“I’m with Steve,” Y/n says.
“What?” Bucky asks, astounded, hoping against all hope that he’s finally succumbed to his age and shot his hearing.
In front of him, she moves her weight from one foot to another, “I’m with Steve on this one.”
When Bucky’s eyes fly over to Steve standing next to him, he looks about as hesitant as she sounds.
“Buck—” Sam tries.
“Seriously?” Bucky cuts him off.
The four of them are at her and Bucky's place, standing around the kitchen island discussing their next mission… which just happens to be taking down a HYDRA base.
“Look, I understand why you wanna go after Whitehall so hard—” she tries, but he isn't exactly in a listening mood.
“I don’t wanna go after him hard, Y/n. I want to kill him,” Bucky states, unflinching and unmoving.
“Bringing him in alive would help us out a lot more, and you know it,” Steve challenges.
And that’s the thing with the ex-star spangled man with a plan. He hasn’t seen darkness to understand darkness. He doesn’t understand what it means to be bound and beaten and broken. He doesn’t understand that Daniel Whitehall is the kind of squalor that even rats would resent. Steve doesn’t understand what Whitehall did to Bucky. He knows, of course. He knows the general picture, the overview of the time Whitehall spent electrocuting Bucky till he was a whimpering, pleading mess and kept going regardless. He knows the cliff notes version. But the cliff notes version is not nearly as dark as the unabridged text. And as glad as Bucky is that Steve doesn’t get it—because nobody should get it—the fact remains; Steve doesn’t fucking understand.
But she does…
Or at least, she should.
“He’s right, James,” she says slowly. “We get Whitehall to talk, we have a chance—a real chance to get the HYDRA bullshit over and done with.”
“Whitehall doesn’t talk,” Bucky argues, because he knows… and so should she. “You know Whitehall doesn’t talk. Bringing him in alive just gives him a chance to mess with our heads. He’s a fucking cockroach. He managed to survive this fucking long, hasn’t he? How do you think that was, huh? Over 90 years of him playing with people like toys, experimenting on them to live this long and you really think we,” he points from himself to her, “we can make him talk?”
“We have to try,” Steve reasons.
For fuck’s sake!
“Y/n,” Bucky’s eyes stay on her, pleading, begging.
“He’s right, Buck,” she says, grimly.
Of course.
Of course, she’s siding with him.
How the fuck could he be stupid enough to believe, Bucky Barnes, the broken shell of a man that he is, could ever even compare to Steve Rogers, the Golden Boy? How dare he ever think, for even a second, that he could have her all to himself when Steve was right there in front of her?
“You seriously taking his side?” He asks.
Exhaling heavily she replies with a deceivingly calm tone, “It’s been known to happen from time to time.”
Oh, Bucky remembers. He was there when she sided with Steve the last time… during the Accords. He was also there when Zemo played that tape of him killing the Starks, the only family that she had ever had. He was also there when after he and Steve had beaten the crap out of Tony, she’d dropped a building on them. So yeah, Bucky remembers.
“Yeah?” He challenges. “You remember how well that turned out the last time?”
It’s only when her jaw clenches and her eyes widen that he realizes he’s just used her dead brother’s memory to win an argument.
Strike one.
She clears her throat, wetting her lips she says, “Look, I want Whitehall dead just as much as you do. But if we get him to talk, we can take down HYDRA once and for all.”
Maybe it’s the calm that she exudes or maybe the fact that Steve’s watching her with a lovelorn sort of reverie. Or maybe it’s just the fact that Daniel Whitehall is the man that made Bucky into a fucking puppet to be used as HYDRA pleased. Whatever may be the reason, it makes him bite back.
He lets out a snort, encapsulating all his resentment in that sole action. “That seems a little hypocritical, don’t you think?” He raises his chin in defiance. “Didn’t you do the exact same thing to Inara?” Her features harden at the mention. He takes that his que to keep going. “You killed her in cold blood… All those missions we’ve been on during the past 7 months, trying desperately to take down the leftover crumbs of The Orphanage lying around? We wouldn't have to do any of that if you’d just stepped back and let us take her in. Unlike Whitehall, she was ready to talk, Y/n! She was ready to rat out every single member of The Orphanage but you killed her. You killed her cause you wanted her to pay for killing Malcolm. You killed her cause you wanted vengeance far more than you ever wanted justice.” He leans forward, his palms on the table, the yellow glow of the lamp above lighting up his face. “So where the fuck do you get off telling me to do anything different?”
She looks away.
Strike two.
“You didn’t want her to do it then, she doesn’t want you to do it now,” Steve chimes in, saving her. Always fucking saving her. Her saviour. Her Steve. “Just means she cares, Buck.”
“Is that it, sweetheart?” His voice sounds painfully snide even to himself. “You care? That why you stopping me?”
She pulls her lower lip between her teeth. She’s trying to hold her tongue, Bucky thinks.
“I get it, okay? I get why you want to kill him. What he did to you—” she exhales shakily, cutting herself off. “I understand, okay?” She adds, finally looking at him with pleading eyes.
God, why did she have to bring that up?
He chuckles, cold and hollow. “You don’t understand jack shit, sweetheart. Cause unlike me, you—” he points at her, “you had a choice. I didn’t! I was in there, while the Soldat did whatever the fuck HYDRA wanted. I was in there, powerless to stop it. I watched as my hands murdered countless, as my hands hurt people, hurt you. I watched my hands get coated in your blood as I beat you into a pulp, and I couldn’t fucking stop it.” His words are coated, drenched in indignation. “So, don’t tell me you get it, cause you don’t! Cause you—you chose to do all of HYDRA’s dirty work. You chose to become a killer! You chose to be their monster—”
“ENOUGH!” Sam seethes from next to him.
Strike three.
He expects a blow. He expects her to do what she always does when things hurt. He expects her to pull up her defenses, put on her armor, create distance. He expects her to slip her hands into the pocket of her dress pants, stand up a little straighter and bite back at him. He expects her to go cold and rip him a new one.
But that’s not what she does.
Her hands do find their way into the pocket of her dress pants but instead of standing up straighter, she slumps. Instead of looking him in the eye with an icy kind of fury, she seems to deflate entirely.
“It’s alright, Sam,” she tells Sam easily. “It’s your call, Captain. Whatever you decide, goes. Just debrief me while we’re on route to the base tomorrow,” she adds before clapping her hands together, turning around and calmly walking out of their home.
The door doesn’t bang in a loud show of rage, and her steps don’t pound on the floor as a symptom of her anger. Her exit is quiet, painfully so.
“What the hell is wrong with you, jerk?” Steve asks, breaking the quiet.
He has no idea, but Steve is the last guy he wants challenging him right now. Perfect—not an ex-assassin for HYDRA with a metal arm—Steve. Perfect Steve with his perfect hair who was never made to have cage matches with Y/n in some fucked up attempt made by HYDRA to tame her. Perfect Steve with his perfect teeth who never killed the only family she had while he was brainwashed by Daniel Whitehall. Perfect Steve with his perfect everything who didn’t just call the love of his life a cold blooded killer.
Bucky knows he’s fucked up but thing about anger like this, anger this fierce is that it renders you fucking irrational.
“I was just being honest, punk,” Bucky spits back. “It’s not my fault she couldn’t take it.
The moment the words leave his lips, Bucky’s being pushed into the wall behind him by the collar of his leather jacket. He lets out a faint puff, surprised.
“Sam!” Steve shouts, rushing over to pull him away from Bucky.
“You pull that shit again, I’m gonna kill you in your sleep,” Sam states, his voice stern and dripping with rage. His grip on Bucky’s collar tightens as he shakes off Steve’s hand off his shoulder. ”I know you think she’s invincible, but she isn’t.” He lets Bucky go, making him stumble. Turning away, Sam picks up his jacket off the couch, and moves towards the door. He pauses as he opens the door. “She was there too, you know? When they made you hurt her, she was there too. But she forgave you.” He looks back at Bucky over his shoulder, “You’re the only one punishing yourself now.” With that, he walks out.
Leave it to Sam Wilson to be the only man capable of cutting through his irrationality.
As he hears Sam’s steps speed up, no doubt in an effort to chase after Y/n to make sure she’s okay, he realizes the strikes he was hitting were pissing Sam off far more than her.
“Enjoy the couch tonight,” Steve chides, giving him a look of pure admonishment before walking out as well.
Except Bucky doesn’t have to take the couch, because Y/n never comes home. When Bucky tries to call her to ask her where she is, the phone starts buzzing on the kitchen counter next to her wallet. He texts Harley next, who pleads ignorance on the matter. But his lack of further questioning on the subject tells Bucky he already knows of the incident that transpired earlier that rainy afternoon. Also, Harley doesn’t threaten him or berate him for hurting Y/n enough to have her walk out. And that tells Bucky that not only does he know, but he’s also sitting next to her as she begs him to not blow up.
He goes to sleep after that.
Or well, he tries.
He can’t sleep without her, not really.
Holding her grounds him.
They fight—all couples fight, right? But she always comes back to him, they always sleep together. No matter how bad the fight gets, they sleep with their bodies pressed against each other, breathing each other in, holding on like their life depends on it.
And who knows? Maybe it does. Cause right now, he really does feel like he’s dying.
He feels like he’s suffocating, the air doesn’t reach his lungs as easily. And when it does, it gets caught up in his throat.
You chose to be their monster.
Fuck!
He said that to her so easily, so casually, like it wasn’t her biggest fear. He weaponized her fears to hurt her like she’d hurt him by picking Steve. He thought she’d return the favor tenfold, that’s what she usually does. She doesn’t sit there and take it. She never has. She fights back… she was supposed to fight Bucky back.
Like she used to, back when they were with HYDRA.
As much as he doesn’t want to, he remembers it like it was yesterday. Sometimes if the weather is just right, he thinks he can actually feel it, the feel of her throat being crushed under his hand. He’s never hated being able to feel through his metal hand more than he did in those moments.
She’d plead—beg for him to stop. But Whitehall had fucked him up hard enough that no matter how much he tried to stop, he couldn’t. If anything, the more he resisted, the more brutal his own punches to her gut became.
HYDRA was ruthless in that way, making them fight, again and again. Every time she wasn’t out on some fucked up mission for them, she was either prepping to fight him, or already fighting him. All that time spent, connecting his fist to her jaw, connecting her leg to his diaphragm, Bucky—no, the Soldat was bound to make a connection with her. It wasn’t as easy as two captives being used by one enemy. It couldn’t have been. Because he was an enforcer for HYDRA. So, to her he was a part of HYDRA.
But there was a connection nonetheless. It was born from blood and gut wrenching fear. Bucky wanted to protect her, even then. But the Soldat—he just wanted to make sure she stayed alive. So, he fought her without remorse, so he wouldn’t be replaced by someone crueler than him.
He remembers the day she just stopped stepping into the cage with him.
He remembers Whitehall telling him with a cunning smile on his face that she was killed while on assignment.
He remembers how much harder Whitehall had tinkered with him that day.
How can he not kill Whitehall for all that? How can he let that monster breathe for even a second longer?
It’s simple.
He can’t.
He won’t.
The next morning he finds himself on the jet, Sam ahead of him prepping the jet for flight while Steve fiddles with his suit in the corner. The silence among the men is almost palpable until—
“Alright boys, why long faces?” His head turns instantly to look at her. She looks around at the three of them, and it’s almost as if the silence becomes even more silent. “Sheesh, who the fuck died?” She snides with barely any heat as she makes her way across the plane, passing Bucky by and dropping her bags in the corner.
“You didn’t come home last night,” Bucky says because that’s all he can think about. All he can think about is how his insistence to protect her turned into a malicious, spiteful thing and made him lash out at her.
She passes him by without a single glance, “Didn’t think you’d want a monster in your bed.” Picking out her weapons off the wall in front of her, she adds, “Pretty sure you’ve got enough in your closet.”
Well, if that’s how you’re gonna play it.
Before he can retort though, Sam cuts him off. “Hey! Calm down, hotshot,” he scolds. “If you both are set on pissing me off then you’re off the mission. Steve and I can handle this by ourselves,” he warns, coming to stand in front of the couple, Steve following him.
Y/n throws up her hands in surrender. “Apologies, Bossman. No more passive-aggressive—well deserved—bullshit…” Sam cocks a brow at her, unamused. “...After this one,” she corrects herself. “Scouts honor,” she promises, holding up a three-finger salute.
“Were Girls Scouts even a thing when you were young?” Sam asks, snorting.
She shrugs. “Founded in 1912. You don’t believe me? I’ve got the badges to prove it.”
Sam just smiles, shaking his head with mirth. He walks over to the hologram table in the middle. Pulling up the schematics, he points at the south entrance. “Like I told you yesterday, this is the only entrance we’ve got, so two out of the four of us will play the distraction—Enter here, get caught, fight, the usual. Meanwhile, the other two are gonna break in from here,” he points again at the roof of the northwest corner. “Alarms start blaring, the last two grab Whitehall alive, while the first two clear the path, meeting in the middle. Both teams drop explosive charges along the way,” he holds up on the tiny bombs in his hand. “Once Whitehall’s secure and we’re out of the building, we detonate the charges. And then haul our asses back to the jet.”
Ignoring his emphasis on the word ‘alive’ while staring at him, Bucky asks with furrowed brows, “That’s still pretty vague. Who’s doing what?”
“Kinda depends on Y/n,” Sam states looking at her. “You’re gonna have to be the one who breaks in, obviously. So, your call. Who do you want with you, Steve or Bucky?”
“I’m getting a choice?” She asks, skeptical.
“After what Sergeant Staring Machine pulled yesterday? Yeah, you’re getting a choice,” Sam answers easily. “So? Who do you pick?”
How is that even a question? Me. She’ll pick m—
“Steve.”
Apparently, that throws Steve off far more than it does him. Because his eyes are almost bulging out and his jaw is on the floor. Bucky wants to reach out, pick it up and place it back, only to throw a punch at it.
But then again, of course, she picked Steve.
A choice between Bucky and Steve isn’t even a choice.
Steve Rogers is a walking, talking allegory for all that is good in the world. He’s kind and smart and—as she likes to call him—handsome. He’s not tainted by years of blood and pain. He’s not corrupted or broken like Bucky is. Unlike Bucky, Steve doesn’t have amends to make, because he didn’t spend the better part of the 70 years working as HYDRA’s lapdog, killing people with a ruthlessness that was colder than the CryoFreeze they used to house him in. Unlike him, Steve doesn’t hate the winter because of said CryoFreeze, so he can enjoy the snow with her. Unlike him, Steve doesn’t wake up screaming and shouting from a nightmare, almost hurting her in the process. Unlike him, Steve doesn’t have an ugly metal arm hanging off his shoulder. Unlike him, Steve is whole and unbroken and kind.
So, why the fuck would she ever pick Bucky?
With that out of the way, they take off, Sam lands the jet a mile away from the base. They are somewhere in the Swiss Alps, and that in and of itself puts Bucky on edge. The snow surrounding them is a cherry on top of this Arsenic Cake of Madame Lafarge.
He fucking hates it.
“Hey, grumpy pants,” Y/n calls out from behind him as they make their way out of the jet. When he turns to look at her, she throws a small round disk-shaped device his way. He catches it on instinct. Opening his palm, he looks down at it. As he narrows his eyes at her in confusion, she explains, “It’s a heating patch. Harley’s been tinkering with it for a while. Put it on your wrist. It’ll keep the cold away.” Her tone is casual as she walks past him, his eyes follow her movement, enraptured.
He only breaks out of his trance when Sam walks up behind him and pats him on the back. “Come on, Buck,” his voice is soft. “Let’s get this over with, alright?”
Another twinge of guilt seeps into his stomach at Sam’s kindness. Unbeknownst to his Captain, Bucky’s head is gearing up to slit Whitehall’s throat the moment they are out of danger and back on board the jet. He knows he might lose Sam’s friendship at the end of this, but he hopes (almost hopelessly) that that doesn’t happen.
Try as he might, he cannot bring himself to make peace with the decision to keep Whitehall alive, so if he has to sacrifice this friendship, he will do so with a heavy heart.
He hopes he can have Y/n by the end of it, perhaps? Probably not, after what he said yesterday...
But in some twisted way, he is doing this for her. Whitehall made him hurt Y/n.
Bucky can’t let the man live.
He won’t.
As planned they barge in through the south entrance, creating the distraction. On the comms, Steve and Y/n confirm as they enter as well. And for the first half, everything’s going according to plan. Bucky and Sam have a fairly easy time fighting off the HYDRA goons, making enough noise to ensure there is the least amount of hindrance for Steve and Y/n to grab Whitehall from the main lab he works in. That is until Steve’s voice comes in ragged and horse over the comms.
“We’ve got a situation,” Steve says, panting.
“What’s wrong?” Sam asks.
“Is Y/n okay?” Is the only thing Bucky can think of.
“If by okay you mean kicking my ass, then yes. She’s very okay,” Steve replies.
“Stop being fucking cryptic Steve!” Bucky shouts. He’s already running towards the main lab in the north hall. “What the fuck is happening?”
“She’s trying to kill him, Buck. She’s trying to kill Whitehall.”
His head turns to Sam who’s following behind him, and silently they both agree to pick up the pace.
“Hold her off till we get there,” Sam commands.
“I’ll try my best,” Steve pants out.
But the funny thing is, all three men know it’ll be futile. Because as good as Steve is… she’s better.
So, it’s no surprise when by the time Bucky and Sam get there, Steve’s lying on the floor, bruised and whimpering while Y/n stands two steps ahead of him, her sword, dematerializing from her hand.
And then he sees it. He looks up and he sees it.
Daniel Whitehall, the man who tortured him with a smile on his face, crumpled up in the corner bleeding out from a giant gash extending from his chest to his abdomen. The fucker is somehow still wearing a stupid fucking smile on his face while blood drips out from the corner of his mouth.
“Willkommen zu Hause, Soldat,” Whitehall croaks out, his voice barely audible.
Welcome home, Soldier.
He throws a cruel smile at Bucky and then breathes out his last breath.
He’s dead. Whitehall’s dead.
And it doesn’t feel even a little bit better.
Fuck, he thinks it might actually feel worse.
But he doesn’t have time to deal with the repercussions of that realization because calm as ever, Y/n walks out of the room leaving behind one badly beaten and two extremely stunned men in her wake.
A scream rings out from the corridor outside, and only then do they fall out of their trance. Bucky rushes over to pick Steve up, hooking his own arm around his waist, shouldering most of Steve’s weight.
Sam, on the other hand, is furious.
“What the fuck did you do?!” He shouts as the three of them walk out into the hallway.
Without turning back, or even pausing her fight with the three men attacking her, she replies, “I killed a very bad man. I thought that was the whole point of the job.”
Bucky begins shooting, trying to cover their back because Sam clearly isn’t going to.
“Y/n!” Sam yells out. “What the fuck was that, huh?” Y/n doesn’t pay him any mind, pissing him off further. He flies up, kicking the men she’s fighting, and lands in front of her. “We were supposed to bring him in alive, Y/n! That’s what we decided.”
“No,” she counters, her voice almost annoyingly calm. “That’s what you decided.”
“And you said it was my call,” Sam argues.
She looks at him then, dead in the eyes. “I lied.” Shoving past a speechless Sam with her shoulder, she begins fighting the attackers approaching them.
For some reason, her fury is burning bright and heavy. Bucky thinks the heating patch he’s wearing was completely unnecessary when currently, she’s fire incarnate.
Eventually, they make their way back to the jet, having detonated the bombs and destroyed the base. Bucky’s head can’t think straight. His mind is a mess, at the edge of a spiral he doesn’t fall down towards.
The journey back sits heavy on his tongue and tastes foul, almost bloody. There’s so much to say and no one seems to want to be the first one to volunteer.
They make it onto the ship, Bucky sits Steve down on a seat, gets a hold of the medkit, and starts patching him up, while Y/n unloads her weapons. Sam, however, seethes, and seethes, and seethes. Until—
“You disobeyed a direct order,” he accuses.
With her back to them, she shrugs. “I know. I was there.”
“Why?”
“He had it coming,” she replies easily, pulling out the knives from her belt and hanging them back on the weapon mount in front of her.
Her nonchalance seems to piss Sam off more than he already was. Grabbing her by the shoulder, he makes her turn. “How the fuck am I supposed to work with you, fight with you, if I can’t trust you?”
She shrugs again. “Guess you don’t.”
Sam’s jaw clenches as he squares his shoulders.
There’s a pregnant pause and then—
“I saved your ass last time, for what you pulled with Inara,” he states. “I won’t do it again. Not this time.”
She cocks her head to the side. “You worry about you, and I’ll worry about me.”
The rest of the journey is just as painfully silent as before.
But the second that Sam lands the plane in the hangar, the air around them crackles, the buzz sounds out in their ear. There are bright flashes of white, blue, and pink light. A portal opens, engulfing her and she glitches away.
A part of Bucky is terrified of going home, convinced that all he’ll be met with will be an empty house. But he has to go home, even if it’s just to grab a quick shower before he leaves to go look for her. By the time he’s opening the door to his place, he’s already called Harley, Peter, Pepper, and Rhodey.
“Thanks, Happy,” he says into his phone as he closes the door behind him. “If you hear from her, just give me a call, yeah?” He throws the keys into the bowl on the small table next to the door.
Hanging up he walks and almost has a heart attack.
“Hey honey, you’re home,” Y/n greets, almost singing out sardonically.
She's sitting on the backrest of the couch, her bare feet on the cushions.
“You’re home,” Bucky notes, dumbfoundedly.
“Wow,” she whistles. “Nothing gets past you, big boy.”
“Y/n,” he chides.
She rolls her eyes. “Where else was I gonna go?”
“I—I don’t know,” he says, hesitantly taking steps towards her. “Thought you left me.”
And for the first time since yesterday, her gaze softens. “I’m too selfish to give you up,” she confesses.
The gentle tone and lowered guard make his approach towards her more decisive.
“You killed him,” Bucky states.
“Seriously man, are you a spy or something? Cause, oof. Your observation skills—”
“Why’d you do it?”
And that shuts her up.
He looks at her for a second. Her hands are resting on her knees while she looks at him with pleading eyes. There’s guilt in them. It’s been there since he walked into the lab where Whitehall was but earlier it was hidden. It was hiding behind false confidence and anger. Now—now that it’s just them, just the two of them, she’s letting it shine.
“Like I said,” she says, gulping noticeably. “He had it coming.”
“He did... But that’s not why you did it.”
She looks away.
“Just—” he walks towards her. “You can tell me, sweetheart. It’s me. Just—please?”
“You were right,” she says, stopping him in his tracks. His brows pull together in confusion, noticing that, she continues, “When you said I was a monster… you were right. I am.”
What the fuck?
He’s about to jump up and apologize till kingdom come. He’s about to prostrate himself at her feet and beg for her to understand that he’s just an idiot. He’s a fucking idiot who runs his mouth when he gets angry—no—when he gets afraid that the only good thing in his life, the woman he loves will realize how worthless he is and leave him. He’s about to offer himself over to her to hurt and maim as she pleases, as long as it ends with her in his arms. But he doesn’t get to do any of that because she cuts him off.
“You were right, James. Not just about me, but also about killing him. He deserved to die.”
“But you fought me on it. You said he was more valuable—”
“He would’ve been.”
“Then why kill him?”
“I just told you. He deserved to—”
“No,” Bucky sighs, frustrated. “Stop lying to me, okay? Please, Y/n. Why’d you do it?”
She takes a second and then, “If I hadn’t, you would have.”
And a part of Bucky already knew it was coming. He knew it was coming, saw it in his periphery but it still hits him harder than any Soviet-made slug with no rifling.
“Why would you do that, baby?” He asks, his voice breaking at the end.
He’s standing right in front of her, he wants to reach out, touch her but somehow, the distance of two steps between them feels like two miles.
“You have spent the last two years (since the blip) working so hard on yourself. You’ve made amends, helped people… helped yourself,” she says regarding him with so much softness, it burns Bucky from the inside out. “It’s been an honor watching you grow, sunshine. Watching you become you has been one of the best parts of my life since—” her voice breaks, “since Tony…” She lets out a shuddering breath. “Killing Whitehall would’ve undone all of it… I—I guess I just didn’t see a point in you getting your hands dirty when mine already are,” she says looking down at her hands as if she can see all the blood she believes it’s coated in.
“That’s not how it works, sweetheart. You know that’s not how it works,” Bucky argues, tears slipping out, burning a track over his cheeks. “You can’t just do this kinda shit for my sake and—FUCK! I’m supposed to be the killer between the two of us. Not you, me!”
“You’re not what they made you into, sunshine. You never were,” she states with determination.
“Neither are you!” He exclaims. “We don’t become what they tried to make us into, you told me that. Remember? When I pulled Steve out of the water back in D.C. You said, we don’t become what they tried to make us into—that’s how we win. You said that.”
She scoffs then, a disdainful little thing. “I’m not what they made me into because they didn’t make me into anything. They jus—just enhanced what I was…” She gets up from where she’s sitting, hopping off and putting the couch between them. The two miles turn into three. “You were right about everything yesterday. I did kill Inara in cold blood, and I felt good doing it—even if it was for a second. I’ve always blamed S.H.I.E.L.D. or HYDRA or The Orphanage for—for making me into this,” she points at herself with so much disgust, it almost breaks Bucky in half. Her voice is rising as she begins pacing as she rants. “But I was wrong! I was so fucking wrong, James. They didn’t have fuck all to do with what I am.” She sounds so distraught. “They just—they just brought it to the surface. I’ve always been this. I was always a fucking monster!”
Fuck the damn couch. And fuck the three miles. He’s a fucking Super Soldier, for fuck’s sake! Three miles are nothing for him.
He jumps over the fucking thing and pulls her into his arms.
The moment he does, she breaks.
She’s sobbing, weeping. Her grip on Bucky’s jacket is like a vice. She’s gripping onto him like he’s the only thing holding her together.
“I’m sorry,” He whispers, he chants into her temple as he hugs her tight. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t—I wasn’t—” He’s crying too. “I was just jealous, baby. I didn’t—I thought you wanted Steve. You picked his side and then you chose him so I thought—”
“I picked Steve cause I knew he wouldn’t have been able to tell what I was gonna do,” she tells him. Her words are muffled with her face buried in the crook of his neck and the sniffles in between. “And if you’d tried to stop me—I wouldn’t have—couldn’t have fought you. I just—I wasn’t picking him, Jamie. It’s you. It’s always you. Only you. I love you. I love you so much, I’m sorry.”
Shushing her, he picks her up in his arms, her legs wrap around his waist instantly. Kissing her temple over and over again, “No, no, no. Baby. I’m sorry. It’s my fault. I love you. I love you so much, baby. I didn’t mean it. Of course, I didn’t mean it, sweetheart. You’re not a fucking monster, baby. You’re my sweetheart. You’re Y/n. You’re my hero, baby, my favorite hero. You could never be a monster. I'm so sorry. I was an ass. Just—just tell me how to fix this, please? Please, sweetheart, tell me how to fix this?” He begs helplessly.
For a few seconds, all he hears are soft sniffles but then—
Pulling away a bit, she rests her forehead on his and pleads, “Don’t leave me, please?” Motherfucker. “Please? I’ll try to be better, just please don’t—”
He cuts her off with a searing kiss. Her lips move in tandem with his. The kiss is pure need. It’s got hints of passion and love but mostly it’s all overpowered by need. Just as his tongue grazes hers, her need to make him stay mixes in with his need to make her understand he could never leave—there’s a tiny box burning a hole in his pocket right now. How could he ever leave her?
He can taste the salt from their tears that have mixed together as well, but it doesn’t stop either of them. He relishes the saltiness, it’s him and it’s her. Anything that even has a trace of them together, he can’t bring himself to dislike. He’s desperate for her, as she is for him but it’s not just sexual. It’s—fuck. Bucky can’t explain it, not in tangible terms, at least.
The Soldat found a connection with her through the saltiness of her blood. There was desperation there too. Unchecked trauma breeds more trauma, of course, it does. But it also breeds profound bonds. Bonds—which try as you might, can’t be replicated… only modified. Whatever fucked up version of care the Soldat held for her, seeped into Bucky. It added to the abundant care and love and devotion he already had for her and made him more desperate, still.
Saying that he needs her to breathe would feel arbitrary. He doesn’t need her to breathe. He needs her to be. He needs her to sustain him, trick him into being Bucky, into feeling.
When he pulls away, his metal hand travels up to cup her cheek. “Unlike Steve, when I tell you I’ll be with you till the end of your days, I mean the end of your fucking days, sweetheart.”
That night as Bucky sleeps, unlike the last, she’s curled up against him. She nuzzled herself into him, small and scared. It leaves him hollow. If Bucky was on the verge of breaking before, he is broken now. Watching her so helpless and afraid makes bile rise up in his throat.
She’s always been regal in her stance. She holds herself high, the years upon years spent to achieve such might always evident in the way she walks.
It has never failed to make Bucky swoon.
So, seeing her like this—he can’t help but break.
There’s a lot of things he knows her to be, a monster isn’t one of them.
He can’t let her believe that that’s what she is.
He won’t.