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almost yours ⸝⸝ oneshot
You don’t fall for Bucky Barnes all at once.
It happens in pieces. Small, unremarkable things that don’t feel dangerous until they are.
It’s the way mornings unfold into something predictable: the porch, the cold air, the sun barely cresting the horizon. He sits beside you without asking, nudges a mug toward you like it’s muscle memory. No words. Just quiet. Just existing in the same space without needing to fill it.
It’s training, the rhythm you build together, the unspoken communication. The way he smirks when you land a hit, like he’s proud and trying not to be. The way he always offers you a hand up, steady and sure, like he trusts you not to let go.
It’s the evenings too. The way he remembers which plate is your favorite to use. The way he waits for you in the hallway without admitting he was waiting. The way he says your name like it’s something he’s allowed to keep.
None of it feels like a beginning. So you don’t notice when it becomes one.
You go on walks and tell yourself you’re imagining things. That this is what friendship looks like when it’s built on shared danger and early mornings and the quiet understanding of what it means to survive. You tell yourself you’re not special, he’s like this with people he cares about.
You ignore the way your chest tightens anyway.
The feelings settle in slowly, pressing against your ribs until you’re carrying them everywhere. They’re there when you spar, when you debrief, when you sit beside him on the quinjet pretending not to notice how close his knee is to yours. They’re there in the silence, loud and insistent.
You don’t plan to say anything. You could live with it, you think. You could carry this quietly, let it fade, let time do what it always does.
Except it doesn’t fade. It deepens.
The realization comes one afternoon in the training room. You’re on the mat, breathing hard, sweat cooling against your skin. Bucky offers you his hand, metal fingers warm from exertion. You take it without thinking.
He pulls you up, and for half a second, he doesn’t let go.
Neither do you. Your heart stutters, sharp and sudden, and you know, with awful clarity, that this is not something you can outrun.
“Hey,” he says, brow creasing slightly. “You okay?”
You nod and smile, the practiced kind. “Yeah. Just tired.”
He watches you for a moment longer, like he wants to ask something else. Then he lets it go, stepping back like he always does.
That night, you decide to tell him.
Not because you expect anything. You don’t let yourself expect things like that. But because the weight of it is starting to feel unbearable, and you need it out of your chest before it collapses inward. You find him late, sprawled on the couch in the common area, boots kicked off, sleeves rolled up. He looks peaceful in a way that almost stops you in your tracks.
Almost.
“Hey,” you say.
He looks up and smiles. It’s easy and familiar. “Hey. Thought you’d turned in already.”
“Couldn’t sleep,” you shrug.
He shifts, giving you his full attention. That’s always been his problem, when he’s present, he’s present. It makes everything feel more important than it is.
You sit across from him, hands folded neatly in your lap. Calm and controlled.
“So,” you say lightly, like this is nothing. “I think I’ve got a bit of a crush on you.”
The words land softer than the truth. You make them smaller on purpose. Bucky freezes. Just for a second, but you see it. The tension in his shoulders. The flicker of something unreadable crossing his face.
“Oh,” he says quietly.
You rush to fill the silence, smiling again. “It’s fine. I just figured I should say it out loud so it stops rattling around in my head.”
He exhales, slow and heavy, and rubs a hand over his jaw.
“I should’ve been clearer,” he says. “I didn’t realize you— I mean, I didn’t mean to lead you on.”
Your chest caves in.
“Oh,” you repeat, softer this time.
“I’m with Natasha,” he continues. “We’ve been seeing each other. It’s… not something we talk about much.”
The words don’t echo off the walls, they don’t ring in your head, they just… settle.
You nod immediately. Too quickly. “Got it.”
You even laugh, a short and easy sound. “Wow. Okay. That makes a lot of sense actually.”
He looks at you like he’s waiting for something else. Hurt, angry tears. You don’t give him any of it.
“No worries,” you add. “Seriously. I should’ve guessed.”
“That’s not—” he starts, then stops. “I’m sorry.”
You stand, smoothing your hands over your thighs like this conversation has merely wrinkled you. “You don’t have to be. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
The earth splits open beneath your feet and you fight the wobble in your step. You can’t let it show.
“I just needed to say it,” you say lightly. “Now it’s out of my system.”
You turn toward the hallway before he can respond, before the silence can press in too close.
“Hey Rook,” he calls after you.
You pause, the familiar nickname putting your heart in a vice, squeezing it until you can't feel its pulse in your throat. Not here. Not now. With a shaky breath you turn, looking back over your shoulder.
“Yeah?”
He hesitates, something conflicted flickering in his eyes. “You sure you’re okay?”
You smile. The same one you always wear. “Yeah. I’m good, Buck.”
You leave before he can see the way your hands shake.
You make it to your room. That feels important. Like a small victory. Like proof you still have control.
The door clicks shut behind you and for a moment you just stand there, hand still on the handle, listening to the quiet hum of the Tower. Nothing has changed. The world hasn’t tilted. No alarms. No crack in the floor.
You did it, you said it and you survived.
You tell yourself this as you walk to the bed, sit down carefully, hands folded in your lap like you’re waiting for instructions.
It doesn’t hurt yet. That’s the strangest part. Your chest feels hollow, not heavy. Like something has been scooped out cleanly, leaving space where pain should be. You almost laugh at that, at how neat heartbreak looks when you’re still in shock.
He’s with Natasha.
The thought floats by, distant. Manageable almost.
You nod to yourself, once. Logical. It makes sense. Of course he is. She’s brilliant and lethal and beautiful in a way that never doubts itself. You don’t know why you ever thought—
The thought collapses in on itself. Your breath stutters. You press your palm to your chest, confused when it doesn’t help. The room feels smaller. The air thinner. You inhale again, deeper this time, and it still isn’t enough.
I’m fine, you think desperately. I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine.
Your hands start to shake again. The memories come then, uninvited and merciless. The porch at dawn. Two mugs. His shoulder brushing yours. The way he’d look at you like he was relieved you were there. The way it felt like belonging.
You squeeze your eyes shut.
He didn’t mean it. He didn’t lead you on. You imagined it.
The justifications pile up, frantic and brittle, but they don’t hold. Your throat tightens painfully, like something is clawing its way up from your lungs. You swallow hard, trying to force it back down.
Don’t cry. Don’t make this real.
A sound tears out of you anyway, sharp, broken, barely recognizable as human. You fold forward, elbows braced on your knees, and suddenly the pain hits all at once.
Not gently, not gradually. It erupts.
Your chest caves in, ribs aching like they’re being crushed from the inside. You clutch at your shirt like you can hold yourself together if you grip hard enough. Your breaths come fast and shallow, each one worse than the last.
“Oh—” you choke, the sound dissolving into a sob you can’t stop.
It feels like grief. It feels like panic. It feels like your body realizing before your mind does that something precious is gone. You cry hard and ugly, shoulders shaking, tears soaking into your hands. Your heart hurts in a way you didn’t know was possible, agonizing and relentless, like it’s bruised and splitting open at the same time.
You thought heartbreak was supposed to be poetic. This is violent.
Every memory hurts now. Every almost. Every maybe. You replay the confession over and over, the way his face changed, the regret in his eyes, the way he said her name.
Natasha.
You sob harder, a raw sound ripped from somewhere deep and unguarded. Your stomach twists, nausea rolling through you as the truth finally sinks its claws in. You loved him quietly and carefully. You loved him the way you love something you’re afraid to break.
And it didn’t matter. Your forehead drops to your knees as the pressure in your chest becomes unbearable.
“I’m sorry,” you whisper to no one, voice cracking. “I’m sorry.”
You don’t know who you’re apologizing to. Him? Yourself? The version of you that believed this could end differently? The tears keep coming.
Your body curls inward instinctively, protecting what little is left of you. You rock slightly, breaths hitching, trying and failing to calm down. It feels like drowning, like every inhale drags water into your lungs instead of air. Like you’ll never breathe normally again. You think of the way you smiled at him when you said it was fine.
The lie tastes bitter now. Your chest aches so badly you wonder if this is what dying feels like, not the dramatic kind, but the slow collapse of something vital. Eventually, long after your throat is raw and your eyes burn, the sobs quiet into something smaller. Not peace. Just exhaustion.
You lie back on the bed, staring at the ceiling through blurry vision, tears still slipping silently into your hair. Your heart feels shattered. Not cracked. Not bruised.
Shattered into pieces too small to put back the way they were.
And the cruelest part?
Tomorrow, you’ll wake up and you’ll get dressed. You’ll see him and you’ll act like nothing happened. Because loving him was never the mistake.
Letting yourself believe you could survive it might have been.
At first, the changes are small enough to hide inside routine. You don’t make a decision to distance yourself from Bucky. You don’t wake up one morning and choose absence. You simply… adjust. Like shifting weight off a bruised limb without thinking about it.
The morning after, you wake up earlier than usual. Not because you’re rested, you’re not, but because the thought of the porch, the quiet, the second cup of coffee already waiting makes your chest tighten in a way you don’t have time for.
So you lace up your shoes in the dark and head to the gym instead. The compound is quiet at that hour. Empty. Safe.
You tell yourself it’s better this way. Productive. You run until your lungs burn, until the hollow feeling in your chest turns into something physical you can outrun. When you’re done, you shower, change, and slip out just as the sun starts to rise.
By the time Bucky wanders toward the porch with two mugs like he always does, you’re already gone.
He notices.
Not right away, but after a few days, his eyes linger on the empty chair beside him. The untouched space. He asks Sam once if he’s seen you.
“Early bird lately,” Sam shrugs. “Or night owl. Hard to tell.”
You start switching training slots next. You tell the coordinator you want to work on solo conditioning. That you’re trying to improve endurance, flexibility, reaction time. All reasonable things. All true enough.
You stop showing up to the afternoon sparring sessions too. The first time Bucky walks into the gym and doesn’t find you on the mat, he frowns like something’s out of place. He checks the clock. Checks the sign-up board. Then the door.
You’re already in the locker room by then, towel slung over your shoulder, pulse still racing from the earlier session you scheduled specifically to avoid him.
It works mostly. When you do run into him, you keep it clean. Professional and efficient.
“Morning,” he says one day in the hallway, slowing his pace to fall in beside you.
“Morning,” you reply, eyes forward, steps never breaking rhythm. He waits. You don’t fill the silence.
“You switch training times?” he asks eventually.
“Yeah.”
“That why I haven’t been seeing you?”
You shrug. “Guess so.”
There’s a pause, the kind that used to be comfortable. Now it feels like standing on thin ice.
“Everything okay?” he asks.
You nod once. “All good.”
And you mean it, at least in the way that matters. You’re functioning. You’re showing up. You’re doing your job. That has to count for something.
Coffee disappears next. Not intentionally. Not at first.
You just stop going to the porch. Stop waking up to the smell of it, the quiet ritual of sitting beside him while the world comes alive. You grab something quick from the kitchen later, or skip it entirely. Some mornings you realize hours have passed before you’ve eaten anything at all.
You don’t feel hungry.
You start going to bed later, too. Staying up long after the compound settles, lights dimmed, halls quiet. You sit on your bed or at your desk, staring at nothing, scrolling mindlessly, waiting for exhaustion to pull you under.
Sleep comes thin and shallow when it finally does. Bucky starts catching you in pieces instead of wholes.
In elevators. In briefings. In the corridor outside the armory.
“Hey,” he says one afternoon, glancing at your hands and the way they twitch. “You okay? You look tired.”
“I’m fine,” you answer easily.
You always answer easily. Your conversations shrink down to necessity.
Mission details.
Training notes.
Yes, sir.
Copy that.
You stop teasing him. Stop lingering. Stop looking for him in rooms without realizing you’re doing it.
You stop touching him. That’s the one he notices the most. The way you used to bump his shoulder when you passed. The way you’d grab his sleeve to pull him into a conversation. The way your hand used to linger when he offered to help you up.
Now, you keep space like it’s protocol. One afternoon, after a briefing, he catches up to you near the exit.
“Did I do something?” he asks quietly.
You pause, hand on the door. The honest answer presses against your ribs, sharp and dangerous.
Yes. No. Not really. Not on purpose. You turn to face him, expression neutral. “No.”
He studies your face like he’s searching for a crack.
“You don’t talk to me anymore.”
You tilt your head slightly. “We’re talking right now.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
You offer a small, polite smile. “I’ve just been busy, Buck.”
There it is, the nickname. Casual. Familiar. Harmless. It costs you more than you let show.
He doesn’t push. He never does. He just nods slowly, jaw tight, like he’s filing the moment away for later. You walk away before he can say anything else. Later, alone again, you sit on the edge of your bed and press your palms into your thighs until the feeling settles.
You remind yourself that this is what you wanted.
Distance. Control. Clean lines where something messy used to be. You told him it was nothing. So you make sure it stays that way, even as the quiet stretches longer, and the space between you grows heavy with everything neither of you is saying.
Two weeks pass.
Not loudly. Not dramatically. They pass the way fog does, settling in slowly until the shape of things changes and no one can quite remember when it started.
By the time Bucky sees you again, it’s on the flight deck. The quinjet hums low and constant, engines warming, wind whipping across the open space. The team gathers in practiced efficiency, gear strapped on, weapons checked. It all feels familiar. Routine.
Until you step into view. Bucky’s attention catches immediately, instinctive, automatic, and then stutters. You look the same at first glance. Same uniform. Same stance. Same readiness.
But something is… gone.
You move like someone conserving energy. Not tired, emptied. Your expression is neutral, eyes distant, posture precise. There’s no spark of anticipation, no quiet humor tucked into the corners of your mouth. No subtle awareness of him.
You don’t even look at him when you stop beside the jet.
“Alright,” Steve says, voice cutting through the noise. “Quick rundown. Barnes, you’re point. You’ll have—”
“—me on your six,” you finish flatly, checking your weapon without looking up.
Bucky turns toward you, brow furrowing. You used to glance at him when you said things like that. A shared look. A silent check-in. Now there’s nothing.
Steve nods and continues, assigning positions. When he addresses you directly, you respond instantly.
“Yes, sir.”
The word lands wrong. Bucky’s jaw tightens.
He watches you through the rest of the prep, the way you move through your checks in exact order, every motion deliberate and efficient. There’s no chatter, no offhand comment, no playful complaint about the early hour or the cramped seating.
When Sam cracks a joke, you don’t react.
When Natasha glances your way, assessing, you don’t meet her eyes.
Bucky tries once.
“Hey,” he says, stepping closer, lowering his voice. “You good?”
You don’t look at him.
“All good,” you reply, tone even. “Ready for rollout.”
That’s it. No reassurance. No deflection wrapped in humor. Just a report. He studies your face, searching for something familiar. “You sure? You’ve been—”
“Orders?” you ask, finally lifting your gaze to him.
Your eyes are clear. Calm. Empty. It stops him cold.
He swallows. “We’re wheels up in two.”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
The title feels like a wall slamming down between you. He nods stiffly and steps back. Once inside the quinjet, the change becomes impossible to ignore. He watches you as he goes through the ground plan. You sit when told. Stand when told. Move when told.
Bucky speaks, and you respond.
“Cover left here.”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
“Hold position there.”
“Copy.”
There’s no improvisation anymore. No instinctive flow between you, no wordless understanding. Where you once anticipated his movements, filled gaps before he noticed them, now you wait. For commands. For permission. For direction. It’s flawless. Textbook.
And it terrifies him.
During a lull, he risks another glance your way. You’re seated across from him, hands resting on your knees, eyes fixed somewhere past the interior wall of the jet. You don’t fidget. You don’t sigh. You don’t seem nervous or eager or anything at all.
You look… hollow.
Like someone carved something out of you and smoothed over the edges. He remembers how you used to be, leaning forward, elbows on your knees, energy buzzing just under your skin. How you’d meet his eyes and raise a brow like you were daring him to keep up.
Now there’s nothing to meet.
“Hey,” he says again, quieter this time.
You turn your head immediately. “Yes, Sergeant?”
The words hit harder than any argument could have. His mouth opens. Closes. For a moment, he wants to tell you to stop. To say his name. To look at him like you used to.
Instead, he shakes his head slightly. “Never mind.”
You nod once and turn forward again. Mission first. Orders followed. No unnecessary noise. The jet lifts off, vibrations rattling through the floor, and Bucky grips the edge of his seat like it’s the only solid thing left. Whatever this is, whatever he did, it’s changed you.
And the worst part is how cleanly you’ve cut him out. Not with anger. Not with blame. But with obedience. And as the quinjet disappears into the clouds, Bucky realizes with a sinking certainty that this version of you might be harder to reach than if you’d hated him at all.
The intel falls apart in the first thirty seconds. The door blows, smoke clearing just enough to reveal what should’ve been an empty warehouse floor, except it isn’t. It’s crowded. A baker’s dozen at least, maybe more, armed and already moving.
“Contact—!” Sam shouts, gunfire erupting before the word even finishes.
Chaos swallows everything.
Shots ricochet off steel beams, glass raining down as the team scatters. The neat formation dissolves instantly, replaced by instinct and survival. Bucky fires left, then right, barking orders into the comms, trying to regain control.
“Where the hell did these guys come from?” Natasha snaps.
“Intel was bad,” Steve says. “Adjust and move!”
You’re already moving. Not fluidly. Not with that old unspoken rhythm. Just clean execution.
“Fall back, take cover by—” Bucky starts.
A blast interrupts him. The floor buckles, smoke swallowing the space between you, and suddenly you’re gone.
“—shit,” he snarls. “I lost visual. Where are you?”
Static crackles. “South corridor,” you answer, voice clipped. “Multiple hostiles.”
Then the line cuts. Bucky turns without thinking, plowing through debris and gunfire, but the path collapses in front of him, metal screaming as it drops, sealing the corridor off.
“No, no—” He slams his fist into the barrier. “Damn it!”
On the other side, you fight.
It’s messy. Close quarters. You take one down, then another, adrenaline keeping you upright long past when your body starts screaming. A shot grazes your shoulder. You barely register it. Then a second one hits you center mass, armor catches most of it, but the force throws you back hard. You crash into the wall, breath knocked clean out of you.
You don’t get up fast enough.
Something sharp tears across your side. You gasp, pain blooming hot and wet. Your legs buckle, and suddenly hands are on you, rough and unforgiving.
“Got one!” someone yells.
You try to fight. You really do. But your vision tunnels, ears ringing as you’re dragged backward, boots scraping uselessly against concrete. Blood soaks through your uniform, warmth spreading in a way that makes your stomach twist.
Your comm is dead. So is your strength. On the other side of the collapsed corridor, Bucky hears it. Not words. Not exactly. A sound—sharp, strained, wrong. He bolts back, finds another way in through an upper level scaffolding that doesn't look it could hold itself through a strong wind. He climbs it anyways and takes the near ten feet jump down, its a messy dismount, rolling and crashing into the side of a panel wall.
His head snaps up just in time to see a figure hauling you toward a side exit, your body limp between them. Something in him snaps. He doesn’t think. Doesn’t plan.
He moves.
Metal arm tears through hostiles like a paper, gunfire chasing him as he charges forward, eyes locked on you. He takes one down mid-stride, then another, then tackles the last one dragging you away.
The impact is brutal. Bucky hits the ground hard, ripping the goon off you and slamming him into the concrete until he stops moving.
“Hey—hey—” Bucky drops to his knees beside you, hands shaking as he gathers you in. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”
You suck in a breath that sounds more like a choke. Blood stains his gloves immediately.
He presses a hand to your side, panic clawing up his throat. “Stay with me. C’mon, don’t you dare—”
Your eyes flutter open. And for the first time in weeks, you actually look at him.
“Wow,” you murmur, lips twitching faintly. “You always this dramatic… or am I special?”
His chest tightens so hard it hurts. “Jesus, you’re bleeding out and you’re joking?”
“Gotta keep morale up, Sergeant,” you whisper. “Textbook, right?”
There it is. The ghost of a smirk. The cadence.
You. He laughs once, broken and breathless, even as his eyes burn. “You’re gonna be fine. Hear me? Medevac’s on the way.”
You swallow, lashes fluttering. “Knew you’d come.”
The words hit him harder than the explosion.
“Always,” he says fiercely, pulling you closer, like he can hold you together by force alone. “Don’t you ever think otherwise.”
The team converges fast after that. Sam covers the perimeter. Natasha kneels beside you, already working to stabilize the bleeding.
“She’s lost a lot,” Natasha says sharply. “We need evac now.”
The quinjet drops in hot, rotors kicking up debris as they load you onto the stretcher. You’re barely conscious, fingers weakly curling into Bucky’s sleeve as they lift you. He grips your hand, refusing to let go until they force him to.
“Hey,” you mumble as they pull you away. “Don’t… don’t forget coffee tomorrow.”
His throat closes.
“Yeah,” he manages. “Yeah. I won’t.”
The doors seal. The jet lifts. Bucky stands there, chest heaving, hands still slick with your blood, watching until the quinjet disappears into the sky.
For two weeks, you made yourself hollow. And in the middle of chaos, bleeding out in his arms, you came back to him like muscle memory. It scares him more than anything else.
The medbay is too quiet. Machines hum softly, lights dimmed low, like the room itself knows better than to intrude. Bucky walks in to you stuffing clothes in a bag, arms full with books and those tiny chocolate marshmallow candies you like. But you’re already sitting up, IV gone, jacket half on like you were never planning to stay.
“Where are you going?” he asks, voice rough.
You don’t look at him. “I’ve been cleared.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
That finally gets you to lift your eyes. They’re tired. Not red, not angry, just empty. “I can’t do this anymore, Buck.”
He takes a step closer. “Do what?”
You let out a shaky breath, fingers curling into the fabric of your sleeve. “Pretend I’m fine. Pretend I didn’t almost die out there and that I didn't feel like something in me finally snapped.”
He swallows. “I didn’t know it was this bad.”
“I know,” you say quietly. “That’s the problem.” Silence stretches. He waits, like he’s afraid if he speaks you’ll shut down completely.
“I need you to understand why I’m leaving,” you continue. “Because if I don’t say it now, I never will.”
Bucky’s jaw tightens. “Okay.”
You inhale, slow and deliberate, like you’re bracing for impact.
“Because I’m in love with you.” The words land heavy. He doesn’t interrupt.
“And when I thought I was going to die,” you whisper, “all I could think about was you. Your voice. The way you’d grunt ‘good morning’ like it cost you something. That stupid little smirk you got when you beat me in training, and the bigger one when I finally got you back.”
Your throat tightens, but you keep going. “The quiet mornings. You bringing coffee and us just… sitting there, watching the sun come up. Not talking. Just being.”
Bucky’s breathing turns uneven.
“I feel like I can’t breathe right when you’re not around,” you say. “And then when you are, every breath feels stolen—like… it’s not mine to take. And I can’t live like that.”
He opens his mouth. Closes it. You shake your head before he can speak. “Don’t explain. Don’t apologize. I know you didn’t mean to hurt me.”
You finally stand, sling your bag over your shoulder.
“I almost died with the blink of an eye,” you say softly. “But loving you like this feels like dying slowly.”
“Rook,” he says, voice breaking.
You pause at the door, hand on the frame, but you don’t turn around. “Don’t make this any harder than it already is, Buck.”
When you leave, the room feels impossibly empty, like all the air went with you.
Bucky keeps his eyes on the floor long after you’re gone.
The medbay smells like antiseptic and ozone, too clean for something that feels this ruined. He tells himself that’s the problem, that he’s projecting. Letting adrenaline and fear distort things into something bigger than they are. That’s what this is. Distortion. He straightens, rolls his shoulders back, like he’s coming out of a mission debrief instead of watching the aftermath of something he refuses to name.
She said she loved you. People say things when they’re scared. When they’ve almost died. When emotions spike and everything feels sharper than it really is.
It doesn’t mean it’s permanent. It doesn’t mean it’s real. He latches onto that thought, turning it over like a worry stone. You were vulnerable. He was familiar. Familiar feels safe. Safe gets mistaken for love all the time.
That’s all this was.
He didn’t lie to you. He didn’t promise anything. He didn’t cross lines, at least not ones he can’t redraw now that he needs to. Training partners get close. Friends share space. Friends sit in silence. Friends bring coffee.
Friends don’t feel like this when you walk away, he tells himself. He exhales slowly, forces the tightness in his chest into something manageable. This is restraint. This is doing the right thing. Letting you go is proof he’s not selfish.
You leaving is… mature. Necessary. Healthy.
That’s when Natasha speaks. “She made the right call.”
Her voice is calm and steady, no sharp edges. She’s standing just inside the doorway, arms folded loosely, posture relaxed like she’s been there awhile. Bucky doesn’t look at her. “She didn’t have to leave.”
Natasha hums softly, thoughtful. “She was hurting. And you couldn’t give her what she wanted.” That lands easier than it should.
“I didn’t want to hurt her,” he says.
“I know,” Natasha replies, stepping closer. “That’s why this would’ve kept getting worse.”
He finally looks up at her. She meets his eyes without flinching.
“She was always going to want more,” Natasha continues gently. “More time. More space in your life. More of you.” A pause. “You don’t have that to give. Not without taking it from somewhere else.”
From me, goes unspoken. Bucky swallows. “She said loving me felt like dying slowly.”
Natasha’s expression softens, not with jealousy, but with sympathy. “Because she stayed when she should’ve left.”
He frowns. “That’s not fair.”
“Isn’t it?” Natasha counters quietly. “You’re not responsible for someone choosing to love you when you’re already taken.”
Taken. The word anchors him.
“You were honest,” Natasha says. “You didn’t choose her over me. You let her go.”
She reaches out, resting a hand on his arm, warm and grounding. Present. “That’s not cruelty,” she adds. “That’s loyalty.”
Something in his chest loosens at that. Just a little. “She’ll move on,” Natasha continues. “She needs to. And you need stability. Not… intensity.”
His mind flashes, unbidden, to quiet mornings. Coffee cooling between his hands. The way you never rushed him to speak. Natasha squeezes his arm slightly, pulling him back.
“You don’t need someone who makes you question every breath you take,” she says softly. “You need someone who fits into the life you’re already building.”
With her.
“This is better,” she finishes. “For everyone.”
Bucky nods, because it makes sense. Because it’s logical. Because it hurts less when framed that way.
He tells himself the ache in his chest is just residual guilt. That the hollow feeling will fade. That choosing what’s steady over what’s sharp is growth. Natasha stays with him until his breathing evens out. And when she finally leaves, he doesn’t chase the thought of you down again. He lets it sit, labeled resolved. Unaware that denial, when wrapped in reason, is still denial—and that some truths don’t disappear just because they’re inconvenient.
A month passes.
It doesn’t soften anything.
If anything, it sharpens the ache into something constant and precise, like Bucky’s learned exactly where it hurts and keeps pressing there by accident. Every morning he wakes up expecting, just for half a second to hear movement down the hall, a door opening, your footsteps pacing with that familiar rhythm.
Every morning, there’s nothing.
He throws himself into training like it’s penance.
Longer hours. Heavier weights. Sparring until his knuckles split and the med techs yell at him for reopening wounds that never quite heal. He runs until his lungs burn and his vision swims, sleeps in jagged fragments when his body finally forces him to stop.
He’s exhausted. He doesn’t care. Sam tells him to take it easy. Steve watches him with quiet concern. Natasha tries, really tries, to pull him back from the edge.
“You don’t have to punish yourself,” she says one night, leaning against the doorway of the gym as he hammers a punching bag with relentless force.
He doesn’t slow down. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not,” she says gently. “You’re spiraling.”
The bag swings back and slams into his ribs. He barely flinches.
“I said I’m fine.”
He snaps at everyone now. Short temper. Sharp words. No patience for jokes or small talk. The team tiptoes around him like he’s something volatile, something liable to detonate if touched wrong.
He hates that too. But the nights are worse.
The quiet creeps in, stretches long and merciless. He lies awake staring at the ceiling, replaying memories he didn’t know he’d memorized so well, your voice in the mornings, the weight of you leaning against his shoulder in the quinjet, the way you’d look at him like he was something solid in a world that kept shifting.
The way you laughed.
That’s what breaks him.
It happens in the training room, of all places. He’s mid-combo, frustration coiled tight in his chest, when he hears it, a laugh, light and unmistakable, coming from the corner of his vision.
He whips around so fast the punching bag snaps back and slams into his gut, knocking the breath clean out of him. He doubles over, coughing, heart racing. There’s no one there. Just an empty mat. A rack of weights. Dust motes drifting lazily through the light.
The absence hits him harder than the impact. He sinks down onto the bench, forearms braced on his knees, chest heaving, not from exertion this time, but from something dangerously close to panic.
Because in that split second, before logic kicked in, he felt it. Felt right. Felt like home. And suddenly, painfully, devastatingly, he understands.
He’s been in love with you the whole time. Not in a slow, creeping way. Not something that grew quietly.
It was already there, threaded through every shared morning, every instinctive glance, every moment where he felt steadier just knowing you were nearby. He just labeled it wrong. Filed it away as comfort. As partnership. As something safe that didn’t ask anything of him.
Until you left. Until the quiet became unbearable. The realization crashes over him all at once, heavy and unforgiving, and he presses a fist to his mouth like it might keep the truth from spilling out of him.
“Shit,” he breathes.
Natasha finds him like that later, still in the gym, sweat-damp and hollow-eyed, staring at nothing. She sits beside him without asking. “You wanna talk?”
He shakes his head automatically.
“You miss her,” she says softly.
The words hit too close. Too clean. He laughs once, sharp and humorless. “That obvious?”
She studies him for a long moment. “You’ve been missing her longer than she’s been gone.”
Something in his chest twists.
“She left because of me,” he says, the admission tasting bitter. “Because I didn’t see it. Didn’t choose her when I should’ve.”
Natasha exhales slowly. “Bucky—”
“I love her,” he says, voice breaking despite himself. “And I didn’t even know it until it was too late.”
Silence stretches between them. When Natasha speaks again, her voice is steady, but there’s hurt underneath it. “Then what are we doing?”
He looks at her then. Really looks. And he knows the answer.
“This isn’t fair to you,” he says quietly. “It hasn’t been for a while.”
She nods once, eyes shining but resolute. “No. It hasn’t.”
They don’t fight. They don’t yell. They just… end. Later, Bucky stands alone in his room, the weight of it all settling in at once. You’re gone. Natasha’s gone. The Tower feels emptier than it ever has. For the first time in a long time, there’s no one left to anchor him. The cruelest part yet, he knows exactly who he lost. And exactly how badly he wants you back.
He doesn’t stop looking for you.
At first, it’s methodical. He pulls your old personnel file from the system, flipping through it like something new might appear if he stares long enough. Emergency contacts. Prior residences. Old mission notes. Nothing useful. Everything ends at the Tower.
He calls people he hasn’t spoken to in years. Old mission runners. Old teammates. Friends who owe him favors he never wanted to cash in. He keeps his voice steady, professional.
“Have you heard from her?”
“No?”
“Okay. Thanks anyway.”
He hangs up and tries again. Days blur together. He sleeps even less. Trains even harder. The ache never dulls, it just changes shape, settles deeper. He checks places he knows you loved. Coffee shops near the Tower. A small bookstore you dragged him into once because “they have the best philosophy section.” Nothing.
Weeks pass. The city feels too big and too empty all at once.
One gray afternoon, he finds himself walking without direction, boots carrying him on instinct alone. He doesn’t realize where he is until the trees open up and Central Park stretches out in front of him—wide and breathing, a rare pocket of quiet in the middle of the noise.
Rain starts falling not long after.
He doesn’t move. He sits on a bench near the path, elbows braced on his knees, watching the grass darken as it drinks in the water. People hurry past with coats pulled tight and umbrellas blooming overhead. The city keeps going.
He stays. Minutes stretch. Maybe hours. His hair is soaked. His jacket heavy with rain. He doesn’t notice when the world grows quieter.
What he notices is the rain stopping. Not all at once—just above him. Bucky frowns and looks up. An umbrella fills his vision.
He blinks, disoriented, then follows the handle down—
—and there you are.
For a second, neither of you move. You look different. Not weaker. Not broken. Just… steadier. Like someone who’s learned how to hold herself upright without leaning on anyone else. Your hair is pulled back, face bare, eyes tired but clear.
“You’re gonna catch a cold,” you say softly.
His breath leaves him all at once.
“Rook,” he whispers, like saying your name too loudly might break the moment. You hesitate, then step around the bench, holding the umbrella so it covers both of you. You don’t sit. You don’t touch him.
“I usually come here when I can’t think straight,” you say after a beat. “Guess great minds think alike.”
His chest tightens. “You used to come here?”
You let out a small, almost embarrassed breath. “Yeah. A lot. Usually after spending time with you.”
He swallows.
“I’d sit right here,” you continue, nodding at the bench, “and overanalyze every conversation. Every look. Trying to figure out if I was imagining things. If I was crazy for thinking there was something there.”
Your voice doesn’t shake. That hurts more than if it had. He stands slowly, like he’s afraid to spook you.
“You weren’t,” he says immediately. “You weren’t crazy.”
Your eyes flick up to his, searching.
“I just didn’t know what to call it,” he admits, voice low and rough. “Didn’t realize what it was until you were gone. Until everything felt wrong without you.”
Rain patters softly against the umbrella.
“I love you,” he says. No hesitation. No qualifiers. “I’ve been in love with you for longer than I understood what that meant. And I’m so damn sorry it took me losing you to see it.”
You look away, jaw tight. “Bucky—”
“I know I don’t get to ask this,” he says quickly, stepping closer, careful not to crowd you. “I know I hurt you. I know I let you believe you had to leave to survive loving me.”
His voice breaks. “But if there’s any part of you that can forgive me, any part at all, I’m begging you to let me try again. To choose you. To do it right this time.”
Silence stretches between you, heavy but not unbearable. Finally, you exhale.
“You almost ruined me,” you say quietly. Not accusing. Just honest.
“I know,” he says. “And I’d spend the rest of my life making sure I never do that again.”
Your grip tightens on the umbrella. “I didn’t leave because I stopped loving you,” you admit. “I left because I couldn’t keep loving you like that.”
His eyes soften, aching. “Then don’t.”
You look back at him then, really look at him.
“Love me where I’m chosen,” you say. “Or not at all.”
His answer is immediate.
“I choose you,” he says. “Every day. Every version of you. If you’ll let me.”
The rain picks up again, heavier now, drumming overhead. You lower the umbrella just enough to step closer.
“Okay,” you whisper.
Bucky lets out a breath that sounds like relief and disbelief tangled together. He doesn’t touch you yet, he waits, like he’s learned something important. When you finally close the distance yourself, resting your forehead against his chest, it feels—
Quiet. Right.