Chapter Text
The Winter Soldier was not somebody who stopped looking at something he liked. He found it hard to break his concentrated gaze from the corner of his eye that was fastened to her.
She was sat with her legs crossed somewhat childishly, and she held one of her ankles with her hand as if keeping it in place. The other leg dangled from the sofa, kicking it to create a dull thump every few seconds. Nobody seemed to care.
She was chewing on blue bubble gum, insisting it tasted of strawberries despite the colour every time Tony asked with an impish grin. Bucky couldn’t help but wonder what it tasted of.
When he asked, earning a sly wolf whistle from the Iron Man and a questionable glance from Steve, she smiled widely and bounced from her seat in between Natasha and Clint and stood in front of him, offering several sticks of gum.
What she didn’t understand was that he wanted nothing more than to taste it from her.
On a particularly gruelling mission several days later, she was leaning on his shoulder, sweating, beaten and bleeding. Her breathing was shallow and her S.H.I.E.L.D suit was ripped over her stomach. He noticed everything down to the paper cut on her thumb, a foolish accident when she was excitedly showing Bucky all of her sketches, and she had pouted when Thor mocked her weakness, smiled adorably when Bucky pressed a small kiss to it to soothe her.
“Buck, I feel sick.”
He blinked slowly and looked down to see her face scrunched in a mixture of disgust and pain just before she moved so her head tucked into his neck. “You gonna be sick?”
She made a faint humming noise. “I hate helicopters.”
He knew she didn’t. She’d had a pilot’s licence since she was twenty, and she adored flying as much as she did drawing. What made her feel sick was the amount of devastation they just witnessed and could not solve.
He knew most things about her, he realised. When they finally landed on solid ground she waited patiently for Bucky to offer her his hand, he realised she knew most things about him, too. He paused in front of her before holding out his hand, watching as she unbuckled herself from the seat and looked up at him. “James?”
“I’m fine, doll.”
Tony had bought the two of them pizza for their five day mission return, though the man himself was nowhere to be seen. He had left a note with a smiley face and a two kisses, one for the each of you written in brackets. Natasha had been waiting at her bedroom door, waving a dvd in one hand and holding a mug of hot chocolate in the other.
“Its girls’ night. She needs it.” The Black Widow explained, briefly looking at Bucky. He nodded and reluctantly withdrew his grip on her hand.
“I’ll come see you as soon as the film is done,” She promised him, reaching back for his hand to squeeze and kissing his cheek.
He was still stood outside her door a minute after she’d disappeared behind it.
He sat with Steve at the table with plates of meat and potatoes between them whilst he thought of her washing herself and wincing at all of the cuts and bruises. He still thought of the way she would sit and braid her hair without looking as Steve asked him how the mission went and if he was okay, images of her unable to leave his mind. He closed his eyes.
“The mission was fine.”
“Did you try out that new technique you two were practising the other week?”
He opened his eyes, smiling ever so slightly at the memories of her climbing onto his back and telling him excitedly how she had figured out a way they’d be invincible together. It didn’t go quite as well as it did in theory, as she cut her head and knee open, though he had to admit it was progress from their original fighting style. He told Steve this, leaving out the part where he had carried her everywhere after being injured, especially making sure he didn’t mention any of his injuries.
“You like her, don’t you?”
“Punk.”
A knock at the door roused him from sleep. Bucky walked to his door and opened it quickly, ready to snap at whoever had knocked on his door at 3 A.M. He swallowed his threats upon seeing her in the doorway, her face and hair highlighted by the dim light of her phone.
“I think I fell asleep,” She said, almost shyly. “I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner.”
“You didn’t have to come at all,” Bucky responded immediately, watching stiffly as she entered his room, her shoulder brushing his chest as she passed.
“I always do.”
“Your favourite jumper is in the wash.” He said, a few moments after watching her settle in the middle of his bed, the covers thrown back from being disturbed.
“Looks like I’ll have to take your shirt, then,” She smiled, stretching out her arms to him.
“The one I’m wearing?” He laughed, walking towards her and pointing to his chest. “No way.”
She pouted and gathered the sheets on the bed, pulling them over her entire body. “Then goodnight, oh Winter Soldier.”
“I’d much rather you call me Dime again, doll.” He replied affectionately, sliding into bed next to her and pulling the covers from her face. She turned onto her side and looked up at him with sad eyes.
Her fingers reached out to trace the scars where metal met flesh.
“I wish I was kicking about seventy years ago, you know.”
Despite wanting to tell her to be quiet, don’t talk about it anymore, please, he remained quiet himself, letting her talk away at him about how she would have destroyed every HYDRA agent who dared touch him. It made him warm, the amount she cared for him, and he too wished she was alive when he was truly Bucky Barnes. Nothing would have made him happier to have her by his side during those years. And yet, looking at her lying next to him, a loose shirt with Stark Industries written across her chest and knowing the power that swirled in her veins, he couldn’t have been more thankful she wasn’t alive back then. They would have made her into something far much worse than the Winter Soldier.
And, of course, she wouldn’t be closing her eyes and wrapping herself around him right now with a small murmur of goodnight spilling from her lips.
It was routine for the pair to sleep next to one another when they had returned from a mission together. The rest of the Avengers understood, amazingly, the first time Bucky had emerged from his room with her, sleepy, but holding his hand tightly and wearing his favourite jumper, the one that covered his metal arm entirely.
Only Tony commented on it, nudging Bruce with a raised brow and snickering into his coffee when she sat on Bucky’s lap rather than on her own stool. It would have surprised Bucky; too, if it weren’t for the amount of time they spent together on missions, trapped next to each other in a confined space for hours on end. He was easy on the contact between them now, gave it back to her in equal measures, even.
It helped that she was the first person he saw when he awoke from being finally captured by S.H.I.E.L.D, her fingertips trailing down his face comfortingly, her eyes and smile kind through the snarl and angry Russian he was firing at her. He would always remember the way she used her power to pull a nearby chair to her and sat down close to the edge of his bed, her fingers still on his face and soft Russian words of comfort responding to his promises of slicing off her hand. The memories of relearning who he was came in uncomfortable waves, but he remembered each one that she was there for, even the glimpses of her in the background, patting Steve’s shoulder or grabbing the Black Widow’s arm in warning.
It was this morning that they emerged from his room that caused the Avengers to look at them in speculation, even though they had never said a word previously - aside from Tony’s silent gestures.
“What?” She asked, her hand gripping his metal one even tighter.
“My Lady, you two slept the day away. It’s nearly six in the evening.” She frowned at Steve’s words and looked up at Bucky, her drowsiness still evident.
“We slept all day? We couldn’t have been that tired, surely?” Bucky dropped her hand and draped it over her shoulder instead, pulling her to him and walking towards the sofa.
“You even slept during our movie,” Natasha said slowly, her eyes drifting between her and Bucky. “You two weren’t up to anything, were you?”
Clint choked on his noodles and Tony laughed, smacking his hand on the countertop of the bar. “Smooth, Romanoff!”
Bucky pulled her down onto his lap and ignored the rest of the Avengers, looking forwards and out of the window instead. She looked down at him with a slight frown, one hand coming to a rest on the forearm that was locked around her waist, the other resting on top of the hand over her thigh.
“We weren’t up to anything,” She sighed, her hand travelling up his arm upon feeling how tightly he began gripping her hip.
“It wouldn’t be anyone’s business anyway.” The Winter Soldier growled, pulling her so her hip touched his stomach. He needed her closer, always needed her to be closer.
With those quietly threatening words and her soothing fingers in his hair, down his neck and up and down his arms, nobody said another word to them about it.
“What’s up, Buck?” She asked, entering his room slowly. “You’ve been in here for hours. Are you alright?” He beckoned her closer with a wave of his hand and she complied, stopping so she stood between his legs. He had sat at the end of his bed with his face in his hands for what felt like hours.
He needed rid of this constant need of her.
It was driving him insane.
She was driving him insane.
His hands went to her hips, his right hand travelling around to her back and sliding up her shirt. He watched as her pupils dilated. “Bucky?”
He repeated his own name slowly after revelling in the way she said it, the way her lips pouted and pressed together to pronounce it. “When I’m with you, I’m Bucky,” He muttered, his voice heavy with something mixed between lust and wonder. His fingertips brushed against the fabric of her bra and he kept them there, his eyes locking onto hers with a promise. “Anyone else and I remember my arm is made of metal and I’m stronger than Captain America.” His other hand slipped from her hip and onto the dip from her bottom to her thigh, cupping her and bringing her closer as he stood, making sure every inch of his body touched hers. She blinked slowly, but being the ever-patient Lady she was, she kept her mouth shut.
They remained like that for a full sixty seconds, their chests pressed together and noses touching, eyes locked, neither willing to make a move.
“It was a year today that we met,” She murmured, realisation lighting her eyes.
He gave her a lopsided grin. He repeated the words she said to him in Russian when he first woke up and her eyes sparked.
You’re stuck with me. Deal with it.