2
A few weeks had passed since Bucky moved in, and you were right. He very quickly became one of your best friends on the base, which was saying a lot. The both of you were almost always together, often with Steve or Peter. Steve had started things up with an elementary teacher, so he didn’t have time to be jealous that two of his best friends were hanging out without him.
This particular morning, you were just ungodly bored. You woke up to a pretty quiet morning. Most of the crew had left for a few days or were shut up in their rooms (*cough*wandandvision*cough*.) The only people left in the complex and not constantly boning were yourself, Banner, Bucky, and Scott, but Scott was just hanging out for like a day on his way up to Canada.
It was nice not waking up to a chemical fire or an implosion or some otherwise just ridiculously annoying sounds of building for a change. You had woken up in a miraculously pleasant mood, showered, gotten dressed, and were sitting on the couch in the shared living room watching TV in like an hour. Scott had come and plopped with you for a while and you scoffed over the asshole family members on the bridal dress show. Eventually, he had scooted off to go try to break into Tony’s safe (“not to take anything, just to see if I can,” he insists,) leaving you alone.
It was now mid-afternoon, and you’d heard from literally nobody since Scott left. The silence was starting to set in, and you went from being in one of the best moods you’ve been in to being extraordinarily, deathly bored. And you were starting to get concerned. By now, you and Bucky had established a bit of a routine. You were usually up a few hours before he was, but he usually had come down and found you by at least noon. Obviously, you weren’t confined to this routine, but you were beginning to grow concerned.
You gave it another hour until the bridal show had begun to replay the earlier episodes and sighed heavily. You glanced at the clock and frowned. Nearly five. Even if he wasn’t going to hang out with you, Bucky would definitely have come and gotten food by now. And like, he is a super soldier spy, so maybe he did it just hella quiet, but you weren’t convinced. With a sigh, you heaved yourself off the couch and crossed over to the elevator.
Once on the floor where Bucky lived, you were marked by how just utterly silent it was. There was no TV running, no radio, no nothing. You went to his door and knocked quietly and waited. There was no response, so you called, “Bucky?” You waited again, knocked again, and counted to 20. After you got to 20 you gently turned the door knob and opened the door slowly. “Hey, Buck?” You froze upon seeing the room. It had been completely destroyed. The couch was upturned, there was a hole in the TV, the table had been broken, four parallel streaks scraped down the far wall, shit even one of the ceiling lights had been ripped out. You stepped back and immediately conjured your light shields before you went further into the room. There wasn’t a single thing item that hadn’t been touched; everything was either broken or misplaced. The silence was becoming deafening, the only sound you could hear your heartbeat and your breathing.
It appeared that nobody was here, so you dropped one of your shields and tried to call Bucky. As it rung, you heard the familiar chirping ringtone that belonged to Bucky’s phone coming from somewhere in the devastation of the bedroom. You used your sorcerer powers to move the heavy stuff aside, lowering your phone but letting it continue ringing. You found the phone underneath a destroyed drawer, a crack in the screen, a picture of the two of you sitting on the couch together smiling up at you. You pocketed the phones and looked around. “What the fuck, Buck?” you whispered.
You made your way to the bathroom, a full-blown panic blooming inside you. You leaned down and cupped water in your hands, splashing your face in an attempt to calm down. You stood back up, taking a deep breath before movement in the mirror caused you to conjure daggers in both hands and spin on the spot. You frowned and released the energy of the daggers before crossing over to the corner of the walk-in shower. “Bucky?” you whispered.
He was sitting on the floor in a huddle, his knees drawn in, his arms around them. He was wearing jeans but no shirt, no socks or shoes. There were flecks of paint on his vibranium arm, and his human hand had dried blood on it, small cracks all across the skin. He didn’t seem to notice you were there, just staring down at the floor, hair around his face.
“Hey, Buck, what’s going on?” You waited for him to answer but he didn’t. You slowly reached to put your hand on his but he pinned it against the wall with his vibranium arm. You gasped against the pain and tried to squirm out but he held you firm for a solid minute before he let go, resuming his original position. You held your quickly bruising hand against your chest and backed up, tears in your eyes. “Bucky. Talk to me.” He wouldn’t meet your gaze and after a few minutes, you got up and stepped into the other room, pulling out your phone.
“Y/N? What’s up?” Steve’s voice was a little louder than you anticipated, covering the sound of screaming kids. He and his girlfriend must be at a park or something.
You took in a shaky breath and stepped farther away from the shut bathroom door. “It’s um… It’s Bucky.”
The kids in the background quickly got farther away. Steve must’ve been heading somewhere quieter. “What happened?” His voice was serious and hard but concerned.
“I… I don’t know. His room is trashed. He’s just sitting in the shower. He won’t talk to me, he won’t look at me. He even… he hurt me, a little, but I don’t know that he knows that he did it.” You swallowed a lump of tears and crossed over to the window, opening it so the chilly March air could come through.
Steve was silent for a long minute. “I’m coming back.”
“Steve, what is it? What’s going on?”
Another long silence before he sighed. “It’s his birthday.”
You knit your eyebrows together in confusion. “His birthday?”
“Yeah. See, since he was freed from the winter soldier program, he’s had a rough time with it all. I thought he was better after his sojourn in Wakanda, but obviously not. I shouldn’t have left him alone. It’s on me. I can be back by morning.”
“N… No, don’t. I can handle it. I think. Probably. It’ll be fine.”
“No, I’m coming back.”
“Steve, I got it. Go back to your girlfriend and enjoy your break. I’ll figure something out with Bucky.”
There was a long minute where you could almost hear his frustration building up before he let out a heavy sigh. “Alright. But call me the second something else happens, ok?”
You smiled slightly and nodded. “Yeah, of course I will. Bye, Steve.” You hung up and put your phone back in your pocket, trying to devise a plan. After a few minutes, you went back into the bathroom and sat across from Bucky, careful not to touch him. You just sat in silence for a while, still thinking. Finally, after a while, you smiled slightly. “Hey, Buck, let’s go somewhere, yeah?” You got up and ran back to your room and grabbed your sling ring from the box on your nightstand. You conjured a portal back to Bucky’s bathroom and stepped through, hands on your hips. “We can go literally anywhere in the world you wanna go. We could go tooooooooo Bora Bora, Taipei, Tijuana, Nome, anywhere. What do you say, huh?” He didn’t move, so you knelt beside him. You leaned in slightly and reached for him but stopped, remembering the darkening bruise on your hand. You moved so you were sitting right beside him, almost touching shoulders, and you raised your hand to conjure a portal. “Or we could just stay here and watch a sunset.” You smiled slightly, circling your hand to conjure the beginnings of a sun setting over a warm beach. The smell of the sand wafted through, and the sound of the waves crashing overcame the sound of the portal and permeated the silence between you. You dropped your hands, keeping the portal open.
The two of you sat together like that for a while before you noticed him beginning to relax. The sun was almost half gone now, casting warm orange light over the both of you. You looked at him and smiled softly, seeing that he was looking at the waves, his hands unclenched. You carefully reached over and took his hand in yours and gave it a gentle, reassuring squeeze. He didn’t flinch or withdraw, which you took as a good sign. After a few more minutes, you laid your head on his shoulder and pulled his hand into your lap, holding it with both of yours. “I’m here for you, James.” You barely breathed it, and you weren’t even sure he had heard you until his thumb twitched slightly across yours. You glanced at him and he very briefly glanced in your direction but not at you, and you knew that for now this was enough.
You sat for another hour or two, well until the sun had passed below the horizon. Eventually, you closed the portal and sighed, patting Bucky’s hand gently. “Come on,” you said. You stood up and turned to him expectantly. He slowly looked up at you. You smiled at him and held out your hand. “We’re gonna go make some chicken nuggets and some pizza and whatever the hell else we want.” He didn’t move, so you sighed and leaned down, taking his hands. “Come on,” you repeated, more gently this time.
He let you pull him to his feet and drag him to the elevator and down to the shared living space. You plopped him on the couch and set about getting an entire bag of chicken nuggets put in the microwave while also asking Friday to order about $600 worth of takeout (Chinese, pizza, Greek, schwarma, etc) and charging it to Tony’s card. You went over to the couch and set the chicken nuggets down along with three sauce-bowls of dippings and you turned on the TV, flicking through the channels. Finally, after a few minutes of flicking, a familiar scene opened up with a familiar voice announcing that this was the story of how he died. You squealed in delight and settled back, pulling a blanket across you. “It’s Tangled!” you cheered. Bucky said nothing but leaned back, almost relaxing.
Once the takeout had all arrived, you had moved to the floor and had it all arranged in a circle around you. Bucky stayed up on the couch but ate whatever you handed him. With each song that came up, you were singing along with them, glancing at him occasionally to see if his mood was progressing (which it was, albeit very slowly.)
Once the scene with the boat and the lanterns came up, you had finally stopped eating, absolutely stuffed. You had settled between Bucky’s legs, using his knees as arm rests. By the time the boat scene had come around, he had started picking his own food and was eating silently, slowly.
When Flynn went back to the tower, you had tensed up. A movie crier, this scene always gets you. When Gothel kicked Pascal, you whimpered. When Flynn was dying, you had been crying silently, wiping your eyes. You felt Bucky shift slightly and he had scooped you up, sitting on the floor where you had been before he resettled you between his legs and hugged you back into him. You looked back at him in surprise and he wiped your last tear away, not meeting your eyes, and not quite back yet, but almost there. You smiled slightly and looked back at the movie, leaning into him, letting him hold you.
Once Tangled had ended, The Princess Bride took its place and the two of you watched it together. By the time the movie had ended, both of you had managed to almost finish half the leftovers. Bucky still hadn’t spoken, but he insisted on continuing to hold you. It was a little weird, as the two of you hadn’t ever been so physically close aside from the time you accidentally tackled him while running from Peter after playing a trick on him by adding a chemical to make the solution explode (non-caustically, of course) when stirred. But, truthfully, you didn’t mind the proximity. You had begun to develop feelings for the winter soldier, so even if nothing could come from it, you took the moment to enjoy the closeness you might never get again.
The two of you had stayed up until nearly 6 in the morning before you told him you had to call it quits. He helped you condense the leftovers enough to fit in the fridge and clean up the living room before you both headed to the elevator. You paused before pressing the button and turned to him. “You know, you definitely broke your bed.”
He didn’t say anything.
You rolled your eyes. “I have a futon. You’re sleeping in my room tonight. And don’t you dare fight me on this.” You wagged a finger up to him while making a face. He almost smiled. Almost. But followed you to your room dutifully. He paused at the doorway before he stepped inside. You were in your closet, rummaging around for a set of sheets for the futon, humming the boat song from Tangled quietly. When you went back into your room, Bucky was sitting on your bed, looking at the photographs you had strung up on your walls. You smiled slightly and set about making up the futon, letting him hang out and relax. By the time you had the futon made up, Bucky had gone to the bathroom, so you quickly changed into a set of pajama pants and a comfy bra and sat on your bed. You were scrolling through Facebook when he came back out in a pair of pants you had lent him that were about two sizes too small. They looked like legging capris on him, and you almost laughed. Went over and sat on the futon and watched you for a while. After about half an hour, you looked up at him with a raised eyebrow. “What?”
He got up and walked over to your bed, sitting down beside you. You put your phone down and looked over at him. He reached over and took your now dark purple wrist gently. He ghosted his thumb over it, frowning. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered.
You sighed in relief to hear his voice and you smiled softly, nudging him. “It’s alright.”
“It’s not, though. I’ve hurt you.”
You nodded slightly before entwining your fingers with his. “Yeah, but I understand. And I forgive you. It’s just a bruise. It’ll heal.” He grew silent again and brushed his thumb over yours. You repressed a shiver and scooted the covers up around you. “Someday, Bucky, I hope you’ll be well enough and trust me enough to talk to me about it.”
He looked at you with his deep blue eyes and frowned. “I do trust you, Y/N.”
You smiled slightly and patted his hand before scooting down to lay on your side. “Good.”
He looked over at the futon before looking back at you. Before you realized why, he was lying down beside you, facing you. You blushed but didn’t protest. You reached up and hit the light button on the control panel above the bed and the two of you were encased in darkness. He reached forward in the dark before finding your hand and taking it in his human hand, holding it gently. You smiled slightly and closed your eyes, letting sleep take you.