Archive of Our Own

Their nights often end up like this now: both of them in Bucky's bed, his arms around Ava, his flesh hand tracing long, idle lines along her spine while she smiles sleepily on top of his chest.

Sometimes, they wind up in her room, too. But, more often than not, they spend hours in his quarters at the Watchtower because, according to her, she likes his bed better since it's bigger and it 'smells like him.' 

"Pretty sure that's just your roundabout way of telling me to change the sheets more often," he told her earlier.

"Yeah, no," she'd responded. "I don't do roundabouts. You should know that about me by now."

And then she'd basically tackled him backwards into the bed and kissed him properly, which abruptly ended the conversation the way it was meant to.

That had been more or less two hours ago.

Now he's breathing her in, arms tightening around her, like his body is automatically fighting against the damned thought circling in his brain:

you should let her go.

And he knows he should. Knows it with a certainty he hated. But he comforts himself with the idea that it's just for tonight, it's just for a few hours, tomorrow morning he'll see her again, bright and early and--

"Ava," he says now, mouth very close to the shell of her ear. "Doll. You should sleep."

She sighs and burrows deeper into his arms. "Mm. Yeah. In a minute. You're warm. I like you warm."

As if that explains why she's not listening to him.

He smiles. Inside, something in him softens at the thought that really, she doesn't want to leave, that she's comfortable here, wrapped in his arms like it's the most natural thing. Like it's the safest place in the world for her. But he can tell that she's minutes away from succumbing to sleep, and for insomniacs like them, something as simple as actually having the urge to sleep shouldn't ever be wasted. So he offers, gallantly, "I could carry you to your room."

"Tempting," she mutters, moving her head up to look at him, dark hair falling like a curtain around her face. "So very tempting. I don't ever say this enough, but I do like being carried by your gigantic arms, you know."

Bucky reaches to tuck an errant strand behind her ear. "That a yes, then?"

She hesitates for a second.

Then, "Only if you join and sleep with me there," she says lightly.

And his stomach absolutely drops.

"Ava," he says, her name ending on a sigh after waiting for her to take the words back, to tell him she was just joking, except she didn't. "You know I-- we can't."

Can't. That word hangs loud and ugly between them. 

For a moment she just stares at him, her chin dropping to his chest as she looks deep into his eyes. For a moment, he dreads that he'll have to bring up that conversation again: 

The very reason why she can't sleep on his bed, or he on hers, for that matter.

I don't-- the nightmares, Ava. I don't know when they'll surface. And I sure as can't control how they'll surface, either. I might wake up screaming. I might wake up sweating. I might wake up not knowing where I am, or who I am, or worse, I might wake up violent and I don't--

Don't want you to see that.

Don't want to subject you to that.

Don't want you witnessing the ugliest side of who I am, and make you realize I'm not worth staying for. 

--I don't want to hurt you.

He was only able to tell her that once, months ago, because saying the words out loud felt like they were being pulled out from the deepest, most shameful parts of him. Like he was confessing something profoundly humiliating. Like it was his fault that, despite all the years between regaining his own self and now, he still wasn't able to stop the nightmares from persisting in the horrible way that they often do. 

And in some ways, he truly believed it was.

To her credit, Ava listened to all that months ago and never said anything. Never offered any useless platitudes. She just nodded, kissed him on the cheek and said, "All right. All right, I'll go. See you in the morning."

She wasn't doing any of that now.

Instead, she starts tracing the lines of skin and dog tags over his heart. "Haven't you ever wondered," she tells him softly, "what it would feel like to wake up next to each other, Buck? Just once?"

He swallows the immediate reply that comes up: 

Every damn day.

"That's--" He exhales, long and slow. "You know I do. You know I want to. But I'm not--" Here, he tightens his hold on her. "I don't want to risk it. Because what if I--"

--hurt you.

Instead of continuing, he just shakes his head. "I'm not risking you. I'm never going to. We-- we talked about this, Ava, I don't--"

And something in her expression simply shuts down.

"All right. Well."

Then Ava pushes herself up and off the bed, grabbing his Henley from the floor - despite her shirt being right next to it - and pulling it on before facing him again. "Let me know once you let your want outweigh your fears, Barnes. You know where to find me."

And then she phases right out of his door.

Bucky doesn't sleep at all that night.

Judging from the circles under Ava's eyes the next time he sees her in the kitchen, he could tell she didn't, either.

Still, she accepted the cup of coffee he slid towards her, made just the way she preferred it, with a small, almost muted, "Thanks."

Before adding, looking anywhere but directly at him, "Look. I was... harsh to you last night, I'll admit it. I shouldn't have--"

"Ava," he cuts in.

She shakes her head and crosses her arms in front of her. "No, no. Listen. It was wrong of me to say it like that, Buck. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I want you to know that I really am. I know you're just... I don't know, trying to protect me or some shit. And I know that you know I don't really need it, but despite that, you still chose to be so stupidly noble where I'm concerned, so. It's sweet. In a stupid, totally unnecessary kind of way, but still." Ava sniffs. "Still. I should have known better than to diminish what you feel, and I'm--"

"Ava," he cuts in again, this time, reaching for her hand and covering it with his own. "You should know that you don't have anything to be sorry for."

He'd beaten himself up for way worse sentiments, after all.

"Yeah I do," she replies, looking down at the point of contact between them. "You've been nothing but upfront to me about your nightmares before we started this whole thing between us, and yet, idiot that I am, last night I went ahead and--"

She pauses, seemingly contemplating things.

Then Ava steps closer, puts her free hand over his chest, and says, "Just... for the record, though, you should know that you can never hurt me, Bucky. At least, not in the way you're afraid of."

"You don't know that," he rebuts her quickly. Gruffly.

Ava purses her lips, her mouth doing that thing that he'd recognize from anywhere by now:

She was about to call him out on his bullshit.

"I know that I can defend myself well," she says. "I know that I'm fast. Faster than you ever gave me credit for."

He sighs. "That's not--"

"And let me remind you, in case you forgot because it feels like lately you like forgetting it: I can phase, Buck. It's basically my entire thing. The skill-set I have over you lot. So even if you wake up screaming or, god forbid, violent--"

He looks away, feeling the first stirrings of shame.

"Ask me for something else," he tells her gruffly. "Literally anything else. Just not--"

Ava gently nudges his head so he's facing her again.

"Let me ask you this, then. On days when my molecules were being unstable as fuck," she says, the fingers over his chest flickering that for one second they were inside his skin, "were you ever afraid of me?"

Bucky looks at her incredulously and replies, "No! No, of course not. Why would I--"

"Even if technically, you could find yourself at any point of the day with my hand inside your skull? Or--" Her eyes flicker down pointedly at what her hand is doing, "--your heart? All because I couldn't control myself?"

"Doll," he says simply. "Accidents are what the medbay is for."

And she smiles, small and a bit sad.

"Exactly. You get it. So when your nightmares surface with me there, then that's also where the medbay could come in. Though I suspect I won't really need it, anyway, with my powers and all."

And Bucky's stomach drops again. "Ava--"

"James," she says, voice as soft as he's heard it, "I know my own skill. I've survived worse from people who don't love me. From people who actually want me dead." Pause. "Do you want me dead? Do you want to hurt me?"

"God, no." His response is swift and sure, and he takes her face in his hands and adds, "No. That's why I-- I would never--"

She covers his hands with hers and tells him, "And that is the difference, right there. There are just so many shitty things beyond our control, you know. Your nightmares included. And whatever happens, know that I'm never going to be afraid of you. Or of what you do as a result of things that were done to you. Just like you were never once afraid of me despite my instability."

He feels himself losing. Feels himself giving in with how comforting and logical and reassuring she sounded. And with it came the absolute terror. Because what if she sees the worst of him, and decides to--

"Ava," he says, resting her forehead against hers, her name a plea on his lips. 

"It's all right, Buck. I promise you, it's going to be all right."

That night, and for the first time, Ava sleeps on his bed. 

Bucky, however, doesn't. He lies there, fingers tangled in her hair the way they both liked it, staring up at the ceiling and waiting for the sky outside his window to change colors from black to blue to finally, orange. 

Despite her words, the fear in his chest never really went away. More than once, before this team, before her, he'd woken with his metal hand closed around the nearest object it found - sometimes a pillow, sometimes the edge of the bed, sometimes the floorboard - his fingers curled around it the way it would around a vulnerable, snappable neck, just squeezing, just holding on tight, and it took him several minutes to reorient himself and allow his hand to finally, finally let go.

The very thought that it could happen with Ava, of all people--

"Stop thinking so loudly, Buck. God," she grouses, turning so she faces away from him. "I can hear your thoughts clanging around in there."

He pulls her back flush against his chest and tells the back of her neck, "Good morning. You snore, by the way." 

She stops moving. Stops breathing.

Then, quick as anything, she turns on the bed and pushes at his shoulder. "Excuse you, I do not. I sleep like an angel, actually."

"You only look like an angel, Doll," he says, his thumb tracing the skin under her eye, then her jaw, all while thinking, god, you're so beautiful, "but you definitely sound like a foghorn when you're out."

She glares at him. 

Then plants both her cold, cold feet somewhere in the vicinity of his inner thigh and simply declares, "I am going to kill you."

He laughs.

Ava becomes a regular fixture on his bed after that. Never allowed herself to be anything but, because in her words, 'we made the bed, so obviously we're now going to lie on it. Literally.'

And after a few completely sleepless nights, Bucky finds himself adjusting to their arrangement. Just enough to sleep for tiny amounts of time, never deep enough for the nightmares to surface and touch her, but long enough that his body stops screaming like it's being constantly deprived of rest, because at the end of the day, he also wanted this. Wanted to wake up and have her be the first thing he sees, far longer than he cares to admit, and now that he is--

He finds himself not wanting to stop experiencing it. For as long as he is able.

There were times, however, that when he opened his eyes, he'd find Ava lying quiet and completely awake beside him. Because, like him, sleep rarely comes to her, too, her mind busy replaying the horrors that she'd lived through herself. As if sensing his sudden attention, she'll turn to him and ask, forefinger hovering over the pulse on his neck, "You all right there, Barnes?"

He'll take her hand, kiss her knuckles, and reply, "Better with you here."

She smiles. "Sap."

Sometimes, when they both find themselves unable to sleep and have given up all attempts to do so, she'll just pull him up from the bed, push him into the kitchen, and somehow talk him into making her eggs and coffee at one-thirty in the fucking morning. Which he would. Obviously.

And because they live with other idiots in the Watchtower, more than once, someone in the team will walk in on them in the kitchen like that. Sometimes, Bob. Sometimes, John. 

One time, Yelena wanders into the kitchen, intending to grab a glass of water, only to witness Ava sitting on the counter, Bucky standing between her legs, the two of them doing something as scandalous as eating ice cream together with just one spoon, because in Ava's opinion, 'you never know, the sugar rush might help us crash eventually and no, I don't want to wash two spoons for this.'

Yelena sighs aloud, gives them her most withering glare, and announces: "You two are disgusting. Literally. I liked you both better when you were pining after each other like complete idiots."

"Wow. Riveting. Also, no one asked," Ava announces back, rolling her eyes.

For his part, Bucky puts the lid back on the ice cream and pushes it towards Yelena like an offering for her to go away, despite Ava's muffled protest. "Here. Go back to bed."

She snatches the tub quickly and replies, "How about the two of you go back to bed too, no? And leave innocent kitchen alone. This is place for communal eating, not--" She gestures at them haphazardly, "--that. Whatever shitty couple thing it is you're doing now instead of sleeping."

Ava snorts. "Sleeping's for the weak, Belova. No wonder you're such a fan of it."

"Bitch," Yelena readily replies, without any real heat in it.

"Thank you, I try," Ava tells her with a triumphant grin.

Bucky sighs. "We'll finish up here in a bit. Just go back to sleep, Yelena."

"'Go back to sleep, Yelena,'" she mimics his tone, full-on exaggeration activated as she grabs a spoon from the cutlery drawer. "What are you, my father? And I know you are not my father, because Alexei exists upstairs, and somehow he's less annoying than you when you are like this. All soft and sweet around her." She points at Ava. "You. You broke him."

"Damn right I did." Ava looks smug. "Also, you're just jealous because you currently can't do this with Bob despite obviously wanting to. So maybe try lowering your goddamned walls a bit, like we did, and see what happens."

Silence.

If one doesn’t count Yelena opening and closing her mouth like a Russian fish.

Then she snorts, holds her head high, and walks out the door without another word - like the very concept of responding to that is beneath her.

Bucky frowns at Yelena's retreating form, then faces Ava again and asks, "Bob?"

"You don't notice it?" she queries, both brows raised. 

"Notice what?"

"The thing they've been circling for far longer than we have?"

"There's a thing? They're... thinging?"

Ava purses her lips before putting her arms over his shoulders and sighing out loud. "Bucky. Oh, Bucky. I say this with great love and affection: it's a very, very good thing you're pretty."

He frowns at that. "Feels like you just insulted me."

"Damn right I did."

"I thought you don't do roundabouts."

"Well." Here she pulls him closer - as that was apparently possible - and kisses the corner of his mouth. "This time, I did. What're you going to do about it?"

He shows her.

Vivid nightmares weren't limited to him, apparently.

But he knew this already. They'd talked about it in the past, back when they both haunted the common room at half-past midnight, guard only one-third of the way up, causing them to openly share specific things about themselves that they'd never do with literally anyone else in the building.

Bucky remembered her saying how her nightmares, compared to his, probably weren't really that bad, in a tone that completely, utterly belied it right away. Back then, he'd just nodded and mentally filed it away, along with other interesting things he'd learned about her. 

Back then, he'd never thought he'd actually witness just how bad her nightmares could get. Or their effects on her.

He's witnessing it now.

They'd just come from a mission earlier that day that had been hell for everybody. Missing intel, international uproar that Val would have a field day explaining to the press, the works. As a result, Yelena's nursing a split lip and a mild concussion, Bob hovering over her. John's already bent shield now bears a hole right in the middle, too. Alexei's in the medbay, being treated for a broken arm. Bucky had a few grazes along the ribs that were already cleaned and dressed. And Ava? She’d phased so much that they went to bed with her edges still flickering here and there, which even touching her with his vibranium arm didn't fully settle.

But she said she was fine, worry about your own injuries for once in your goddamn life, so that was that.

Except hours later, he surfaces to soft, mewling sounds, and it takes him a moment to understand that it wasn't Alpine making them from the foot of the bed - it was Ava. She's turned away from him on the other side of the bed, knees drawn to her chest, and soon he realizes that she was quietly sobbing in her sleep. 

And there was something completely bewildering about how vulnerable she appeared now that for a second or two, all Bucky could do was stare at her. Because Ava never really allowed herself to cry, not really, not even with a gushing bullet wound on her side, so for her to appear this soft and fragile-- 

"Daddy," she whispers in a small voice, and in the dead silence of the evening, he could hear her words clearly, "please, please don't go. I came back for you, don’t you see? You don't need to be scared, I'm here, I've come back. No, no, but don't leave me, don't take Mum with you, no--"

"Ava?" he says, moving over her, hand over her shoulder and gently moving it up and down her arm to wake her. "Ava. Hey. Hey. Look at me, Doll. It's okay. This is... you're dreaming. I'm here. You're home. You’re safe."

He could feel the moment she comes to, judging from how rigid her shoulder goes under his hand.

Then she phases, disappearing entirely from the bed, and next thing Bucky knows, she's practically bolting towards the door.

"Ava," he calls. “You okay?”

For a second she stops. Then, angrily, she wipes at her eyes with the back of her hand and says, "Sorry, Buck. I just... I need to be alone right now. I'll see you in a minute."

And before he can even respond, she phases again, completely out of sight. 

She doesn't come down for breakfast the following day. 

John notes the lack of an Ava-shaped person beside Bucky at the kitchen table with a raised brow and asks, "She okay?"

Bucky glances at John and gives him the tiniest shake of the head. "Rough night."

It's a testament to how many times this team has had their own versions of a 'rough night' that no one even bothers to ask what it means.

"I could bring her breakfast later," Bob offers, after putting some bacon slices on Yelena's plate. "You know, after we eat? Might make her feel better."

Bucky shakes his head again. "Already did," he says, since he's placed a tray of food and tea in front of her door about thirty minutes ago. "But thanks, Bob. Appreciate it."

"Hey, no problem, man." Bob smiles at him. 

"Is it the phasing?" Yelena asks from beside Bob, mouth currently full of bacon. "It is the phasing, isn't it? She did too much of it yesterday. I can tell."

And here, Bucky hesitates. 

Because her phasing had been an issue, yes. But he suspects that her not joining them today had something more to do with what she'd dreamed about than her abilities pushed to their absolute limits. 

He's not sure if Ava had mentioned to the others about her nightmares. And with the way they left her rattled last night, he was pretty sure she would not appreciate being asked about them later on, even if it came from a place of concern, not pity. 

So he just replies, "Partly, yeah. Guess it left her feeling drained today."

Yelena's eyes stay on him for a beat too long, but, miraculously, she doesn't say anything more.

He comes up to Ava’s room later that morning, just to check on her - only to see that, while the plate of food was left untouched, the cup of tea alongside it was missing from the tray outside her door. 

That, at the very least, told him that she was well enough to take it.

Bucky thinks about knocking on her door and asking her, again, if she was okay. Then he reconsiders, because obviously she's not okay, because if she were, then she'd be in the kitchen, needling John about his shitty shield and stealing toast from Bucky's plate, and not... this. Holed up in her room with only darkness and silence as company. 

Plus, based on his own experience, nightmares had a way of haunting you throughout the day. When the worst of them visited him, the last thing he wanted for hours on end was human contact, even in its most basic form.

He suspects that Ava reacts to the aftermath pretty much the same way he did.

Still, he knocks, because a part of him needs to be in touch with her this morning somehow, and tells the door, "Doll. It's me."

When, predictably, she doesn't respond, he continues, "You, uh. You probably don't want to talk to anyone right now. And yeah, I get it. I understand that feeling very well." A beat. "But if you ever feel like talking again. You know, right after? I'm here. Just... I'm here." Another beat. "Well maybe not here here. I mean you probably won't see me standing right outside your door once you're--" 

He winces at himself. Good going there, Barnes. "But um. I'll be around the Watchtower, so. Yeah."

And then he repeats, softly, "You're not alone anymore. Remember that."   

Silence.

Bucky nods to himself. He'd already come to deliver his message; it's now up to Ava to act on it.

And he knows better than to rush her before she was even ready. 

Minutes later, Bucky’s just finished brushing his teeth, and when he steps out of the bathroom, he finds Ava sitting on the corner of the bed, picking on her nails. 

“Hey,” he greets her, stepping closer but not crowding her. “You’re out.”

She nods. “Hey. Yeah.”

A beat.

“Have you eaten?” Bucky asks before wincing because he already knows the answer to that. “If you want, I can make you something. Eggs. Bacon.” He pauses. “Or maybe not bacon since Yelena ate all of them, but eggs I could do.”

Ava doesn’t answer for a long while. But when she looks up at him, he sees the dark circles under her eyes, the sad, tired lines on her face - evidence of a night spent not sleeping. “Hard pass,” she says. “I’m just. I feel– I don’t know. Off.”

He sits on the bed, deliberately leaving space between them so she could breathe. “D’you want to talk about it?”

She considers the offer for a few seconds before shaking her head. “Maybe later.”

“Okay,” he replies quickly. “Okay. Whenever you’re ready. I’ll be here.”

“I know. You said that already.”

And then, slowly, she climbs to her side of the bed and lies down on it, turned away from him and the windows - which felt deliberate. 

Bucky reaches over to smooth her hair away from her face. When she flinches, however involuntarily, he immediately pulls away and stands. 

“You just rest, Doll,” he says softly. “No one’s going to bother you today.”

And then he goes out of the room and makes good on that promise for the rest of the day. 

She comes back to herself in increments in the next few days.

The first time he sees her laughing, it's because of Alexei. More precisely, because of what Alexei did, which was yell out loud about how unfair the universe was to him, all because he couldn’t beat level 51 in Candy Crush.

“My god, how are you even allowed to function?” she asks, before holding out her hand to him. “Gimme it.” 

Gratefully, Alexei hands her his phone, and it only takes her a few swipes before successfully clearing the stage.

The Russian’s eyes are suspiciously bright as he looks at her. “Excellent. Now, my little ghost, if you could only do a few stages more–”

“Hard pass.” She rolls her eyes for emphasis, still smiling, still amused.

And then Ava finds Bucky sitting across the room, and her face softens a bit before morphing into something completely mischievous. “Bucky’ll do it for you, though.”

Alexei whips his face to look at him. “Will you, Winter Soldier? For a comrade in great need?”

Bucky sighs. Aggressively. As if the very thing he’s about to do for Alexei - move around a bunch of colorful pixels on a tiny screen - is costing him a great deal.

Before holding out his hand to Alexei and saying, “Sure, why not.”

Minutes later, Alexei is looking at Bucky with something close to outrage. “You. What is this. You suck at this game. You are sucking even worse than me, what?”

“Hey,” Bucky says, actually offended this time. “I’m trying, okay? I didn’t say I was any good at this shit.”

“Because you are not, Winter Soldier. Clearly, you are not. And you used up all my boosters too, and I was saving those for harder stages! Give them all back–”

“I said I’m sorry. What more do you want from me?”

“You need to do better than this!”

“No I don’t, this isn’t even my phone or my account, I don’t need to do anything–”

And Bucky couldn’t even find it in himself to be truly mad about it, because off to the side, Ava’s laughing again, and…

…well.

He bought Alexei more of those damned boosters anyway.

Later that night, Ava’s tracing invisible lines on his chest when she says, “Thanks, by the way.”

Bucky raises his brows at her. “For what?”

“For not making a big deal out of my… you know.” Here, her brow furrows a bit. “It’s been a while since I last dreamed about that awful moment, so I was beginning to think I would never…” She purses her lips. “It just caught me off guard, is all. Seeing that night again. Reliving it in my head. But I’m… I’m better now, I think. Sorry I worried you.”

“I think worrying about you’s become my default setting by now, so I’m used to it.” 

“Wow.” She snorts. “Comforting.”

“Yeah, well. Not sorry for it.” He kisses her forehead. “I’m just glad you’re feeling better.”

Ava sighs. “Me too.”

Then, days later, it happens without any warning. 

That day’s mission had been brutal, the type that Yelena referred to as “big potato,” whatever that meant. While the team had been pushed to their limits, they’d been successful at doing the job anyway, and at the end of the day, that was all that mattered. 

And as Ava was showering, Bucky sat at the corner of their bed, flexing his metal arm and idly noting that he needed to wash it, but felt too exhausted to even make the trip to the kitchen, let alone load it into the dishwasher. 

So he slept with the unclean arm on. It wasn’t the first time he’d done this, and it certainly won’t be the last. Ava certainly didn’t mind.   

Then the nightmare came.

Except no, it wasn’t technically a nightmare - just flashes of memories stitched together in cold despair, helplessness, and utter agony. The chair. The mouthguard. People in lab coats hovering, something hard squeezing his temples, no, no, stop, I don’t want this, no, let me go, no, STOP, I said–

He doesn’t remember the actual moment it happened.

But he’ll remember, for the rest of his life, the sound Ava made when it did.

True to her word, she’d been fast, so he ultimately didn’t catch her by the throat - a small mercy. But Bucky’s reflexes, enhanced by Wakandan technology, were faster, so while his metal hand didn’t catch her neck, it still gripped her arm, his hold on it firm, unshakeable. Unyielding.

Even worse, the vibranium pulled at her instability, solidifying her body at the worst possible moment. Which meant–

“Bucky,” she says, voice low and steady. “James Barnes. I need you to wake up.”

They’d talked about this. Some time in between the first few nights of her sleeping on his bed and her becoming a regular fixture on it, he’d told her about what she should do should his nightmares surface like this - angry and unforgiving. He’d told her it would be best if she wouldn’t spook him further. That she should try to talk some sense into him - tell him the current date with emphasis on the year, tell him about what they did that day, remind him that he was no longer in that chair, that the people who controlled him were long dead, that he was safe, he was safe, he was safe.

She was doing all that now. 

And through the hazy ugliness of it all, her voice reaches him. Enough that he opens his eyes, though it takes his mind a couple of moments to reorient itself, to recognize the ceiling, the shape of the room he’s in, the woman who–

Oh, god.

Ava.

He pulls away from her so fast that he actually falls gracelessly to the floor on his side of the bed, and even that wasn’t enough distance. So he scrambles to the farthest corner of the room, just facing the wall, unable to look at her and see the result of his–

“James,” she says from the bed, and to her credit, she doesn’t sound pained at all. “Bucky. Look at me.”

He doesn’t.

Because he knows his strength. Knows how much damage his grip could cause. And in his broken mind, that moment was him trying to punish whatever entity was looming in his subconscious, trying to take back some of his autonomy, which in real life translated to–

“I’m okay,” she says, still soft. “I’m fine. This is… it’s nothing. It honestly looks worse than it feels, all right? I’m fine.”

He shakes his head. Don’t. Don’t ever lie for my benefit. I’m not worth it. “I knew it. I knew this would happen, I knew it, I shouldn’t have– you shouldn’t be here, Ava. I told you. Why are you even–” He grits his teeth, feeling the first stirrings of shame engulf his body. “This is just– I knew it was only a matter of time before I–”

“Bucky,” Ava says, sounding wrecked from somewhere closer behind him this time. “I’m–”

“No! Don’t come closer. Please,” he tells her, still not turning around, still unwilling to look at her, heart hammering with a punishing rhythm of look what you did, look what you did, look what you fucking did. “Just… go to the medbay. You need to have that arm looked at–”

“No I don’t. I only need you to come back to bed–”

“Doll,” he whispers. “Please.”

Ava exhales, loud and long and annoyed. 

“All right. Fine. I’ll go. If that’ll make you feel better, I’ll go.” A beat. “But once you do, you know where to find me.” 

There’s a version of him somewhere in the multiverse that’s stronger. The one that tells Ava the morning after, “I’m sorry. We tried, but this thing between us isn’t working. For your sake, I think it would be better if we just–”

Except that version isn’t here. 

So when she knocks on his door, telling him that medbay had cleared her of this ‘tiny, tiny bruise’ and inviting him to go down and eat breakfast with her and the team - John apparently had cooked, so that ought to be good - he doesn’t open it. Doesn’t even respond to her, really.

He just continues staring at the door, thoroughly convinced that it was just a matter of days until Ava herself inevitably realizes that he’s just–

–not worth it.

When he came down to the common room later that day, he half-expected Yelena to come flying out of nowhere, or for John to charge at him with his shield - all for hurting Ava the night before. It was inevitable - the four of them, along with Bob, had always been the very core of this team, with Bucky and Alexei merely existing somewhere along its periphery. When it comes to things, Yelena and John would always, always side with Ava, even if it’s against him - against the rest of the world, really - and Bucky loved them all the more for it. 

Ava deserved loyalty like that. 

So when he sees Yelena come into the common room, tablet in hand, browsing something on it, a part of him braces for… well, something. A cutting comment. Something along the lines of, why did you hurt her, I thought you loved her? You were supposed to be better than this, Bucky, you’re supposed to have your shit under control, and now look at what you did–

“Hello,” Yelena says simply. “You missed breakfast. Lunch, too. And the sad little snack Alexei put together out of cheese and some Reese’s Puffs.”

“Wasn’t hungry,” he responds, voice gruff.

“Sure, sure.” She nods. “Just in case, we made sure to save you some, though. They’re in the fridge.”

“Great.”

Then, noting the automatic way his eyes scan the room, Yelena tells him, “If you’re looking for Ava, don’t. Val had called her to her office earlier. Something about sending her on solo mission. I don’t have complete details since I’m still waiting for Mel to send them to me, but I tell you once I do.”

“Oh.” He places his hands on his hips, mind already going to hating solo missions, hating Val for giving Ava so many of them. “Right. Thanks.”

But he doesn’t deny the fact that a part of him felt relieved she wasn’t here. He wasn’t sure if he was ready to face her yet, with the damning evidence of the night before right there on her arm. 

He stayed quiet, which Yelena, naturally, took as an invitation to study him. 

“You know,” she says, in a completely conversational tone moments later, “no one knows this - especially not Val, because Val would have me pay for it and I do not intend to - but there is currently a hole somewhere in my wall. Threw a baton there one particularly awful night my brain went somewhere and I woke up thinking I was fighting someone in the Red Room.” She pauses, then wryly says, “I covered it up with a flower painting Bob personally made for me. A Reynolds original, if you will. And honestly, my room’s all the prettier for it.” 

Bucky crosses his arms. “Why are you telling me this?”

Yelena shrugs, fiddling with something on her tablet again. “I just thought it was information worth sharing. And I kill you if that ever reaches Val, by the way.”

He scoffs. He knows by now that Yelena never volunteers anything without a motive behind it. So he says, “You saw it, didn’t you. What I did to Ava’s arm.”

“Yes.” Her answer is swift and decisive, “especially since she never made any attempt to hide it. And why would she? It was an accident.”

Here, Yelena steps closer to him and asks carefully, “It was an accident, wasn’t it?”

This was one of the things about this Russian woman that Bucky adored. She may be small, but she could, somehow, easily loom over people bigger than her, intimidating them without even lifting a brow.

He holds her stare and admits, “Last night. It was my brain that went somewhere, and I ended up–”

He couldn’t even finish the sentence. Nor does he dress it up as something he wasn’t responsible for.

Because at the end of the day, it was his hand that did the hurting.

To her credit, there was never any open hostility or judgment on Yelena’s face. Just a look that tells him, plain as day: I understand. “They never really go away, do they. Those awful things that were done to us. More so the wounds we carry because of them.”

Bucky doesn’t say anything.

“For whatever it is worth - and I say this because at the end of the day someone needs to tell you this, and more importantly, you need to hear it - no one in this Watchtower blames you for it. Well. More so than you’re already blaming yourself, at any rate.” She reaches out and places a hand on his arm. “Ava least of all. So maybe eat some of Alexei’s sad concoction, yes? For energy? We have separate meeting with Val in an hour.”

Then she pats his arm twice and leaves the room.

Ava doesn’t come home for three days. 

Mel’s info came later to Yelena, which then made its way, naturally, to Bucky: Val needed Ava to be somewhere ASAP. Almost put her on a jet the moment she’d stepped into Val’s office, actually. And while the recon mission had needed her finesse and ability to disappear at will, it was low-stakes enough that, according to Yelena, Bucky didn’t need to worry too much because it was a “small potato business anyway.”

One of these days, he’s going to ask her what vegetables even have to do with their work as Avengers. 

Still, when he spots the Quinjet over the horizon on its way back to the Watchtower, Bucky feels something in himself loosen. So he places himself in the hangar, arms crossed, bent on being the first person she sees the moment she steps out of the aircraft. It had been their ritual of sorts, that any time one of them flew home, the other would be there at the hangar, acting like some sort of solo welcoming committee.

He wasn’t going to break that tradition now, despite how messy he made things.

Soon, Ava’s coming out of the door, duffel bag slung over her shoulder, her smile wide and open upon seeing him there. “Hey, pretty stranger,” she calls out. “Miss me?”

“C’mere,” he says, voice carrying over the dying sounds of the jet as it powers down.

She drops the duffel bag somewhere on the floor and goes for a hug. “God, you smell good,” she murmurs, nose somewhere in the vicinity of his neck. “I, on the other hand, need a shower. Or ten. The place Val sent me to was annoyingly hot and humid; I was sweating under my fucking uniform the entire time. It was gross. I feel gross.” 

Bucky plants a kiss on her temple and says, “Well. I wasn’t going to say anything.” 

She laughs. “How very kind and thoughtful of you.”

Then she pulls away, and for a second, Ava just looks at him. She uses her thumb to wipe at the dark circle under his left eye and asks, “You okay? Are we okay?”

“Better,” he says, “with you here. As always.”

“Sap.” She stands on her toes and kisses him quickly on the mouth, anyway. “But I do need to go shower, though.”

Except, before she turns to leave, Bucky gently catches her by the arm - the unmarked one, the one he didn’t hurt from several nights before.

“Doll, he starts to say, “I’m sor–”

She places a finger over his lips and says, “Complete that sentence and I’m going to dropkick you in the throat. And just so you know, I’m only halfway joking.”

He gently pulls her hand down. “Listen–”

“No, you listen.” Ava pulls her sleeve up until the yellowish-greenish bruise on her arm is in full display, and Bucky has never hated the sight of an injury more. “This? You didn’t do this to me. The fuckers who brainwashed and iced and used you for decades did. I understand that very well. And right now, I’m only mad that they have the fucking audacity to be dead, because I sure as hell would love to yank their lungs out for all the shitty things they did to you.”

She reaches for his metal arm - without any fear, without repulsion - and adds, “Don’t be sorry for what your body did without your consent. I don’t blame you for it, and I’m never going to. It’s just as simple as that.” 

“And what if–” He looks away. “What if it happens again. Then what.”

“Then it happens again, and we deal with it. Together.”

She gently nudges his head so he's facing her again. “Because I heard you, you know. Back when I was dealing with my own version of shitty things, you said I wasn’t alone, and I heard you. So maybe it’s time that you fucking listen to your own words, because you’re also not alone in this. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

He finds himself unable to answer that. Instead, he does the one thing he wanted to do: pull her to his chest, careful, even reverent, holding her like he never wanted to let go.

After a few seconds, she laughs against his chest. “So. This is a very sweet moment and all, Buck, but I really meant it when I said I needed a shower. And, apparently, I need to spell it out for you because it just flew over your head the two times I mentioned it: it was actually an invitation. For you to join me.”

“In a minute,” he says quietly. “Just… let me hold you. Gross smell and all.”

“Hey. Fuck you.”

“I told you. In a minute.”

She laughs again, and he holds her tighter in response.

Later that night, she’s sleeping over his chest, long hair fanning around them like a curtain. She’s got her hand resting over his dog tags, the bruise on her arm visible, and Bucky makes himself stare at it - like he’s trying to memorize what it looked like so he’d never let himself cause her another one for as long as he’s able. 

And somewhere in that moment, a thought takes shape: definite and true and crystal clear.

I’m gonna marry this woman.

He doesn’t know when. Doesn’t know where, exactly. Doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do now with the loaded sentence clanging around in his head. 

But he knew, with a certainty that should scare him but doesn’t, that it was going to happen.

He’ll make sure of it.