Chapter 3
“Fairytales? Love?” Your grandfather’s thunderous laugh echoed through your bedroom. “Love is for the weak, pumpkin. And you´re certainly not weak, are you?” he questioned your seven-year old self, tucking you under the blankets after you had asked him to read you a fairytale of princesses and princes before bed, just like the one your teacher had read at class that day.
You were quick to shake your head, regretting your request, which had clearly disappointed your grandfather. “Of course not, I’m very strong. Just like you, grandpa.”
He hummed, sounding unconvinced while he side-eyed you, to your dismay. “Listen carefully, Y/N.” He stared into your eyes, leaning in closer to speak, “The world is a master on making little girls believe they’re fragile, vulnerable, needy. But not you, sweetheart. You’re a fighter, and as long as you remember how tough I raised you to be, you won’t need anyone.” He softened his tone to continue, “But the world will need you, my little soldier. And you have to be there for them, always. Be caring and compassionate, but do it because it’s your duty, don’t waste it on someone who will weaken your strengths and diverge you from your purpose, do you understand me, pumpkin?”
You nodded eagerly, listening attentively to your grandfather, still oblivious to how much those words would mold your future.
“That´s my girl,” he praised you, pinching your nose and making you giggle, “Now let me tell about the time Auntie Peggy and I…”
Two years ago
If someone told Bucky he was a lucky man a few months ago, he probably would laugh his ass off. He could think of a number of words to describe him and ’lucky’ wasn´t one of them.
Until you.
Now, Bucky considered he was lucky as hell for falling off that train more than seventy years ago. He was lucky to have survived that fall and lucky to spend most of that time frozen, just to end up alive at the same time as you. What a damn strike of good fortune he was friends with that punk Steve Rogers, who happened to be an Avenger, just like you.
Before you, Bucky was alive, of course, but he wasn’t living. Every day was just another fight to keep going, to be there for Steve and try not to show his best friend how he was just existing . Then, he caught you staring that night and everything had changed, helping him gather the courage to finally get closer to you.
It was something entirely new the way he felt around you, like he could be and feel whatever, no judgments, no pressure, no expectations. With you, he allowed himself to feel miserable, angry, happy, sexy, playful. It was like he was getting to know himself all over again, all the emotions he was able to feel, all the nuances of his personality. It was something different than remembering who he used to be; instead, he was getting to know who he really was now. And he was aware he owed it to you, to your acceptance of him, to your soothing touches, your kisses, your smile, your love.
It was addicting. He had been clinging on you way too much, he suspected, but he simply couldn’t help it. He was completely hooked on you and who he was by your side.
A large smile framed his face as he walked to his bedroom after a long and tiring mission. You hadn´t been there at the deck to welcome him, like you always did when he arrived from missions without you, so you were probably still sleeping. He felt like a kid, anxious to surprise you with his arrival after several days with no communication at all. He needed to see you, hold you in his arms, make love to you, listen to your voice. He needed you.
This is why he had kept the tiny black velvet box close to him the entire mission. It was a reminder that all that violence, all that horror was temporary and you were his forever. He planned to make the proposal tonight and his heart beat faster just to imagine the beautiful word coming out of your lips…yes…
“Doll?” he called, pushing the door opened. Silence answered him. Entering the room, he frowned at the tidy bed. Odd. You had been sleeping in his room for months now.
He strutted to your bedroom with an uneasy feeling at the pit of his stomach. What he found next was your empty room. Literally. It was like no one had been living there.
Bucky couldn’t feel the floor beneath his feet.
~~~
He waited in the dark. It had been hours since he sat on the couch from your new home, yet he couldn’t take his eyes off of the door, waiting for the moment he would see you again. He’s pretty sure it was not reciprocal; you had gone away from him, after all. But he had to see you, he had to understand.
The click on the door reverberated through the increasing beating of his heart. Your silhouette showed through the entrance of your apartment and took the air out of his lungs before you turned the lights on. You had your back turned to him as you locked the door again and placed your purse on the small table beside you.
1…2…
He was not surprised when you briskly turned around. Gun pointed at his head. There you were. His gorgeous girl. His love. God, how he had missed you.
Bucky remained still as your widened eyes softened and you let out an almost imperceptible relieved sighed, lowering the gun. It was a split of second before the relief left your face, giving place to a hardened expression.
“What are you doing here?” you asked, placing the gun on the table, but not moving an inch from your spot.
Bucky chuckled bitterly, laying his arm over the armrest, “I’m here to ask you the goddamn same thing, Ms. Director of SHIELD,” he licked his lips and gulped before continuing in a softer tone, “What the hell are you doing here, doll?”
“How did you get in?” You ignored his question.
“Seriously, Y/N?” He arched a brow and got up, stopping right when he saw you taking a step back. It was like you were scared of him getting too close and it was nothing but a knife cutting through his chest. “Baby, I’m not gonna hurt you,” he whispered.
Your expression twisted into something he would guess was regret, “I know,” you nodded your head, looking down to your feet, before stepping closer, “I just wasn’t expecting this.” Straightening your pose, you looked back at him, dead in the eye, while working on taking off your coat to hang it on the wall, “I wasn’t expecting you to come here.” You stepped closer and crossed your arms.
“What?” he once again walked to you, furrowing his eyebrows at your puzzling words, “I… How could I not?” It didn’t slip past Bucky’s attention your stiffened posture, so he decided not to touch you, even if it was exactly what he desperately longed for since you had walked through that door, “You disappeared. I’ve been trying to reach you for days and nothing. Why…What happened? Why did you run away from me, doll?”
“I didn’t run away from you, Bucky.” You scoffed, avoiding his gaze. You seemed tense by his proximity, “As you’re aware by now,” you swiftly walked past him, making he turn around to look at your back as you tilted your head to the side to continue speaking, arms still crossed in front of you,“I was offered the position of being the director of SHIELD’s branch here in London. It was a great opportunity. I took it. That simple.”
So cold. Distant. This wasn’t you. Why were you acting that way with him? Bucky could barely control the confusion and insecurity in his voice, “Ok… Ok… But why the complete silence? Why didn’t you wait for me so we could talk things through?”
“What do you mean talk things through?” You snapped, turning back to face him, “This is my damn life. I owe you nothing, Bucky. Besides, I’ve been busy as hell, the last thing on my mind was you.”
An icy wave on his spine frozen him in place and it’s like his heart had stopped entirely, “What?” Bucky couldn´t possibly be hearing you right, “Why are you saying things like that? I know you don’t owe me anything, but we were… we are together. I thought…”
“Listen, Bucky, I was trying to avoid this whole…drama, but ok,” you sighed, “We had a thing, alright, but that was it: a thing.” You shrugged, “You’re a great guy, what we had was special, but it doesn’t fit in my life anymore. I’m sorry.”
She said ‘had’. The past tense weighed over his whole self, “What are you talking about?” Feeling you slipping through his fingers, he couldn´t help but close the distance you had been keeping, trying to reach for you, to touch you, as if he would be able to keep you like this.
You stepped away and his stomach sank, “It means whatever we had it’s over. Don’t make such a big deal about it, please.”
Bucky didn´t think he had ever felt that kind of despair before. He was losing you. He was losing the only thing that had kept him sane since he doesn’t even remember. He couldn´t. He wouldn´t.
“I don’t believe you. This would only make sense if everything we lived so far, everything you did and said to me was a fucking lie. And it wasn’t, I know it wasn’t.”
“Bucky… I don’t know what to say…” You shook your head, looking to the other side.
This time, Bucky didn´t hesitate and reached for you again, cupping your cheeks and resting his forehead on yours when you turned back, surprised, “Say you don’t love me.”
“Bucky…”
You hadn´t tried to push him, and he felt your body relaxing bit by bit, responding to him. He sighed deeply. Hope, there was hope. He could almost touch it.
“Come on, say it, baby,” he whispered, staring into your closed eyes. With his chest so closed to yours, he could feel how erratic your breathing was.
“Stop…” You placed your hand over his. He thought you would try to pull him away, but you didn´t. You just gripped into him.
He smiled. Hope.
“I need you so much it hurts…I can’t let you walk away from me like this.” His mouth brushed over yours as he spoke and he felt your hands shivering, “Baby, tell me what’s wrong. I love you. I love you, and you love me, I know this, even if you’re not saying it outloud. I feel it in the way you look at me, in the way you kiss me, how you’re always there for me… Please don’t do this to me, whatever it is, we can work things through, I need you…”
He feels your body hardening again, “See, that’s the fucking problem, Bucky.” You pushed on his chest, creating a new distance, “You wanna know what’s wrong? What’s wrong is I didn’t have a life of my own anymore. Everything was about this” you repeatedly waved your hand between you and him, “Everything is about you. What you need.” You pointed at him, exasperation evident in your voice and movements, “I can’t do it anymore. It’s too much.”
He stared at you, blinking the tears forming in his eyes and trying to hold back the lump in his throat, understanding finally coming to him as the faint traces of hope he had just felt faded away. He could see it now: his baggage, his change of moods, his insecurities, the constant necessity to be close to you, to cling on you, the fucking nightmares, “Oh…I-I didn´t realize…”
“I wasn’t born for this” You dipped your hands into you hair, staring at the floor, like you were talking to yourself more than you were talking to him. When you lifted your eyes back at him, he barely could recognize your face, changed with evident exacerbation, “I can’t deal with you, with this. It’s too fucking much,” you repeated, “Just right now, I´ve been trying to tell you I don´t want you anymore and you keep talking about what you need of me…”
You run a hand over your face and sighed, before walking past where he stood- dumbfounded and speechless- as you head to the door. With his back to you, he heard you fumbling with the lock before opening it, “Please, for once, listen to what I need and get the hell out of here, I need to breathe and live my life the way I’m supposed to.”
Of course. It all made perfect sense now. It was all his fault, of course… Who, in their right mind, would ever want a relationship with him, the Winter Soldier, with his fucking unstable mind and troublesome past? With all the mental issues, the emotional instability…Such a fucking burden…How stupid he was to think he could be better? He could be in a relationship without making the other person miserable? Because it was perfectly clear he had made you, the person he loved the most in his entire life, miserable and this would haunt him forever.
He pushed you away and lost you for the mere fact he was who he was. And who the hell was he going to be now, without you?
“I understand.” He slowly turned around, after he had no idea how long, keeping his face low, not wanting to bear you with his tears. He would never be a burden to you again, “You’re right. I can see it now.” He nodded softly. “I-I didn’t realize… I shouldn’t have come.”
He forced himself to walk to the door, still avoiding the look on your face, scared of what he would see there, but also ashamed of what he had meant to you… a fucking weight over your shoulders. “You won’t have to deal with me, ever again. I promise you that.”
You answered him with silence and he would always be grateful for that. His crushed heart wouldn’t bear to anymore truths that you could toss his way. Before he walked through the opened door he risked another brief glance at you, but you were the one not looking at him now, fixating on the floor, keeping the door opened for him. He whispered, one last time, “I’m so sorry, doll.”
Gripping tightly on the velvet box inside his pocket, he fled away so quickly from your apartment and your life that he couldn´t listen to the loud sobs he had left behind.
~~~
Present day.
Bucky breathes heavily, plastered against the wall next to his bed. He stares at the scene before him and there isn’t one single reasonable thought in his mind that could explain what the hell was going on.
You.
You’re there, on his bed. Sleeping. Like a fucking perfect angel. He woke up with you nuzzling to his neck. He felt at home at first, at peace. For a split of second it felt like the time had never passed, like it was before…
But then the reality sank in…
His heart hammers against his ribcage as he watches you stir and run your hand over the place he had been.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he asks sharply when you open your eyes.
Your gaze finds him and your eyes widen. You seem at a loss for words for a second, but it feels like forever to Bucky. You move to sit on the mattress and his hands respond clenching on each side of him as you do so. His eyes drop to your chest moving deeply as you take a long breath.
“We need to talk.”
“Answer my question.” His gaze snaps to yours.
You gulp at his harshness. His heart feels tight at your pained expression, but he doesn’t budge. He has worked really hard on these last two years, he wouldn’t let himself break. Not again.
“I-I, Steve was away and Friday let me know of your nightmares…”
“She shouldn’t have. I don’t need your pity. I don’t need you.”
You flinch and get up from the bed, walking to him, “No, that’s not it, Bucky…”
“Get out of my room,” he points at the door.
Your eyes shut before he can see the tears forming on them. He doesn’t understand why they’re there. You tentatively walk closer, “Bucky, please, let me explain…”
“What could possibly have to explain?” He shouts and struts to you, “You already made yourself pretty clear two years ago. Don’t fucking touch me,” he bats your hand away when you reach for him.
“Bucky…” your voice comes out small and your eyes are frantic and alarmed as you stared at him, openmouthed.
He avoids to looks straight at you to shout once again, pointing at the door, “Get. Out,”
After you swallow a sob, covering your mouth with a hand, you nod and turn to run out of his room, leaving the door opened behind you.
Bucky keeps his eyes glued to the opened door. His breathing is erratic as it feels like he hasn’t filled his lungs with air while you were there in front of him.
He tries to ignore the turmoil of feelings bubbling in his chest, in his whole body… the same ones he took so long to bury deeply inside him and now were threatening to come to the surface again. In autopilot, he drags his feet over the same path you have followed minutes ago and shuts the door.
He makes sure to lock it this time.