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I've been thinking a lot about If You Lie Down With Me. It reminds me a lot of Bucky Barnes.
1940's Bucky Barnes.
A bit of a sweet talker, never too serious, always with a wry smirk and his next charming remark on the tip of his tongue.
He'd be standing in a dark, smokey room. Whiskey clinging to his breath.
Standing at the edge of the crowded party, he waited for a while to see what sort of trouble tonight would bring him.
He'd found his trouble exactly thirty minutes ago. His eyes were drawn to the door the moment you walked in.
Bingo.
Now, all he had to do was wait. His father always told him to bide his time, that good things came to those that waited.
The music roars over the sound of his stuttering heart, though no one would ever guess that with the mischievous smirk on his face paired with a wicked glint in his eye.
His eyes just keep finding you. He can't help himself.
They rake over the room over and over. It doesn't matter, nothing else catches his eye. Nothing else draws him in. Just you.
You stand as far away from him as humanly possible, chatting amongst your group of girl friends, pretending like he isn't even there. He expected no less.
It seemed like you paid him no mind, but Bucky Barnes was a perceptive man.
He noticed that flicker in your expression when you saw him and Steve standing on the outskirts of the party.
He wasn't dense either, he knew you'd spent the better part of a month avoiding him. It was dumb luck that brought you two to the same party tonight or maybe fate was on his side. He smirks at the thought, there was no fighting fate after all.
Steve lightly nudges Bucky's side after spending several minutes trying to talk to Bucky. "Buck?"
Bucky's eyes quickly shift away from his unabashed staring, "Yeah?"
"You've got the look of someone who is about to do something very stupid," Steve admonishes. Steve chastises himself, he should've known better, Bucky wasn't one to hug the wall at a party. Normally, Bucky had a girl on his arm and was trying to find a date for Steve, of course he was just looking for his opportunity to stir the pot, "Which means we should probably go."
"Go?" Bucky loudly guffaws, rolling his eyes at the absurdity of Steve's suggestion, "The party just started!"
"Please, Bucky, I don't wanna start anything tonight," Steve quietly pleads, Steve already hated parties, and he hated parties even more when Bucky was being a bit of a troublemaker.
"We came to have fun, Steve, and fun is what I intend to have. Live a little!" Bucky cajoles, nudging Steve with his elbow.
"Bucky," Steve groans, picking the skin on his fingers. "Please don't."
"I won't start anything I can't finish, Stevie. Don't you trust me?"
"Not particularly," Steve retorts.
Bucky claps a hand over Steve's frail shoulder, "Smart man, Steve. It's why we're friends."
"You're about to do something stupid, aren't you?"
"It'll either be stupid or it'll be one of the best decisions of my life," Bucky declares, smoothing his jacket before he takes off into the crowd.
"My money is on stupid," Steve declares under his breath, shoving his hands in his pocket.
Bucky holds his head up high as he cuts through the crowd. He'll make the occasional greeting when someone calls his name, always ready to show off his dazzling smile. But, otherwise, he's a man on a mission tonight.
When he makes his way to your group of friends, he notices the way you focus a little too intently on what your friend was saying. Something about a new seamstress in town. You nod, pretending like you don't see Bucky making his way toward you.
"Ladies," Bucky greets with a tip of his head, inserting himself in your circle of friends without remorse. He winks at you, ignoring the eye roll that you respond with. He reaches out to you, taking your hand, "Mind if I steal your friend for a while?"
"And if we do?" your best friend snipes.
"Then I'll promise to give her back," Bucky quips, letting the transgression roll off his back.
"Actually, we were in the middle of a conversation, Bucky. You'll have to come back later," you blithely reject him.
He pouts his bottom lip, looking to you with his best puppy dog expression, "Come on, I haven't seen you dance all night. Just one dance with an old friend?"
You look around to your friends. Half of them want you to go with him. Half of them want you to stay out of trouble, which meant staying away from Bucky Barnes. Somewhere in that half you know there's some friends that would kill if it meant Bucky would take them dancing.
You know how persistent Bucky can be. You know that he always finds a way to get what he wants. Hell, he'd probably stand with your friends and listen to all the neighborhood gossip until you gave in.
You sigh through gritted teeth, "Just one dance."
Bucky clutches his chest with a happy sigh, "You're making me the happiest man in the room tonight."
"That was rude," you chide as he guides you to the center of the room by your hand.
"I'm just a man that wants to see his best girl," Bucky remarks, stopping in the middle of the makeshift dance floor, "What's so wrong about that?"
You stand before him with a firm scowl, "I'm not your best anything, Bucky."
He playfully clutches his chest, taking your hand with the other, "You're hurtin' my feelings, Doll."
"Don't call me that," you sharply remark, pulling your hand out of his grasp. "It gives people the wrong impression."
He takes your hand again, this time, he places it on his shoulder, "And what impression is that?"
You hold your head up high, rolling your shoulders back. You don't want to talk to him, not tonight, not any night. You resolved that you needed to stay away from Bucky Barnes. You'd held on for a month, now was no time to quit. “Enough talking, Bucky. Just do what you do best.”
He chuckles, a crooked grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. He places a heavy hand on your waist, the other resting in your hand, “Yes, ma’am.”
The song is slow, intimate. It's everything you don't want to be around Bucky.
You don't want him to look at you with that damned smirk.
You don't want him to look at you like you're the first woman he's ever had eyes for.
You don't want him to look at you like he actually cares about you.
Instead, you try to focus on how much you love to dance. He was right about that. You loved the feeling of the live band playing, of the music filling a room, of someone holding you through a melody. There was nothing quite like it.
You never would have asked Bucky, though. You'd rather stand around the party bored out of your mind than to give him any room to weasel his way back into your life.
But he always was your favorite dance partner.
It's a perfect match, you and him. It always has been.
He has this air about him as he glides you around the room.
He dances you all around the room, like he wants nothing more than to show you off to each corner of the room, to show everyone how well you go together.
He makes you feel as graceful as a ballerina. He ignites something inexplicable within you, something you're sure you'll never find again. He makes you feel wanted, just for one short song, he makes you feel like you're his only desire.
He twirls you once, the soft fabric of your dress floating around you both.
Twice.
Three times.
You always land back in his arms.
Your breath hitches when you land especially close to him this time. He smiles to himself when he feels your breath skate across the top of his collar, your sweet perfume overwhelming his senses.
He grips your waist, just tight enough to make sure you’re perpetually aware of him.
"You've been avoiding me," Bucky flippantly observes, his thumb tracing patterns over the back of your hand.
"I've been busy," you retort in a clipped tone.
He humorously snorts, "Bullshit."
You pull back a little, looking up at him with a raised eyebrow, "Excuse me?"
"You heard me," Bucky shoots back, never once breaking his stride, "What's kept you so busy you couldn't say hi when you saw me at the shop the other day?"
"Johnny was waiting for me," you matter of factly reply, following Bucky's every move. Where he goes, you go, "We were having dinner with my parents, if you have to know."
"Johnny," Bucky repeats, practically spitting the name. "I thought I heard somethin' about that."
You hold your head high, refusing to let Bucky feel bad for moving on with your life, "We had dinner together."
"You've never invited me to have dinner with your parents," Bucky lilts, "I'm offended."
You sharply scoff, "We both you know you were never serious about me."
"And how do you figure that?" Bucky challenges.
"You can't be serious," you deadpan.
"Cross my heart," he wryly remarks, pulling you closer to him. "I'm always very, very serious. 'Specially about you."
"I'm nothing more than a holiday to you," you murmur, clutching his shoulder as the tempo swells. "You only want me, you're only interested in me, when you need a break from your other Dolls. We have a good time, you swear it'll last forever, and you always leave."
"My other Dolls?" He scoffs. "The last time we spoke we were talking about going steady."
You slightly shake your head, rolling your eyes. Life hadn't been the same since you decided to cut Bucky out of it.
You expected that your life would be more clear, make more sense without Bucky's pretty lies being whispered in your ear. In some ways, that did happen.
You just didn't realize how much you liked the haze that formed around your thoughts when he was near. He overwhelms you, ensnaring all your senses. You don't let the haze form this time.
You have to let this childish fever dream pass, your grip tightens, "You don't mean it. You never mean it."
"I do mean it!" he quietly exclaims, a little louder than he anticipated.
"The last time we spoke, you talked a big game. And I almost believed you," you remorsefully admit, cursing yourself for even believing that it would ever work between you and Bucky. It was that day that you learned what you wanted and what could be were two very, very different things. "And the very next day you were out with Dot."
Bucky internally cringes, he remembers that day a month ago. Crazy thing was he was pretty sure he hadn't even seen Dot since then. Sure, he'd spent a date or two with a few other girls, but it was never serious to him. He shakes his head, sighing, "We just went out for a soda. She called me, what was I supposed to do?"
"That's exactly my point, Bucky. It's always gonna be somethin' with you."
"And you thought Johnny was the solution," Bucky scoffs, not bothering to tamp down his repulsion. "He's a punk kid that wouldn't know what to do with a woman like you. He-"
“He asked me to marry him,” you finish Bucky's sentence.
You've know Bucky your whole life, played together as kids, grown up in the same schools.
You know Bucky Barnes like you know yourself.
And you'd never once seen Bucky speechless, never once caught off guard, never once without a quick remark.
With this news, he is all three.
Up until this point, he had not missed a single beat, not a single misstep, or awkward lull in your dance. He stops moving in the very center of the dance floor.
It takes him a moment to regain his composure. Once he does, you're both acutely aware of the sparseness on the floor and the eyes on you.
He clears his throat, rapidly shaking his head. He looks down to you with an expectant look as he starts to lead you again, “And?”
You look up at him, your eyes boring into his, “And I’m gonna to say yes.”
He shakes his head, pulling you even closer, much too close to be considered a friendly dance anymore. Physically, you knew that if you pushed Bucky away, he'd let you go, he wasn't that type of person. You only wish you had the mental fortitude to pull away from him.
He grunts, “No, you’re not.”
You definitively nod, trying your very best to hide the heartbreak in your expression, “I am.”
"What on Earth could Johnny have that I can't give you?" he demands.
“I want children, a family-“
“Then let’s have children!”
“I want a husband," you continue, your words more pointed this time. You know that Bucky Barnes is not a man that would ever be satisfied. He'd always want more than you could ever give him. And you weren't okay with that. You felt sick at the thought of being the poor wife in the neighborhood whose husband constantly strayed. That wouldn't be you. And Bucky Barnes had proven incapable of change. "Someone who will be loyal, faithful. Someone who won’t leave.”
"If you'd give me a chance -"
You repeatedly shake your head. You know what kind of man he is. The sort of man that promises everything under the sun. The sort of man that promises dreamy nights and delivers lonely mornings.
You remind yourself to stay strong, that you deserve a chance to have a family, a stable and secure future. You know you're not asking for much. Johnny made a humble living in his father's company. He could offer you everything that Bucky could, possibly less. But at least you knew he'd be there.
You're not asking for much, no, but you're still asking for more than Bucky was willing to give you. It didn't matter what he said.
You frantically shake your head again, like that would keep his pretty lies from taking root in your head, "Not this time. Not anymore. I’m over y-“
“Don’t say that," Bucky cuts you off. He pulls you closer until your chest is flush with his, "Good girls don’t lie.”
“It was a fling, an infatuation," you shakily exhale. You look up at him with pleading eyes, begging him to release his emotional hold on you. "You’re already done with me.”
He shakes his head, looking oddly disappointed in himself for his inability to let you go, "I will never be done with you."
"Now, who's lying?"
“It’s already too late. I hope you know that.”
Desolation courses through you, followed by a soul crushing resignation. This is what you wanted. Your fever dream had to be laid to rest, “I know it is.”
“No, really, it’s too late.” He takes your arm, but only twirls you halfway this time. He stops you when your back is pressed against his chest, leaving you facing the dance floor spectators. His arm is draped over your midsection, he still doesn't stop swaying you back and forth. Your eyes scan over the party of people, all watching your interaction with Bucky. You're certain this will get back to Johnny. You're certain you'll hear people whisper about this when you walk down the street, so close to Bucky though you'd spent a month with another man. Bucky rests his chin on your shoulder, softly murmuring in your ear, “Look at all those people watching us. Wishing they were me, wishing they could hold you like I can. Wishing they were you. They know what you don't. They know that these are two people that are not over each other.”
There's nothing you can say to that. Your stomach twists into a firm knot. Resignation seeps into your bones like lead. You feel heavy and light all at once.
He turns you back. With one look, you know. You know he's not planning on letting you go. He's not planning on letting someone else take you away from him. He speaks, zeroing in on your lips, leaning so close his breath dusting across your cheeks, "They all know you're lying. They know you're the only one for me."
"What do you want from me?" you whimper, only a breath away from his lips.
"Tell him no," he instructs, his words you take as your gospel. They flood your head once again, and worse, they fill your heart with doomed hope. "Tell him you love someone else. Tell him that once you know love like that, there's no goin' back."
You can't seem to escape the hold he has on your heart, and you can't find it in yourself to fight the trance he has you in anymore. It breaks your heart. You swallow the knot in your throat, nodding, "Okay."
He twirls you once.
Twice.
Three times.
You always land back in his arms.
Tears stain your cheeks this time. He tenderly brushes them away. He wipes away all of your doubts with them.
"I'll treat you so nice, Doll. Whatever you want, I promise." He hovers so close you can smell the whiskey on his breath. You can hardly smell the lies through the sweetness of the words. "We'll dance, get married, whatever you want, I promise."
At least, if he lies down, he’ll lie next to you.
At least, if he lies, he'll lie with you.