̛ ̵̶̧i҉s̢ ̡͘g̸͢͝o͜͠҉̷ņ̷e̕͟͡ ̸̛͘͟I͟͡͏̢҉ ̷̨͘t͞o͏͘͠o̷̶̢͘k̢҉͡ ̢͜c҉̢a͢҉r̵̢͜͝͝e̵̡ ̡͠o̸̸f̨͢ ̧͜į̷͢t͝͏̵ ̵̛͘͟T͢͡h҉͢a͏̡n͘͡o̧͘͘͞s̵͏̢ ͝i͏̧s̸̢͟͏ ̡̛g̷̢ơ̶̵̷n͝҉̶̡͠ȩ͟ ̶͜҉I̴͢ ̷̴̶̷͞ţ͝͡o̸̴̕͞o̷͢k̛͠ ̡̡͝c̛͜͞҉a͏̸r̷̷̸͢e̷̴̛͝ ̴̷̡͠͞o̕͏f̨̕ ̴̵̛̕i҉̴̛̛t̴̶̨̧ ̕͜͢͡I̴̴̕͘͢ ̵͘w̵̛͏̢͡a͞n̸̷͏t͜͞҉͘ ̶̶̴͢͡y̕̕͜͝o̢͡ư̶̴͜͢ ͞s̸̴a̵͘͞f̶̴e̸͟ ̡̢I͝ ̛͟͞͞w̶̧͟a͠͏n̡̢t̶̷̡ ҉̷̷͠y͢o͡͞u͘͟ ̴̸s̶͢͞͡a̕͡f͢͠͏e̶̴ ̢͝I͝ ͜w̸̶̶͢a̴̸̧͞n̢̛t̡ ҉͡y҉͞ǫ͢͏͠u̴͢ ̡͘͠s̷̵a̴̷f͜҉̴̶ę̛͞ ̸̷͜I̷̶̢ ̸͢t̵̢̨o̵̵̧͘ơ̢̡͘͝k̡͘͠ ̡͘c͢͜҉̶̨a̵͡͝r̶̛͡e̵̡͜ ̧̧̛o̧̕͜f̧̛ ̡̡҉͞į̸̶̢̛t͜҉ ̷Į̴͝ ͏҉t҉̧̛o҉ơ̶͢͡k̶̷̵͢ ͞͞c̛͘̕͞ą̶̴͘͞r̕҉e̵͏͘͠ ̢̕͟͡͞o͟͞f̴̢̛͢ ̛͜͝҉i̴̵̡͏t̴̢ ̴͡I̷̵̶͢͏ ̴̴̧̧͞t̢͘͝҉o̸̴̕o͏̕k̷̕͘ ͜͢͞c̡͟a̵͝ŗ͝͏e̢͜͏ ̸͢͠ơ̴͏f̵͠ ̵̴̸i̡̧̕͝t̢͜͝
When Bucky could hear himself think again, he looked back up at Y/N. She had an arm outstretched in the direction of the water — she was too focused on keeping the river from drowning them to be gentle with her telepathic messages.
The voice was difficult to decipher, too shrill and messy and violent, but Bucky understood the point of it.
Thanos was gone. She took care of it.
“If this is what a telepathic conversation feels like, I don’t know how you keep one going long enough to say anything back,” Sam groaned to Bucky.
Bucky squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, in an effort to subside the throbbing in his head. “It’s usually not that aggressive.”
He would have to ask her about it. About what happened with Thanos. Just the thought of it twisted him into so many knots he didn’t even how to—
But right now, there were others sliding down to the bottom of the Hudson. The mutants from the March.
Lydia was leading the group, directing people down. And when the river filled with people, the glowing light above began to move, heading toward the Upper Bay.
And so the people followed, and they walked through mud and cold wet that squished into their shoes.
And they kept walking, past the Hudson, through the Upper Bay.
And so they made it to the sea.
And the sea loomed above them and in front of them, huge and dangerous with the only thing holding it back being the ancient being that lived within the woman that Bucky loved.
“What now?” Sam asked, his eyes on the wall of water before them.
Bucky looked up, to where Y/N had paused. “Now, we wait.”
Pushing water down a river and through a bay was one thing— But you needed a moment before facing the vastness of the ocean. Large and wide and deep, with miles ahead until your destination.
You curled inwards, your glow receding and becoming faint as you collected everything you had into yourself.
And you took that, that everything you had, and everything the Phoenix gave you,
and everything the people below gave you,
their hope,
their friendship,
their love.
You took all of it,
and used it to save them.
“They found me …
in a basket,
floating in a river—
like some
goddamn
Bible story.”
You don’t know why the memory came to you then. But you could picture it in your mind, as clear as the day it happened.
Your mother smiling down at you.
Your real mother.
Just … smiling.
You felt her warmth, felt her kiss your brow. Felt her love.
Felt her sadness.
And as she gently placed you in that basket, for what reason you would likely never know, you knew you were loved. Knew you were wanted.
She couldn’t give that to you; but others could.
And they have.
YOU EXPLODED OUT, SPREADING YOUR WINGS AND FORCING THE SEA TO SPLIT — FEELING THE POWER TEAR AND RIP YOU FROM THE INSIDE OUT AS YOU PUSHED THE WATER IN OPPOSITE DIRECTIONS, CREATING A PATH FOR YOUR PEOPLE
YOU GREW AND GREW, HOLDING THE RUSHING WATER EVEN AS THE FORCE OF THE OCEAN PUSHED BACK ON YOU
AND YOUR SCREAMS SOUNDED LIKE THE CRIES OF A BIRD
AND EVEN THOUGH YOU HAD THE POWER IT
IT STRAINED ON YOU AND IT WAS
WAS SO MUCH
YOU BEAT THANOS WITHOUT A SECOND THOUGHT, BUT YOU
YOU SPLIT THE WATER DOWN FOR MILES, FEELING THE LANDMASS ON THE OTHER SIDE, AND YOU
BUT YOU
BEGINNING TO
RUN ON
FUMES
SO MUCH
SO MUCH
BURNING BIG AND BRIGHT AND USING MORE ENERGY THAN THE SUN
BUT YOU HELD
YOU HELD
FOR HIM, FOR THEM
YOU HELD
It was like nothing Bucky had ever seen before.
He couldn’t even see Y/N anymore, her body enveloped in the light and fire of the Phoenix. The sea in front of them split down the middle, and continued separating on and on and on, until Bucky could no longer see the end.
Fear spread through their crowd, the people unsure about the journey ahead of them. Matt, in particular, was looking a little green standing next to him. Everyone was unsure. No one seemed to want to make the first move.
Bucky looked up again, to the bird made flame above him.
He couldn’t see her, but he felt her.
Not the violent intrusion of the Phoenix, but her. It was faint, but it was there.
Bucky took the first step. And the next. And the next.
Steve followed, then Nat, then Sam, then Stark, then Matt (albeit reluctantly). Lydia led the rest of the group, many of them hesitant and afraid,
but they had faith.
They had faith in her.
They walked for hours.
Normally, Bucky would use the sun to tell time, an old trick he had picked up from the army. But he couldn’t see the sun anymore. It was somewhere above, but the walls of water on either side were too high, and the bottom of the ocean was too deep. He couldn’t even see the sky anymore; the only light shining down on them came from the Phoenix. From Y/N.
As far as Bucky was concerned, she was the only sun he needed.
Eventually, the land began to ramp back up from its terrifying depth, and Bucky began to see where the walls of water ended.
It was an island. Out in the ocean, away from the North American mainland, away from anything else. And as their group began to fill onto the land, Bucky looked up to the darkening sky above, to Y/N and the Phoenix blazing around her, and he had an idea where the island came from.
The last few people left the ocean walkway, many of the group grateful to be back on real land. Matt in particular was looking especially ill, Lydia keeping him from falling as he stumbled on his feet.
Bucky’s attention whipped back to the shoreline as he heard the crashing of water, and found the ocean walls collapsing back into each other in a quick rush. The impact sprayed him with wind and wet, soaking his hair and clothes.
But he couldn’t care less, not when the Phoenix was shrinking and dimming to the point where he could see Y/N’s face again, not when Y/N was lowering onto the land.
She stumbled when she touched ground and Bucky rushed to meet her, not caring that her skin was still hot with flame and her eyes were still bright and alien.
Although her glow remained she grinned at him, with that smile that was so uniquely her, and Bucky couldn’t help himself.
He kissed her, hard and desperate and saying all the things he felt when he’d thought he lost her.
And she kissed him back, strong and intense and grabbing at his jacket and tangling her fingers in his soaked hair and pulling and pulling and her skin was getting too hot and his head was starting to pound, painfully and—
Y/N forced herself away, just before Bucky’s vision could turn black, and he swayed on his feet for a moment before he could get a handle on the world again.
She stood a few steps from him now, half-turned away. She stared at her hands for a moment as they trembled, then wrapped her arms around her middle, her entire body shaking. Shaking from restraint, Bucky realized. Desperately trying to control the celestial being raging inside of her.
When it happens, you need to be there for her.
The memory of Alex’s unwanted voice in his head echoed in his mind.
You can pretend all you want that you have some kind of say in this, I don’t care. But when this happens, Y/N’s going to change. And I need to make sure that you’re going to be here, because she’s going to need. Help. To get through it.
Bucky had held her stare.
I’m not going anywhere.
Calmly, carefully, Bucky stepped forward and took one of Y/N’s hands, gently prying it from her body. Her skin was hot against his flesh hand, but he barely noticed. He used his metal hand to cup her face, stroking his thumb over her cheek.
The Shadow smiled at you, a lovely thing, and the more your Flame illuminated him, the more the dark forest became sun-dappled and bright.
His hand caressed your face. It felt cool against the heat of your cheek.
“It’s okay,” Bucky whispered to you. “It’s okay.”
You nodded, and somehow the Phoenix was calmed, calmed by Bucky’s touch, calmed by Bucky’s presence. It still felt like it was burning you from the inside out, but its restlessness was tempered. For the moment, at least.
“Never, ever,” Y/N looked to where Matt was speaking to her, one hand braced on Lydia’s shoulder, “ask me to do anything like that again.”
You could feel his nausea radiating off of him. He paused, as if he was trying not to vomit.
“It’s like I was on a boat, unstable and always shifting, with the worst smell imaginable and air that tastes like salt and-and things moving out there in the water and on the bottom of the ocean and—” He let go of Lydia’s shoulder and slowly sat down, putting his head between his knees. “You owe me one.”
You gave Bucky’s hand a squeeze, then walked over to where Matt was sitting. His head tilted to listen. “You asked me once what I was going to do about the MRD and mutant registration. Do you remember what I said?”
“No.”
“I said we’d cross that bridge when we got to it.” You smiled at him. “Consider it crossed.”
Matt made a face. “That wasn’t a bridge that was the bottom of the ocean.”
“It could’ve been worse,” Bucky commented. “We’re only about twenty miles from the mainland. Middle of the ocean would’ve been much deeper.”
You turned to Bucky and grinned, a small laugh leaving your mouth. He smiled back at you, and you could feel his relief. You fed off the normalcy of the moment, and you stayed in the blue of Bucky’s eyes for as long as you could manage.
Then Bucky’s smile dropped.
And you reached your hand up to find the blood coming out of your nose.
Bucky rushed forward to catch Y/N as she collapsed right before his eyes, panic spiking in his chest. Her skin was hot, too hot — her eyes were struggling to stay open, and she was struggling to pull air into her lungs.
“Y/N, hey, hey.” Bucky cupped her face. “Look at me, look at me.”
You were burning up. Burning out.
Bucky brushed away her tears as his own streamed down his cheeks. “I promised I wouldn’t let this happen to you. I promised.”
“It’s okay,” she whispered, her voice too quiet.
Bucky shook his head. “No.”
She ran her fingers through his hair, cupped his cheek and wiped away his tears. “I saved you. I saved everyone.” She gave him a weak smile. “I did it. I beat Thanos. He’s not going to be able to hurt anyone anymore. You’re safe.” She nodded, as if she was confirming it to herself. “Everyone’s safe.”
“You’re not,” Bucky sobbed.
“But I am,” you said, and you smiled as you realized it. “Don’t you see, that’s the best part. I saved you all — and I saved myself.” Tears filled your eyes and streamed down your face, but your chest felt light. “I didn’t become the thing I saw in those visions. I was good. I was good.”
And you said these words with unbridled happiness, because even as you faced death, you faced it with the knowledge that you did not become the monster who would hurt and kill and destroy.
You saved the people you loved.
And you were good.
“You can’t— You can’t die.”
Her smile faded and she squeezed her eyes shut, fighting back sobs of her own.
“It was too much for her.”
Bucky looked over his shoulder to find a blonde woman speaking to him, her eyes on Y/N.
A surprised sob came from Y/N’s mouth. “Emma.”
“Thanos and making this place and splitting the water for us to cross— Her body never had the time to properly adjust to the Phoenix. It was too much all at once for her.” And even Emma Frost’s eyes were shining with tears.
Bucky held Y/N tighter, not ready to let her go.
“Stay. Stay here with me,” he cried, holding her face and pressing his forehead to hers.
And his voice echoed — sounding right in front of you, but at the same time a thousand miles away.
You wanted to say Yes, yes but the words didn’t come.
Y/N’s breathing began to slow, and her eyes struggled to keep open.
He wasn’t ready.
It wasn’t fair.
They needed more time. He had just found her again — they had just … connected. He wanted more time with her. He needed more time to love her.
They had barely begun.
They deserved more time.
You didn’t want to die.
You thought you were okay with it. You weren’t the monster you were supposed to become.
But… .
You wanted more time.
After everything,
you deserved more time.
And just as Bucky was about to fall apart completely— suddenly Emma Frost was kneeling next to the two of them, putting her hands on Y/N’s body.
“I can take it out of her.”
Bucky’s attention snapped to her. “What?”
“No.”
“I’m a telepath, I can take the Phoenix out of her and become its host in her place,” Emma elaborated.
“You can do that?” Bucky asked.
“NO!” Y/N repeated, and weakly pushed Emma’s hands off of her. “I won’t let you die for me.”
“I’m part of the reason you’re here, Y/N,” she said, tears running down her face. “I was your mentor. I was supposed to protect you. Forcing you to take on the Phoenix was wrong, I see that now. And I have to fix this.”
“You’ll die,” Y/N sobbed, shaking her head.
“And you’ll die if I don’t.”
“I won’t let you.”
Bucky’s heart twisted. “Y/N—”
“I’ll do it.”
You looked up at the red-headed woman who spoke. The brunet man next to her grasped her arm.
“Jean, no.”
The red-headed woman took her arm back and turned to you again. “I was the Host to the Phoenix once. I can do it again.”
“Jean.”
You shook your head. You had seen into her mind: the Phoenix had ruined her life. She had spent so much time and effort —the people who loved her had spent so much time and effort— trying to get rid of it. “I can’t let you do that.”
“We share it.”
You and Jean looked to Emma.
“The three of us,” she clarified. “We share the Phoenix.”
“Can we do that?” Jean asked.
“That was the Inner Circle’s original plan— to share the Phoenix over multiple people to help control it.”
Your body was so heavy.
And you couldn’t keep your eyes open anymore.
You were so tired.
It’s time to rest, now.
“No no no no no no no.” Bucky shook Y/N’s body as she grew limp in his arms.
“We need to do this now,” Emma said, and Jean kneeled down next to her. Emma turned to Bucky. “Let go of her, go stand over there.”
Panic thrummed in his chest. “I’m not leaving her.”
“Then you’ll die,” she said simply. “And I’m guessing that Y/N would not like to see you dead when she wakes again.”
It took everything Bucky had to let go of Y/N, to let Emma and Jean take her body from his arms.
And then Steve was there, pulling him back, and suddenly Bucky remembered all the other people on the island with them. They were all watching what was happening. All waiting with baited breath.
Emma and Jean closed their eyes.
And Bucky waited.
Nothingness.
Just peace.
THEN THE PAIN RETURNED, THE FIRE AND THE BURNING.
IT FELT LIKE YOU WERE BEING PULLED AND STRETCHED—
Wait. That’s not right.
You weren’t being stretched.
It was the Phoenix, the Phoenix was being pulled
and part of it was leaving you
and the pain and the burning was lessening
and you could still feel parts of the Phoenix within you
but just enough to heal instead of hurt you
and you began to feel stronger
and more yourself
until finally
until finally
you opened your eyes.
Bucky watched as Emma and Jean and Y/N
erupted
into light.
And when the screaming started, the brunet man that Jean came with started forward to intervene, but Bucky caught his shoulder.
As much as Bucky knew it was killing him (the same way it was killing himself), he knew that they couldn’t stop them now, even if they wanted to.
And,
eventually,
the light faded to a glow,
and the glow faded out,
and when Bucky could see the three of them again—
He ran to them and slid to his knees
, and Bucky wrapped his arms around Y/N where she was sitting up
, awake and alive.
And she laughed and hugged him back.
And he kissed her, and pulled back for a moment.
Her eyes had returned to her own colour, save for the faint ring of gold around her inner irises.
“I love you,” Bucky said, and for the first time in your entire life, you felt whole and without the weight of the future, or the world, or death.
And you took that moment to hold up your wrists, your wrists that were tattooed with double bands around each, the bands that bound you to your fate — and you removed them. Used the Phoenix to turn the ink into bits of golden light that floated away, much like you did with the soldiers’ guns. Taking something violent, and making it beautiful.
You unbound yourself.
You were absolutely and entirely
free.
You smiled. “I love you, too.”
Chapter 42: Epilogue
Summary:
Today is the happiest day of your life.
Notes:
A/N: There are a few things I need to say before we go into the Epilogue. I started this story over two years ago, in August of 2018. I had posted the first chapter just before going on a school exchange to Ireland, and I was terrified of being on my own in a different country for four months. This story really helped me get through that. I loved writing it and I loved reading all your responses to it.
I need to say … the latter parts of this story were really difficult to get through. When I started this story, my parents were still together. They’re not anymore. They separated just after this story turned one year old, in 2019. It’s been a really hard and long journey for me. Honestly, the story felt very difficult to write at times, because I didn’t really know what love felt like anymore.
Things are better, now. They’re still really hard sometimes, but it’s better than it was. I’m really happy I finally get to finish this story, although it makes me a little sad that it’s finally done now. (Though it’ll never truly be over, I still want to do drabbles and what-if storylines and stuff like that, because I don’t think I’ll ever really let go of this story.)
I’m so grateful for you guys. I’m so glad that so many of you enjoyed this story. I really, really enjoyed writing it. And I hope you guys like this Epilogue :)
So, uh, about the Epilogue. This was supposed to be short. Well, maybe not short, but, like, average chapter length at least (like 2k is what I would call average for myself).IT’S THE LONGEST FUCKING CHAPTER IN THE WHOLE SERIES. IT’S 10,900 WORDS. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN. HOW DID THE EPILOGUE END UP BEING THE LONGEST CHAPTER IN THE SERIES. HOW I DO THIS. WHY I DO THIS.
Anyway, I really hope you guys like it <3 <3 Love you all so, so much.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Two Years Later
“I just don’t know what the protocol is for this.”
You laughed at Matt’s words, high and light, although your heart pounded in your chest. It was a dizzying high of nervousness mixed with anticipation.
“Like am I supposed to be talking you into this,” Matt continued, “or am I driving your getaway car?”
“You can’t drive.”
“You get the point.”
Natasha came to sit next to Matt, smoothing down her dress and taking a sip of her champagne. “I’ll drive the getaway car.”
You laughed again. “Why does there need to be a getaway car?”
“I’m just preparing for all possibilities,” Matt answered. “You didn’t exactly give me a job description when you asked me to be your maid of honour.”
“You’re my closest friend, besides the groom. It’s like an honourary title,” you explained. You said a thanks to Wanda as she handed you a glass of champagne, and she sat down in one of the empty chairs in the dressing room.
“I still think it’s a little awkward to have me as your maid of honour,” Matt said, adjusting his red-tinted glasses. “Because. Well you know.”
You took a sip of your champagne, shaking your head. “Bucky’s going to be Steve’s best man at Steve and Natasha’s wedding.”
Natasha nodded. Matt raised an eyebrow.
“So?”
“So, whatever relations we might have had before we ended up in our current relationships doesn’t matter. Especially when they didn’t mean anything,” you explained.
It took Matt a second to understand what you were talking about.
“Ah.”
You heard Wanda snort through her nose, and you looked over at her. “What?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
You burst out laughing, surprised at her thoughts. “Wanda!” you exclaimed.
“You didn’t have to read my mind!” she defended herself.
Natasha leaned forward. “What did she say?”
You couldn’t stop the amused smile that had taken over your lips. “She was thinking that she’s the only person in this room who hasn’t slept with either the bride or the groom.”
Matt choked on his champagne while Natasha howled with laughter, and you joined her.
The past was the past. The only thing that mattered was now.
Today you would marry James Buchanan Barnes.
❤❤❤
The safest place to hold the wedding was on Genosha.
The island had been your home for the past two years. It took a lot of work to build it into the city it was now, and it was a long time before you could even call it that — but now the island prospered.
Things with the US government were still rocky. Half of the Avengers were still technically classified as war criminals (including your fiancé), which made Genosha the safest place for them. A large gathering of superheroes, both labelled war criminals and not, was a security risk and having the wedding anywhere else was just not a good idea.
As much as you wanted your wedding to be in Romania.
It was okay. It didn’t matter where you married Bucky. It didn’t matter where you two lived. As cheesy as it sounded, the only thing that mattered was that the two of you were together.
Because after everything you two had been through, that was the only thing you cared about. You wanted to spend the rest of your life with Bucky, wherever you were, whatever you were doing. So long as you two were together.
Holy fuck why were you suddenly so nervous right now.
“Your heart is beating really fast,” Matt whispered to you. Your grip around his arm tightened as he walked with you. “Do you need me to tell Natasha to start the getaway car?”
You hit his chest. “Would you stop it with the getaway car? I’m not getting cold feet. I just… .” You couldn’t describe how you were feeling. A million emotions at once. Anticipation and anxiety and excitement and all those things that made you buzz underneath your skin.
“You love him,” Matt offered you.
Gratefully, you took that, and you held onto it.
“I love him.”
❤❤❤
“Stop fidgeting.”
“Shut up.”
It was a beautiful day outside, warm and sunny and breezy with the area around them filled with flowers. But standing next to the altar, Bucky felt more nervous than he had ever had in his life, and Sam was not helping.
“Getting metal feet?” Sam quipped and Bucky refused to look at him, staring straight ahead.
“You’re not funny, you know.”
“Oh I’m hilarious. I just think Hydra erased your sense of humour.”
Knight in shining metal arm, the shared joke flitted through his mind, and a smile tugged at the corners of his lips. The memory of Y/N, barely withholding her laughter, smiling at him in that way that made his heart feel light and unrestrained. He tried to hold onto that as some of the nervousness returned — that stupid, useless, unnecessary anxiety that came from who-knows-where and that he didn’t know how to dissipate.
“Everyone gets wedding day jitters,” Steve offered, and he clapped Bucky on the shoulder.
Bucky nodded, taking a sharp breath in. He looked over the guests, many chatting to each other as they waited.
He spotted Melita and Andrei Mikalos sitting near the middle. They smiled and waved at him, and he smiled back. It had been difficult explaining the truth to them —and not to mention a risk— but both Bucky and Y/N wanted so badly for them to be there. They reminded them of Romania, of their home of two years. The couple reminded them of the beginnings of their relationship, the moments they had when they were just starting to fall in love.
Mrs and Mr Mikalos took it as well as to be expected — there was confusion and disbelief at first, but eventually understanding. Most of all, after the destruction of their apartment by the authorities trying to take Bucky into custody, Mrs and Mr Mikalos were just glad that Bucky and Y/N were alive and safe.
In fact, the first time they had gone back to Romania to visit, Mrs Mikalos had opened the door and wept at the sight of them. She had hugged Y/N and then Bucky in a tighter embrace than he had thought her capable.
Bucky had proposed that night. They invited Mrs and Mr Mikalos the next day.
He smiled at the memory. He had been so nervous about asking her — he didn’t even know why he was ever afraid that she would say no. This was both something that they wanted and had wanted for a long time — even longer than they both realized, for a time.
Bucky had told Steve the truth about that during his bachelor party. It was a very simple, low-key party: just drinking with the guys and talking. At one point during the night, Steve had been going over his Best Man’s speech and asked Bucky if he could put a certain story from 1945 in it.
❤❤❤
“Hey, Buck,” Steve said as he had his notebook open and a pen in his hand. “I’m trying to write my speech for the wedding and I— Do you remember that time in 1945 when we were having that drink in that bar in —shit I can’t remember the name of the town but I think it was in Italy— Anyway, you went after this woman and danced with her for like fifteen minutes and came back like, ‘I’m gonna marry that girl’? You remember that?”
And Bucky did. Vividly. Intimately. More than he was sure Steve remembered of it. To Steve, that night was just one of many others, where his friend said something a bit out of the ordinary. To Bucky … it was the first time he had met the love of his life.
Bucky smiled. “Yeah. I remember.”
“Well, I thought about putting that story in the speech,” Steve went on. “Something about the first time you realized you were ready for marriage. ‘Cause, you know. You used to be kind of a ladies’ man.”
Sam laughed. “Bucky used to be a ladies’ man?”
Steve grinned. “Yeah, and he was good, too. All the girls loved him.”
Bucky scratched his head, a shy sort of smile on his face.
“This guy, Bucky, this guy had moves?” Sam asked with a laugh of disbelief. “This guy got game?”
“Well, actually, Steve…” Bucky began, “…that story goes a little differently than you remember.”
Steve’s head tilted. “What do you mean?”
He ran his hand through his hair. “That woman in the bar… . The woman I said I would marry… . That was Y/N.”
Sam shifted in his chair to face Bucky. “Wait, what?”
“What do you mean that was Y/N?” Steve asked, understandably confused.
“I mean that Y/N, in 2017, got into trouble with some Brotherhood members,” Bucky explained, “and a portal-maker sent her back in time to 1945. That’s where she met me. And I met her. For the first time.”
They all stared at Bucky. Then, finally, Steve broke the silence.
“Holy shit.”
“I know.”
“Hang on, hang on,” Sam said. “So in 1945 you met a woman and you said you were going to marry her. And then everything happened and seventy years passed. Then you found her again. Then more stuff happened. And now … you’re marrying the woman you said you were going to marry in 1945?”
Bucky nodded. “That’s about it.”
Sam shook his head, a smile on his face. Then he, to Bucky’s surprise, clapped Bucky on the shoulder. “You did good, man.”
Bucky smiled to himself as Sam sat back down. “Maybe he does got moves,” Sam added.
Steve shook his head with a smile, looking at Bucky. “The woman from the bar was Y/N… . You two really were made for each other, huh?”
Bucky shrugged. “Well, I don’t know about that. We just … fit together.”
Steve took a sip of his drink. “2017… . So she was meeting you when she already knew you.” His eyebrows knitted together. “But, wait— when in 2017?”
Bucky tapped his metal finger against his glass, the sound making a clink clink clink clink. “Before I found her again.”
His eyebrows rose. “She met you in ‘45 when she hadn’t seen you in almost a year?”
Bucky nodded. “She told me that she honestly thought that seeing me there would be the last time she would ever see me.”
Steve blew out a breath. “That must have been hard for her.”
“It was.”
Steve put his empty glass on the floor, then glanced back at the journal in his lap. He picked up the pen resting between the pages, and started writing.
❤❤❤
Music began to swell and Bucky’s heart rate jumped up again. Anxiety was replaced by anticipation as Bucky straightened his posture and looked to the back, where Y/N would be in just a few moments.
He was so goddamn ready to marry her.
Flower girls were first, followed by little Morgan Stark carrying the rings— with Pepper carrying her because she was only just over a year old. Pepper handed the rings to Steve, who gave Morgan a high five. Then Morgan made grabby hands at her father, who was standing up there with them.
That’s right. Tony Stark was officiating their wedding.
He had offered. And when he did, Bucky didn’t know how to feel at first. The two of them had a complicated history, and to be honest … Bucky wasn’t sure if Tony ever really forgave him.
But Tony had spent two years helping them build up Genosha, chipping in with money and resources and time and ideas. Bucky and him had gotten to know each other.
Offering to officiate Bucky’s wedding was a gesture.
A gesture that said everything. That meant everything.
Pepper handed Morgan off to Tony and all the other guests aww’ed as he held her.
The bridesmaids were next— Natasha and then Wanda behind her. Natasha came to stand next to Steve, and the two gave each other secret smiles that would have been totally obvious if Bucky hadn’t been otherwise preoccupied. Wanda took her place next to Sam, then the guests rose to stand.
It was like he got the wind knocked out of him.
For a moment, Bucky forgot how to breathe as Y/N came into his vision. It wasn’t that her hair or makeup or dress made her any more beautiful than she was every day. What made her more beautiful was her walking down that aisle, walking down to him— both with the knowledge that these were the first steps to the rest of their lives.
Hi, her mind whispered to his.
Hi, he whispered back.
And Bucky could feel the overwhelming emotion pool in his eyes as he finally took in the design of her wedding dress. It was completely strapless and sleeveless, her arms bare and the tattoos there on display for everyone to see. He had no doubt that the dress was also backless (which it was). If this was the dress she chose, Y/N wanted everyone to see the Phoenix inked into her skin, and to see all of it. She wasn’t hiding anymore. She didn’t have to hide anymore.
Your grip on Matt’s arm loosened as you finally saw him.
Bucky, standing at the front of the room. He looked as nervous as you felt, but something relaxed in him when he saw you. Steeled, even. Like he was more ready to marry you than he had ever been.
So were you, you decided.
A couple months ago, when Bucky had asked you to cut his hair, you weren’t sure about how it would look. If he would look different than the Bucky you knew. And he did look different— But as you walked down that aisle, you decided it was the best kind of different. Because Bucky wasn’t just your friend or your partner or your fiancé anymore. He was going to be your husband.
Hi, the whisper slipped from your mind to his, unable to wait until you were actually with him to speak.
Hi, came the reply, as tentative and full of anticipation as yours had been.
And as you saw the emotion in Bucky’s face as he took you in, the tears in his eyes, overwhelming emotion filled your own. He was sending you thoughts of your dress, your wedding dress that let everyone see the whole of your tattoo. The Phoenix on your back.
You had wrestled with the idea for a while. When you had first gone shopping for wedding dresses, there were so many that were sleeveless, or strapless, or backless. So many different dresses that would show off parts of your tattoo. And as you tried on a dress that completely covered all of that up, as you looked at yourself in the mirror, you finally decided that you didn’t want to hide it anymore. You didn’t want to hide from it. Didn’t want to hide from the world any longer.
So you wore your tattoo on your back proudly, although it terrified you, because you needed to take back what it meant to you. With the black bands around your wrists gone, you were no longer bound to a future that you could not control. The Phoenix was a part of you, and the danger had passed. You would own the tattoo not as something your mother and the Hellfire Club had forced on you, but as something you had chosen yourself. To save Bucky. To save everyone. To save yourself.
For love. Your connection with the Phoenix had been born out of love.
Let everyone see that, instead.
Your heart pounded in your chest as you finally joined your hands with Bucky’s, and you let it. Let the anticipation and emotion wash over you as you stared into the blue of his eyes and realized that this was it.
His thumbs stroked the back of your hands, although he took a moment to wipe a stray tear from his face and you did the same. A bright smile settled on your lips and a softer version of your own settled on his.
You weren’t even really hearing Tony saying the opening remarks. You were sure he was saying some kind of joke, because you dimly recognized the laughter that came from your guests. But all you were focused on was Bucky. And all he was focused on was you.
I gotta admit, Doll, Bucky’s voice whispered to your mind. I’m really nervous.
Me, too, you admitted back. I think that’s normal.
You look beautiful.
So do you.
No, I mean… . He inhaled. You took my breath away.
You inhaled a deep breath, too, so many swirling feelings in your chest. I want to marry you so much it hurts.
Good thing that’s what we’re doing here.
Your laughter carried silently through both your minds.
Then Tony turned it over to the two of you to exchange your vows. You had both agreed on the vows you would give and wanted to say them together. But first, you each had prepared something that you wanted to say to each other.
The two of you had decided that you would go first. Bucky squeezed your hands as you took another breath.
Then began.
“Sometimes, when I dream, I see all these different versions of us,” you started. It wasn’t a metaphor. The Phoenix let you see into worlds that were not your own, into different universes and timelines. “Versions of us that haven’t met.”
A version of Bucky spending time in Stark Tower, where Tony Stark had converted the building into a place for the Avengers to stay. They all lived there – Bucky, Steve, Tony, Natasha, Thor, Bruce, Clint. Bucky still struggled with nightmares and the things he had done.
A version of you, working as a specialized therapist for mutants. Using your telepathy to help people. In your dream, you saw a woman sitting across from you, a client who wanted her memories erased. She was bold and angry and self-medicating. You refused to erase her memories but offered to treat her, instead. It took some time, but she agreed. You helped her work through her trauma and thoughts of revenge. You helped her realize why killing a man named James Buchanan Barnes was not what she wanted, and would not make things better for her.
Ultimately it was her choice, but you had helped save his life without ever meeting him.
“Versions of us that bumped into each other briefly, only to go their separate ways.”
A version of the two of you in a bar. Bucky had saved you from a man who was annoyingly insistent on buying you a drink. The two of you talked for hours.
You moved to Washington the next morning.
“Versions of us that met later.”
A version of Bucky that had dealt with Thanos and being dead for five years before being brought back. A version of him that had court-mandated therapy and almost zero friends and was just trying to get by, day-to-day.
A version of you that had been the Phoenix for fifteen years. A version of you that felt the absence of the Infinity Stones and half of the people of the universe and it left you unstable. A version of you that went to the Hellfire Club for help, only to get turned into a weapon for five years, until half the population returned and you took your life back. Still unstable.
A version of you that had moved to a new apartment building because you had accidentally destroyed the last one.
You were Bucky’s new neighbour. One night, he found you on the rooftop, unable to sleep because of the nightmares. He had come up for the same reason. You bonded over nightmares and messy lives and not telling the other the huge secrets you both kept.
In one of your dreams, you stood in a bar in Madripoor with Bucky, Sam, and Helmut Zemo of all people. Bucky wore garb reminiscent of what Hydra made him wear as the Winter Soldier. You wore a backless, sleeveless dress, showing off your tattoo. Zemo called Bucky “Winter Soldier” and you “Phoenix”.
The two of you bonded over being living weapons, over being controlled by secret organizations that used you to hurt and kill and gain power.
“Versions of us that met in a different point in time.”
A version of you that had pissed off the wrong Brotherhood member. A version of you that got thrown through a portal and ended up in some kind of facility with Captain America and his best friend running around. A version of you from 2014 that ended up in the 1940s.
There was nothing you could do about being there, so you told them you were a medic and you joined Captain America when he created his Howling Commandos.
It was Bucky you grew closest with. Sitting outside with him by the fire, in the middle of the night when neither of you could sleep. You dreamed of the Hand — He dreamed of Zola experimenting on him.
At some point it became more between the two of you.
You knew about his future. You knew about the train and his death.
You tried to stop it.
Failed.
“Versions of us where the timing didn’t work.”
A version of you that was young, only seventeen years old. A version of you that went to school with Peter Parker. A version of you that became his friend. A version of you that found out that he was Spider-Man and got involved in that life.
You met Bucky Barnes when you met the Avengers. To him, you were the kid’s friend and nothing more.
A version of Bucky that didn’t fall off the train. A version of Bucky that mourned the death of his friend after the plane crash. A version of Bucky that lived a long and happy life.
A version of you that volunteered at an old-folks home.
The other volunteers and staff called him ‘James’, but he always told you to call him ‘Bucky’. Sometimes you’d sit for hours listening to his stories of war and Captain America and the Howling Commandos.
When he died, you went to his funeral and told those stories yourself.
“Versions of us still trying to save each other, even when things went wrong.”
A version of you that chose wrong. A version of you that chose to leave Bucky to protect him.
Thanos happened. Bucky died. You became the Phoenix, in a violent and grief-stricken way. The Hellfire Club spent five years carving you out so they could control you.
Everyone came back.
Bucky spent months trying to find you.
In your dream, Bucky stood in front of you, you with your glowing eyes and expression void of emotion, of anything. He tried to convince you of who you used to be. You told him that whoever that person was, that person did not live inside you anymore.
Someone fired a gunshot at him. You stopped the bullet without meaning to. Looked at your betraying hand and wondered why.
Maybe there was still a part of you left in there, somewhere.
“There are so many different versions of us. Good and bad.”
A version of you walking up from cryosleep in a Hydra facility in Siberia. A version of you that Hydra had captured a few years earlier, put in a facility with the other Winter Soldiers, and forgotten about you.
It was Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes who had rescued you when they found you there, amongst the Winter Soldiers, your file saying that you were something different from them.
You watched Iron Man come to fight Captain America and his friend. Watched Bucky lose his arm.
Lost control. Incapacitated Iron Man. Helped Captain America take Bucky from the facility.
Offered to help fix his mind.
A version of you that went to the Avengers for help when the Infinity Stones were destroyed and half the population left this … void, and the Phoenix raged inside you, making you an unstable thing.
You stayed at the Compound. Helped where you could. Spent most of your time in the power-dampening box that SHIELD had created once to deal with enhanced and mutant and inhuman people.
Five years later, when the Avengers had collected the Stones, you couldn’t help yourself. The Phoenix would not allow anyone else to handle them but you, but itself.
You took the Stones and snapped your fingers. Brought everyone back.
Unharmed as you were, you didn’t have the strength to fight when Thanos’s forces came.
Tony Stark was forced to use the Stones himself. And as he lay dying, you let the Phoenix’s power flow, and you saved his life.
Tony Stark rebuilt the Compound. You lived in it with Bucky and Wanda.
You had all lost things.
With the Stones gone once again, you were back to being an unstable mess, the void returned to claim you.
Bucky was trying to figure out who he was. Trying to figure out how to live a normal life again. How to reconcile for the things that he had done.
Wanda was grief as a person. Vision was gone, and she didn’t know how to handle his loss.
Somehow, the three of you living in that Compound managed. Leaned on each other. Found a way to … live again. Together.
A version of you that was taken to Sokovia like Alexander Pierce had promised you. A version of you that was experimented on by Strucker.
A version of the Winter Soldier that was ordered to go with you rather than go fight Steve Rogers.
He was ordered to keep the Weapon safe. To keep any unauthorized persons from touching you.
In your dream, a Hydra agent had gotten frustrated with you enough to hit you. The Soldier had clamped his metal hand around his neck and lifted him up against the wall. After he was ordered to let go and the agent was ordered to leave, you felt the Soldier’s eyes on you. Assessing you for injuries. He left your cell, then.
Came back with a packet of ice.
A version of you that was acquainted with Prince (then King) T’Challa. A version of you that was asked for help. A version of you that was asked to come to Wakanda to help a man whose memories had been broken, whose mind needed fixing and trigger words removed.
In your dream, you stayed in the hut next to James Buchanan Barnes. The children adored him and called him ‘White Wolf’. After a time, he asked you to call him ‘Bucky’.
You helped him with his mind, in the sun and the peace and the quiet of Wakanda.
You grew closer.
Then Thanos came and everything fell apart.
Another version of you from 2014 that was sent back in time. This version of you ended up in the 1980s.
You made a life for yourself. But then you helped one too many people— and unfortunately gained a reputation as a telepath that Hydra could not ignore. They forced you to work with them, lest you lose your life. For the people you interrogated for them, you tried to make it as quick and painless as possible.
The Winter Soldier was assigned to watch you, escort you, protect you, handle you. Watch you and escort you to make sure you didn’t escape; protect you to make sure no one deprived Hydra of their telepath. They regularly wiped the Soldier’s mind, but … you kept his memories for him, after that first time you had met. Although he wordlessly confronted you about it, he didn’t tell Hydra what you had done. You kept his memories for him every time they wiped him.
Priorities began to change. The Soldier began to put your safety above his missions.
In your dream, the Soldier had been injured, and you were helping patch him up. There was a closeness and intimacy there that was foreign territory for you both.
Finally, he said, “I’m going to get you out of this.”
You couldn’t let him. You knew Hydra would punish him for it. Worse, they would wipe his memories for real and he would be back to square one.
You told him to come with you. That the two of you would run, together.
You spent the night with each other.
Intimately.
The plan was meant to work. You were both meant to escape.
But someone had noticed. Someone had noticed how the Soldier’s priorities changed.
Hydra deemed you a liability. They couldn’t have someone influencing their Asset and undermining their conditioning tactics.
The next time they took the Soldier for a memory wipe, they came for you while he was gone. Stuck a needle in your neck. Knocked you out. Threw you in a cryo-chamber.
They successfully wiped the Soldier’s mind. Then they sent him to kill Howard and Maria Stark.
You woke up twenty-seven years later. The world was new and damaged.
You wondered what happened to the Soldier.
Bucky wondered what happened to you, too.
“But I am so lucky that this is the version that I got.”
The version of the two of you that met in an unfortunate way, but made the best of it by helping each other. The version of the two of you that ran to Romania and hid there. The version of you that helped piece Bucky’s memories back together. The version of Bucky that was slow to open up to you, and the version of you that was slow to open up in return. The version of the two of you that found ways to connect to each other. The version of the two of you that found comfort in each other at night; the version of the two of you that stopped each other’s nightmares. The version of Bucky that fell in love with you first. The version of the two of you that explored each other’s trauma. The version of the two of you that saw the worst of each other. The version of the two of you that accepted the other anyway. The version of Bucky that traced your tattoos and scars; the version of you that traced his own; the version of the two of you that found a way to undo the trauma inflicted on the other. Maybe not undo it all the way, but start to heal.
The version of the two of you that got separated. The version of you that had to live without Bucky for almost a year. The version of Bucky that had to live without you for almost a year. The version of you that grappled with your feelings for Bucky, when you didn’t know if you’d ever see him again. The version of you that discovered the terrible truth of your future and how Bucky was involved. The version of you that refused to admit that you loved him because somehow you thought that distancing yourself from him would save his life.
The version of the two of you that reunited, that hugged each other so tightly you thought you would never breathe again and it didn’t matter. The version of you that finally accepted that you loved him. The version of you that almost left because of it. The version of you that chose to stay, to tell Bucky the truth about everything. The version of you that finally admitted that you loved him — the version of Bucky that kissed you and kissed you and kissed you and told you that he loved you, too.
The version of you that became the Phoenix out of love, to save Bucky, to save everyone. The version of you that stopped Thanos and the terrible future. The version of you that created Genosha and provided mutants and anyone else who wanted a safe place to live their lives.
The version of you that almost died. The version of you that didn’t die. The version of you that unbound yourself.
The version of the two of you, living happily together, building up Genosha.
The version of the two of you here, now, at your wedding.
The version of the two of you that loved each other and that was enough.
Bucky’s hands squeezed yours, and you smiled widely at him through the shallow pools resting in your eyes, tears of joy and overwhelming love. “To be honest…” you continued, “…I never thought I’d get here. I never thought I’d get to stand here, with someone like you, that I love so much, in front of all of my friends, and family,” the family that you chose, “and get to tell all of them … how much I love you.”
Bucky’s own blue eyes were filling with tears again. He smiled at you though he was trying not to cry, trying not to let the emotion completely overwhelm him. And though he was failing, the brightness that you felt inside for him radiated throughout you and you shared that with him.
Relief bubbled up from inside you as you made your next admission. “I get to plan a future with you. You are my future. I don’t know what that future might hold, and I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. I don’t want it all planned out. I just want to live it with you.” You inhaled. Focused on the blue of his eyes and the watery smile on his face and let it ground you. “James Buchanan Barnes. Our love was not love at first sight. Far from it. But you saved me. In so many different ways. You saved my life, more times than I can probably count. You saved the person that I am. When I wanted to be anything but myself, you looked at me, and you loved me, for everything that I am, all the good, and the bad, and the terrible.”
Bucky’s thumbs brushed over the backs of her hands, soothing over the memories. In that moment, more than anything else he just wanted to hug her. Squeeze her body as tightly as she needed it, and let her hold him back as tightly as he needed it.
“Unapologetically, you saw me,” she continued. “All of me. And I saw you. This person who was so like me. Who knew my pain. Who understood it.”
Bucky did. More than anyone else, he knew her pain because it was a pain that he had experienced for himself. And she understood his pain in return.
“And I know it took me a long time to realize what I felt for you. But I’m here now. And I love you more than words can say.” She smiled at him and he smiled back, that fluttering in his heart returning.
I love you, too, he whispered to her mind. I love you so damn much.
You squeezed his hands as his expression became nervous again. Bucky reached in his pocket to pull out a sheet of paper, his hands shaking a bit. You kissed the top of his knuckles of the hand still in yours, eliciting a small laugh from Bucky and awws from your guests.
“The first first time that I met you,” he began, “was love at first sight.”
A memory that Bucky projected to you. Of 1945 from his point of view — seeing you and bumping into you and being absolutely enamored with you.
“I saw you across a crowded bar and danced with you and told Steve that I was gonna marry you.”
Bucky, a little breathless, his heart hammering in his chest as he spoke the words,
“I’m gonna marry that girl.”
“The second first time that I met you was not love at first sight. I didn’t remember who you were. I didn’t remember anything. You hadn’t even met me yet. Because the first first time that I met you was not the first time that you met me.” Bucky looked out toward the guests, then. “That’s, uh, some complicated time travel stuff that happened. What a world we live in, huh?” Laughter rang out, most notably from those who had first hand experience with the weirdness that came with superheroes and aliens and enhanced people and mutants. Bucky looked back at his notes, the paper crinkling in his hand. He found his place again. Sometimes he’d read directly from the page, and sometimes he’d look at you. “But,” he continued, “the first time you met me, you saw what I was. Maybe not who I was, but … that I was lost. That I was alone. That I needed help, even though I’d never say it.”
Bucky stood in the Smithsonian, looking at the image of himself, an image that he did not recognize, with the name ‘James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes’ attached to it. That wasn’t him. It looked like him, and maybe at one point that was supposed to be him, but… .
He didn’t know who he was. And he didn’t know what he was supposed to be doing now. He didn’t even know how he was supposed to feel. Happy that he left Hydra? Grieving the loss of a life he had never known? Angry for what had been done to him? He didn’t completely understand that, either. There were so many gaps, and things were coming back too slowly. He still barely understood who Steve Rogers was and what he meant to him. He knew he meant something to him. He had felt it. And the Smithsonian was saying they had been friends since they were young.
But reading about something and knowing something were two very different things.
What was he supposed to do next? Find Steve Rogers? He could. But he still didn’t know him.
Hydra would want him back. And nearly anywhere else he’d be considered a criminal for the things he’d done. Things he … didn’t even remember.
That made him feel… .
He was still trying to remember how to feel. What emotions were like. He couldn’t even put names to what he was feeling. Or if he was feeling anything at all.
He wondered what happened to the woman in that cell.
He couldn’t decide if he cared or not. Couldn’t figure out if he was supposed to care or not.
Was curiosity the same as caring? Was guilt the same as caring?
He couldn’t tell if that’s what it was. If he was feeling any of that.
Was emotionlessness easier? Was not feeling easier?
Being free was a good thing.
But he didn’t know what he was supposed to do next.
A woman came to stand next to him. You came to stand next to him. Even though he didn’t look at you, he realized who you were.
A little voice inside his mind said, Oh. It’s you.
He didn’t like that little voice. Because he was still struggling to figure out what to feel. How he felt. He didn’t like the little voice because it was him. And he didn’t know who that was yet.
“Looks like you didn’t need my help after all.” His voice still sounded foreign to his own ears.
“I did,” you said. “I shouldn’t’ve had to do that. Now Hydra knows for sure what I am. Now they’ll never stop chasing me.”
He didn’t want to look at you. He didn’t know how to … empathize yet. He said, “What do you think would’ve happened if they had decided that you weren’t who they thought you were? I know you’re not naïve enough to think that they would’ve let you go.” If you were that naïve then you were a fool. Hydra was merciless. It was that that he knew with an absolute certainty.
“If it meant that they wouldn’t have made me hurt anyone, then I could’ve lived with that.”
“No, you wouldn’t have.” He finally looked at you. You were hugging yourself, your eyes on the ground. He needed to make you understand this. “Because they would have killed you. Because Hydra doesn’t leave loose ends.”
He didn’t know why he needed to make you understand that.
When you looked at him, he looked back to the exhibit. Something about eye contact … he couldn’t bear it. Your eyes looking into his, like he was a person… .
He didn’t know how to be a person. He didn’t know how to feel like a person.
He focused on the picture of Bucky Barnes, instead. Stood in a silence that felt like forever.
How was he going to do this? …Live his life?
“My second day in the city I visited the Smithsonian,” you said. “I visited this exhibit.” He could feel your eyes on him. “I knew you looked familiar somehow.”
Why were you still here? “What do you want from me?”
“Let me help you. I can fix your memories, put them back together. I’m not saying it would be easy, or quick, but I could do it.”
He finally looked back at you. Looked you in the eyes and tried not to balk from it. He didn’t understand you. He didn’t understand why you were here. “Why would you help me?”
You shrugged. “Would you believe me if I said I’m doing it out of the goodness of my heart?”
No.
He’d been making his own choices for less than a day, but even he knew that nobody would do that. Why would anyone? Everyone always wanted something. Hydra always wanted something.
A sigh left your mouth. “Fine. If you need a reason so badly then how about this: Hydra knows what I am now. I can’t afford to let them catch me again; I won’t let them catch me again. I need you to help me run from them. Don’t forget, Hydra is probably looking for you, too. We go on the run together; you keep Hydra from capturing me and I piece your memories back together.”
He looked back at the exhibit because he couldn’t handle the way you held his gaze any longer.
He didn’t know what he was supposed to do. He had no plan. He wanted to come here, to the Smithsonian, to see the exhibit on Captain America and himself and… . Then what? He was free, free from Hydra, but he didn’t know what to do with that freedom.
But.
You were offering his memories back. The thing that he was missing. That he didn’t know if he could put together by himself.
Memories. Real memories. Of his life. Of who he was. Of Steve Rogers. He could still remember the tears in his own eyes and the overwhelming mix of feelings that hit him like a freight train when Steve Rogers had said, “‘Cause I’m with you ‘till the end of the line.” The recognition there. The flip that switched in his head.
You were offering him a chance. To figure out who he was.
He didn’t know how to feel about you. He didn’t know you. He still didn’t really understand why you wanted to help him. Especially when he didn’t help you.
But Hydra wanted you. He knew what that felt like. You wanted to stay out of Hydra’s hands as much as he did.
You were offering an exchange. His memories for protection from Hydra.
Why you would trust him to protect you… .
That felt strange. That felt wrong. He didn’t feel like the kind of person you trust.
But he needed his memories. He needed his memories more than anything else.
So he needed you.
“Okay.”
“You offered to put me back together, when I was broken, when I didn’t know how to fix myself,” Bucky continued. “You looked at this person that had been made into a weapon, and you weren’t afraid. You decided that I was worth helping. You decided that I was worth saving. That I was worth more than what I had been made into. You helped me figure out who I am. And part of that is who I used to be, but part of it something new. Something you helped create. I am who I am because of you. I don’t know how I’ll ever thank you for that.”
You squeezed his hands when he looked at you, and you shook your head.
You already have, you told him. Just being with me.
Bucky smiled at you, then took a pause as he looked back through his notes, and his smile widened when he found his place.
“And then I fell in love with you, and that was a completely different ballpark,” Bucky said and you laughed along with some of the guests. “I just knew, then and now, that you are everything that’s good in my world.” You took a deep breath in, that swirling, overwhelming emotion returning to settle in your chest. “And I didn’t know … how to handle being in love with you. I didn’t want to scare you off. I didn’t want to lose you, because you were the most important thing in my life. I loved you, and I love you, with everything that I have. And I would have stayed with you in that apartment in Romania for the rest of my life, if you would have had me.”
I would have, you whispered to him.
“But I’ll follow you anywhere you want to go,” he continued, his smile growing. “Because when you look at me, you don’t see a weapon or a soldier or something irreparable. You just see me. Like I see you.”
You wiped away a few tears that had left your eyes. Even Bucky had to pause to collect himself.
“We both have scars.” He put his notes back in his pocket. Took his metal hand and ran his fingers up and down the ink on your hand and wrist and arm. The hand and arm that had caused him so much pain; the tattoo that had caused you so much pain. It didn’t feel like pain, now. It felt like love. “And things we have to heal from. But we’ll do that together. We have the rest of our lives to.”
You really, really wanted to kiss him, then.
Bucky really, really wanted to kiss her, too.
But now it was time for their vows. They had come up with them together, things that they wanted to promise each other. He squeezed Y/N’s hands for the thousandth time and she squeezed his hands back.
They looked into each other’s eyes, and said it together.
“I promise to always tell you the truth, especially when the truth is hard.” All the things the Winter Soldier had done. All the things Y/N had done. Y/N’s truth about the future and the Phoenix. Finally admitting to each other that they were in love with the other. Impossible things to say out loud, but they did it. And they would continue to do it.
Trust in this relationship. Trust in your partner.
“I promise never to run away when things get difficult; whatever I face, we face it together.” There was a time when you considered running to save Bucky’s life. Because you thought it would save Bucky’s life. The Phoenix showed you what would have happened if you had, and it was the terrible future that Irene Adler had put into Tony Stark’s head. No matter what, neither of you should make the decision to deal with things on your own.
You are stronger together than you are alone.
“And I promise to see you, and only you, as you see me.” Even as Bucky held your hand with the metal of his left arm. The vibranium that was a reminder of his time as the Winter Soldier. When you looked at it, you didn’t see that. Just an arm. Just Bucky’s arm.
Even as Bucky looked into Y/N’s faintly gold-ringed eyes. The reminder of the being that lived inside her, the Phoenix that chose her as its Host. When Bucky found her gaze, he didn’t see that. Just her eyes. Just her eyes that looked into his and only reminded him why he loved her.
It had been Bucky who added this one. He knew that even after two years, looking in the mirror and seeing those gold rings still made Y/N a bit anxious.
“It terrifies me,” she had confessed that night she had told him the truth, the whole truth, about the Phoenix, “and I can’t even imagine what it would be like … to be on the outside, to look into someone’s eyes and know that one day … that will be staring back at you.”
“All I see is you.” That’s what he told her. And that’s what he wanted to make sure that she knew. That’s what he wanted to promise her. And have her promise to him in return.
Because when Bucky looked at Y/N, he just saw the person that he loved. And he knew that’s what she saw when she looked at him, too.
When they had said their vows, Tony gestured to Steve. “The rings?” He shifted Morgan to his other side. “You didn’t lose them already, right?”
Steve chuckled and handed one of the rings to you, and one of the rings to Bucky.
“With this ring,” Bucky said as he took your left hand in his and slid the golden band onto your finger, “I choose you to be my wife.”
Your heart and eyes filled as he did so, and the happiness that you felt was indescribable. You took his left hand. “With this ring,” you said, slipping the specially-made-for-metal-hand golden band onto his finger, “I choose you to be my husband.”
Bucky’s eyes crinkled as his face broke into his widest smile yet, a laugh of relief leaving his lips, as if he couldn’t believe it. You laughed, too, unable to believe it yourself.
Tony grinned. “By the power vested in me, by the Council of Genosha that granted me this power that I will totally not abuse in the future, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You two can kiss now.”
Eagerly, Bucky cupped your face and brought your lips to his, sealing the bond between you. You wrapped your arms around his shoulders and barely heard the clapping and cheering from the guests. All you could hear, all you could feel, all you could understand was Bucky. Bucky with his hands on you, Bucky kissing you, Bucky becoming your husband.
Your husband.
Bucky was your husband.
When he finally pulled away, he pressed his forehead to yours, eyes still closed.
And you’re my wife, he whispered back to you, and you smiled, opening your eyes again.
You met his blues and he grinned at you.
❤❤❤
You closed your eyes and tried to breathe properly.
You were sitting in a chair in front of all your guests, with Bucky kneeling in front of you. With his hands on your legs and his head under your dress.
The garter toss was a strange tradition, indeed.
You had done the bouquet toss just before. When you had thrown the flowers over your head, it landed in the hands of the girl that Peter Parker had brought with him. His face had gone scarlet, and some of the guests aww’ed. The girl acted like it didn’t matter, although you could tell she was secretly pleased.
And now the garter toss. The garter toss was the male version of the bouquet toss — same idea, whoever caught the garter would be the next to get married. Bucky explained that people used to think the bride’s dress was lucky, so they would try and rip a strip of it off for themselves. The garter was meant to be a piece of the dress that you could give out, and therefore solved the whole dress-ripped-into-pieces-by-the-guests thing.
You were more interested in the part where the groom had to remove the garter, a belt that went around your thigh, either with his hands or with his teeth.
You wanted to see if he could even do it.
Well. He was doing it.
You could feel his breath on your inner thigh. His voice spoke in your mind, You doin’ alright up there?
I’m trying not to tangle my fingers in your hair.
Bucky’s grip tightened on your leg at the insinuation. He pressed a kiss to the inside of your thigh in response.
Your eyes flew open, trying to keep your composure in front of all your guests, and you swear you heard Bucky chuckle. Then your garter was slipping down your leg, down until Bucky’s head surfaced from under your dress, the fabric trapped between his teeth. He kept going until he got the garter over your foot and finally off you.
Guests raised drinks and cheered, and you heard loud laughter from some of them.
Bucky took the garter from his mouth, turned around, and tossed it behind his back.
It was Vision who caught it. Wanda grinned next to him, half-covering her face in his arm from embarrassment. He smiled back, a little confused by the tradition, but happy to see her happy.
Bucky looked back at you with a large grin, and you shook your head at him. He ran back over and pressed a big kiss to your cheek, leaving you giggling.
❤❤❤
“How’s your food?” Bucky whispered into your ear. The two of you sat at the front with the rest of the wedding party, where everyone could see you.
You gave him a strange and amused look. What are you doing? We can literally talk to each other without speaking, you don’t need to do the secret whispering thing.
He leaned back over to your ear. “Yeah, but this looks cuter.”
You pulled back to look at him, then looked out at your guests. Some of them were indeed looking, amused and adoring at the groom whispering to his bride.
You leaned in close to him. “You’re such a dork.”
His eyes crinkled as he smiled and you smiled back at him.
But you know what’s cuter than whispering to each other? you asked, finding his eyes and staying there.
What’s that? he replied, his blues not leaving you.
Having a telepathic conversation where it looks like we’re just getting lost in each other’s eyes.
Bucky laughed through his nose when he realized what you were doing. Then, for a moment, there was silence between you as you really stared at each other, unable to break the other’s gaze.
Until Bucky’s eyes dipped down to your mouth. Then he smiled and looked away, his nose scrunching and eyes crinkling as he laughed.
Clinking came from the other side of Bucky and he forced himself to turn toward it, to tear away his attention from Y/N. He wrapped his arm around her instead.
His wife.
Bucky found himself smiling all over again.
Steve was clinking his spoon against his glass. The room fell silent.
“I met Bucky when I was twelve years old. I was fighting some bullies in an alleyway—”
Bucky served his friend a sharp look. “Fighting?” he interrupted.
“Okay, okay,” Steve conceded, “I was getting beaten up by some bullies in an alleyway. And Bucky, who was walking by, saw this scrawny, stubborn kid who wouldn’t stay down and he helped him. He’s my best friend, and my brother. I love ya, buddy.”
“Get on with it or I’m gonna cry,” Bucky said, only half kidding.
Steve chuckled and checked the notes in his journal before continuing. “Along with being my best friend, Bucky was also quite the ladies’ man.”
Bucky covered his face with his hand and Y/N laughed. The smooth-talking tendencies of the person he used to be was never something that came back to the person he was now, and he never understood the ease he used to have when it came to women and relationships.
It didn’t matter now, anyway. He had his person.
Didn’t make it any less embarrassing, though.
Steve continued, “He always had a girl on his arm— sometimes two.” Oh, kill me now. “And he seemed like the kind of guy who was never gonna settle down. But then, one day, in 1945, in a bar overseas, we were talking about the future and marriage and he said to me … that he wanted that.”
Y/N found Bucky’s hand on the table.
“He said that he wanted to settle down,” Steve went on, “and have kids and grow old with someone. Now, hang on, because this is where the story starts getting good. After we finished our conversation, Bucky looked out into the crowd, and his eyes caught on something. He set down his drink without a second word and strode across the dance floor, like a man on a mission. When I spotted him next he was dancing with a woman, and I didn’t really think much about it because, like I said, ladies’ man.”
Bucky shook his head and Y/N laughed again.
“But then he came back.” Steve paused for dramatic effect. “And he said, he said to me, ‘I’m gonna marry that girl’.”
Bucky looked over at Y/N to give her a smile, only to find her already looking at him with a smile of her own.
“Now,” Steve said, “if you were paying attention earlier, you know where this is going. But just in case you weren’t, here’s where the story gets really interesting. Seventy-five years pass. It’s a few nights ago at Bucky’s bachelor party. I ask him if I can put this story in my Best Man’s speech, because it’s the first time he told me he had an interest in getting married, and it’s a good story even though he’s not marrying that woman from the bar. And then he tells me, ‘Well I’ve been meaning to tell you something. The woman from the bar … is Y/N.” Steve looked to her as he said it, and she smiled back at him. “Y/N had gotten thrown back in time to 1945 and somehow, someway, she ended up in the same place as Bucky. She had known him for two years at that point. And Bucky just met her, but he already knew he wanted to marry her. And y’know what? He was a pretty good judge of character.” Steve gave Y/N a smile. “The thing is … when Y/N ended up in 1945, she hadn’t seen Bucky for a year.”
You gave a shaky inhale at the reminder. Bucky’s thumb stroked your arm, and you leaned into him.
Steve continued, “She didn’t think she was ever going to see him again. So seeing Bucky in 1945 must have been so difficult for her. Bucky told me that she thought that seeing him there was the last time that she would ever see him.”
You nodded with a watery expression and Bucky squeezed you tighter to him.
Steve made a point to look at you as he spoke. “But thankfully she was wrong. Because she did find him again. And now they’re married.”
You gave a watery laugh and Bucky rubbed your arm.
Steve smiled. “How I met Y/N is not important to the story. What is important is what came after. I met her five years ago but I didn’t really get to know her until the past two years. And I’m really glad that I got the chance to know you, Y/N. You’re already like a sister to me. Now you’re my family.”
Y/N’s eyes filled with more tears and even Bucky felt a little choked up in his throat.
“To Bucky and Y/N,” Steve said, raising his glass. Everyone else did, too. “Buck, seventy-five years ago, you said you were gonna marry her. You did it. I love you guys.”
There was more clinking of glasses and cheering when Steve was done, and Bucky had to get up to hug him. Both Bucky and Steve had to wipe tears from their eyes and they laughed and Y/N got up to hug Steve as well.
It was the happiest Bucky had ever been.
It was the happiest you had ever been, too.
And it was just the beginning.
❤❤❤
It was the late, late hours of the night and you and Bucky were finally heading home. It had been a long and fun wedding reception, but the two of you needed to be well-rested to leave for your honeymoon tomorrow.
You were being driven home by Tony’s wedding present, and actual car with the F.R.I.D.A.Y. A.I. programmed into it. It proved useful tonight since neither of you were sober enough to get behind the wheel. Not that you were wasted, just too tipsy to drive safely.
Thor had brought special Asgardian alcohol with him that allowed Bucky and Steve to actually get drunk. It was the first time you had ever seen Bucky like that. It was hilarious. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you wanted to look at it) his super soldier metabolism was working just fine, so he wasn’t as drunk as he was anymore.
The car missed the turn to your apartment.
“F.R.I.D.A.Y.,” you murmured. “You’re going the wrong way.”
“This is the way I was programmed to go,” came the female Scottish accent. You sighed and leaned forward to do something about it, when Bucky pulled you back.
“Why don’t we see where it takes us?” he said.
You stared at him, the beginnings of a smile on your lips. “What did you do?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
You sat up, suddenly more awake. The car continued down the road, then finally stopped when it reached some houses.
Stopped in front of one house in particular.
It was a tiny house but lovely, with stonework and a chimney and pretty windows. It looked like the kind of house you would live in if you came from a fairy tale— like Snow White and the Seven Dwarves or Sleeping Beauty with her Fairy Godmothers.
Bucky got out of the car and walked around it to open your door. He held out his hand and helped you out.
“What is this place?” you asked him.
Bucky reached into his pocket and pulled out something that he pressed into your palm.
It was a key.
“It’s ours,” he said.
You looked at him with wide eyes. “Really?”
He nodded, looking a bit nervous.
Then you smiled and threw your arms around him. Bucky hugged you tightly to him and you kissed him with your hand still wrapped around that key.
“Do you like it?” he asked when he finally let go of you.
“I love it.”
Bucky grinned and picked you up, literally bridal style, and began carrying you up the path to the door.
He gestured with his head to the house next door, just a little ways down the road. “That one is going to be Steve and Nat’s.”
“Really?” you said with a smile.
Bucky nodded. “They just finalized it yesterday.”
You were glad. You knew it would make Bucky very happy to have his best friend so close.
When you got to the door, you fit the key in the lock and turned it. Bucky toed it open, then carried you over the threshold.
❤❤❤
“You’re my husband,” you whispered to Bucky as you lay naked next to him in the dark, your eyes only half open. His chest rumbled as he laughed softly. “I can’t stop saying that. You’re my husband.”
Bucky kissed you then, his hand cupping your cheek.
And you’re my wife, he said to your mind. “I can’t stop saying that, either,” he added aloud when he finally pulled away.
“We should sleep,” you whispered, drawing circles on his bare chest. “We have plans tomorrow.”
“But you’re my wife,” Bucky said, his mouth dipping to your neck and giving it a wet kiss there. You giggled and tangled your fingers in his hair.
He pulled up again, this time just taking a moment to look at you.
Her eyes seemed to glow in the dark.
Bucky kissed you softly, briefly, then whispered, “Is there anything you want to do when we get back? I know you said you didn’t want the future all planned out, but… . Do you want to make plans with me?”
You stroked your thumb over his cheek. “…There’s an empty room in this house,” you said.
He swallowed. “Yeah, there is.”
You took a breath. “Do you want to make it not empty with me?”
The smile Bucky gave you then was a little bit nervous, but more than anything it was happy. “Yeah. I do.”
You kissed him.
This wasn’t the end of your story with Bucky. There would be good times and difficult times and everything in between. Things you would have to face and deal with and still learn from. But all of that, you would do together.
You loved Bucky Barnes, and he loved you. And the rest of your life was open to you both.
The End
Notes:
A/N: Thank you guys so much for reading. Love you all <3 <3 Let me know what you think!
Also! Attached to this series is an AU series! There are two different AUs so far, and more to come -- but only if people want it!
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